| THIS WEEK |
If you read the Miami Herald, Seattle Times, or any number of local newspapers, you may have come across an op-ed I wrote about the need for a strong investment in our nation’s care economy. The piece draws heavily from my personal experience of watching my single mom struggle to make ends meet while working as a home health aide.
The care economy will add an expected 1.6 million jobs related to adult care by 2024. Workers in these jobs do vital work but make only about $16,200 a year. The investments in the care economy President Biden is proposing would raise wages for millions of these workers and ensurse that all our loved ones can receive care at home — and avoid dangerous private nursing homes owned by private equity profiteers.
According to our Institute for Policy Studies research, raising the corporate tax rate from 21 to 28 percent would fund President Biden’s proposed investments for the care economy, free community college, and universal pre-K. Now it’s on us to pressure those in power to act bigger and bolder so we can all live in a more equitable world.
Rebekah Entralgo,
for the Institute for Policy Studies Inequality.org team
|
|
| |
|
| INEQUALITY BY THE NUMBERS |
 |
|
|
|
| |
|
| FACES ON THE FRONTLINES |
 |
| Let’s Rein in Private Equity Before It’s Too Late |
| This past spring, 166 workers in Janesville, Wisconsin awoke to the news that their jobs and livelihoods would soon be gone. OpenGate Capital — the private equity firm that owns their employer, a manufacturing company named Hufcor — announced it was moving the Janesville plant to Mexico. The reaction from one Hufcor worker: “Our future is being taken away from us ... because of greed.” Workers at the Wisconsin plant and their union, the IUE-CWA, have launched a campaign — #SaveJanesviilleJobs — to try to get OpenGate to reverse the shut-down decision. Elisa McCartin from Americans for Financial Reform has more. |
|
| |
|
| WORDS OF WISDOM |
 |
|
|
|
| |
|
PETULANT PLUTOCRAT
OF THE WEEK |
 |
| A Strange Way to Display a Commitment to Equity |
| Investors are finding “plenty to like about the latest earnings report from PepsiCo,” a top Wall Street tip sheet reports, and CEO Ramon Laguarta could hardly be more pleased. He’s crediting PepsiCo’s success to “the resilience of our snack business,” the Doritos, Fritos, and more that come out of PepsiCo’s Frito-Lay division. Last year, that division delivered a whopping $1.2 billion in profits on $4.2 billion in revenue. Frito-Lay’s secret sauce? Efficiency, says Laguarta. Outright exploitation, say workers who’ve just ended a 20-day strike at Frito-Lay’s plant in Topeka, Kansas. Laguarta’s management team had workers at the understaffed facility on forced overtime shifts that produced workweeks up to 84 hours long. And wages at Frito-Lay have trailed pay levels at other national brands that now call Topeka home. Laguarta, meanwhile, personally pocketed $21.5 million last year, 462 times the pay of the typical PepsiCo worker. But he still insisted last week that PepsiCo’s “commitment to equity” is running “stronger today than at any time in our history.” |
|
| |
|
| BOLD SOLUTIONS |
 |
| Trade Policies That Can Build Black Worker Power |
| U.S. trade policies have long prioritized growing the power and profits of wealthy corporate interests at the expense of working people. New research from Howard University and the Groundwork Collaborative now confirm that job losses and wage suppression in manufacturing and other sectors exposed to significant import competition have hit Black workers the hardest. Groundwork policy analyst Grace Western argues that trade policy must prioritize building worker power and strengthening labor and environmental standards domestically and globally. These policies must also center Black workers, who face a labor market designed to exclude, exploit, and fail them. |
|
| |
|
| GREED AT A GLANCE |
 |
|
|
|
| |
|
| TOO MUCH |
 |
| The New Olympic Event We So Desperately Need |
| If the world’s developed nations competed on health outcomes in the same way they compete in Olympic sports like sprinting and swimming — with the “race” how long you live — the United States would finish dead last. Life expectancy, turns out, reflects the level of inequality within societies, a reality that helps explain why America’s global life-expectancy standing has plummeted over recent decades. What could help Americans better understand that dynamic? Dr. Stephen Bezruchka of the University of Washington School of Public Health has come up with the notion of a global “Health Olympics” to help get that message across. Inequality.org co-editor Sam Pizzigati has more. |
|
|
|
| |
|
| MUST READS |
This week on Inequality.org
Manuel Perez-Rocha, One Step Forward, Two Steps Back in the Struggle Against Anti-Democratic Corporate Trade Rules. Pakistan has become the latest country to reject the system that allows private investors to sue governments in international tribunals. But Ecuador is back-tracking and the lawsuits continue to proliferate.
Scott Klinger, Jeff Bezos Should Have Thanked American Taxpayers for Paying for His Space Ride. From the very start, his giant retailer's business strategy has relied on dodging taxes and pocketing public subsidies.
Elisa McCartin, Rein In Private Equity Before It Destroys More Jobs. U.S. billionaires have reaped $1.8 trillion in wealth gains since March 2020.
Elsewhere on the Web
The Richest Billionaires in the World and How They Avoid Paying Taxes, The Onion. This could be the first slideshow on CEO pay and tax evasion that leaves you smiling.
Josh Mound, The US Tax Code Should Not Allow Billionaires to Exist, Jacobin. We need to attack the wealth and power of the rich — and that means massively increasing taxes on them.
Katharine Gammon, How the billionaire space race could be one giant leap for pollution, Guardian. One rocket launch produces up to 300 tons of carbon dioxide into the upper atmosphere where it can sit for years.
Patrick Kennedy, Top Minnesota public company CEO pay up more than 70% this year, Star Tribune. Over the course of the horrific 2020 pandemic year the CEO at Target pocketed $77.5 million.
Polly Cleveland, The Black-White Wage Gap: How Inequality and Monopoly Amplify Racial Discrimination, Dollars & Sense. Both greater wealth inequality and greater monopolization create a bias to using fewer workers in production.
Margaret Renkl, Dolly Parton Tried. But Tennessee Is Squandering a Miracle, New York Times. State pols bankrolled by the national right wing's usual billionaire suspects are pressuring health officials to back off vaccine advocacy.
Steven Keehner, Shoplifting Is Big News; Stealing Millions From Workers Is Not, FAIR. CEOs robbing workers: a $15 billion-a-year problem that gets precious little media attention.
Matt Stoller, The Big Law Cartel: How Antitrust Lawyers Help Their Clients Break the Law, BIG. Professional ethics in the new Gilded Age.
Jordan Weissmann, Republicans Have Taken a Brave Stand in Defense of Tax Cheats, Slate. GOP lawmakers are barely bothering to come up with a rationale for refusing to adequately fund IRS scrutiny of the tax returns the wealthy file.
Paul Krugman, Should Only the Little People Pay Taxes? New York Times. The opposition to strengthening the IRS capacity to fight tax evasion reflects an unholy alliance between white supremacists and tax cheats.
Hamilton Nolan, Why is Bezos flying to space? Because billionaires think Earth is a sinking ship, Guardian. Bezos and his fellow space-obsessed billionaires have become the rich men aboard the Titanic who pushed others aside to jump into lifeboats. |
|
| |
|
| A FINAL FIGURE |
 |
|
|
|
| |
|
| BE THE 1% (NO, NOT THAT 1%) |
 |
Our goal for 2021: that 1% of our Inequality.org subscribers become monthly sustainers and help grow our newsletter and research efforts. Be the 1%, for as little as $3 a month! |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
