Media

Courtney Shackleford is one of two entry-level employees at the Ben and Jerry’s in Washington, D.C.,’s Union Station, where she makes $8.25 an hour. Like many workers in America’s growing low-wage economy, she struggles to make ends meet: Between her pregnancy and her tuition fees at Trinity Washington University, Shackleford doesn’t make enough to cover basic expenses.

America's huge income gaps are routinely described as inavoidable, thanks to large structural forces like globalization and technological change. Skilled labor has become worth more, unskilled labor is worth less, and that's that. 

Of course, though, we know that story is incomplete. Any number of public policies have also fanned inequality, like giving big tax breaks to the rich, and any number of policies could help close the income gap. 

Cleaning and concessions workers plan to walk off their jobs in federal buildings Wednesday and march on the White House, where they’ll demand President Obama wield his executive authority to raise the labor standards for their taxpayer-funded jobs. Organizers expect turnout for the work stoppage to outstrip the fledgling union-backed group’s first strike May 21, which drew just over a hundred Washington, DC workers. [...]

So much has been accomplished by Occupy and other social justice movements in the past two years that it is incredible the corporate media and their pundits do not report on what is happening around them. Despite the lack of corporate media coverage, the movement is deepening, creating democratic institutions, stopping some of the worst policies from being pushed by the corporate duopoly and building a broad-based diverse movement. [...]

Fertile Ground for Resistance

NEW YORK, NY – Following the Census Bureau’s release of poverty numbers verifying the country’s growing income gap, national public policy center Demos has published a new report illustrating how the federal government promotes inequality through its contracting policies.

Progressives both in and outside New York City are super excited about Bill de Blasio running City Hall. President Obama summed up those feelings in his endorsement yesterday of de Blasio, saying that his ideas for universal pre-K and affordable housing could make him a "great mayor." 

The U.S. is one of just a handful of democracies that places the duty of registration on the individual. 

Almost nobody seems to believe that Obamacare can be stopped under any realistic scenario given Democratic control of the Senate. And yet some House Republicans are willing to shut down the government—and possibly inflict a serious wound on their party—in pursuit of that chimerical goal. 

What's going on here? 

In fact, there is no one explanation. But here are my favorites in descending order.

The American dream has become the American debt trap.

During the economic downturn, millions of cash-strapped Americans relied on credit cards to pay unexpected medical bills or to weather unemployment.

Now, in an economic recovery enjoyed mainly by the wealthy, ordinary Americans can’t earn enough to pay off their debts or break their reliance on credit for basic needs, new studies show.

Credit has become so essential to survival that 20 million American households do not expect to ever live debt-free, according to a new survey by consumer research firm Mintel.