Media

The New York fast food wage board today recommended a wage increase in a series of steps to $15 an hour by 2018 in New York City and by 2021 in the rest of the state.

While the highest income bracket noticed a drop another source that analyzes the wealthiest one percent found that in 2008, 99 percent voted, which shows that the very peak of wealth controls most of what happens in America.

Five years ago today, I attended the bill signing for the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which promised to restore sensible safeguards and standards for the financial sector so that the devastation of the financial crisis felt mostly by low- and middle-income Americans would not be repeated.

Given the David and Goliath odds that reformers faced in challenging the sector with the most influence in Washington, we had much to celebrate—and still do.

Five years ago on July 16, 2010, Congress enacted the Dodd-Frank Act. It promised unprecedented regulation of the financial sector so that the devastation of the 2008 financial crisis that was visited mostly on middle- and low-income Americans in the form of the Great Recession would not be repeated. Though the law was far from perfect, Dodd-Frank includes many important reforms, from bulwarks against the systemic risks of casino capitalism to protection against predatory consumer lending.

Demos President Heather McGhee issued the following statement:

This checklist was created in partnership with the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT)

Debt-free college means all students in America should be able graduate without debt. This big idea would expand economic opportunity, expand America's economy, and improve quality of life for millions of people. 

Debt-free college is a result that can be achieved through multiple means.

Entire movements are based around these economic realities: the minimum wage is too low to live on. Eligibility for overtime pay must be broadened so that workers are fairly compensated for all of the time they work. Basic workplace standards need to be improved.

Tomorrow, Hillary Clinton will release the names of her top bundlers, wealthy people who have reached the individual contribution limit and therefore volunteer to collect checks from their rich friends to give to candidates in a “bundle.” Many bundlers bring in millions—in 2008, bundlers who brought in more than $100,000 were called “HillRaisers.”

The missing link in the inequality debate is not financial stability, but financial domination of the broader economy, what has come to be called “financialization.” Financialization, as a new Demos report demonstrates, is not only measurable by risk and volatility or by the mere expanding volume of financial activities; rather, it should also be  measured by how the non-financial economy—the economy of jobs and wages, production and enterprise growth—is increasingly dist