The state-appointed Detroit Emergency Manager has commenced a program of shutting off the water of a large portion of the 138,000 delinquent accounts, up to 90,000 of which are poor households and largely African-American.
Introduction In March 2013, acting under a controversial statute that authorized extraordinary action, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder appointed Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr to replace the elected government of Detroit. By July, the emergency manager had filed for bankruptcy of the city.
EMPLOYEES IN NYC CAN USE SICK LEAVE STARTING JULY 30. That’s the simple message New York’s Department of Consumer Affairs was spreading on street corners and subway stops this morning in English, Spanish, Chinese, Russian and four other languages common to the city.
In pledging $50-million to strengthen America’s "flailing democracy," the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation has stirred criticism among liberal groups that in doing so it has jettisoned some of its core values. In its three-year "Madison Initiative," named after James Madison, an American founder
President Barack Obama recently defied Republican threats to file suit against him for his use of executive orders. "If House Republicans are really concerned about me taking too many executive actions, the best solution to that is passing bills," the president said. "Pass a bill, solve a problem."
Citibank settled the Justice Department’s mortgage market investigation yesterday, agreeing to pay $4 billion in civil penalties, $500 million in penalties to various states and $2.5 billion in “soft dollars” to aid consumers damaged by their pre-financial crisis shenanigans. To reach agreement, the
Nathan Kelly is an associate professor of political science at the University of Tennessee. His book, The Politics of Inequality in the United States, examines how politics affects the market distribution of income, as well as government redistribution. Kelly and I discuss the implications of his
In his HBO show last night, John Oliver had an astute segment on the growth of inequality in our democracy. His segment echoes our Stacked Deck analysis, hitting on American attitudes toward class and echoing our argument about the striking political saliency of repealing the estate tax. He even
After popularizing luxury groceries for the well-off, Whole Foods is trying to take the concept to the masses. But amid growing inequality and a sluggish recovery, those masses have gone missing.