Corporate America Steps Up for Maine’s Right-Wing Gov. Paul LePage
Although Maine’s governor, Paul LePage, has been referred to as “America’s Craziest Governor,” he won his re-election last week –...
Author: onepercenttakers
‘Poster Boy for Malevolent Big Business’ Indicted Over Fatal Coal Mine Disaster
Don Blankenship, the former CEO of coal giant Massey Energy, faces up to 31 years in prison after a federal...
Walmart’s Inhumane Policies for Pregnant Workers
In February, Bene’t Holmes asked her manager at a Chicago Walmart to put her on lighter duty. She was four...
Obama should devote final years to changing economic conversation
Presidents are rarely able to accomplish much in the last two years of a second term. Tuesday’s election results guaranteed...
The Peasants Still Have Their Pitchforks
What can we expect Congress to do about America’s staggeringly top-heavy concentration of income and wealth over the next two...
Sanders Calls for Voting Holiday to ‘Fix’ Failed Democracy
Responding to the “disgraceful” voter turnout for last week’s midterm election—just 36.6 percent—Senator Bernie Sanders (Vt.) argued on Monday that...
San Francisco Raises Its Minimum Wage to $15 an Hour
The Democrats were brutalized at the polls Tuesday, but progressives can at least take some consolation in some notable strides...
Richmond: The little town that beat big oil
“The Chevrons of the world, the Koch Brothers and the others … their religion is greed … we cannot allow...
A Bright Spot in Tuesday’s Bloodbath: Massachusetts Voters Passed a Strong Paid Sick Leave Bill
On Tuesday night, Massachusetts became the first state to give workers 40 hours of sick leave a year. California and...
US Corporations Top List of Those Living in ‘Magical Fairyland’ of Tax-Dodging
More than 300 global corporations and financial institutions—including well-known names like Pepsi Co., FedEx, JP Morgan Chase, and Amazon—have created...
Minimum Wage Measures Pass Overwhelmingly, Even in Red States
Measures aimed at raising the minimum wage passed overwhelmingly in the five states where they appeared on Tuesday’s ballot. The...
Republicans Smear Mary Burke, Sneer at Minimum Wage
Silly season is almost over. But in these waning days before the November 4 election, Republicans are getting in their...
Bernie Sanders: The Real News Story They Won’t Discuss Is, Why Are People Working Longer Hours For Less Pay?
From the transcript at Moyers & Co., where Bernie Sanders makes his usual incisive points: BILL MOYERS: Well, that’s interesting....
Denmark’s McDonald’s Workers Aren’t Demanding $15 an Hour—Because They’re Already Making $20
Imagine a world where fast food workers can pay their rent and utility bills, plus buy their children food and...
South Dakota’s Minimum Wage Workers Are Eating At Soup Kitchens — But They Could Get A Raise Soon
SIOUX FALLS, SOUTH DAKOTA—In downtown Sioux Falls, The Banquet provides community members free warm meals six days a week. These...
Bernie Sanders: U.S. Headed Toward Becoming Third World Country
BURLINGTON, Vt. – U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said a new report that paychecks are shrinking and half of all...
With Election in a Dead Heat, Union-Busting Gov. Scott Walker Attacks the Unemployed
Gov. Scott Walker finds himself in a startling dead heat with Democratic candidate Mary Burke, business executive and former state...
Social Security Kept 27 Million Americans Out of Poverty in 2013
Government programs can effectively reduce poverty in the United States. Using the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM)—a more comprehensive measure of...
Scott Brown’s Big-Money Sellout
Name a major super-PAC or dark-money outfit and there’s a good chance it has helped Republican Scott Brown, the former...
Paul Krugman: Plutocrats Against Democracy
It’s always good when leaders tell the truth, especially if that wasn’t their intention. So we should be grateful to...
Why It’s Time to Update Overtime Pay Rules
Americans are working longer hours and are more productive—yet wages are largely flat. Indeed, the median worker saw a real...
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker Thinks $7.25 Is a Living Wage
Reasonable people may differ on the precise definition of a living wage. But the consensus is that $7.25 an hour...
Wall Street and Major Retailers Agree That Inequality is Killing Us. Why Don’t Republicans?
Income inequality is killing the economy. Retailers, bankers and Democrats agree on that. Really. It’s only Republicans who continue to...
Koch-affiliated money is pouring into Alaska like never before. Labor unions are going all out to fight back
Republicans’ most likely path to retaking the Senate in November requires GOPers to pick up seats in six key states:...
“The Show Must Go On”: Guitar Center Workers Push for First Contracts
Guitar Center store workers are fighting for fair wages and improved conditions at stores around the country. The company has...
Governor: I Don’t Know What The Minimum Wage Should Be Because ‘The Private Sector Decides Wages’
In a gubernatorial debate Tuesday night, Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) was asked whether he supports the concept of a...
Bernie Sanders: Purchase of Election by Chevron Shows We Have ‘Oligarchy, Not Democracy’
The Independent U.S. Senator from Vermont Bernie Sanders was in the city of Richmond, California on Thursday and said local...
Eighty percent of Americans want to hike wages, but powerful Republicans keep saying “no”
The first national campaigns of the Republican Party, more than 150 years ago, linked economic progress with democratic participation, urging...
The Walmart Way of Business: When Profits Go Up, Cut Health Care for 30,000 Employees
Walmart is a wildly successful company. Its “corporate fact sheet” online boasts that for “the fiscal year ended January 31,...
“More Money Than I Could Count”: Mitch McConnell’s Very Special Relationship With Lobbyists
There may be no Washington lawmaker cozier with K Street than Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). DC law firms...
$10.10 Minimum Wage Would Save The U.S. Government $7.6 Billion A Year
Raising the federal minimum wage would save the government billions and have sweeping benefits for low-income families, according to a...
Obama Scores Big Win Against Tax-Dodging Deals
LONDON, Oct 16 (Reuters) – U.S. drugmaker AbbVie has pulled the plug on its plan to buy Dublin-based Shire ,...
Key Inequality Measure The Highest Since The Great Depression
You know inequality is getting bad when it’s making a Swiss bank uncomfortable. The ratio of wealth to household income...
How corruption became America’s national pastime
What does “SWIMNUT” know that the world’s supposed experts on corruption or the elites who gather each year for skiing...
Report Documents Walmart Heirs’ Efforts to Destroy Rooftop Solar Revolution
The Walton family—who, as heirs to the Walmart fortune, have more wealth than 42 percent of American families combined—are impeding...
Rolling Stone Report Rocks Koch Industries
A recent Rolling Stone article documenting Koch Industries’ “lucrative blend of pollution, speculation, law-bending and self-righteousness” over the last few...
Rightwing Groups Try to Stamp Out Local Union Contracts
A rightwing legal group is suing the school district, school board, and teacher’s union in Madison, Wisconsin, for honoring a...
Wells Fargo Employee Calls Out CEO’s Pay, Requests Company-Wide Raise In Brave Email
When most employees want a raise, they schedule a meeting with their supervisor or reach out to human resources. A...
Iowa Senate Candidate Joni Ernst: An ALEC Shill?
The battle between Democratic congressman Bruce Braley and Republican state Sen. Joni Ernst to be Iowa’s next US senator couldn’t...
Report: Tipped subminimum wage leads to more sexual harassment
Laws that allow employers to pay tipped workers below the minimum wage lead to increased sexual harassment in the workplace,...
America’s Ridiculously Rich: the 2014 Edition
Imagine yourself part of the typical American family. Your household would have, the Federal Reserve reported last month, a net...
Income inequality’s sick joke: A rising tide only lifts luxury yachts
For a long time, the right has argued that we shouldn’t worry about inequality because the true concern is the...
Corporation Admits to Serious Wrongdoing But Individuals Aren’t Prosecuted. Why Not?
You know those pesky statements of facts in deferred prosecution agreements? Where the corporation agrees that it did all those...
For Oil and Gas Companies, Rigging Seems to Involve Wages, Too
A ProPublica review of U.S. Department of Labor investigations shows that oil and gas workers – men and women often...
The Supreme Court That Made It Easier to Buy Elections Just Made It Harder for People to Vote in Them
In case there was any remaining confusion with regard to the precise political intentions of the US Supreme Court’s activist...
Mitt Romney’s Latest Excuse for His 47 Percent Remarks Is a Doozy
Mitt Romney explains his 47 percent remark, Take 23. During a recent sit-down with the New York Times’ Mark Leibovich,...
