Billions in taxpayer funds go to CEOs who pay their workers peanuts. We can change that.
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Economic Justice
Combating inequality means both lifting up and building power at the bottom, and breaking up concentration of wealth and power at the top. That’s why we work at the intersection of economic and racial justice through projects designed to build leadership and self-empowerment of black workers, immigrant workers, and low-wage workers, youth and families affected by incarceration, along with projects aiming to reverse the rules that criminalize poor people of color, and projects fighting to ensure that the wealthy and Wall Street corporations pay their fair share of taxes.
Latest Work
Help Spread the Word: #ExecutiveExcess 2018
Help spread the word about our new report, How Taxpayers Subsidize Giant Corporate Pay Gaps
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Executive Excess: How Taxpayers Subsidize Giant Corporate Pay Gaps
More than two-thirds of the top federal contractors and corporate subsidy recipients paid their CEO more than 100 times their median worker pay in 2017.
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How Taxpayers Subsidize Giant Corporate Pay Gaps
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The Arithmetic of the CEO-Worker Pay Divide
Sometimes percentages alone don’t do justice to the injustice of corporate compensation.
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The Inequality Crisis Hiding Behind High Utility Bills
Low-income people and communities of color are disproportionately energy insecure. Here’s how energy efficiency policy can address the divide.
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What’s Happening to Charitable Giving in This Country?
The rich are claiming substantial tax benefits through shady donor-advised funds. How are they getting away with it?
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Would You Recognize a Plutocracy If You Saw One?
A handy guide for understanding when a democracy ceases to be particularly democratic.
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Incarcerated Workers Strike Against Dehumanizing Prison Conditions
A nationwide strike takes charge at everything from slavery to sentencing. Organizers say it could be the largest U.S. prison resistance action to date.
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If Your Boss Makes Millions, It’s Not Because of the ‘Market’
On average, America’s CEOs make 312 times what their workers take home — and that has nothing to do with supply and demand.
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Reports
REPORT: The Warfare State: How Funding for Militarism Compromises Our Welfare
Nearly two-thirds of the federal discretionary budget goes to militarized federal programs, leaving just over a third for our communities — a sliver some lawmakers want to cut even further.
REPORT: A Tale of Two Retirements 2023
Our tax code helps CEOs retire in luxury while ordinary workers struggle. Here’s how to fix it.
Report: High Flyers 2023: How Ultra-Rich Private Jet Travel Costs the Rest of Us and Burns Up the Planet
In this report, we assess the environmental, economic, and security risks of private jet travel — and lay out tax reforms to offset them.
Tax Day 2023: Where Your 2022 Tax Dollars Went
IPS’s National Priorities Project takes a look at where American taxpayers’ money went in 2022, and how skewed our national priorities are.
Wall Street Bonuses Decline But Still Dwarf Worker Pay Increases Since 2008 Crash
Since 2008, the average Wall Street bonus has climbed by more than 75 percent, compared to just a 54 percent increase in average earnings of all private sector workers and a 42 percent rise in manufacturing wages. If the minimum wage had increased as much as Wall Street bonuses since 1985, it would be worth $42.37 today.