ELISE GOULD
Senior Economist, Economic Policy Institute
Today, the U.S. tax and transfer system—largely Social Security—lifts millions of people out of poverty. While this safety net should be strengthened, a well-functioning labor market cannot only lift people out of poverty, but also bolster their incomes enough so they are far less likely to fall into poverty in the first place. Pay for low and moderate-wage workers has nearly stagnated in recent decades as a vastly disproportionate share of overall income growth has concentrated at the very top. This has forced the safety net to work even harder to offset slow growing wages for most workers.
Prioritizing a strong labor market increases the likelihood that anyone who wants a job can get one with the hours that they need. A tight labor market gives employers less incentive to discriminate and more incentive to pay decent wages to attract and retain workers. Stronger labor standards and better enforcement—such as raising the minimum wage, reducing wage theft, and removing barriers to form unions and bargain collectively—are key ways to boost incomes, increase economic security, and reduce poverty.
ANASTASIA CHRISTMAN
Worker Power Program Director, National Employment Law Project
We need a real commitment to democratic participation in the workplace and at the ballot box.
Workers must be able to freely vote to join a union. Those who do earn 10 to 20 percent more than non-union workers in comparable jobs. Unionized workers are more likely to have employer-provided health care and workplace-funded child care. And the benefits are multigenerational. Even if their parents are not in a union, a child who grows up in a community with high union density has a greater chance for economic mobility.
Making change through a union is a real-world experience of collective decision-making and builds civic skills to participate at the ballot box. Unionized workers are better informed about political issues and help put working-class people in elected office. By contrast, states that limit the right to unionize depress votes in presidential elections by more than 2 percent.
JITU BROWN
National Director, Journey for Justice Alliance
According to the United Nations, America ranks twenty-first in education globally among high-income nations. When you remove poverty, the United States is number two. This tells me that America knows how to educate children, but refuses to educate the poor, the black, brown, and Native American.
We need a twenty-first century equity mandate for public education. This would stop school vouchers and charter expansion, fully fund both Title I for America’s neediest schools and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, and create 25,000 community schools by 2025.
The mandate will also end racist zero-tolerance policies that target black and brown children, in many cases suspending them five times as often as their white counterparts for the same incidents. We will replace these policies with restorative justice practices and student leadership development programs. Finally, we need a national equity assessment in partnership with communities and the government, with federal penalties for school districts that continue inequitable education practices.