Portside

The African American unemployment rate is at or below its pre-recession level in 11 states: Arkansas, California, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, and South Carolina. However, a return to pre-recession levels in these states is barely a recovery: in all of these states, black unemployment rates were above 8.0 percent before the recession.

BackersOfHate.org documents Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, Uber and more companies' ties to the Trump Administration and policies that negatively impact poor people of color.

Among the report’s key findings: 100 companies enjoyed at least one year in which their federal income tax was zero or less, 24 companies paid zero taxes in four out of eight years, 18 companies paid no federal income tax over the eight-year period, Collectively, the 258 corporations enjoyed $513 billion in tax breaks over the last eight years. More than half of those tax breaks, $277 billion, went to just 25 of the most profitable corporations.

Benchmarks to beat in order to claim policy-driven improvements to American wages and employment

Promises that a free lunch can be had by relying heavily on private investors for infrastructure should be viewed skeptically. Tax credits dangled to entice private financiers and developers to provide infrastructure provide no compelling efficiency gains and mostly just open up possibilities for corruption and crony capitalism.

Most political observers have a poor understanding of what motivates white working-class voters

Lobbyists for America’s grandest fortunes may want to raise their rates. Capitol Hill is getting a gadfly who can really sting.

A system based on the fair distribution of use values, decent work, and production and consumption levels that remain within nature’s biophysical limits cannot occur without the abandonment of a social order based on profit and accumulation.

On both sides of the Atlantic, citizens are seizing upon trade agreements as a source of their woes. While this is an over-simplification, it is understandable. Today's trade agreements are negotiated in secret, with corporate interests well represented, but ordinary citizens or workers completely shut out. Not surprisingly, the results have been one-sided: workers' bargaining position has been weakened further, compounding the effects of legislation undermining unions.