A social wealth fund could narrow the gap between the rich and the poor
Tag: Inequality
A radical idea for reducing inequality deserves more attention
RECENT decades have not been particularly good ones for those who toil on, rather than own, the means of production. Labour markets have made a slow and incomplete recovery from the trauma of the Great Recession. The crisis only briefly dislodged corporate profits as a share of GDP from historically high levels. Across much of […]
The Country Where Happiness and Inequality Go Hand in Hand
The 2018 World Happiness Report named Costa Rica the happiest country in Latin America — not all that surprising when Costa Rica has for years topped global happiness rankings, alongside the usual Scandinavian suspects of Norway, Sweden and Denmark. And yet. In the capital city of San José, the average gross salary is a reasonable […]
As inequality grows, so does the political influence of the rich
SQUEEZING the top 1% ought to be the most natural thing in the world for politicians seeking to please the masses. Yet, with few exceptions, today’s populist insurgents are more concerned with immigration and sovereignty than with the top rate of income tax. This disconnect may be more than an oddity. It may be a […]
The Crown Producers Apologize for Claire Foy-Matt Smith Pay Inequality
Producers of Netflix’s The Crown are hoping for a royal pardon from their series’ stars. “We want to apologize to both Claire Foy and to Matt Smith, brilliant actors and friends, who have found themselves at the center of a media storm this week through no fault of their own,” Left Bank Pictures, which produces the period […]
Social Inequality Will Not Be Solved By an App
We need more intense attention on how artificial intelligence forestalls the ability to see what kinds of choices we are making. https://media.wired.com/photos/5a99f52945a4144663c548f3/master/pass/AlgorithmsandOppressionExcerpt.jpg
Heartland Tech Weekly: Tech’s growing obsession with income inequality
Last week, I wrote about Venture for America founder Andrew Yang’s unlikely run for president, with the aim of convincing the general public about the need for universal basic income. Whether or not one agrees that UBI is a necessity in today’s digital economy, the stories highlighted in this week’s Heartland Tech newsletter show that inequality is increasingly becoming […]
How Automation Could Worsen Racial Inequality
All across the world, small projects demonstrating driverless buses and shuttles are cropping up: Las Vegas, Minnesota, Austin, Bavaria, Henan Province in China, Victoria in Australia. City governments are studying their implementation, too, from Toronto to Orlando to Ohio. And last week, the Federal Transit Administration of the Department of Transportation issued a “request for […]
There’s a huge gender component to income inequality that we’re ignoring
Thomson Reuters There’s a major gender component to global inequality: most of the world’s extreme-poor are women, and most uber-wealthy individuals are men, a new Oxfam report shows. Around 82% of all wealth generated in the last year went to the top 1%. The richest 1% hold more wealth than the whole of the rest […]
The Brutal Math of Gender Inequality in Hollywood
The Golden Globe Awards on Sunday provided a useful snapshot of the limitations of the #MeToo movement. Viewers gazed into a monochromatic protest against the scourge of harassment, with uniformly black dresses and suits, “Time’s Up” pins, and often inspiring speeches about standing up to abusive power. But while host Seth Meyers filleted Hollywood’s most […]
