At first glance, it may seem like a paradox: Even as the economy rides a 10-year winning streak, tens of thousands of workers across the country, from General Motors employees to teachers in Chicago, are striking to win better wages and benefits. But, according to those on strike, the strong growth is precisely the point. […]
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The title of the scathing new South Korean film “Parasite” refers to the Kim family, destitute basement dwellers who try to climb the social ladder by leeching off the wealthy Park family. While the Kims worry about money, the extravagant Parks worry about poor people’s unpleasant smell. The families’ lifestyles couldn’t be more different. The […]
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Capitalism, I acknowledge, has been good to me. Over the past 20 years, the company that I co-founded, Salesforce, has generated billions in profits and made me a very wealthy person. I have been fortunate to live a life beyond the wildest imaginations of my great-grandfather, who immigrated to San Francisco from Kiev in the […]
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Donald Trump promised struggling working-class voters that he heard their frustrations and would act. He did: He pushed through a tax cut that made income inequality worse. In 2018, for the first time, the 400 richest American households paid a lower average tax rate than any other income group, according to new research by two […]
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You’re reading In Her Words, where women rule the headlines. Sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox. Let me know what you think at inherwords@nytimes.com. “Women and their bodies are neglected by economists and yet are so important when it comes to answering the big questions that we face.” — Victoria Bateman, […]
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America’s soaring inequality has a new engine: its regressive tax system. Over the past half century, even as their wealth rose to previously unseen heights, the richest Americans watched their tax rates collapse. Over the same period, as wages stagnated for the working classes, work conditions deteriorated and debts ballooned, their tax rates increased. Stop […]
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ZAMOSC, Poland — Four years ago, Agnieszka and Adam Kowalczyk were struggling. They both had full-time jobs — she as a teacher and he as an electrician — yet month after month they found themselves falling deeper into debt. So when Jaroslaw Kaczynski and his Law and Justice Party promised voters that they would introduce […]
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LOS ANGELES — Growing up in the Baldwin Village section of Los Angeles, Charles Slay roamed the streets as a member of the Bloods. The neighborhood was forlorn and devoid of commercial life, making it easy ground for ambush — especially a ragged patch of dirt alongside a major thoroughfare. “I used to rob people […]
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ImageHomes in Oakland, Calif.CreditMichael Short/Bloomberg Good morning. (Here’s the sign-up, if you don’t already get California Today by email.) A few weeks ago, we asked you what you want to know about inequality in California. Hundreds of you responded. The first question we’ll answer comes from Johnny Good, a 76-year-old retiree in San Marcos, Calif., […]
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WASHINGTON — Progressive Democrats are advocating the most dramatic shift in tax policy in over a century as they look to redistribute wealth and chip away at the economic power of the super rich with new taxes that could fundamentally reshape the United States economy. As they compete for the Democratic presidential nomination, Senators Elizabeth […]
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Darren Walker is the first to acknowledge his own privilege. As president of the Ford Foundation, he oversees a $13 billion philanthropic giant. As a board member at PepsiCo, he has the ear of the business world’s elite. With a magnetic personality, he enjoys friendships with everyone from Elton John to Mark Zuckerberg. Yet even […]
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SOWETO, South Africa — Nomsa Victorino had a Lexus in her garage, a pool in her yard, eight bedrooms in her villa and a message for the world about her famous hometown. “Whatever people have in their mind about Soweto — that Soweto is a place for poor people — it’s not like that,” said […]
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WASHINGTON — Senator Bernie Sanders on Tuesday is set to unveil a proposal to create a new tax on the wealth of the richest Americans, including a steep tax on billionaires that could greatly diminish their fortunes. With the proposal, Mr. Sanders is embracing an idea that has been a centerpiece of the campaign of […]
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In a nearly three-hour debate, the Democratic candidates clashed on health care policy differences, offered varying plans to combat the scourge of gun violence and even discussed whether Americans should switch to a vegan diet to help mitigate the effect of farming on climate change (short answer: no). But questions on issues like reproductive rights […]
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NEW HAVEN — In 2015, the graduating class at Yale Law School, as custom has it, elected one of its professors to give the commencement address. And when the day came, the speaker, Daniel Markovits, got onstage and told the students, more or less, that their lives were ruined. “For your entire lives, you have […]
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There are at least two kinds of meritocracy in America right now. Exclusive meritocracy exists at the super-elite universities and at the industries that draw the bulk of their employees from them — Wall Street, Big Law, medicine and tech. And then there is the more open meritocracy that exists almost everywhere else. In the […]
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THE YEARS THAT MATTER MOST How College Makes or Breaks Us By Paul Tough I am — to capitulate fully to the nomenclature — a “first gen,” meaning a first-generation college graduate. For me, as for many first gens, a college degree was transformative. If you’d met me when I was 10 — pulling copper […]
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This article is part of David Leonhardt’s newsletter. You can sign up here to receive it each weekday. When I was a teenager, my mom showed me a statement that she had received in the mail from the Social Security Administration. It included an annual history of her earnings, which showed a big string of […]
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The pundit class collapsed back in its chair last week, exhausted and spent, from a furious wonk-off session over Bernie Sanders’ rhetoric on medical bankruptcies. The Washington Post’s in-house political fact-checking apparatus assigned a devastating three Pinnocchios to Sanders for saying 500,000 people a year go bankrupt from medical bills. The Sanders camp complained, and […]
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TRANSACTION MAN The Rise of the Deal and the Decline of the American DreamBy Nicholas Lemann When the writer William H. Whyte coined the term “Organization Man” in his 1956 book of the same name, he did not mean it as a compliment. The book described the stultifying conformity of life in Park Forest, Ill., […]
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