{"id":12754,"date":"2014-05-13T00:41:42","date_gmt":"2014-05-13T07:41:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=12754"},"modified":"2014-05-13T00:41:42","modified_gmt":"2014-05-13T07:41:42","slug":"how-to-fight-inequality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2014\/05\/13\/how-to-fight-inequality\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Fight Inequality"},"content":{"rendered":"

Inequality is the stock in trade for the Reich on the right, that is, the Republican Reich.  They represent billionaires, high end millionaires, and corporate criminals.  They want to create even more inequality.  Conversely, fighting inequality is the stock in trade of the Reich on the left, that is, Robert Reich.<\/font><\/p>\n

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\"0513Wall-Street-Bull\"<\/p>\n

…There is no single solution for reversing widening inequality. Thomas Piketty\u2019s monumental book \u201cCapital in the Twenty-First Century\u201d paints a troubling picture of societies dominated by a comparative few, whose cumulative wealth and unearned income overshadow the majority who rely on jobs and earned income. But our future is not set in stone, and Piketty\u2019s description of past and current trends need not determine our path in the future. Here are ten initiatives that could reverse the trends described above:<\/p>\n

1) Make work pay<\/strong>. The fastest-growing categories of work are retail, restaurant (including fast food), hospital (especially orderlies and staff), hotel, childcare and eldercare. But these jobs tend to pay very little. A first step toward making work pay is to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour, pegging it to inflation; abolish the tipped minimum wage; and expand the Earned Income Tax Credit. No American who works full time should be in poverty.<\/p>\n

2) Unionize low-wage workers.<\/strong> The rise and fall of the American middle class correlates almost exactly with the rise and fall of private-sector unions, because unions gave the middle class the bargaining power it needed to secure a fair share of the gains from economic growth. We need to reinvigorate unions, beginning with low-wage service occupations that are sheltered from global competition and from labor-replacing technologies. Lower-wage Americans deserve more bargaining power.<\/p>\n

3) Invest in education.<\/strong> This investment should extend from early childhood through world-class primary and secondary schools, affordable public higher education, good technical education and lifelong learning. Education should not be thought of as a private investment; it is a public good that helps both individuals and the economy. Yet for too many Americans, high-quality education is unaffordable and unattainable. Every American should have an equal opportunity to make the most of herself or himself. High-quality education should be freely available to all, starting at the age of 3 and extending through four years of university or technical education\u2026 [emphasis original<\/em>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <Robert Reich<\/a>><\/p>\n

This is only three of ten steps in how to combat inequality from Republican warfare against 99% of Americans. His ten steps are only a small part of an extensive article on inequality that breaks the problem down so precisely that even Tea Baggers could understand it, if the were willing to think for themselves. Information you can’t afford to miss. Please click through.  Once again the Reich on the left is right.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Inequality is the stock in trade for the Reich on the right, that is, the Republican Reich.  They represent billionaires, high end millionaires, and corporate criminals.  They want to create even more inequality.  Conversely, fighting inequality is the stock in trade of the Reich on the left, that is, Robert Reich. …There is no single […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12754"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12754\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}