A weekly newsletter from the Institute for Policy Studies |
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President Joe Biden will deliver his third State of the Union address tomorrow night, with political analysts expecting the president to use this prime-time opportunity to contrast what his administration has accomplished with the White House record of Donald Trump, his nearly certain opponent in next fall’s election.
Here at Inequality.org, we’re hoping Biden will reaffirm his commitment to policies that aim to rein in our runaway wealth concentration, measures like minimum tax rates on billionaire incomes and restrictions on stock-buyback profiteering.
We’d also like to see Biden use his State of the Union guest list to highlight those Americans fighting at the front lines of our inequality crisis. What a message the president could send by inviting into the First Lady’s box champions for economic justice like a worker from the organizing effort at Alabama’s non-union Mercedes plant or an activist involved in the landmark new Starbucks bargaining pact.
And how about adding to that guest list some of the advocates driving the wealth tax campaigns now underway in several states, creative efforts that mirror the president’s own billionaire tax proposal. In this week’s issue, meanwhile, we have plenty more on ongoing creative efforts to narrow our nation’s maldistribution of income and wealth — and the latest about exciting new polling on the need to reform our charitable giving structure. Chuck Collins and Chris Mills Rodrigo for the Institute for Policy Studies’ Inequality.org team |
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INEQUALITY BY THE NUMBERS |
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Breaking Our Unequal Society’s Cycle of Poverty, Mental Illness, and Prison
Matthew Rosing spent nine years behind bars. What he really needed: mental health care — and opportunities that our nation’s extremely unequal economy simply does not offer.
“I’ve put up with the thankless toll of minimum wage retail jobs and back-breaking construction jobs in a state that has 19 billionaires,” Rosing, a Pennsylvanian, noted at a recent Poor People’s Campaign press conference. “I’m tired of companies and billionaires buying politicians who are pushing people deeper into poverty and debt.” Rosing expands on his struggles to escape the vicious cycle of poverty, mental illness, and incarceration in a new Institute for Policy Studies op-ed. In prison, he notes, guards taunted him and other inmates, claiming they’d never be able to change the system because they’d lost their right to vote — an outright lie.
Today, Rosing is working with organizations like Put People First! PA to build the political power of America’s 85 million poor and low-income eligible voters. “Where I once felt powerless,” Rosing writes, “I feel differently now.” |
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A Novel Way to Distribute Reparations
Should the living descendants of American slaves be receiving reparations? Many American progressives now believe they should. The debate has become how. One good answer to that question has recently come from George Washington University Law School prof Jeremy Bearer-Friend. His novel proposal would require publicly traded corporations to contribute shares into a reparations fund that could quickly be worth many billions of dollars. Later this week, Bearer-Friend will be speaking on a panel breaking down that idea along with Alvin Velazquez from the Service Employees International Union and Ericka Taylor of the Take on Wall Street campaign. Their discussion will touch on everything from the current landscape around reparations to how best to reach beneficiaries without letting Wall Street co-opt Bearer-Friend’s approach.
To register for the March 7 discussion at 2:00 p.m. ET, please just click below. |
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Can Brazil Convince the World To Annually Tax Billionaire Wealth?
The top 1 percent’s income share — in the world’s richest nations — has jumped by 45 percent over the last four decades, according to a new Oxfam report. Tax rates on those rich, meanwhile, have cratered by about a third. Oxfam released these eye-popping stats on the eve of last week’s meeting of G20 financial ministers in São Paulo, a session that would see Brazil’s current left-led government vigorously seize its hosting opportunity. The Brazilian government’s ambitious goal? To shove the case for taxing the wealth of our world’s wealthiest onto the global political stage. Inequality.org co-editor Sam Pizzigati has more.
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PETULANT PLUTOCRAT OF THE WEEK |
This Billionaire Could Never Be Up to Anything Less than Noble
This week’s dour deep pocket: Marc Benioff, the billionaire CEO of the San Francisco-based Salesforce and an aficionado of all things Hawaiian. Benioff likes to see himself as a public-spirited alternative to his fellow billionaires now building end-of-the-world bunkers into their chunks of Hawaiian countryside.
What has him sour: an NPR reporter, Dara Kerr, who’s been digging into reports that Benioff has been using anonymous limited liability companies to buy up huge amounts of property in and around the Hawaiian mountain town of Waimea. Longtime locals fear the purchases are jacking up housing costs.
Benioff, after learning about Kerr’s inquiries, started bombarding her with texts about his numerous Hawaiian charitable endeavors and then assured the reporter, in an interview, that “we're really only here to have a home for our family and then to give.”
But Benioff, after Kerr started asking him about his anonymous purchases, subsequently “demanded” to know the title of Kerr's piece and shared that he knew where she was staying in Hawaii and all sorts of personal details about her family. Benioff also called NPR’s CEO to complain about Kerr’s snooping.
Homes in rural Waimea, meanwhile, are now selling for a median $1.1 million.
The last word: “If we don't pay attention to what's happening,” says Hawaii state senator Tim Richards, a sixth-generation Hawaii resident, “we will lose the fabric that makes Hawaii, Hawaii.” |
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What's new on Inequality.org
Chuck Collins and Michael Hartmann, New Poll Shows Support for Charity Reform Across the Political Spectrum. A look at the surprising, cross-partisan consensus on the current state of charitable giving and the incentives our tax system provides to donors. Elsewhere on the web
Lynn Parramore, Can Baby Bonds Fight the Wealth Gap and Racial Inequality? Connecticut Aims to Find Out, Institute for New Economic Thinking. Connecticut has made history as the first state to implement a baby bonds program — fully funded for 12 years of babies.
Mike Savage, Why wealth inequality matters — and what to do about it! London School of Economics Inequalities. Wealth inequality gives rise to systemic injustices of colossal proportions. Robert Reich, The poster child for the perils of dynastic wealth, Substack. The Mellon family money trail exemplifies the perils of dynastic wealth — and why we need a wealth tax in America.
Emma Curchin, Millionaires Stop Contributing to Social Security on March 2, 2024, Center for Economic and Policy Research. The effective Social Security tax rate on annual paycheck income over $1 million runs less than 1 percent — and the richest among us also don’t pay any Social Security tax on unearned investment income. Diane Coyle, Sharing the technology wealth, Social Europe. Big Tech firms flagrantly disregard the implicit social contract — the time has come to curb their market power.
Shayla Love, The Hot New Luxury Good for the Rich: Air, New Republic. The wealthy have different houses, different cars, different lifestyles from the rest of us. These days, they also want to breathe different air. Arwa Mahdawi, The latest billionaire trend? Doomsday bunkers with a flammable moat, Guardian. The question that now ought to have billionaires worried: Will sentient robots be capable of breaching their doomsday defenses? Crawford Kilian, Let’s Set a Maximum Wage for the Rich, The Tyee. In times of drought, we don’t let some people die of thirst so others can fill their swimming pools. Why should we treat our maldistribution of wealth, suggests the work of philosopher Ingrid Robeyns, any differently.
Monica Eng, Court ruling jeopardizes ‘mansion tax’ in Chicago, Axios. Mayor Brandon Johnson's push to fund services for the unhoused with a real estate tax hike hit a roadblock when a local judge sided with business groups suing to get it off the March ballot. |
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The retirement gap remains key to our nation’s gender inequality. According to the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies, American women in late 2022 held $44,000 in median retirement savings, compared to $91,000 for men. The gender pay gap contributes to these disparities, since both pension plan and Social Security payouts hinge on past earnings. In December 2022, women’s average annual Social Security benefit of $19,656 lagged the male benefit by $4,584. Women’s smaller retirement nest eggs also have to stretch further because women have longer life expectancies.
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Inequality.org | www.inequality.org | inequality@ips-dc.org Institute for Policy Studies 1301 Connecticut Avenue Ste 600 Washington, DC 20036 United States Managing Editor: Chris Mills Rodrigo
Co-Editors: Sarah Anderson, Chuck Collins, Bella DeVaan, and Sam Pizzigati Production: Chris Mills Rodrigo |
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