I got my first job while I was in high school through a small community organization run by Willie J. Hardy, a community activist (and later D.C. City Council member) who operated out of what legendary Washington Post writer William Raspberry described as a “tiny, hopelessly cluttered quonset hut” in the Deanwood section of Washington. [...]
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The day may come when the worst nightmare a crooked banker or compromised regulator can have begins with the words, “You have a letter from Senator Warren.” But before we get to that, here’s an experience that may seem familiar: You’re at a party or family get-together – a Sunday barbecue, perhaps – and someone [...]
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These days the economic news reads like some strange collaboration between John Steinbeck and Eugene Ionesco, a mashup of The Grapes of Wrath and The Bald Soprano. Grim statistics of poverty, lost hope, and widespread tragedy – the stuff of human reality – are juxtaposed with a surrealistically disconnected political debate that focuses on the incidental and the irrelevant. We’re [...]
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According to a Pew Charitable Trusts study released Thursday, baby boomers and Generation Xers are increasingly unlikely to be able to afford the costs of retirement, making critical the need for a strong Social Security program to bridge this income gap. Instead of weakening the social safety net by using the “chained CPI” to reduce [...]
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The Senate is getting ready to vote on five nominees to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). They should confirm the whole package and get the NLRB functioning again. They are also voting on several other nominees from judges to cabinet positions. If Republicans filibuster to obstruct these, it is time to fix the filibuster. [...]
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For weeks, I've been writing that the movement to increase the minimum wage near you. Next week, however, that movement will arrive in my own back yard. Low-wage workers organized by Good Jobs Nation are coming to Washington, DC to rally for living wages, on Tuesday, May 21st, at 12:00pm, at Columbus Circle, in front of Union Station.
But this protest isn't targeting fast food restaurants like McDonald's or Burger King or retail shops like TJMaxx. On Tuesday, low-wage workers will take their demands to the biggest low-wage job creator in the country — the one funded by taxpayers like you and me: the federal government.
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Thursday on Bloomberg Television, Robert Borosage made the case for Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s Bank On Student Loan Fairness Act, which would set student loan interest rates at the same rate banks get from the Federal Reserve discount window: “There is a universal consensus that we have to educate the next generation. And now college is [...]
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Over at The Week, I make the argument that presidential scandal politics usually fail to lift the political prospects of the party outside the White House. No party has reaped a political reward from pushing scandal since Nixon, yet both parties have repeatedly tried. However, short of impeachment or electoral gains, opposition parties may be [...]
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