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economic justice
The Storm Bill Is Coming; Ratepayers Are Paying It Twice
Rising storm damage, opaque cost recovery, and inaccessible proceedings are making utility rate cases one of the defining economic justice battlegrounds of our time.
Mar 29, 2026
Across the US, electric utility customers are being asked to pay for the same storms twice. First, they pay the costs of the damage through rate increases and special adjustors that quietly appear on monthly bills. Then they pay again as infrastructure investment charges that utilities say will prevent the next storm from costing so much. The accounting for what happened with the money is rarely provided. When called to account, they are pointed to bureaucratic filing systems that require expert navigation to decode.
This is not a bug in the utility regulatory system. For utilities, it is a feature.
The evidence is hiding in plain sight. It’s available to everyone inside the regulatory dockets that govern what every household pays for electricity, but these documents are practically inaccessible. And inside them, a pattern is repeating across states, as utilities are collecting ratepayer money to manage storm risk, spending it in bad years, and then updating the recovery mechanism. Simultaneously, they request rate increases to fund infrastructure hardening they say will protect against future storms. The cycle repeats. The bills keep rising. The accounting stays buried.
What the Dockets Actually Show
In Vermont, Green Mountain Power (GMP) collected $6 million annually from customers beginning in fiscal year 2023 as a dedicated Major Storm Restoration Fund. It was established as a separate line item on customer bills to pre-fund major storm restoration costs. The mechanism made sense. Collect in the good years, draw down in the bad ones, smooth the bill impact of catastrophic weather events.
Politicians who want to talk about energy affordability need to understand regulatory proceedings. Saying utility bills are too high is easy. Doing something about it requires visible, deeper engagement.
Then came 2023, the worst storm year in GMP’s 11-year data record. The company incurred $53.6 million in total storm costs, including $45.2 million in major storm expense alone. And 2024 followed with $47 million in total storm costs. Two years of storms accounted for nearly half of all the storm damage GMP recorded over 11 years. The $6 million annual collection covered roughly 13 cents of every dollar in major storm damage incurred in those peak years.
By January 2026, GMP filed its FY2027 rate case, seeking a 7.5% increase, and disclosed that the storm fund would cease. The complete disclosure was one sentence. When Vermont’s ratepayer advocate formally asked GMP to provide a year-by-year table of fund collections and expenditures, GMP essentially declined. It pointed to quarterly filings spread across two separate regulatory dockets and told the regulator that the information was “already available.” No table or verification. They just pointed to a bureaucratic maze that most residential ratepayers would need weeks to navigate. The move suggests that utilities do not consider dockets a place where everyday people might need plain language guidance to understand what will affect their livelihoods.
In New York, a parallel story is unfolding in New York State Electric and Gas’ (NYSEG) service territory. The utility filed for a 35% increase in electric delivery revenues last June. The filing landed on top of a separate Recovery Charge that had already begun appearing on customer bills last February, tied to $710 million in bonds issued to cover nearly a decade of accumulated storm costs. Customers are being asked to pay for the storms twice: once to retire the debt and again to fund the hardening investments the company says will mitigate increasing recovery costs. An independent audit released the same month as the rate filing found that NYSEG had missed its enforceable reliability targets for six consecutive years. And customers are already funding multiple rounds of rate increases explicitly justified as investments in grid resilience.
The pattern is a business model.
Who’s in the Room and Who Isn’t
Utility rate cases are decided in proceedings that look like courtrooms. There is testimony and cross-examination. Detailed exhibits are entered into the record. The parties with legal representation and expert witnesses are the parties with resources to sustain that kind of participation.
The people who are affected by the outcomes almost never appear in the case, because the barrier to participation is genuinely prohibitive. The dockets run to hundreds of thousands of pages. The filings reference prior proceedings going back years. Understanding what a utility is actually asking for requires the kind of institutional expertise that most people simply don’t have the time or resources to develop.
This is the accountability gap that utility regulation was designed to prevent and has done little in practice to close.
Why 2026 Matters
Rate increases of the magnitude being requested across the country are landing on kitchen tables at a moment when many households are already stretched. Utility affordability is not abstract for everyday people in 2026. It affects every household; disproportionately burdens lower-income families; and compounds with rising food costs, insurance premiums, and healthcare expenses.
Utilities are right that storms are worsening and are causing more expensive damage. But those facts do not resolve the question of who bears the cost, how the accounting is done, or whether the evidence supports what utilities are asking for.
Those questions are being answered right now, in regulatory dockets most people have never heard of.
Politicians who want to talk about energy affordability need to understand regulatory proceedings. Saying utility bills are too high is easy. Doing something about it requires visible, deeper engagement.
They need to demonstrate that they can find funding for ratepayer advocates to match utility resources. They need to push for plain-language disclosure requirements so that when a utility shifts storm funding tactics, the accounting isn’t buried.
The 2026 election cycle is the right moment to ensure utility ratemaking on storm cost recovery is transparent. Rate cases are decided in public proceedings. The decisions being made in those dockets right now will appear on customer bills beginning this fall, as voters head to the polls. Candidates who want to talk about affordability should be asked, specifically, what they intend to do about the system producing these bills. The playbook is in the docket. It’s time to open it.
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Jesse Jackson, Civil Rights Leader Who Fought for Economic Justice, Dies at 84
"His unwavering belief in justice, equality, and love uplifted millions, and we ask you to honor his memory by continuing the fight for the values he lived by," said Jackson's family.
Feb 17, 2026
Rev. Jesse Jackson, a renowned civil rights activist and two-time US presidential candidate who pushed for a multiracial movement united around the common fight for economic justice, has died at the age of 84, his family announced in a statement on Tuesday.
"Our father was a servant leader—not only to our family, but to the oppressed, the voiceless, and the overlooked around the world," said Jackson's family. "We shared him with the world, and in return, the world became part of our extended family. His unwavering belief in justice, equality, and love uplifted millions, and we ask you to honor his memory by continuing the fight for the values he lived by."
The family's statement does not specify a cause of death, saying Jackson "died peacefully" on Tuesday morning. Jackson was formally diagnosed with progressive supranuclear palsy last year after managing the condition for more than a decade.
After taking part in and organizing sit-ins and other civil rights actions as a university student, Jackson worked alongside Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and was later elevated to national director of SCLC's economic arm, Operation Breadbasket.
Jackson ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988, amassing more than 10 million votes across both campaigns—making him, up to that time, the most successful Black presidential candidate in US history.
In his 1984 speech at the Democratic National Convention, Jackson made the case for a "Rainbow Coalition" organized around a common mission: "to feed the hungry; to clothe the naked; to house the homeless; to teach the illiterate; to provide jobs for the jobless; and to choose the human race over the nuclear race."
"We must leave racial battleground and come to economic common ground and moral higher ground," said Jackson. "America, our time has come. We come from disgrace to amazing grace."
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Mamdani Taps 'Unafraid and Unbought' Julie Su as First NYC Deputy Mayor for Economic Justice
"What a thrilling day for the working class of New York City," said one local labor leader.
Dec 19, 2025
In a move cheered by advocates for the working class, New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani said Friday that former acting US Labor Secretary Julie Su will serve as the city's first-ever deputy mayor for economic justice.
"Welcome to a new era, Julie Su," Mamdani, a Democrat, said in a social media post announcing the appointment. "As former US secretary of labor, Julie played a central role in fighting for workers, ensuring a just day's pay for a hard day's work, and saving the pensions of more than a million union workers and retirees."
Speaking at a Friday press conference in Staten Island with Mamdani and Deputy Mayor for Housing nominee Leila Bozorg, Su said: "In the richest city in the richest country in the world, no one should be treated as disposable. Dignity on the job is not a privilege but a right, justice is not abstract but it is felt in a paycheck you can live on, a schedule that you can build a life around, a workplace where your voice matters, and a city that has your back.”
Su, who had previously served as California labor secretary and deputy US labor secretary, was nominated by former President Joe Biden to permanently lead the Department of Labor. However, Republicans and some right-wing Democrats in the US Senate blocked her appointment, so Biden installed her in an acting capacity, in which she served from March 2023 until the end of the Democrat's administration in January.
During her tenure, Su championed gig workers; fought to preserve pensions for retirees; pushed for workplace protections from Covid-19 and environmental harms; and helped negotiate labor agreements for healthcare professionals, flight attendants, and others.
Su will now work with Mamdani, a democratic socialist, as he seeks to deliver on his campaign promises of free public childcare and municipal buses, a freeze on rent-stabilized housing, and city-owned grocery stores to residents of the nation's largest city.
"What a thrilling day for the working class of New York City to have the first-ever deputy mayor for economic justice to ensure that our issues are front [and] center at every level of city government," New York Taxi Workers Alliance executive director Bhairavi Desai said in a statement.
"With the appointment of the esteemed Julie Su—who is unafraid and unbought by corporate interests—Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani is cementing the highest, uncompromised, and effective standards for a better life for New Yorkers abandoned and betrayed in decades past," Desai added.
The NYC Central Labor Council of the AFL-CIO said on Bluesky: "Big news! Julie Su as deputy mayor for economic justice brings deep experience enforcing labor law, fighting wage theft, and standing up for working families."
"She’s known and respected across the labor movement, including here in NYC," the council added. "Looking forward to working with a proven champion for workers at City Hall!"
Service Employees International Union international president April Verrett said on X that Su "has spent her career standing with workers and holding powerful interests to account."
"Bringing her into City Hall says New York is done talking and ready to throw down for the people who keep this city moving," she added.
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Mamdani's Win Is Proof That an Organized Public Can Defeat Organized Money
The most consistent project of elite politics is to cultivate resignation: Nothing can change, no one like you can win, best not to try. When that illusion breaks, even in a single city, it sends tremors outward.
Nov 06, 2025
Zohran Mamdani’s election in New York City is not simply a local upset. It is a breach in the ideological dam that has kept American politics safely contained for generations.
This victory is historic not because one office suddenly overturns entrenched power, but because it demonstrates that such power can be overturned at all.
For decades, political life in the United States has functioned as a managed marketplace in which both parties advertise different brands, yet deliver the same fundamental product: deference to private wealth, hostility to social investment, and a belief that the public should expect very little from its government beyond punishment and surveillance.
On Tuesday, that spell cracked.
Zohran's win feels like the beginning of the first meaningful challenge to the neoliberal consensus in a generation.
Mamdani won not by courting the wealthy, not by flattering real-estate interests, not by running a campaign tailored to the comfort of cable-news pundits.
He won by naming the obvious: that the city belongs to its people, not to absentee landlords; that housing, transit, childcare, food, and dignity are fundamental rights, not privileges; that a budget is a statement of who matters in society—and it’s long past time a city as wealthy as New York put working people first instead of billionaires and real-estate developers.
The bipartisan establishment will attempt to minimize this moment. They will continue to fund hysterical hit pieces designed to make people afraid of those challenging their rule. But their real fear is that this victory might prove contagious.
If New Yorkers can elect someone who openly challenges concentrated power, asks the wealthy to pay their share, and speaks in plain moral terms about economic justice, then perhaps Los Angeles can. Perhaps Cleveland, Minneapolis, Atlanta, and Kansas City.
The danger, from the perspective of those who currently command the political economy, is that people elsewhere may decide to stop begging for crumbs and begin organizing for a real seat at the table.
Power relies on a population convinced of its own helplessness. The most consistent project of elite politics is to cultivate resignation: Nothing can change, no one like you can win, best not to try. When that illusion breaks, even in a single city, it sends tremors outward.
Across the country, millions watching the election results saw something rare in American politics: Proof that a campaign rooted in solidarity can beat one rooted in capital. They saw a future in which the public is not a spectator to its own dispossession. They saw permission to believe in their own power.
They saw that politics need not be reduced to a stage-managed rivalry between corporations wearing different campaign colors.
As someone who saw this possibility in the presidential campaigns of Bernie Sanders, who saw our movement defeated by this same bipartisan establishment, this moment gives me a renewed faith in America's capacity to fight back against oligarchy. Zohran's win feels like the beginning of the first meaningful challenge to the neoliberal consensus in a generation.
And that is why this victory matters. Not because one candidate triumphed, but because a barrier was crossed. The belief that the public must endure austerity while wealth accumulates above it has lost its inevitability. The idea that the mass media can manufacture consent for a Wall Street-approved candidate every time has shattered.
The attacks on Mamdani were relentless these past few months. But their hollow and desperate efforts failed. The majority didn't buy it, and they went to the polls to send Andrew Cuomo packing.
For the first time in a long time, the message is simple and electrifying:
The people can win. And if they can win here, they can win anywhere.
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Missouri's Racist Gerrymander Is an Attack on Working Voters
As these attacks target communities of color, we’re witnessing the systematic disenfranchisement of people who’ve fought hardest for economic justice and workers’ rights.
Sep 13, 2025
As a Wendy’s worker, mother of two, and leader with Missouri Workers Center and Stand Up KC in Kansas City, I’ve dedicated my life to fighting for working families. I’ve worked in fast food for over 20 years, and I know what it means to struggle to barely make ends meet while corporations make record profits off our backs.
Today, I’m writing as someone who believes deeply in democracy, especially as a group of anti-worker Missouri lawmakers prepare to divide our community so that they can silence our voices, including my own.
States usually redraw electoral district boundaries every 10 years following the US Census to account for population shifts and demographic changes. But for political reasons, Texas lawmakers have gone ahead and redrawn their political map. And now several other states, including Missouri, are trying to do the same thing.
The NAACP is suing the State of Missouri to stop this action, calling it an “unconstitutional redistricting process” and a “blatant effort to silence Black voters and strip them of their fundamental rights.”
In Missouri’s 5th Congressional District, where I live, the clear aim of this gerrymandering is to dilute the voting power of Black and brown communities instead of letting us choose leaders who reflect our values. This isn’t just politics as usual. It’s a calculated assault on democracy and a power grab for an elite few.
As these attacks target communities of color, we’re witnessing the systematic disenfranchisement of people who’ve fought hardest for economic justice and workers’ rights. These same corporate-backed lawmakers recently repealed guaranteed sick days for more than 700,000 workers, including me and my coworkers.
My community deserves a voice in choosing our representation instead of having politicians strip it away—politicians who care more about protecting themselves instead of the people they were elected to represent.
A couple years ago, I got sick with what I thought was the flu. I didn’t have health insurance, so I couldn’t see a doctor. I stayed home from my shift at Taco Bell to protect my coworkers and customers from a potentially contagious illness. I was already falling behind on rent after management cut my hours prior to getting sick, and taking time to recover was the final straw. I missed $450—over half my rent. I came home from work to an eviction notice. My son Rashaad and I lost our home.
As a parent, few things are more heartbreaking than not being able to care for your children properly. Had I been able to take a few days off while still getting paid, we could have stayed housed. I couldn’t help getting sick, but the greedy corporation I worked for chose to abandon me as soon as I stopped making them rich.
If I had paid sick days, that wouldn’t happen. And ironically enough, I previously helped win paid sick days through a ballot initiative. Despite promises to respect the will of the people, Missouri politicians sided with big business over working families and overturned our right to paid leave. By gutting this policy, these corporate-backed politicians didn’t just force workers like me to go to work sick—they stole money from our pockets and food from our cupboards.
This redistricting scheme is clearly part of a two-pronged plan to suppress voter participation and double down on attacking the rights of working people. In fact, they’re using the same special session they’ve called to pass redistricting to also destroy a 115-year old ballot initiative process in our state constitution that won us—across party lines—paid leave, Medicaid expansion, and restored abortion rights.
But working people like me don’t back down when our lives are on the line. We stay committed to the fight for our rights, from the streets, to the strike line, to the statehouse. My community deserves a voice in choosing our representation instead of having politicians strip it away—politicians who care more about protecting themselves instead of the people they were elected to represent.
We were already living in modern-day economic slavery. Now they’re trying to put us in political slavery too. But we won’t let them. Across this country, working people will not be silenced or divided. Our political leaders need to stop trying to rig the rules and let the people decide who represents us.
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We Need Legally Enforceable Rights to Fight Poverty and the Housing Crisis
Ratifying the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights would end the US’ back-and-forth dance with domestic poverty.
Sep 05, 2025
Our law school clinic’s weekly presence in eviction court, where we represent struggling renters, provides us with a front-row seat to a galling tragedy: widespread poverty in the richest nation in the world.
Sometimes, the biggest problem that our clients face is that their rental house or apartment is in unsafe or unhealthy condition, with mold and rodents running rampant and heat that does not work. There is a law to address this problem, and a government program to enforce that law.
Sometimes, the landlord’s ledger is wrong, and our clients made payments that are not accounted for. There is a government process for dealing with that, too.
But more often, our clients’ core problems are that they simply cannot afford the cost of survival. And our government usually has no answers for that.
For example, our client Sandra’s rent swallows well over half of her home healthcare worker salary, and she recently needed to pay for an expensive car repair because that is her only transportation to work. William’s disability check actually totals less than the rent he owes each month. The meals that Rochelle skips have not prevented her lights from being turned off for nonpayment, and she has been unable to afford her blood pressure medication.
Sandra, William, and Rochelle all qualify for government-subsidized housing. But they are among the 3 of every 4 eligible households who don’t receive it due to the programs being so underfunded. They and their families also struggle to get consistent access to food and healthcare.
Like Sandra and Rochelle, most of our clients in eviction court have jobs. But those jobs are in food service, home healthcare, and retail. Those industries, despite being some of the country’s top employers, don’t pay wages high enough for workers to be able to afford life necessities, especially with rents increasing far more quickly than wages.
The suffering we see in eviction court can be traced directly to the lack of enforceable economic rights in the US.
That is why, along with 3.6 million other US households that are sued for eviction every year, Sandra, William, and Rochelle face losing their homes. The Census Bureau says there are 17 million-plus people living in households that are currently behind on their rent. That means the number of Americans living on the verge of eviction equals the total populations of Michigan and Massachusetts combined. Over 43 million Americans live in poverty, a number that aligns with the number of Americans who are living with food insecurity. One in three adults each year skip getting healthcare, including filling prescriptions, because they can’t afford it.
There is no law that addresses this crisis.
Yet.
The United States should fill the gaping hole in our nation’s human rights structure by following the lead of the rest of the world and ratifying the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, aka the ICESCR.
ICESCR Will End Our Toxic Anti-Poverty Dance
As Sandra, William, and Rochelle can attest, the United States does not do enough to alleviate poverty. And when we do take positive action, it is routinely scaled back at a later date. We take one step forward; two steps back.
The ICESCR will fix that.
The ICESCR is a global treaty that requires all ratifying nations to fulfill economic rights, including the right to housing, the right to healthcare, and the right to an adequate standard of living. Essentially, the ICESCR protects the human right to survive in a decent and healthy manner. The ICESCR has been in force for nearly 50 years, and has been ratified by virtually every nation in the world, 172 nations in all, including all but one nation in North America or Europe.
That lone holdout is the United States.
The suffering we see in eviction court can be traced directly to the lack of enforceable economic rights in the US. Of course, the US does have some anti-poverty government programs like Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP aka Food Stamps), Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, and subsidized housing. But, as we saw this summer with the passage of the devastating so-called Big, Beautiful Bill, which will strip healthcare and food assistance from millions, the essential needs these programs address are funded at the whim of the current Congress and administration.
This is not a new phenomenon. The historic and lifesaving New Deal social programs of the 1930s and 1940s were slashed during the Reagan era of the early 1980s and then again in the 1990s by the Clinton “end welfare as we know it” legislation. During the first years of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2021 and 2022, we took a significant step forward, expanding social programs that reduced poverty to historic lows. Then, this summer, Republicans in Congress and President Donald Trump lurched backward, pushing through the largest safety net cuts in history.
Someday, domestic political power will shift. When that happens, we will likely restore some of the program cuts. But those gains will merely set the stage for the programs to be scaled back in years to come.
Unless US progressives commit to a post-Trump agenda that includes ratifying the ICESCR. Then, the challenge of meeting basic needs will be transformed from a political and budgetary wrestling match into a question of human rights. The next time basic healthcare and food and shelter are under attack, there will be a legal foundation from which to push back. We will stop this toxic one-step forward, two-steps backward anti-poverty dance, once and for all.
The US Public Wants the ICESCR
The US is often characterized as possessing an individualist, free market-favoring political culture, which cuts against the widespread adoption of the economic rights contained in the ICESCR. Yet many economic rights are already deeply woven into the fabric of US society. Consider the overwhelming popularity of our nation’s Social Security program, and the well-established roots of our nation’s system of free primary and secondary education, which align with the ICESCR Articles 9 and 13.
In addition to the right to education, fully half of state constitutions contain provisions that address welfare, poverty, or public health. A number of states and cities have adopted some version of a Homeless Bill of Rights or similar legal commitments to the right to housing. The rights to clean water and air, sometimes known as “Green Amendments,” are recognized in the state constitutions or statutes of California, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Hawaii, Montana, and in several municipal ordinances. In 2021, the state of Maine enshrined the right to food in its constitution.
When we take the step to full ratification, the ICESCR will bring a new and much-needed level of national enforceability for the rights that the US public already supports.
Americans are ready to make these rights nationwide and enforceable. Public opinion polls in recent years show strong majorities in support of recognizing and enforcing housing and healthcare as human rights, and insisting that the government should do more to address food insecurity. These views pair with deep popular concern about the US’ wealth inequality and support for raising taxes on the wealthy and corporations. Americans similarly endorse a government jobs guarantee that lines up with the ICESCR Articles 6 and 7.
Given religion’s powerful influence on US culture and values and the commitment to economic justice that is shared among all major religions, the support for economic rights among the US public should not be surprising. When we take the step to full ratification, the ICESCR will bring a new and much-needed level of national enforceability for the rights that the US public already supports.
The ICESCR Has Deep US Roots
Since the first moment of its existence, the US has affirmed the importance of economic rights. The inalienable rights held to be self-evident in the Declaration of Independence include “life” and “the pursuit of happiness,” both of which are obviously unattainable without shelter, food, healthcare, etc.
Founding father Thomas Paine called for the redistribution of land and wealth via progressive taxation, social security-style old-age pensions, support for families with young children, full employment, and a basic income. Alexander Hamilton interpreted the Taxing and Spending Clause in Article I, Section 8 of the US Constitution (“The Congress shall have Power to lay and collect taxes... to provide for the General Welfare of the United States”) broadly enough to fulfill Paine’s vision of a government that meets unmet economic needs. Hamilton’s fellow Constitution framer James Madison stated that the new nation needed laws to “raise extreme indigence toward a state of comfort.”
The US’ most consequential step taking the US toward a comprehensive set of enforceable economic rights was the New Deal of the mid-1930s, which featured social security, unemployment insurance, public housing, and the federal backing of home purchases, along with multiple programs that provided government-paid employment to millions. President Franklin Roosevelt followed up on the New Deal by articulating a historic vision for fully enforceable economic rights for all. In 1944, Roosevelt used the occasion of his annual State of the Union address to call for a “Second Bill of Rights” to supplement the civil and political rights already protected by the US Constitution. Roosevelt outlined multiple distinct economic rights, including living-wage employment, housing, healthcare, and education.
Roosevelt’s declaration served as the blueprint for the post-World War II international human rights structure. That structure’s foundation is the United Nations Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the International Covenants on Civil and Political Rights and Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, all of which explicitly or implicitly reference Roosevelt’s human rights language.
Regrettably, the post-war US backed away from international recognition of economic rights: In 1977, President Jimmy Carter signed the ICESCR and submitted it to the US Senate for consent to ratification, but the Senate has never acted on it. Still, the domestic legacy of Roosevelt’s economic rights vision lived on. The 1960s’ Great Society and War on Poverty programs of President Lyndon B. Johnson established the Medicare and Medicaid programs, along with Food Stamps, now known as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, SNAP. Those lifesaving programs endure, along with widespread government-imposed price controls on human necessities like rental housing, electricity, water, and healthcare.
We Can Afford the ICESCR
In his book, The Ends of Freedom: Reclaiming America’s Lost Promise of Economic Rights , Rutgers University economist Mark Paul lays out the economic rights that together would create what he calls the “well-being state,” including access to housing, healthcare, and a basic income. Given the outsize power held by wealthy individuals and corporations, Paul does not minimize the political challenge of enshrining these rights in US law. But he is unconcerned about the process of paying for economic rights. “The financing?” Paul asks. “That’s the easy part.”
That may seem glib, but Paul stands on solid ground. “Anything we can actually do, we can afford,” insisted John Maynard Keynes. Other nations’ success at ensuring economic rights have proved Keynes correct, as did the US’ economic boon period in the mid-20th century, a time of deficit spending and marginal income tax rates as high as 90%.
By shifting the conversation on housing, healthcare, and income needs from the language of charity or budgetary choices to that of enforceable rights, advocates will widen the window of political possibility to include full realization of all basic human needs.
Tax policy reform is one of several avenues that Paul and others cite as the source for funding a historic expansion of economic rights in the US. Elected officials like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and economists like Thomas Piketty, Peter Diamond, and Emmanuel Saez have proposed back-to-the-future top marginal tax rates of 70% or more, still lower than the 1950s’ US rate—when we also had significantly higher government spending. As Sanders says, “I’m not much of a socialist compared to Eisenhower.” Or Franklin Roosevelt, for that matter, who proposed a top tax rate of 100%, essentially capping annual income at the equivalent of $500,000 in current dollars.
Economists like Piketty and Nobel Prize laureate Joseph Stiglitz and US politicians like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) call for significant wealth taxes that would raise billions annually. We can also free up funding to fulfill economic rights by slashing US war spending, which at over $1 trillion annually is more than the next nine countries combined.
Ratifying the ICESCR Will Be Transformative
If the US does ratify the ICESCR, how do we know it will comply with the promises contained in the treaty? That is a legitimate question, since signing off on a covenant does not necessarily translate into compliance with its terms.
But a system of ICESCR-specific accountability exists in the international arena. Robust reporting requirements are placed on ICESCR countries, which means a ratifying United States will be expected to quickly present a plan to achieve full realization of the promised economic rights and then to demonstrate tangible steps toward completion of that plan.
Of course, plans don’t feed or house people. But the ICESCR’s terms and compliance process would provide US anti-poverty advocates with a platform for using the treaty review process and the national legislative systems to enforce its promises. And it adds in the power of the courts. US litigation to enforce the ICESCR would follow existing US precedent, including rulings that reinforced their states’ constitutional rights to education and structural injunctions targeting the need for shelter for unhoused persons, healthcare access, and nutrition benefits.
The prospects are enticing. We caught a glimpse of what could be during the early years of the Covid-19 pandemic, when the US responded to the crisis with Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act stimulus checks, extended unemployment benefits, an expanded child tax credit, rental assistance, maximized food stamps, expanded Medicaid coverage, increased childcare support, and a national eviction moratorium. Economic support programs did the unthinkable: Poverty rates actually dropped to a record low during a pandemic.
By ratifying the ICESCR, we can make those temporary improvements permanent—and then improve on them. The language that became the 14th and 15th Amendments and the Civil Rights Act helped frame the abolitionist and civil rights movements and their goals. ICESCR can do the same for anti-poverty advocacy in the US. By shifting the conversation on housing, healthcare, and income needs from the language of charity or budgetary choices to that of enforceable rights, advocates will widen the window of political possibility to include full realization of all basic human needs.
Those legally enforceable rights would change the lives of our clients Sandra, William, Rochelle, and the millions of others who struggle alongside them.
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'Are You Worried the Billionaires Are Going to Go Hungry?' Warren Asks Mamdani Critic
"Do you know how many working families are chased out of New York City every day because they can't afford housing, they can't afford groceries, they can't afford groceries?" said the Democratic senator.
Aug 04, 2025
Before joining New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani at an event focusing on childcare in the largest city in the U.S., Sen. Elizabeth Warren appeared on CNBC where she feigned concern for New York's richest residents—those who aren't being centered in Mamdani's campaign focused on making housing, groceries, and other essentials more affordable for the city's working class.
"Oh dear, are you worried that billionaires are going to go hungry?" the Massachusetts Democratic senator asked anchor Dan Faber when he inquired whether raising taxes on the richest residents is how Mamdani's far-reaching economic justice initiatives should be funded.
Faber responded that rich New Yorkers will leave the city if Mamdani becomes mayor and succeeds in establishing city-owned grocery stores and universal childcare by raising the corporate tax rate to 11.5%—the rate that already exists in neighboring New Jersey and that would raise $5 billion—and instituting a 2% tax on households earning above $1 million annually.
"Do you know how many working families are chased out of New York City every day because they can't afford housing, they can't afford groceries, they can't afford groceries?" Warren asked Faber.
She later added that billionaires have repeatedly threatened to leave the city at various times. Real estate brokers have expressed doubt that wealthy New Yorkers like Gristedes magnate John Catsimatidis and hedge fund manager Bill Ackman will follow through on their threats, and state tax data has shown that recent shocks like the coronavirus pandemic and tax code changes have not pushed the rich away.
Data also backs up Mamdani's warnings that more and more families in New York are having an increasingly hard time affording life in the city, with Columbia University and the anti-poverty group Robin Hood reporting earlier this year that 1 in 4 New Yorkers can't afford essentials like housing and food.
"You want to have a workable city?" asked Warren. "You want to have a city that's vibrant, you want to have a city where the streets are full, where there are things for sale 24 hours a day, then you need people who can live here and work here."
Warren's comments preceded her appearance with Mamdani, currently a state assemblymember who represents parts of Queens, at the headquarters of District Council 37, the city's largest public employees union, where they spoke about childcare challenges for families in New York. Parents in the city pay nearly $3,000 per month on average for full-time childcare, and more for an infant.
"We know that it is our responsibility to move beyond the broken politics of the past, of our city and our state, and start to offer an alternative across this country to what it could look like to be a people that fight for the families that raise us," said Mamdani at the event.
The progressive candidate has pledged to make childcare free for all New York City families with children aged 6 weeks to 5 years.
Warren said at the event that following Mamdani's surprise victory against former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary in June, the city "is the place to start the conversation for Democrats on how affordability is the central issue, the central reason to be a Democrat, and that delivering on it in meaningful, tangible ways that will touch working families is why we're here."
The senator endorsed Mamdani days after his primary victory—a step that powerful establishment Democratic figures in the assemblyman's home state, such as U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, and Gov. Kathy Hochul—have yet to take.
"The way I see it, Zohran ran a campaign that inspired people, that actually got people on their feet," said Warren on Monday. "And the issue he focused on? Affordability."
Mamdani's primary success, said Warren, raises the question: "Why are billionaires and Wall Street CEOs pouring millions of dollars into a race to stop Zohran?"
In an article in Rolling Stone, the senator noted that Mayor Eric Adams—who is running as an independent and is currently in fourth place in general election polls, with just over 12% of the vote compared to Mamdani's 35%—"raised $1 million in a single night from donors with ties to big law firms, commercial brokerages, and big real estate developers who could lose their iron-fisted grip on New York in a Mamdani administration."
Ackman has also played Cuomo and Adams against each other, she wrote, holding "back-to-back meetings" so the candidates could "tap dance for the 'hundreds of millions of dollars' he has said he will spend" to defeat Mamdani.
"In a democracy, billionaires should not be able to buy our elections and control our politicians," wrote Warren. "Elected officials should work for their constituents, not use their government offices to hand out favors to a well-connected few."
Mamdani, she said in a video posted on social media, is "not afraid to take on the billionaires and the giant corporations to make New York more affordable."
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Tens of Thousands March Against 'Big Ugly Budget Bill' With Call to Put 'Families First'
"All across the country we showed that when our families stick together, we are powerful," one organizer said.
Jul 27, 2025
Tens of thousands of people in more than 225 towns and cities across the U.S. came out on Saturday as part of the Families First National Day of Action to protest Trump administration and Republican policies that defund the safety net while funneling unprecedented amounts of cash toward immigration enforcement.
The day of action came around three weeks after the U.S. House passed and President Donald Trump signed a budget bill that would strip 17 million of Americans of their health insurance and 2 million of their food aid while making Immigration and Customs Enforcement the highest-funded federal law enforcement agency in U.S. history.
"Yesterday marked the 35th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. And we are just days away from the 60th anniversary of Medicaid and Medicare at the end of this month. These policies represent a promise we made to each other: that no matter the ups and downs of life, our ability to take care of our families, from one generation to the next, should be supported," Ai-jen Poo, executive director of Caring Across Generations and president of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, told Common Dreams on Sunday.
"But a big ugly budget bill just passed," Poo continued, "that breaks that promise by making historic cuts to programs like Medicaid, Medicare, and SNAP, by using our tax dollars to stoke fear and rip families apart simply due to their immigration status. This is not what families want, and those who passed it must know that the vast majority of us want our tax dollars to go to healthcare and food, a safety net for families, supporting public funds for families, health, food, and the economic security for all of us, not billionaires."
"To show our power and resolve for a better future we came out in the thousands all across the country."
Families First is a coalition made up of over 75 organizations including Caring Across Generations, National Domestic Workers Alliance, MoveOn, Community Change Action, MomsRising, Planned Parenthood, People's Action Institute, Family Values @ Work, Families Over Billionaires, Fair Share America, Working Families Power, and labor unions like the Service Employees International Union (SEIU); American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees; American Federation of Teachers; and the National Education Association.
"To show our power and resolve for a better future we came out in the thousands all across the country, hosting over 225 events where we peacefully protested, to show the intergenerational face of those of us prepared to hold the ones who passed this bill accountable every day, and to take action. From spelling out the word 'familia' on the beach in California, taking a Medicaid Motorcade through the state of Indiana, to a rally in D.C. on the National Mall at the seat of power," Poo said.
Here are some highlights from Saturday's day of action.
Washington, D.C.
On the National Mall across from the U.S. Capitol building, organizers capped a 60-hour vigil opposing Medicaid cuts with a rally at 12:00 pm ET.
Jennifer Wells, the director of economic justice at Community Change, spoke at the rally on the important role that Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) played in her life.
"I'm here both as an advocate and organizer and as someone who has lived the realities we're fighting to change, as a person who has been directly shaped by the programs that are currently under attack," Wells said. "I was a Medicaid kid, I was a SNAP kid. These programs kept me and my mom and my brother healthy, alive, and moving forward when we had nothing to fall back on."
Newark, New Jersey
Families gathered in Newark's Military Park to protest the budget cuts.
"Congress is helping the rich get richer while cutting healthcare, education, and support for working families," New Jersey Citizen Action wrote on social media. "We're making sure everyone knows who's responsible. We're fighting for a country where every child is cared for, no one goes hungry, and we all have access to the healthcare we need to live."
Rural Indiana
The Indiana Rural Summit planned a "Motorcade for Medicaid" to drive by rural hospitals across the state.
"We're using the event as a touchpoint to demonstrate the importance and value of local hospitals that are at risk of closing because they have historically relied on Medicaid for financial viability," organizer Michelle Higgs told The Republic. "We want to amplify the voices of those who are impacted, whether they're disabled, have a chronic illness, or are elderly."
Labor on the March
Union members took to the streets from Miami, Florida to Seattle, Washington.
SEIU members marched in cities including Tampa; Orlando; Miami; Washington, D.C.; Allentown, Pennsylvania; New York City, Boston; and Las Vegas. Meanwhile, hundreds of union workers protested in downtown Seattle.
In Connecticut, SEIU members marched to the Brennan Rogers Magnet School, which closed due to a state funding shortfall.
"Cleaners, healthcare workers, construction workers, we are the ones that make this country run and we ask for no special privileges in return. but we are under attack," Ciro Gutierrez, a 32BJSEIU Connecticut commercial member, said.
Reflecting on the day of action, Poo concluded: "All across the country we showed that when our families stick together, we are powerful. When we share our stories, we break through. When we stand side by side—from small towns to big cities—we can't be ignored. And we won't be divided."
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Economic Anxiety of Americans Surges Under Trump: Poll
"The president promised to lower costs on day one, and by that standard, he's broken that promise and has made choices that will cost families thousands of dollars a year," said one policy expert recently.
May 12, 2025
The Trump administration has made its desire for Americans to expand their families well known, but a new survey out Monday details how a growing number of people are postponing such major life decisions—including having children, buying a home, or expanding their education—due to the economic anxiety created by President Donald Trump's policies.
The Harris poll was conducted on behalf of The Guardian between April 24-26, in the wake of the news that the White House was considering multiple ways to encourage people to have more children. The proposals being floated by "pronatalist" advisers include a $5,000 "baby bonus" that the administration would offer to people when they have a new baby—which would cover less than half of the average annual cost of childcare in the United States.
The survey suggested that the proposal was not enticing to would-be parents in the U.S., with 65% of people who had previously planned to have a child in 2025 reporting they were now holding off on the decision. Thirty-three percent said they were not comfortable expanding their families in the current economy, and 32% said they were unable to afford having a child.
Trump has imposed and rolled back various tariffs several times since taking office; the White House announced Monday that reciprocal tariffs with China were being paused for 90 days while the two countries try to work out a trade deal. Tariffs on Canadian and Mexican goods are partially in effect, and the administration has also imposed tariffs on aluminum and steel imports, cars, and car parts.
The U.S. economy contracted in the first quarter, with the gross domestic produce declining at an annual rate of 0.3% after having climbed by 2.4% in the final quarter of 2024.
For Americans, the tariffs have meant higher prices for items like toys, children's clothes, household tools, and washing machines.
As Common Dreams reported last week, despite Trump's proposal of a "baby bonus," Groundwork Collaborative executive director Lindsay Owens has termed the tariffs a "baby tax"—directly causing essentials like strollers, high chairs, and cribs to cost more.
"The president promised to lower costs on day one, and by that standard, he's broken that promise and has made choices that will cost families thousands of dollars a year," said Groundwork Collaborative fellow Michael Negron told a U.S. House committee last week.
Nearly 80% of people surveyed said they've experienced higher grocery prices since Trump took office—despite the fact that he explicitly promised his presidency would swiftly bring about a lower cost of living—and 60% said they noticed their monthly bills going up.
The Harris poll found that 66% of people are now putting off making large purchases like cars or home appliances under Trump's economy, and three-quarters of those who had previously been hoping to buy a home are postponing that purchase.
Mortgage rates are currently 6.7%—more than double what they were four years ago.
CNN reported last month that although interest rates on home loans have been falling, "President Donald Trump's scattered approach to tariffs and an escalating trade war with China has injected volatility into the stock market, and resulted in a sell-off in U.S. bonds last week."
Sixty-eight percent of Millennial and Gen Z renters—those in their 20s, 30s, and early 40s—said they had a goal of buying a home, compared to 29% of older renters, suggesting that the major life decisions of younger Americans are being most affected by the Trump administration.
The Harris poll also asked respondents if they believed the economy is worsening, and found a partisan divide: 33% of Republicans said yes compared to 73% of Democratic voters who agreed.
But among Independents—44% of whom supported Trump in the 2024 election, according to a post-election survey—64% agreed with the majority of Democrats about the economy's trajectory.
Nearly a third of respondents said they believe Trump's tariffs will cause the most harm to their household finances, despite the president's claims that the tariffs will "make America wealthy again."
During his testimony last week, Negron said that higher prices on essential goods and services "are the types of things that you would expect to hear when you look at what experts have said, that [tariffs are] going cost anywhere from $4,500 to $5,000 more for the average household once they're fully in effect."
"When you look at the promises to lower prices," he said, "the administration is not living up to them."
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The DOGE Attack on the IRS Is an Attack on Economic Justice and Equality
Because the IRS brings in the revenue that funds the rest of the government, Musk’s gang is striking at the heart of the federal government’s ability to fund the needs of the American people.
Apr 15, 2025
Today is Tax Day, and the brazen attack of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency against the federal government looms large over the Internal Revenue Service. The recent announcement that reductions in force are commencing at the IRS spells danger for taxpayer services, essential government workers, and the heart of our voluntary tax system.
As the president of the union representing IRS employees and the executive director of the largest tax fairness coalition, we each bring a different perspective to this unfolding catastrophe. But we share the same strong objection to DOGE’s drastic, ill-conceived and likely illegal attack on the nation’s tax collection agency.
The immediate victims of the DOGE attacks on the agency are the laid-off employees and those threatened with firing. Though Musk and President Donald Trump present their haphazard crusade as one waged against elites in the nation’s capital, the reality is that about 85% of federal employees work outside the Washington, D.C., area. As a result, neighbors across the country will lose their jobs, and communities everywhere will feel the economic impact of lost IRS positions and facilities.
If Musk tries to cut $10 billion from IRS enforcement spending, he will be risking $50-90 billion in lost revenue each year. That’s a strange strategy for someone who claims he wants to make the government more cost-efficient.
IRS employees are disproportionately female and members of racial or ethnic minorities, groups that have historically faced discrimination in hiring and advancement. Nearly 10% of IRS workers are military veterans. The National Treasury Employees Union is currently in court fighting these improper layoffs.
Next, taxpayers filing their annual returns and expecting prompt refunds will feel the impact. The reduction in IRS employees means fewer answered calls, longer wait times for help, and delayed refunds. The administration’s plan to shut over 100 taxpayer assistance centers across the country will leave most Americans unable to get in-person help with their tax issues.
As damaging as the cuts are to every federal agency, cuts to the IRS are different in one important respect: They could cost us a fortune in lost revenue.
Roughly 70% of the personnel cuts thus far have been in enforcement, which will make it easier to avoid detection for the millionaire and billionaire tax cheats who evade an estimated $150 billion in taxes every year. It is estimated that every dollar cut from enforcement costs $5 to $9 in revenue. So if Musk tries to cut $10 billion from IRS enforcement spending, he will be risking $50-90 billion in lost revenue each year. That’s a strange strategy for someone who claims he wants to make the government more cost-efficient.
However, it’s really not surprising that Musk, the richest individual in the world, is focusing on diminishing the agency’s ability to enforce the law. That’s what his allies in Congress have been trying to do ever since the agency received restored funding in 2022’s Inflation Reduction Act. That increased enforcement has focused exclusively on wealthy households and big corporations. Musk has a vested interest in hobbling IRS efforts to ensure the rich and big corporations pay what they owe.
The Inflation Reduction Act’s restored funding for the IRS yielded successes. As of last summer, the agency had collected over $1 billion just from 1,600 millionaires who owed but had failed to pay at least $250,000 each. It also informed Microsoft that it owed $29 billion in back taxes and had plans to increase audits on big companies (those worth more than $250 million), large partnerships (those with over $10 million in assets), and individuals with income over $10 million.
The Musk axe might also fall on the IRS Direct File program, the new system allowing taxpayers in about half the country to file for free directly with the government, bypassing expensive tax preparation firms. (The program is still in the pilot stage and will eventually be available to all taxpayers.) Musk announced recently he “deleted” the technical support department that helped create Direct File, but as of now the service itself is still operational. We don’t know how long that will last with Musk’s operatives roaming the halls of the IRS.
The restored funding for the IRS also helped it improve customer service. The average wait time on calls to the agency had dropped from 30 minutes to 3; over 50 in-person taxpayer assistance centers had been opened before the mass closures, and backlogs of unprocessed returns dropped.
All of this is at risk, of course, as DOGE prepares a “hackathon” that would allow our national tax data to be easily accessible to third parties. Compromising the tax data of millions of Americans in conjunction with efforts to stall attempts to modernize our tax system portend nothing less than disaster for the services we depend on.
Because the IRS brings in the revenue that funds the rest of the government, Musk’s gang is striking at the heart of the federal government’s ability to fund healthcare for seniors, nutrition for children, and other needs of the American people. The DOGE attack on the IRS is also an attack on economic justice and equality. Taxes on ultra-high income and extreme wealth help to narrow the nation’s destabilizing economic gaps. It’s hard not to conclude that those very injuries—not “waste, fraud and abuse”—are the real aim of DOGE’s wayward campaign.
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