Menu

Media

We are changing the conversation around our democracy and economy by telling influential new stories about our country and its people. Get our latest media updates here.

No, People Don’t Get Buried In Credit Card Debt Because They’re Bad With Money

You may think that if you spend wisely you’ll be able to avoid huge amounts of credit card debt. But those who have this debt not only spend more frugally than those without it, they actually got into the debt in the first place because of hardships out of their control, not due to unwise budgeting, according to a report from the think tank Demos.

In the media
Bryce Covert

State Motor Vehicle Departments Don’t Measure Up on Voter Registration

20 years after Motor Voter went into effect, there are a few bright spots, but most state motor vehicle departments are falling down on the job.  

Blog
Stuart Naifeh

How an Egregious Tax Loophole Could Save This Billionaire $700 Million Next April

David Tepper topped the list of best paid hedge managers for last year, pulling in $3.5 billion. That's an astonishing amount of money for one person to make in a single year -- and is larger than the annual GDP of 35 countries.
Blog
David Callahan

The Rise of Rentier Capitalism

In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, East Egg represents inherited wealth and privilege, while West Egg represents wealth earned through innovation and hard work, a distinction at the core of the American ideal. We have always embraced a dynamic capitalism, marked not by stasis but rather “creative destruction,” lionizing trust-busters as heroes of competition.

In the media
Sean McElwee
Wallace C. Turbeville

The President Should Make Walmart Part of the Minimum Wage Debate

“No family should work full time and live in poverty.”

Blog
Joseph Hines

Coming Next Thursday: A New Global Labor Movement?

Globalization has kept labor unions on the defensive for nearly forty years now. While workers are pretty much stuck where they live, corporations are able to move production around to find the lowest wages. But labor has gotten better over the years at exploiting a globalized world for its own aims, and we may see a big step forward on that front when fast-food workers stage their first-ever global strike on May 15 against multinational giants like McDonald's.    It's true that globalization has put more cards in the hands of capital.
Blog
David Callahan

Who Is Really Able to Attack Inequality?

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.
Blog
David Callahan

Senator Warren's Proposal: Tax the Rich, Relieve Student Loan Debt

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.

In the media
Andrea Germanos

What Would Happen to Companies Like Target If They Paid $15 an Hour?

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?
Blog
David Callahan