In the News
A new Poor People’s Campaign, but the same old obstacles
The lofty goals of a newly revived “Poor People’s Campaign” were announced at news conferences in 33 states and the District of Columbia on Monday. Eradicating poverty and racism were…
Richest Person in Every State
In recent decades, income inequality in the United States has taken a sharp turn for the worse. According to the Institute for Policy Studies, the net worth of the 20…
Amazon Drivers Forced to Deliver 200 Parcels a Day and Urinate In Bottles as Jeff Bezos Net Worth Hits $100 Billion
Amazon drivers are being forced to deliver up to 200 parcels a day and urinate in plastic bottles so as not to leave their vans, a shocking new investigation has…
What’s Another $1 Trillion?
We get down to the differences between the Senate and House versions of the tax bill, and debt created is one of in those differences. Also included is the number…
America’s Growing Wage Gap Analyzed at Penn State Wilkes-Barre
America’s wage gap continues to widen, making it harder for families to obtain the American Dream, according to Chuck Collins, an economic inequality expert with the Institute for Policy Studies.…
In New Security Plan, Trump Hits Out at Russia and China
Donald Trump unveiled a new “America First” national security strategy that promised to prioritize US economic interests and named China and Russia as “competition” that threaten to harm the country’s security. The Trump…
World Condemnation and ‘Days of Rage’ Begin Ahead of Trump Jerusalem Announcement
With U.S. President Donald Trump set to recognize Jerusalem as the Israeli capital on Wednesday—a move denounced by the Palestinian envoy to Britain as “declaration of war” against Muslims—thousands of demonstrators took to…
Labor Department Audited after Reports it Misled Public on Proposed “Tip Stealing” Rule
The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) for the Department of Labor (DOL) announced Monday that it will audit the Department’s rulemaking process for its proposed tip rule after a report from…
Dark Money At the Pentagon
In the spring of 2017, Mark Skidmore, an economist at Michigan State University who specializes in public finance, heard what he thought was an erroneous, but interesting, claim: that a…
The Fallout From Michael Wolff’s Trump Book: DealBook Briefing
Could the G.O.P. tax overhaul cut executive pay? The new law does away with corporate tax deductions for performance-based pay — like the huge stock-based packages C.E.O.s have enjoyed since the 1990s.…
UN Defies Trump Threats on Jerusalem Vote
Despite a threat from US Ambassador Nikki Haley to pull United Nations funding, the UN General Assembly has overwhelmingly approved a measure rejecting President Trump’s decision on Jerusalem. Read the…
Coups and History: An Interview on Zimbabwe
The coup in Zimbabwe seemed to happen all of a sudden. What were the events leading up to it? … Read the interview at the Hampton Institution.
Skyrocketing executive pay packages are about to become more costly for corporate America
For years, lawmakers and regulators have struggled with how to rein in the multimillion-dollar pay packages earned by corporate America’s top executives. Despite legislation signed in the 1990s attempting to cap…
Transcript: Paul Ryan’s Full Interview With NPR’s Steve Inskeep
You cited a study finding that that economic growth can come from the business tax cut. We could also cite a study from the Institute for Policy Studies casting questions…
A New Poor People’s Campaign Wants to Change How Society Defines Morality
Fifty years ago this week, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference announced the Poor People’s Campaign. Calling for a cross-racial coalition of Americans living in…
Deray McKesson at UH: White People Didn’t Work for Their Wealth
By 2053, the median wealth of black Americans will fall to zero if current trends continue, according to Black Lives Matter activist DeRay Mckesson. “Racial welfare is a structural problem…
Are We Living in a Golden Age of Charitable Giving? Hardly.
First the good news. Charitable gifts made this week on Giving Tuesday soared to a new high, an estimated $274 million raised online in just 24 hours. That’s an impressive…
Remember NC’s ‘Moral Monday’ Movement? Now, a ‘Moral Revival’ Effort Will Go National.
A national “Moral Revival” effort that has echoes of North Carolina’s “Moral Monday” protests will be launched next spring by the Rev. William Barber II and his co-chair at the…
Faith Leaders Revive MLK’s ‘Poor People’s Campaign’ 50 Years Later
On December 4, 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called for the creation of the “Poor People’s Campaign,” a national movement that brought together people with low incomes nationwide to march on…
‘Giving Tuesday’ Is No Match for Black Friday
First, there was Thanksgiving. Then, a few decades ago, Black Friday came along. Next came Cyber Monday, which debuted in the ‘00s. Then, a few years ago, came a day…
The GOP’s Tax Cut Bill Probably Won’t Help the Middle Class
President Donald Trump may want to refer to the Republican tax reform law as a “Cut, Cut, Cut” bill, but for millions of lower income Americans, it may not actually do much…
First-ever U.S. Indictments of Chinese Fentanyl Makers Show Failures of Opioid Policy
American officials want two Chinese nationals arrested for allegedly manufacturing and importing large quantities of fentanyl, the powerful synthetic opioid that is driving the U.S. overdose epidemic that began in…
Trump’s Gitmo Comment Was Misinformed At Best, A Dog Whistle At Worse
President Donald Trump said he wanted to send Sayfullo Saipov, the man arrested for a deadly terror attack in New York City, to Guantanamo. For years, Trump has wanted to send terrorists to…
The Border-Wall Prototypes Are Up—Now What?
Nine months into his presidency, Donald Trump is getting a glimpse of what his border wall, which he made a cornerstone of his campaign, might look like. Over the course…
How the Last Profit Repatriation Failed to Create Jobs
The Trump Administration and congressional Republicans are preparing to unveil a tax package that would cut corporate taxes on overseas profits, but a slew of academic and government studies show…
Trump Kicks Off Tax Reform Campaign With Bald-faced Lies in Farm Country
In Indiana, there are just 70 estates large enough – worth more than $5.5 million for an individual or $11 million for a married couple – to pay even a…
Why Identity Politics and Class Politics Can’t be Separated
During last year’s Democratic primary race between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, the disagreements between the two candidates were most apparent when it came to the economy. While Sanders built his campaign around economic…
New Study Suggests Black Middle-Class Families May Have Zero Wealth in a Few Decades
Because of legalized segregation, job discrimination and racist housing policies, it’s not surprising that black and Latinx families haven’t had the same opportunities to amass wealth as white families have.…
Americans Want to Believe We’ve Made a Lot More Progress on Race Than We Actually Have
Turns out Americans have too rosy a view of racial equality in the country. In a new paper published Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a group of Yale psychologists has found…
Americans Think Racial Discrimination is Fading, but Following the Money Shows How Wrong They Are
Most Americans believe active discrimination is a declining concern. They believe that despite the challenges our society currently faces, we are at least past the era of outright and explicit exclusion.…
