December 11, 2024                                                         Home   Subscribe  Open in Browser

With 2024 drawing to a close, our Inequality.org team has been reflecting on the year’s strides toward a more just society. Amid the year’s severe setbacks, highlighting wins — and, even more importantly, investigating what made those wins possible — is more important than ever. But just talking among ourselves doesn't cut it! We want to hear from you, our readers, about your successes in 2024.

Your successes this past year may have been purely local or incremental. Doesn’t matter! We can all learn from your steps to a more equal world, be they city council resolutions or victories at a union bargaining table. Please share your stories by replying directly to this email!

In next week’s Inequality.org issue, this year’s last, we'll be adding your victories to our own list of the top inequality advances of 2024. Hopefully it'll be a reminder of the progress that is being made in the face of an unfriendly political landscape. 

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

Since last week’s Inequality.org edition, six billionaires have joined Donald Trump’s incoming new administration. Newcomers this week include the private equity CEO kingpin Stephen Feinberg at the Pentagon and present still more evidence that the ultra-rich have undue influence on American politics — and that Trump’s “populism” remains just pure posturing.

New Leadership for Progressives In Congress

This week’s frontline face: Greg Casar, the new chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

What he's doing to help create a more equal world: Casar, a congressman from Texas, is stepping into big shoes. He’s replacing the term-limited Rep. Pramila Jayapal from Washington State. As the new head of an over 100-member-strong caucus, Casar will play an important role in fighting back against Trump and rebuilding the Democratic party around working-class issues.

Before his 2022 election to Congress, Casar spent years organizing around worker, immigrant, and housing rights issues. Our own Inequality.org co-editor Chuck Collins crossed paths with Casar while organizing mobile home residents in Austin, Texas.

What makes equality so important to him: “The members of the Progressive Caucus know how to fight billionaires, grifters, and Republican frauds in Congress," Casar noted in a statement after becoming the new Progressive Caucus chair. “Our caucus will make sure the Democratic Party stands up to corporate interests for working people.” 

Time for Labor to Go On the Offensive

While Trump's election is not welcome news for the labor movement — expect legal protections to be rolled back and for the National Labor Relations Board to be far less pro-worker — it's certainly not a death sentence either. Unions are still well-positioned to keep notching wins, argue labor researchers Chris Bohner and Eric Blanc. 

With low unemployment likely to continue, Bohner and Blanc point out, workers will have continuing leverage over their employers to negotiate for improved conditions. The labor movement also retains the financial capacity to defend workers and organize new ones. And unions remain trusted across the political spectrum. For more on why labor can fight back and win, check the link below.

The collective net worth of America’s top 12 billionaires surpassed $2 trillion this month. The combined wealth of the oligarchic dozen has now grown an astounding 193 percent over the last five years, a period that has coincided with increasing billionaire influence over our media and political system. For an interactive version of this chart and more on wealth inequality, click the link below.

A Murder on the Streets Now Has Plenty of Fear Rising in the Suites

After last week’s murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, America’s health care powers-that-be are feeling and fearing the American public’s anger now more than ever. Health care’s corporate giants, Reuters reports, have already begun enhancing the security they provide their top execs.

The challenge for the rest of us? We need to help channel the anger about health care that so many Americans feel today toward ending the system that has so failed America’s health. We need to remake health care into a vital and vibrant public service.

Our health care system, in the end, shouldn’t be making our rich richer. Our richest instead should be paying enough in taxes to help all Americans stay healthy. Inequality.org co-editor Sam Pizzigati has more. 

A Billionaire Busy Laying the Groundwork for Plutocracy

This week’s dour deep pocket: Marc Andreessen, the Silicon Valley venture capital exec now playing a key behind-the-scenes role interviewing candidates for top positions in the second Trump administration.

What has Andreessen sour: any federal regulations on cryptocurrency speculators and the anti-monopoly advocacy of Lina Kahn, the current chair of the Federal Trade Commission. Andreessen, reports the New York Times, has likely been the Elon Musk ally “most involved in the transition” at the current Trump team headquarters in Florida’s West Palm Beach.

The last word: Billionaires like Andreessen, notes MSNBC’s Ryan Teague Beckwith, have been blasting a Washington teeming with “unelected” agency chiefs like the FTC’s Kahn.

But Congress created agencies like the FTC to regulate powerful corporations, and lawmakers, adds Beckwith, gave these agencies independence “to avoid the temptation to meddle with their work.” Andreessen and his billionaire pals “don’t really mind” this independence “as long as they’re the ones in charge.”

Our research, editorial, and publishing team depends on hundreds of paid subscribers who make monthly gifts. Some give $3 each month; others give $200! All told, this support enables our team to stay focused on identifying causes and solutions to our deep economic inequality. Paid subscribers have contributed more than $20,000 in the past year. Ready to become a paid subscriber? Sign up today.