Sort by

Explore More

Phil Ashburn started working at Western Electric in 1972 and stayed there for 30 years, even after the company split up. Eventually he ended up at a phone company called Pacific Bell. “It was a great company to work for. The company took care of you and you took care of the company,” he said.
In the media
Bryce Covert
In response to Walmart's announcement to raise the wage for 500,000 employees, Demos Senior Policy Analyst Catherine Ruetschlin issued the following statement:
Press release/statement
Walmart just gave half a million people a raise. Could you be next? The retail giant announced on Thursday that it would increase the minimum pay for its workers to $10 an hour, affecting roughly a third of its 1.4 million employees. [...]
In the media
Emily Peck
Mayor Bill de Blasio's vision for the five boroughs is to move past the "tale of two cities," to create "a city where everyone has a shot at the middle class," he said during his State of the City address earlier this month. But just who is part of New York City's middle class? It is not an exact
In the media
Amy Zimmer
After years of hardship, America’s middle class has gotten some positive news in the last few months. The country’s economic recovery is gaining steam, consumer spending is starting to tick up (it grew at more than 4 % last quarter), and even wages have started to improve slightly. This has
In the media
Rana Foroohar

Financialization is a major driver of growing inequality and undermines key sources of growth and job creation.

Research
Wallace C. Turbeville
Much of the current ballyhoo in higher-education circles has centered on President Obama's announcement earlier this year to make community college free for all Americans "willing to work for it." The move, however, is a part of a larger suite of reforms that the White House hopes will make college
In the media
For companies hiring staff, pitches from online security firms sound appealing enough: Running a credit check before signing up a new employee will “offer insight into an applicant’s reliability and a sense of their personal responsibility,” insists employeescreen.com. Another security firm swears
In the media
Amy Traub
Two of the most commonly cited reasons for the lack of more liberal policymaking in the United States are the decline in unions and the rising class bias in voter turnout. In the 2014 midterm congressional elections, the Democrats’ rout was largely attributed to a failure of their coalition to turn
In the media
Sean McElwee
Boosting the federal minimum wage would be great news for the workers who’d receive a higher paycheck. Not so much for those who’d be out of a job. That anxiety sums up much of the debate around increasing the minimum wage.
In the media
Simone Path