News
Why do Democrats love trapezoids?
Washington Post, Friday, December 7, 2018Sen. Kamala D. Harris (Calif.), one of the Democratic Party’s possible 2020 presidential contenders, earlier this year proposed an enormous tax cut for the middle class. Under Harris’s plan, the government would create a tax credit that matches each dollar an American family earns up to a... Read More »
How Cory Booker’s “Baby Bond” Proposal Could Transform the Reparations Debate
The New Yorker, Thursday, December 6, 2018Cory Booker, one of a half-dozen Democrats routinely mentioned as a Presidential contender, is a man of singularly intense enthusiasms. He is a vegan and, after a Rhodes Scholarship and finishing Yale Law, he famously moved into the Brick Towers housing project in the central ward of Newark,... Read More »
When a Job Is Not Enough
Center for American Progress, Wednesday, December 5, 2018Introduction and summary Wealth—a family’s financial net worth—measures how well people are prepared for the future. It allows them to purchase a home, start a business, enjoy a secure retirement, and put their children through school. Wealth also provides security in the face of emergencies,... Read More »
Booker’s ambitious proposal to close the racial wealth gap
Think Progress, Wednesday, November 28, 2018As he ponders mounting a campaign for the White House in 2020, Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) is preparing to introduce radical and ambitious legislation aimed at narrowing the persistent black-white wealth gap. His idea — commonly described with the catchy monicker, “baby bonds” — is a proposal... Read More »
My ancestor owned 41 slaves. What do I owe their descendants?
America Magazine, Wednesday, November 28, 2018A few years ago, Cheryl Benedict, an education administrator and historian from Virginia and my first cousin, discovered on Ancestry.com that our great-great-great-grandfather, a Texas farmer named Augustus Foscue, had owned 41 slaves. I was saddened, not surprised. Although I grew up... Read More »
Senator Corey Booker Wants to Close the Wealth Gap By Giving Every Newborn a Trust Account. Could It Work?
Fatherly, Monday, November 26, 2018Senator Cory Booker has a plan to decrease the wealth gap, and it’s a rather radical one. It’s called the “American Opportunity Accounts (AOA) Bill,” and what it proposes essentially operates as publicly-funded 401K accounts, opened for every single newborn in the United States. When a child... Read More »
On Thanksgiving, families share more than just food and memories
Washington Examiner, Thursday, November 22, 2018This Thanksgiving, families across the country will gather around dining room tables to share home-cooked food, reminisce, talk politics (unfortunately), and give thanks. One thing a family shares, however, will likely linger unsaid. It’s something that binds each and every member of a family... Read More »
Trying Again for Full Employment
Dollars & Sense: Real World Economics, Monday, November 19, 2018Leading progressives in Congress have recently revived the idea of full-employment legislation. This would be the third attempt by Congress to assure a job for everyone who wants one and to put an end to the scourge of unemployment. In the 1940s and again in the 1970s, Congress seriously debated... Read More »
Sandy Darity has a plan to close the wealth gap
The Ezra Klein Show, Monday, November 5, 2018Here’s something to consider: For families in which the lead earner has a college degree, the average white family has $180,500 in wealth. The average black family? $23,400. That’s a difference of almost $160,000 — $160,000 that could be used to send a kid to college, get through an illness, start... Read More »
Four policies to help the middle class, and how to pay for them
Brookings, Monday, November 5, 2018Behind the daily headlines of our turbulent political climate is a stark, hard fact: the American middle class is hurting. Household incomes for the middle 60 percent of the distribution are rising, but painfully slowly, and primarily due to more work (including longer hours) rather... Read More »