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Washington DC needs jobs. When D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray made this point at a press conference this week, he may not have realized he was making a strong case in favor of the Large Retailer Accountability Act.

There are a bunch of good, practical arguments for giving low-wage workers a pay hike -- like the fact that putting more money in the pockets of these workers would spur consumer demand and economic growth. 

But here's another strong point that you don't hear much about: Reducing wage inequality is crucial to meeting America's long-term fiscal challenges. 

I've written a lot lately about how this country has given up on school integration and left millions of kids of color concentrated in the nation's worst public schools with few white classmates. 

One of the groups who should be most worried about this resegregation are white Baby Boomers. Why? Because their retirement security partly depends on the fiscal solvency of Social Security and Medicare—a solvency, in turn, that will hinge on a strong and productive workforce in coming decades. 

The labor market recovery remains fragile, especially for African-Americans.

It's disturbing that American schools remain deeply segregated by race more than half a century after Brown v. Board—given all we know about the damaging effects of segregation on kids.

What's even more disturbing, though, is that U.S. schools are more segregated now than they were twenty year ago. If you were to draw a line graph of school integration, it would show years of steady progress starting in the 1960s and then years of blacksliding beginning in the 1990s. 

The odds seem pretty high that a real live economic progressive, namely Bill de Blasio, will become the next mayor of New York City. That would be a big deal, since New York's mayor is a national figure and inequality is arguably our most pressing national problem. As Eric Alterman wrote recently about de Blasio:

Seniors are getting squeezed in so many ways. Healthcare and other basic expenses are rising. Fewer have pensions to supplement their Social Security income in retirement. Low interest rates mean what savings they do have isn’t growing quickly — unless they are willing to invest in higher-risk financial products.

Paying workers more would lead to lower profits and layoffs for America's biggest corporations, right? Not necessarily. 

Critics of a minimum wage hike cite a commonly held belief that forcing low-paying employers such as Wal-Mart to boost compensation would lead to greater economic suffering. Higher labor costs, they argue, would require higher prices, prompting layoffs and more pain.

At this point, it's hardly news that Walmart is a pioneer of modern union-busting. And the revelation that Walmart has illegally disciplined 80 workers since June -- including firing 20 -- for their involvement in union activity is no surprise.