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.
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.
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
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
State taxes make the meat-and-potatoes work of government possible, but nickel-and-diming poor people on their meager incomes is not the way to raise them.
Last week, the House of Representatives passed the Raise The Wage Act, which would increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour and tie it to inflation, with near-unanimous support from Democrats and near-unanimous opposition from Republicans. This is a momentous victory for workers, but self-proclaimed “grim reaper” Mitch McConnell casts a long shadow on any celebration. Surprising no one, McConnell promptly vowed not to … Continue reading Wages Don’t Kill Jobs, Corporations Do
According to insider reporting at the White House, the Trump administration is considering a tax cut that will almost exclusively benefit the rich. If you’re experiencing déjà vu, rest assured, you’re not alone. We have in fact been here before. In 2017, Republicans assured Americans that their $1.9 trillion tax cut for corporations and the rich would create jobs and give workers a $4,000 raise. … Continue reading Can’t Get Fooled Again: Trump’s New Tax Cut For The Rich
Simply put, wealth is wasted on the wealthy.
From time to time, a news story about a very wealthy individual doing something very kind with their money goes viral. Billionaire Robert F. Smith recently paid off the student debt of the entire Morehouse College class of 2019. Hamdi Ulukaya, CEO of Chobani, paid off student lunch debts for an entire Rhode Island school district. Last year, Patagonia CEO Rose Marcario pledged to donate … Continue reading Rich People’s Charity Won’t Save The World
Last week, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) adopted Regulation Best Interest, sold as a measure to protect everyday Americans’ retirement accounts from shady brokers. In reality, it’s a watered-down reboot of the Obama administration’s fiduciary rule, which was axed in 2017. The original fiduciary rule set concrete requirements to make sure retirement advisers put their clients ahead of their own profits and disclosed key … Continue reading Protect Retirees From Profiteering Vultures
While they still control the legislative agenda, Republicans on the House Education and the Workforce Committee planned to use their power to falsely claim that raising the minimum wage would somehow be bad for workers. To do so, they planned a hearing on the federal minimum wage titled “Mandating a $15 Minimum Wage: Consequences for Workers and Small Businesses,” with a full list of biased … Continue reading The Republican Witnesses We Would Have Heard Today
We all know the moral arguments for a fairer, less cruel immigration system. But while the merits of not putting immigrant children in cages should be obvious, they don’t seem to be as persuasive as they should for a certain segment of the population. To those who are unconvinced by the moral argument, I would offer up the economic argument for a better immigration system, … Continue reading Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Policies Will Hurt the American Economy
Make no mistake, the trillion-dollar tax cuts for the wealthy proposed by Trump and his friends in Congress will create deficit dollars. Sooner of later those deficit dollars will be repaid by cutting “entitlements”, i.e. taking from working families and the poor.
When we discuss economics there are, very broadly, two types of people: First, there are regular people. They mostly need to work, and a lot of them try to save enough so that they can retire someday. Some of them succeed, but increasingly, many do not. Being a regular person means spending most of your income. Some live very well, and some live very poorly. … Continue reading My Tax Philosophy
Yesterday evening, Monday August 21, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin made a statement that effectively reversed Donald Trump’s campaign promise to close the carried interest loophole.
Language is powerful. We have come to believe certain things about our government because we have been fed a steady diet of metaphors that embed scary images in our minds.
Our lawmakers’ arguments over raising the debt ceiling aren’t just reckless – they’re pointless. Congress should end its outdated budget control rules.
There is a reason that the United States spends 17% of our GDP on health care, when other developed nations spend dramatically less. It’s not because we have a higher quality of care.
I’m an investor, researcher, and the great-grandson of the meatpacker Oscar Mayer. I’m deeply concerned by the extreme inequalities of income, wealth and opportunity that have opened up in U.S. society.
Tuesday the Illinois State Senate took a bold step in fighting inequality by becoming the first state chamber in the country to vote in favor of closing the carried interest loophole.