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Fast-food workers and labor organizers are planning a strike of global proportions Thursday, based on the premise that low-wage occupations should still be “living wage” occupations. In the US, Thursday’s date – May 15 – carries numerical significance, as actions in as many as 150 cities aim to win a pay raise to at least $15-an-hour from restaurant chains in the industry, as they also push to unionize the companies.

It seems every day that a well-regarded economist is telling us that the US economy is in dire straits. Larry Summers has warned that we are entering a period of “secular stagnation.” This is a condition in which low-interest rate monetary policy no longer stimulates growth of the economy and well-paying jobs.

Twenty-four cents. That’s what black children in Clarendon, South Carolina were worth per every dollar spent on white children’s education. That's why South Carolina was one of the five states challenged in the famous 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case.

The Democratic Governors Association (DGA) recently filed a federal complaint challenging the constitutionality of several Connecticut statutes that regulate campaign expenditures made without the consent, coordination, or consultation of candidates for state office (“independent expenditures”).

The consumer advocates at the Center for Responsible Lending don’t mince words: “overdraft ‘protection’ is a racket; not a service.” CRL explains:

Transaction shuffling and multiple, exorbitant fees for small shortfalls in their checking accounts cost Americans billions per year in unfair fees. More than half of Americans are now living paycheck-to-paycheck, making a majority of U.S. families vulnerable to bank overdraft practices that are exceedingly misnamed “overdraft protection.”

A central goal of progressive strategy should be to ensure that freedom and fairness are not pitted against each other.