Rayan Semery-Palumbo

Rayan Semery-Palumbo writes about wages, work, democracy, technology, and how America decides who deserves what. He works with service workers to end subminimum wages and make the minimum wage a living wage. With One Fair Wage, he helps lead the Living Wage For All campaign. He is co-author, with Saru Jayaraman, of What Has Democracy Done For You Lately? (The New Press, 2026), which argues that if work doesn't pay, democracy doesn't work. He grew up poor and homeless in Arizona and earned a PhD in Public Policy at the University of Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. His newsletter, American Dreams & Nightmares, is at rayansemerypalumbo.com.