Matt Bruenig is the founder of People’s Policy Project.
A new book makes the supposedly brave claim that two-parent families are good, and that unmarried poor people are miring themselves in poverty. But what upper-class people practice is not just “marriage” — it’s “marriage to upper-class people.”
Fully funding Social Security isn’t hard. We should do it.
Children, the elderly, disabled people, and students continue to make up the vast majority of the US poor. We could easily slash poverty by increasing the generosity and reach of benefit programs for the nonworking population — but lawmakers refuse to do so.
Egalitarian reformers have argued that elite college admissions should focus less on test scores and more on personal statements, extracurriculars, and recommendation letters. New research suggests that this approach only further favors the wealthy.
Rather than ending affirmative action, as many headlines have stated, yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling has created new rules about how race can be considered in university admissions — and they might be more in line with left-wing rationales for affirmative action.
If the Supreme Court rules against Joe Biden on student debt, it will be a major blow. But there is a more straightforward path for Biden to unilaterally forgive a lot of student debt.
The state just has to make one small tweak to their parental leave proposal — otherwise a large number of new Pennsylvania parents will be ineligible for the program and receive no financial support while they care for their newborns.
The debt ceiling deal is a cruel agreement that imposes new work requirements on SNAP recipients and bureaucratic hurdles for those who still qualify. It will kick people off the rolls and inflict pain, seemingly randomly, with no regard for the human toll.
Don’t let the Democrats tell you Joe Biden’s hands are tied on the debt ceiling. If he really wanted to, he could use any number of maneuvers to refuse Republicans’ anti-worker, anti-poor demands and still avoid default.
Minnesota just passed a paid parental leave program. But the plan has no minimum benefit and entirely excludes all new parents who did not earn $3,500 in the 12 months leading up to birth.
Many Nordic countries use the “Ghent” unemployment system, where unions rather than the state administer benefits. Some on the Left have applauded this approach — but leftists in the US would do well to avoid it.
It’s complicated.
US reps. Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar just introduced the End Child Poverty Act, which would set up a universal child benefit. It’s a major improvement on previous proposals to help poor and working-class families — and would instantly slash child poverty.
The idea that AI will wipe out all our jobs is generating lots of apocalyptic headlines these days. It’s no surprise why: in a society without an egalitarian welfare state and pro-worker policies, labor reallocation can be a disaster.
Public school in the US is already provided universally, free of charge. There’s no reason we shouldn’t provide free lunch to every child at school as well.
The typical measure of Americans without health insurance underreports how many people are going without coverage. Examining how many people go without insurance in a given year reveals that over 20 percent of Americans have gone uninsured in recent years.
The nonprofit jargon of “equity” isn’t helping us tackle basic questions of how to live in a better, more equal society.
Thanks to exclusionary work history requirements, the 12 state parental leave programs in the US make one in three women ineligible for benefits on average. It doesn’t have to be this way.
The US health care system forces new parents to pay thousands of dollars simply to have their child delivered into the world. That’s absurd. We could easily make childbirth free for all.
A laudable effort to consolidate tax credits in New York State is hampered by policymakers’ obsession with means testing.