A weekly newsletter from the Institute for Policy Studies |
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The mood at the Labor Notes conference — a once every two years meeting of union activists — was jubilant this weekend, and not only because it broke records by bringing together nearly 5,000 attendees (including me). The main cause for celebration in Chicago came from 600 miles to the south in Chattanooga, where workers at a Volkswagen facility overwhelmingly voted to join the United Auto Workers union.
This historic victory marks a major inroad to new organizing in the South, long a bastion of anti-union policies and low union density. The UAW has been reinvigorated since the union's leadership was replaced last year, orchestrating a successful strike and contract negotiation with the Big Three automakers and ramping up new plant organizing.
The union's new president, Shawn Fain, was elected into power by just the kind of democratic reform that Labor Notes and its attendees are best known for. "It's not a CEO that's going to save us," Fain said to close out the three day conference. "It's not a president that's going to save us. It's not me and it's not you. It's us. It's a united working class is how we're going to win!"
Labor notched two other big wins this week that we'd be remiss not to mention. First, the Department of Labor expanded the field of workers eligible for guaranteed overtime. And then the Federal Trade Commission issued a rule banning non-compete clauses, a tool used by employers to artificially restrict the freedom of workers to switch jobs.
Over the next few weeks we'll be experimenting with a few changes to our newsletter. As always, if you have any thoughts about our weekly missives — good or bad — feel free to get in touch with me by replying to this email. Chris Mills Rodrigo for the Institute for Policy Studies’ Inequality.org team |
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INEQUALITY BY THE NUMBERS |
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Joining the Movement to End Restaurant Worker Exploitation
This week’s frontline face: Helen H. Abraha, a former restaurant server who now works as an organizer with Restaurant Opportunities Center–DC. Growing up, Abraha looked up to her father and aunt, Eritrean immigrants who worked in the restaurant industry. Getting a job as a server was a natural choice, but she struggled with the conditions.
“I was often on my feet for 10-12 hour shifts six days a week, had no access to affordable health care, was wholly unaware of my worker rights, and constantly worried about money,” Abraha says. What she’s doing to help create a more equal world: Abraha is working to build a movement to end worker exploitation, including an end to the subminimum wage for tipped workers that stands at just $2.13 per hour at the federal level. After a multi-year campaign, Abraha and her allies have won a phaseout of the local subminimum wage in Washington, D.C. Now organizers are working to put wage hikes for tipped workers on November ballots in several states.
“I can tell you the opposition to these efforts will be fierce,” Abraha cautions. She worked as a server for one of the leading opponents: Darden, the owner of Olive Garden and eight other chains. Through the National Restaurant Association and its affiliates, corporations like Darden carry tremendous political clout in every state.
What makes equality so important to her: “With so many immigrants relying on restaurants for jobs, this struggle feels personal,” Abraha says. “But we’d all be better off if corporations like Darden had to share their profits more equitably.”
“Workers could achieve a better life and restaurants would have less turnover. And for customers, the food will taste even better if they know the hard-working professionals who serve their meals are treated with respect.” |
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House Progressives Release 2025 Agenda for a More Equitable Nation
The Congressional Progressive Caucus has just released a 2025 policy agenda focused on “popular, populist, and possible solutions” that could quickly become law if Democrats win a trifecta in November. That, of course, is a big “if.” But in Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal’s view, the way to motivate people is to offer a positive vision of what they’re fighting for. And in this case, the vision is of a dramatically more equitable nation.
With a huge tax fight looming in 2025, fair tax proposals are high on the Caucus wish list. Many of the tax cuts in the Republicans’ Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 are set to expire by the end of next year, setting up a major fight in 2025 – no matter who wins the White House.
The Caucus would like to see the 2017 tax cuts for the rich and big corporations die a quiet death. To raise new — and hopefully more revenue than the pre-2017 tax regime — they suggest several of President Joe Biden’s favorite ideas, including a billionaire minimum tax and increased taxes on stock buybacks.
The House progressives’ agenda also touts increased taxes on corporations with “excessive CEO to worker pay gaps.” While the Biden administration has not yet jumped on board, three Senate committee chairs have expressed support for this idea. For Inequality.org co-editor Sarah Anderson’s analysis of the Progressive Caucus agenda, click the link below. |
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Are the Flat Tax Folks Winning — or Have They Already Won?
Our nation’s rich people-friendly think tanks and politicos have of late been investing considerable financial and political capital in advancing state-level “flat tax” plans that the wealthiest among us absolutely adore. But this “flat tax” drive has suddenly stalled. Can those of us working for a more egalitarian America now start celebrating? Not quite yet. A new report that takes into consideration all the taxes Americans pay — federal, state, and local — helps explain why. Inequality.org co-editor Sam Pizzigati has more.
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PETULANT PLUTOCRAT OF THE WEEK |
This Health Care Colossus May Be Harmful to Our Health
This week’s dour deep pocket: Andrew Witty, the CEO of the corporate giant UnitedHealth.
What has him sour: the public and political reaction to the February 21 ransomware hack of his company’s Change Healthcare unit, the nation’s largest clearinghouse for medical claims. That cyberattack has been disrupting payments to health care providers ever since, with community health centers that serve the nation’s poor, notes Reuters, taking an “especially harsh” hit.
UnitedHealth, Witty claims, has made “substantial progress” since the hack and “will not rest” until all providers have their connectivity needs met. He’s also assuring Wall Street that UnitedHealth’s “balanced growth” won’t rest either. In 2022, that “balanced growth” helped Witty to $23.8 million in compensation.
Witty’s leadership, meanwhile, has a key congressional panel “extremely disappointed.” Last week, no one from UnitedHealth showed up to testify at a hearing the panel had called. Witty now appears set to come before Congress May 1. He figures to get a grilling. His firm, lawmakers charge, has become much too large. Says Republican Rep. Buddy Carter from Georgia, a former pharmacist: “It needs to be busted up.”
The last word: The increasing “vertical integration” of the health care industry, the orthopedic surgeon Adam Bruggeman told Congress last week, may be increasing the threat of cyberattacks. The greater America’s corporate health care giants grow, the more attractive ransom targets they become. |
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What's new on Inequality.org
Portia Allen-Kyle, Leveling the Playing Field: How IRS Direct Free File Fights Back Against Corporate Greed. A new report exposes how for-profit tax preparation companies target Black and working-class communities. Sulma Arias, Why Do My Groceries Cost So Much? Giant corporations and billionaires want to keep their taxes low and the prices we pay high. We can’t let them win. Elsewhere on the Web
Abigail Disney, World leaders have a chance to raise taxes for rich people like me. I’m begging them to take it, The Guardian. An activist with Patriotic Millionaires explains why we so need to end the continuing slide into ever deeper global inequality.
Amy Matsui, Voters Want Tax Day to Look Different for Billionaires, Common Dreams. New polling has found that nearly 80 percent of Americans support increasing investments in a care-giving agenda by raising taxes on the nation’s wealthiest and the corporations they run.
Brian Galle, The Myth of the Mobile Millionaire, The Atlantic. The notion that rich taxpayers will flee any state that dares to raise their tax rates, a law school analyst notes, amounts to mostly fiction. Lucy Dean Stockton, New Legislation Is Taking Aim at the Corporate Pay Gap, Jacobin. A new proposal before Congress would raise taxes on companies whose CEOs make 50 times more than the median pay of their employees.
William Manson, The Irrational ‘Greed’ of Geriatric Plutocrats, Dissident Voice. Amid today’s astoundingly obscene concentrations of wealth, an anthropologist sees aging tyrants trying to dictate how younger people must live. Conor Lynch, Why America’s plutocrats are lining up to pay Trump's legal bills, Salon. The simple math: Keeping the ex-president out of jail turns out to be far cheaper for the super rich than paying their fair share of taxes.
Kate Wagner, Capitalist Rot Has Spread to American Kitchens, The Nation. The growing wealth of our wealthiest has ushered in a cultural ecosystem that values homes as status symbols over places for dwelling and living.
Chlöe Swarbrick, A country is not a company and a Prime Minister is not a CEO, New Zealand Herald. Political decisions have prioritized short-term, hyper-individualized gain at the expense of pretty much everything that holds society — and the climate necessary for our survival — together.
Michael Roberts, India: Modi and the rise of the billionaire Raj, The Next Recession. The gap between India’s rich and poor now runs so wide that some statistical yardsticks have the distribution of income in India under British colonial rule more equitable than today’s distribution. |
Nick Hanauer and Ingrid Robeyns, The Case Against Extreme Wealth, Pitchfork Economics. A discussion of the moral and practical implications of wealth limits on society, democracy, and ecological sustainability. |
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For decades, corporate profits as a share of the economy have been generally rising. Higher profits should lead to higher tax revenue, but they haven’t, due to corporate tax cuts and loopholes. Instead, according to Bureau of Economic Analysis data, the gap between U.S. corporate profits and corporate taxes as a share of GDP doubled between 1980 and 2022. For an interactive version of this chart and more on taxes and inequality, check out the link below. |
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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 |
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