I’m Patricia Martone, and I joined Patriotic Millionaires in 2016. For thirty years, I was a well-paid partner in some of the nations’ leading law firms, and I now run my own consulting law practice. I am also an investor and have benefit from a strong stock market. I don’t feel guilty about my wealth. I worked hard as an attorney, and my firm’s employees … Continue reading Why I Am A Patriotic Millionaire: Patricia Martone
Ten years ago today, the Supreme Court shocked the nation with a ruling that declared legislation limiting campaign spending by corporations, unions, and nonprofits violated the first amendment. Since that calamitous decision to allow unrestricted political spending, we’ve witnessed the most expensive decade of American elections and the degradation of the average voter’s political power. The 2010 decision was the final nail in the coffin … Continue reading A Decade After Citizens United: Big Money Wins, Voters Lose
This New Year’s, 24 states rang in the new decade by increasing their minimum wage, giving their most vulnerable workers a well-needed pay raise.
As 2019 comes to a close, let’s take a moment to look back at the major events that impacted the state of the economy – and the national conversation around our three core issues – as we enter the new year, and the many policy developments this year that are giving us hope for better, brighter decade to come.
Under new rules that even Ebenezer Scrooge would find harsh, Trump’s Department of Agriculture is planning to cut over 700,000 Americans from SNAP benefits, also known as food stamps. This ruthless and misguided change is another move by the Trump administration in their continued effort to attack poor Americans simply for the misfortune of living in poverty.
Houston, we have a problem: popular brands are increasingly touting progressive values while promoting toxic work cultures where employees are overworked, under-paid, and under-valued. This week, new reports revealed concerning practices at companies like Uber, Equinox, and Away continue to paint a grim picture of an all too-common reality for American workers: as major companies rake in ever-higher profit margins, workers aren’t being paid or … Continue reading Beware the Mirage of the Progressive Corporate Image
A couple weeks ago, billionaire Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos announced that he would be donating $98.5 million to charitable organizations to fight homelessness across the United States. While the move garnered Bezos a fair bit of glowing press coverage, we have reservations about celebrating the world’s richest man for using the spectacle of philanthropy as a political shield against paying his fair share in taxes.
Judging from the endless stream of news stories and data coming out every day on the unequal state of American economy, it should come as no surprise that policy proposals on taxing the rich have taken center stage ahead of 2020. While American CEO’s have enjoyed a 1,000% pay increase, wages for the everyday worker have remained pretty much stagnant, leaving the country with staggering … Continue reading Policy Primer: the Millionaires Surtax
Raising the federal minimum wage to at least $15 an hour will lift millions of Americans out of working poverty – and it’s scaring a lot of special interests who profit from keeping people poor. In this series, we’re dismantling the myths, one by one, that Raise the Wage opponents use to try and stop 40 million workers from making the money they deserve. This … Continue reading The Bare Minimum Series: Jobs and Businesses
As the 2020 presidential candidates increasingly talk about raising taxes on the wealthy, it seems like every day a new, well-paid talking head comes out of the woodwork to try and convince us all why this would somehow, actually, be a bad thing. The latest act of mental gymnastics comes to us from Lee Ohanian, an economics professor at UCLA, who desperately wants working Americans … Continue reading Actually, Taxing Capital Is A Great Idea
The federal minimum wage for tipped workers has been stuck at $2.13 an hour since 1991. This means that if you’re a restaurant server, bartender, hairdresser, ride-share driver, or other worker that receives tips, your employer is only required to pay you $2.13 an hour. Even with this meager requirement, there have been countless instances of wage theft, thanks to today’s age of credit cards, … Continue reading The Bare Minimum Series: One Fair Wage
Raising the federal minimum wage to at least $15 an hour will lift millions of Americans out of working poverty – and it’s scaring a lot of special interests who profit from keeping people poor. In this series, we’re dismantling the myths, one by one, that Raise the Wage opponents use to try and stop 40 million workers from making the money they deserve. This … Continue reading The Bare Minimum Series: Regional Variation
The national poverty rate is one of the most widely used indicators of the nation’s economic success – but the rate masks how many people are actually living in poverty. Now, The Trump Administration is publicly weighing reducing the cost-of-living adjustments to make way for an even lower poverty line. This is a flagrant attempt to ignore the hardships of families already living below the … Continue reading More Americans Are Struggling Than This Administration Wants to Admit
Raising the federal minimum wage to at least $15 an hour will lift millions of Americans out of working poverty – and it’s scaring a lot of special interests who profit from keeping people poor. In this series, we’re dismantling the myths, one by one, that Raise the Wage opponents use to try and stop 40 million workers from making the money they deserve. This … Continue reading The Bare Minimum Series: Marginal Utility
Raising the federal minimum wage to at least $15 an hour will lift millions of Americans out of working poverty – and it’s scaring a lot of special interests who profit from keeping people poor. In this series, we’re dismantling the myths, one by one, that Raise the Wage opponents use to try and stop 40 million workers from making the money they deserve. This … Continue reading The Bare Minimum Series: Wage Compression
I met Elijah Cummings on October 14, 2014. He talked about growing up in Baltimore, as a young person with a learning disability. It sounded to me like he was describing dyslexia but I don’t recall him ever using that word – but the point is that he didn’t know. He and his family were just told that he was stupid, and he would never … Continue reading Honoring Elijah Cummings’ Legacy
Every year, the gap between the wealthiest Americans and the rest of the country grows wider and wider. While 40% of Americans would be unable to come up with $400 in an emergency, a select few wonder where they’ll park their next yacht. But we didn’t arrive to a reality where the richest 10% of Americans hold 70% of the countries’ wealth by accident. In … Continue reading “The Triumph of Injustice” and How to Tax Our Way Back
There are loopholes in the laws that allow employers to take advantage of their workers and avoid paying them or giving them benefits that they by rights are owed. As our economy changes in the face of automation, the gig economy, and new corporate employment schemes, we need to focus not just on how employees are treated, but on who counts as an employee at all.
The myth that raising the minimum wage kills jobs has proven to be wrong, again. A new report from the US Federal Reserve found that there is no link between raising the minimum wage and job loss. The report compared low-wage leisure and hospitality workers in an area spanning the border of New York (which had raised its minimum wage) and Pennsylvania (which had not). … Continue reading The Fed Proves Raising the Minimum Wage Doesn’t Kill Jobs
There’s a lot of (welcome) discussion about taxing the rich these days, but so far, there hasn’t been substantive talk about the structural problems that got our country to its current inequality crisis in the first place. I think this is an absolutely vital narrative to communicate to the American public, because if we want to create lasting, sustainable change, voters need to know just … Continue reading We Have to Fix What Reagan Broke