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New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley are two of the most admired progressives in politics right now. But there's a big difference between these leaders: One has lots of power and the other does not. O'Malley's power was vividly on display Monday when he signed a law that will raise his state's minimum wage in Maryland to $10.10 by 2018.
Henry Ford famously shocked the nation in 1914 when he announced that he was doubling the wages of Ford's workers to $5 an hour. Ford's logic was that better paid American workers would become bigger spending consumers -- not only buying more Model Ts, but more of everything. Which is pretty much what happened in the U.S. over the next 50 years as a new middle class sprang into being.
So which corporate leader in a low-wage industry could we imagine stepping forward to be the Henry Ford of today?
The Supreme Court’s ruling earlier this spring in McCutcheon v F.E.C., which increased the amount of money donors can contribute to political campaigns for federal office, has added new fuel to an 80-year-old debatebetween those who contend that the Supreme Court decides cases on the basis of abstract principles of law and those who argue
Sen. Elizabeth Warren introduced legislation on Tuesday to tackle the nation's over $1 trillion student loan crisis. "Exploding student loan debt is crushing young people and dragging down our economy," the Massachusetts Democrat said in a statement.
Michael Lind has one of the bigger brains around, and you can always count on him to advance provocative and sweeping arguments. He doesn't disappoint with his new piece in The Breakthrough Journal, "The Coming Realignment." It's one of those big think articles where the thesis seems entirely obvious after you've heard it.
Shareholder activists on Monday called for the board of McDonald’s to cut the wage of chief executive Donald Thomson, citing poor performance and the massive gap between his wages and the average fast-food worker. The fast-food giant holds its annual meeting on 22 May and will be targeted by protesters calling for a higher wages for workers as well as shareholders disappointed with the company’s financial performance and Thomson’s remuneration. Change to Win (CtW) Investment Group is organising a vote against Thomson, who took over as CEO in 2012.
Thomas Piketty’s wildly popular new book, “Capital in the 21st Century,” has been subject to more thinkpieces than the final episode of “Breaking Bad.” Progressives are celebrating the book — a
If you hang around the inequality debate long enough, wading through the many smart proposals to reduce the income gap, it all starts to seem kind of doable. We could make a real dent in inequality through a bunch of steps ranging from raising the minimum wage to more heavily taxing capitals gains to whacking tax subsidies to affluent Americans to making it easier to form unions to downsizing Wall Street's role in the economy to reducing the role of money in politics and so on.