Author Archives: William Spriggs

On Aug. 9, police in Ferguson, Missouri shot Michael Brown, an unarmed Black teenager, to death. The closed way in which the police responded to requests for information on the shooting, and their aggressive actions against peaceful protestors in the aftermath of the shooting have opened yet another sore spot in a nation that is […]

Thousands of fast food workers took to the streets this week, staging strikes in protest over their low pay. In states where the minimum wage has not been raised above the federal level, if a worker could put together a full-time, full-year schedule, she would earn just $15,080 a year. Some people scoff at raising […]

Last week in New York, the Ford Foundation hosted a conference with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) on “Changing the Conversation on Growth: Going Inclusive.” Both are mainstream organizations, grounded in the elite consensus. Their public engagement challenging the orthodoxy that inequality is the price we pay for economic growth is important. […]

Republicans in the House of Representatives recently caved and allowed a simple vote on raising the debt limit of the United States. Their hand-wringing about the debt is disingenuous, but more importantly, it is part of a campaign to confuse America’s workers about the real deficit, which must be addressed urgently: the deficit in jobs, […]

With the Super Bowl over, the fantasy football season has ended. But it turns out there is a fantasy league for economists. So, sorry to those of you with Paul Krugman on your team, but I am siding with Joseph Stiglitz in his argument that income inequality is slowing the recovery. Both Stiglitz and Krugman […]

Congress has itself to blame for its low ratings among the American people. Policymaking is all about choices; it is the calculus of weighing costs and benefits and the distribution of those costs and benefits. In theory, there are lots of policies that can make everyone better off, but they can only be accomplished by […]

Last week, President Obama delivered an address, starting a dialogue on how the long path to America’s current level of inequality has led us to the wrong place. The president said that Americans’ frustration with Washington is “rooted in the nagging sense that no matter how hard they work, the deck is stacked against them.” […]

The U.S. Gross Domestic Product (the value of all goods and services in the economy) figures show GDP per person is $53,211. That’s per person, not per family. Those figures also show we annually spend $2,797 per person on food. That’s $233 per person a month. After netting out imports, we sell nearly $14 billion […]

The current tracking of Congress’ popularity shows that only 15 percent of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing. Now, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) struck another tone deaf moment at a political fundraiser in Idaho when he warned that when Congress returns in September, he will lead Republicans in holding up the government’s […]