Both economic and racial justice are core progressive priorities, but too often we discuss them separately. On the contrary, racial and economic harms are intertwined, as are our desired solutions to them. Wealthy elites exploit racial fears to turn working people against each other and government; economic pain increases racial resentment and facilitates scapegoating, fueling support for punitive measures against people of color.
Methodology: Demos sponsored an online survey among 1,536 registered voters, conducted June 5 to June 14, 2017. The research included a base sample of registered voters and, for deeper analysis, oversamples of working-class African Americans, working-class Hispanics, working-class white Obama-to-Trump voters, and progressives, defined as people of all races who identify as extremely or somewhat liberal. The data in this survey is weighted by standard weights to make it fully representative.
Fast food companies keep employees at poverty-level wages while reaping billions of dollars in profits. It drives inequality, slows growth, and lowers living standards.
Supporters of a higher minimum wage, however, remain undeterred. "Wal-Mart's business model is pretty simple," said Amy Traub, an associate director of policy and research at equality advocacy group Demos, at a recent debate hosted by Intelligence Squared U.S. (IQ2) in New York.
Our analysis shows Trump accelerated a realignment in the electorate around racism, across several different measures of racial animus—and that it helped him win. By contrast, we found little evidence to suggest individual economic distress benefited Trump. [...]
Today, with health coverage for maternity care threatened, child care costs outstripping the price of college tuition, and nearly a quarter of new mothers forced to return to work two weeks or less after giving birth, we are making it extraordinarily difficult for anyone but the ve
"From coast to coast, American families are trapped between the need to provide care for their young children or sick loved ones and the necessity of earning income. Our nation has a responsibility to address this crisis, and yet, the Trump administration’s proposal falls far short. An adequate plan would provide paid leave to working people recovering from temporary disability, offer at least 12 weeks of paid leave to new parents, and enable Americans caring for aging parents to take leave as well.
The American Society of Civil Engineers gives America’s infrastructure a D+ grade. No doubt, if they focused on just the infrastructure serving majority African American communities, America’s “black infrastructure” would receive a failing grade. A key purpose of racial segregation is to allow the dominant group to under-invest and under-develop the infrastructure serving the minority group. [...]
This difference stems largely from the historical advantages built into whiteness, and the severe historical economic cost of blackness. Many of these advantages were covered in the Demos and IASP report titled "The Asset Value of Whiteness."
Amy Traub for Demos: If you want to make crime pay — and get a lighter penalty if you're caught — you're better off cheating your employees out of their fair wages than trying to nick the latest video game console or pair of designer shoes off the shelves of your local retailer. [...]
In a recent study, I compared the damage from shoplifting with that from just one form of wage theft, the failure to pay workers the legal hourly minimum.