Birth: April 4, 1972
Big cities like New York are thriving, economically, culturally, in terms of real estate values, and by a slew of other measures. Yet, at the same ti….
Ronald Reagan, and before him, Richard Nixon, and before Nixon, a slew of conservative politicians going back through American history, have played t….
Detroit is a fascinating place, because things are so bad there that the dystopia has almost become utopian. People know they can't rely on the state….
I argue that in the long run, the US would be on a far more financially secure footing if we recalibrate how we spend about two-to-three percent of t….
You can't lift people out of poverty simply by tweaking the tax system, or by raising the minimum wage by a few cents, or by reducing student debt sl….
We're living through an era of higher income inequality than the country has experienced since before the Great Depression. Meanwhile, most people ar….
Despite all of the civil rights gains of the past several decades, when it comes to economic opportunity, African Americans and Latinos still experie….
As a country, Americans have to find a way to keep our cities solvent. If large numbers of cities no longer have the necessary tax base, we have to f….
Poverty became something one could see and experience firsthand, no matter where one was on the economic ladder; it became something you could viscer….
I recognize that individuals and organizations with tremendous financial clout and open access to the political system in the post-Citizens United er….
I do think there are ways to increase wages significantly, even in a global era. But you have to take voters and consumers with you on this journey -….
The reliance on stereotypes is in part the result of a structural problem within the media. Most newspapers have a business beat, with a number of hi….
Today there are a huge number of think tanks working on poverty-related issues; there are books written on the topic; and university centers being cr….
The failure of the first Barack Obama administration to really deliver on a new War on Poverty and a new language to explain these societal challenge….
Too often the media assumes that "poverty" is an African American or a Latino issue. Of course, that's nonsense. While a higher percentage of the Afr….
To really tackle poverty, politicians, activists, academics will all have to think outside their boxes, will have to start developing much more integ….
The poverty we see in America is now too widespread, and too complex, for easy fixes. But I do think we can reimagine many of our institutions and ca….
It seems to me that large numbers of people are now paying attention to poverty and that large numbers now understand that blaming the poor and the i….
When I talk about an "empathy bank," I don't mean literally opening up a bank and putting in deposits. What I mean is that the more we can, as indivi….
One of the most durable successes of the war on poverty was to dramatically reduce the number of elderly poor in America. That's still true today. Bu….