{
  "title": "How to Make America More Equal",
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  "summary": "A leading progressive economist proposes steps to transform the US economy at this critical juncture, writes Washington Center for Equitable Growth’s Heather Boushey.",
  "sections": [
    {
      "heading": "Overview",
      "content": "- Author: HEATHER BOUSHEY; F&D Magazine; December 2020.\n- Thesis: The COVID-19 pandemic exposes and amplifies longstanding economic and racial inequalities in the United States; transformative public policy is required to build a healthier, more resilient economy that delivers strong, stable, and broad-based growth."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Major causes of US inequality identified",
      "content": "- Markets and ideology\n  - Beginning in the 1980s, the rise of an ideology favoring \"unfettered markets\" shifted economic risk away from corporations and the wealthy toward medium- and low-income families.\n- Tax policy and public investment\n  - The 2017 tax cut is cited as a recent manifestation of a long-running tax-cutting philosophy that has reduced resources for public functions.\n  - Public investment as a share of GDP \"has fallen to its lowest level since 1947.\"\n- Eroding worker power\n  - Anti-union court and administrative rulings and \"right-to-work\" laws in 27 states have weakened workers' bargaining power, contributing to wage stagnation and reduced workplace safety.\n- Economic concentration\n  - Weaker antitrust enforcement has allowed industry concentration, enabling large firms to set prices, suppress wages, eliminate competitors, and possibly dampen investment; small businesses face survival risks.\n- Measurement issues\n  - As inequality rose close to its 1920 levels, GDP growth increasingly reflects gains to the top 10 percent of earners rather than the majority.\n- Racism and sexism\n  - \"The median earnings for a Black household are 59 percent of those of a White household.\"\n  - \"A median woman earns 81 cents for every dollar earned by a man.\"\n  - Job segregation places many women and minorities in essential jobs that lack benefits such as paid sick time or employer-provided health insurance."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Impacts of COVID-19 and the nature of the recovery",
      "content": "- The pandemic \"is shining an unforgiving spotlight\" on pervasive inequalities and increases the risk that future shocks will again produce large-scale job losses and lasting economic scars.\n- Characterization of the recovery: not U- or V-shaped but a \"sideways Y\" — a split recovery where those connected to the stock market or able to remain employed benefit, while others \"face perhaps years of struggle.\"\n- As of \"March 2020,\" working- and middle-class families had \"barely recovered\" lost wealth from the Great Recession; the top 1 percent had regained losses by 2012."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Policy recommendations and interventions",
      "content": "- Immediate priority: \"Eradicate COVID-19\" as the first public-health and economic priority.\n- Major public investments required in:\n  - Health system reform to reduce insufficient care.\n  - Education reform to prevent the preservation of inequality.\n  - Policies to provide basic economic stability for most families.\n  - Climate change mitigation and adaptation.\n- Funding approach:\n  - Implement \"significant tax increases, primarily or entirely on the wealthy\" to fund long-term solutions.\n  - Tax \"the enormous wealth concentrated at the top that is being saved, or kept overseas\" and direct proceeds to urgent investments.\n- Corporate and financial conditions for pandemic aid:\n  - Ensure federal aid does not disproportionately benefit large businesses over small businesses.\n  - Bar corporations receiving aid from issuing dividends and carrying out stock buybacks.\n  - Require banks to suspend capital distributions during the crisis to support lending to the real economy.\n- Competition and antitrust:\n  - Strengthen US antitrust enforcement and bolster antitrust laws, especially for merger and exclusionary conduct rules.\n  - Consider creating a digital regulatory authority to enforce privacy laws and enhance competition in digital markets.\n- Measurement and data:\n  - Disaggregate income at all levels to understand who benefits from recovery policies and what further actions are needed, given that overall GDP masks distributional outcomes.\n- Race-specific and equity-directed use of revenues:\n  - Use proceeds from wealth taxation to fund investments that \"benefit the majority of the nonwealthy,\" specifically targeting COVID-19 testing and treatment in communities of color, policies that progressively support low-wage and care workers, and engagement with minority-owned small businesses.\n- Gender-focused policies:\n  - Enact a national paid family and medical leave policy and a national program for quality, affordable childcare and prekindergarten education to address a significant cause of the gender earnings gap."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Measurement and accountability",
      "content": "- GDP is insufficient as a sole recovery indicator because it mainly reflects how the better-off are doing; policymakers should use disaggregated income measures to assess recovery progress across groups."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Race, gender, and equity framing",
      "content": "- Economic inequality is \"firmly tied to the issue of racial inequality.\"\n- The Black Lives Matter movement underscores distrust that government will act on behalf of Americans of color; government must enable \"low-income Black, Latinx, and Native American people\" to develop and deploy skills and talents in the economy.\n- Wealth taxation must be paired with progressive, targeted spending to avoid entrenching pervasive inequities.\n- Lack of paid leave and affordable childcare disproportionately forces women to put careers on hold, contributing to the gender earnings gap."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Political context and outlook",
      "content": "- Shifts in public conversation driven by COVID-19, the recession, the Black Lives Matter movement, and the recent presidential election have moved previously marginal policy ideas closer to the center of debate.\n- Barriers: deep partisanship and institutional features that make enacting transformative policies difficult.\n- Tone: Optimistic — possibility of an inflection point if proponents of progressive policies effectively develop and advocate reforms to reduce inequality and promote broad-based growth.\n\nSource: How to Make America More Equal — F&D Magazine, HEATHER BOUSHEY, December 2020.\n\n---\n\n Content in this bundle\n\n- وجهة نظر\n  - وجهة نظر (Markdown version){rel=\"alternate\" type=\"text/markdown\"}\n  - وجهة نظر (PDF){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}\n- Cómo hacer de Estados Unidos un país más igualitario ● Finanzas y Desarrollo ● Diciembre de 2020\n  - Cómo hacer de Estados Unidos un país más igualitario ● Finanzas y Desarrollo ● Diciembre de 2020 (Markdown version){rel=\"alternate\" type=\"text/markdown\"}\n  - Cómo hacer de Estados Unidos un país más igualitario ● Finanzas y Desarrollo ● Diciembre de 2020 (PDF){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}\n- Pour une Amérique plus égalitaire\n  - Pour une Amérique plus égalitaire (Markdown version){rel=\"alternate\" type=\"text/markdown\"}\n  - Pour une Amérique plus égalitaire (PDF){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}\n- How to Make America More Equal – IMF F&D\n  - How to Make America More Equal – IMF F&D (Markdown version){rel=\"alternate\" type=\"text/markdown\"}\n  - How to Make America More Equal – IMF F&D (PDF){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}\n- Как сделать Америку более равноправной – Финансы и развитие – декабрь 2020 года\n  - Как сделать Америку более равноправной – Финансы и развитие – декабрь 2020 года (Markdown version){rel=\"alternate\" type=\"text/markdown\"}\n  - Как сделать Америку более равноправной – Финансы и развитие – декабрь 2020 года (PDF){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}\n- 如何创建更平等的美国社会 - 金融与发展 - 国际货币基金组织季刊\n  - 如何创建更平等的美国社会 - 金融与发展 - 国际货币基金组织季刊 (Markdown version){rel=\"alternate\" type=\"text/markdown\"}\n  - 如何创建更平等的美国社会 - 金融与发展 - 国际货币基金组织季刊 (PDF){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}\n\n---\n\nSource: https://www.imf.org/en/publications/fandd/issues/2020/12/how-to-make-america-more-equal-boushey"
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    "Authors: HEATHER BOUSHEY",
    "Published: December 1, 2020",
    "Author: HEATHER BOUSHEY; F&D Magazine; December 2020.",
    "Thesis: The COVID-19 pandemic exposes and amplifies longstanding economic and racial inequalities in the United States; transformative public policy is required to build a healthier, more resilient economy that delivers strong, stable, and broad-based growth.",
    "Markets and ideology",
    "Tax policy and public investment",
    "Eroding worker power",
    "Economic concentration",
    "Measurement issues",
    "Racism and sexism",
    "The pandemic \"is shining an unforgiving spotlight\" on pervasive inequalities and increases the risk that future shocks will again produce large-scale job losses and lasting economic scars.",
    "Characterization of the recovery: not U- or V-shaped but a \"sideways Y\" — a split recovery where those connected to the stock market or able to remain employed benefit, while others \"face perhaps years of struggle.\"",
    "As of \"March 2020,\" working- and middle-class families had \"barely recovered\" lost wealth from the Great Recession; the top 1 percent had regained losses by 2012.",
    "Immediate priority: \"Eradicate COVID-19\" as the first public-health and economic priority.",
    "Major public investments required in:",
    "Funding approach:",
    "Corporate and financial conditions for pandemic aid:",
    "Competition and antitrust:",
    "Measurement and data:",
    "Race-specific and equity-directed use of revenues:",
    "Gender-focused policies:",
    "GDP is insufficient as a sole recovery indicator because it mainly reflects how the better-off are doing; policymakers should use disaggregated income measures to assess recovery progress across groups.",
    "Economic inequality is \"firmly tied to the issue of racial inequality.\"",
    "The Black Lives Matter movement underscores distrust that government will act on behalf of Americans of color; government must enable \"low-income Black, Latinx, and Native American people\" to develop and deploy skills and talents in the economy.",
    "Wealth taxation must be paired with progressive, targeted spending to avoid entrenching pervasive inequities.",
    "Lack of paid leave and affordable childcare disproportionately forces women to put careers on hold, contributing to the gender earnings gap.",
    "Shifts in public conversation driven by COVID-19, the recession, the Black Lives Matter movement, and the recent presidential election have moved previously marginal policy ideas closer to the center of debate.",
    "Barriers: deep partisanship and institutional features that make enacting transformative policies difficult.",
    "Tone: Optimistic — possibility of an inflection point if proponents of progressive policies effectively develop and advocate reforms to reduce inequality and promote broad-based growth.",
    "**وجهة نظر**",
    "**Cómo hacer de Estados Unidos un país más igualitario ● Finanzas y Desarrollo ● Diciembre de 2020**",
    "**Pour une Amérique plus égalitaire**",
    "**How to Make America More Equal – IMF F&D**",
    "**Как сделать Америку более равноправной – Финансы и развитие – декабрь 2020 года**",
    "**如何创建更平等的美国社会 - 金融与发展 - 国际货币基金组织季刊**"
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