income inequality

Still just a dream: 60 years later, racial wealth disparities remain wide

BY: - August 31, 2023

It was 60 years ago this week that Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream Speech” to a quarter-million arrayed in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. The crowd must have been filled with hope.  Lincoln’s war against slavery had been won almost a century earlier. But virtual slavery in […]

COMMENTARY

Don’t blame workers for poor service – blame CEOs

BY: - August 28, 2023

Ever get mad at a delivery driver for bringing your pizza late? I used to. Now I assume it’s late because an overpaid boss is probably making two employees do the job of 10. What changed? I worked for two years at a company with the kind of chronic understaffing that plagues many of America’s […]

COMMENTARY
A recent congressional proposal would create a tax on those with wealth that is one thousand times the wealth of the median U.S. household. (Getty Images)

It’s time to stand up to the oligarchy

BY: - August 25, 2023

Hardly a month goes by without news of billionaires lavishing gifts or favors on members of the U.S. Supreme Court. The latest revelation once again involved Justice Clarence Thomas, who reportedly has been traveling in private jets and luxury yachts to exotic destinations, paid for by a group of ultrawealthy benefactors. The fact that corruption grips the highest court […]

Report: CEOs who pay poorly do fabulously

BY: - August 24, 2023

Ticketmaster isn’t just crappy to its customers and to the musicians for whose shows it manages ticket sales.  As a dominant event middleman, it tacks on hefty fees and has the effrontery to call them “convenience charges.” And bands complain that by the time parent company Live Nation Entertainment deducts its many cuts for their […]

Ohio economists divided on housing subsidy in conflict between House and Senate

BY: - June 28, 2023

As the Ohio legislature debates whether to provide subsidies to developers to build low-income housing, a panel of economists is divided on whether that will significantly lower rents. The lack of affordable housing is an acute problem in the Buckeye State. The Columbus Dispatch earlier this month reported that a full-time worker would have to […]

Analysis: Business tax cuts in Senate budget would overwhelmingly benefit the big boys

BY: - June 23, 2023

In announcing a draft state budget last week, Ohio Senate President Matt Huffman, R-Lima, said the plan “puts $3.1 billion back in the hands of families and small businesses.”  Huffman didn’t mention the state’s big businesses, but that’s who will get the lion’s share of the business cuts in a state where business taxes already […]

Economists: Ohio flat-tax would worsen inequality

BY: - April 18, 2023

An overwhelming majority of a panel of Ohio economists believes that a flat-tax proposal pending in the Ohio House would worsen economic inequality in Ohio, according to a survey that was published Monday. Most of the 22 who responded also didn't think that the proposal would spur economic growth.

Think tank blasts Ohio flat tax proposal

BY: - April 4, 2023

It sounds fair. If everybody paid taxes at the same rate, the rich would pay more because of their higher incomes and the poor would pay less because they make less in the first place. But an Ohio proposal to enact such a "flat" state income tax ignores a host of other taxes, said a progressive public policy think tank. And the way that the law is written would only complicate the state's school-funding woes, take money from libraries and increase property taxes for farmers and homeowners, it added.

COMMENTARY

Economic inequality keeps getting worse, along with America’s toxic, corrupt politics

BY: - September 29, 2022

The most reliable economic fact for nearly 50 years is that American wealth and income inequality continues to explode. Alongside that we’ve seen rampant corruption and the toxic debasement of our politics. Meanwhile, hard-working Ohio and American families continue to suffer enormous hardship from poverty wages; childhood and family hunger; limited access to basic personal […]

Richest 1% of Ohioans make almost as much as entire bottom half, analysis says

BY: - September 27, 2022

Income inequality in Ohio has been growing for the past 50 years, with the 1% who make the highest wages getting 10% of the total take in 2018, according to a new analysis.  Compare that to the lowest-earning 50% of Ohioans. Combined, they only made a little more than that tiny, highly paid sliver of […]

Is big split between rich and poor making us all poorer? Maybe

BY: - August 30, 2022

It seems as if income inequality would slow the economy. But in a recent survey a big portion of a panel of Ohio economists said… that depends. In the survey of 26 Ohio economists released Monday, 14 agreed that rising inequality in Ohio is slowing economic growth, four disagreed and eight said they were unsure. By […]

COMMENTARY

Ohio politicians push regressive tax system while shedding crocodile tears over inflation

BY: - June 16, 2022

Inflation hurts the people who make the least money the most, as do supply-side, regressive tax systems. So the wailing over inflation by wealthy politicians refusing to help hungry families and burdening them with regressive taxes while giving hand-outs to the rich, rings pretty hollow. Inflation squeezes working and middle class families because money doesn’t […]