October 9, 2024                                                         Home   Subscribe  Open in Browser

Less than a month remains until this year’s general election. Voters won’t just be filling out ballots to pick the next president and shape the next Congress. They’ll also be voting on dozens of state-level initiatives that will help determine how unequal our nation will continue to be.

Voters in at least three states — California, Missouri, and Alaska — have the opportunity to raise the minimum wage to something more closely resembling a living wage. In Arizona, on the flip side, a Republican-led initiative would actually lower the floor for tipped-wage workers. 

Trying to make progress at the federal level, with its warped facsimile of democracy, can sometimes feel like we’re bashing our heads into a wall. State and local politics, by contrast, can sometimes offer an arena where meaningful change faces fewer roadblocks.

So if you're feeling frustrated with how things are going federally, take a close look at the initiatives on your state ballot — and get out there and get involved with people fighting for a more just society in your local community!

Chris Mills Rodrigo
for the Institute for Policy Studies’ Inequality.org team

Fighting for the Rights of People Experiencing Homelessness

This week’s frontline face: Annabelle Ortiz, a New Hampshire activist with the advocacy group RESULTS .

What she's doing to help create a more equal world: Ortiz has worked with people experiencing homelessness for a long time, helping them stay safe and get the services they need. She herself has been the victim of domestic abuse and had to flee home. That experience left her amazed at how the pandemic had knocked out the social safety net.

Now Ortiz is advocating for policies — like expanding health care access and rental assistance before crises strike — that would help people stay in their homes.

What makes this fight so important: “Here’s what I’ve learned from the people I’ve ministered to — and my own bad luck: There are precious few services that help prevent homelessness,” Ortiz has just noted in Inequality.org. “You must be destitute to receive help, and as soon as you begin to get back on your feet, that critical assistance can be pulled away.”

Expanding Our Nation’s Health Care Protections into Our Homes

Few elements of our health care system have gone as underappreciated as the work of caregivers do in homes after patients get discharged from hospitals. Taking care of a loved one can be taxing — emotionally and financially — as Christina Keys, an advocate and caregiver, learned caring for her late mother.

Our current system covers only a small portion of the costs associated with taking care of someone at home. Medicare, for example, will only pay for one medical device, such as a wheelchair or home hospital bed, every five years.

A new proposal from Vice President Harris would ameliorate the costs of these situations by expanding Medicare to help cover the costs of home health care aides for seniors. That's a good first step, but our whole system needs to be realigned to put care, not profits, at the center of our health care infrastructure.

New data reveal that the richest 1 percent of Americans averaged $3.1 million in annual income in 2021, 42 times as much as the bottom 90 percent of earners, and roughly 139 times as much as the bottom 20 percent. The richest 1 percent enjoyed an astounding 31 percent increase in inflation-adjusted earnings over 2020, largely due to a surge in their investment income. For an interactive version of this chart and more on income inequality, click the link below.

Must Higher Education Genuflect Before Our Highest Incomes?

The cost of attending a top-ranked U.S. university — now nearing about $500,000 over four years — has, of course, never posed any sort of problem for America’s wealthiest families. What has been a concern for our richest: making sure their offspring can gain admittance onto the world’s most highly selective campuses.

The “cure” to that uncertainty? That’s been, ever since the 1920s, “legacy admissions,” a welcome card that elite universities regularly offer our nation’s most affluent, especially those affluents who’ve happened to bestow upon their alma maters serious chunks of their fortunes. But that “cure” has hit a rough spot. Inequality.org co-editor Sam Pizzigati has more.

In High Finance, Stab-in-the-Back Tops Scratch-My-Back

This week’s dour deep pocket: Dan Arnold, the CEO of one of America’s largest wealth management firms, LPL Financial Holdings — until last week.

What has Arnold sour: The LPL board has just fired the 59-year-old “for cause,” a move that will cost the exec tens of millions in severance and equity awards he had coming his way. Arnold pulled down $17 million in CEO pay last year.

The LPL board, just last March, had lauded Arnold’s contribution to the firm’s “strategic vision and cultural evolution.” So why did the board suddenly ax Arnold six months later? The CEO, the board charged, had violated company policies that require “every employee, no matter their title, to foster a supportive and professional workplace and show respect to each other, our stakeholders, and the broader community.”

The last word: Arnold himself has not responded to media requests for his take. LPL, a senior industry source notes, has a “culture built on driving employees through anxiety and stress.”

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