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Every time a political leader argues—as President Obama did yesterday—that more education can reduce inequality, I nod my head in agreement, thinking of all the ways that one's life chances in America are shaped by educational opportunity. I grew up in an affluent Westchester town and went to great public schools.
When I was 18, I spent a year and change flipping burgers in one of those restaurants where customers eat from a tray balanced across their car windows. It was one of the three jobs I held at the time, affording a simple budget and enough left over to save up to go to college after a couple of years. I put in hard hours for my employer and it eventually worked out just fine for me. It also makes for a nice story, but one that is embarrassingly dated.
The bill for decades of Detroit's financial decline has now come due.
A federal judge's ruling approving the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history Tuesday sets the stage for an epic legal battle over who will be asked to help pick up the tab, including bond investors, retired city workers, city vendors, state taxpayers, or Wall Street bankers.
The White House has offered “no response” to a months-old call from congressional Democrats to bypass Congress and use executive action to raise workers’ wages, the co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus told Salon Tuesday afternoon.
New research illustrates ways in which the current economic difficulties of African American households are compounded even further by a legacy of discriminatory policies that have left African Americans with significantly fewer assets and lower rates of homeownership than white households.
Trust in government has almost been never been lower among Americans, and the botched rollout of Obamacare has made things even worse. But maybe that's not such a big deal.