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...
Author: onepercenttakers
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,...
New Orleans Union Membership Set to Double After Hotel and Casino Workers Win
The number of union members in New Orleans’s tourism industry is set to double. The hospitality and gaming union Unite...
Top Billionaire Campaign Donors Favor Republicans In 2014
WASHINGTON — The wealthiest Americans are playing a larger role in politics these days, thanks to campaign finance laws loosened...
Bill aims to stop coal companies from denying benefits to miners with black lung
Two coal-state senators plan to introduce sweeping legislation to reform the federal program meant to provide benefits to miners suffering...
Low-Wage Workers Confront Scott Walker, Accuse Wisconsin Of Breaking The Law
On Wednesday morning, Wisconsin Jobs Now, Wisconsin Working Families, and a group of low-wage workers in the state submitted 100...
A Conservative Disdain for the Unemployed
House Speaker John Boehner says that unemployed Americans are pretty clearly malingerers, bums on welfare who have decided that they...
CEOs Get Paid Too Much, According to Pretty Much Everyone in the World
Rumblings of discontent about executive wages, the 1 Percent, and wealth gaps know no borders. And neither does fierce debate...
The Biggest Robbers In America Are Employers
The amount of money employers had to pay because they were found guilty of wage theft is nearly three times...
Big Gains for the 1 Percent of the 1 Percent
We’ll be posting a new chart on the current state of income inequality every day for the next couple of...
Fast Food Franchise Owners Seek to Stop Campaign for Labor Rights
The fast food industry is hoping that a day of lobbying on Capitol Hill can blunt the momentum that fast...
5 Signs the Dark-Money Apocalypse Is Upon Us
It’s the home stretch of the 2014 election season. No single theme or issue has dominated the midterms, but 2014...
New Republican Bill Would Paralyze National Labor Relations Board
This week, Republican Senators introduced a bill they call the “The National Labor Relations Board Reform Act.” Its chances of...
Even in Palin Country, Raising the Minimum Wage Is Wildly Popular
For Democrats, 2014 was supposed to be the year of the minimum wage. President Obama used his State of the...
How the Koch Brothers and Other Right Wing Tycoons Are Ruining America
George Baer was a railroad and coal mining magnate at the turn of the twentieth century. Amid a violent and...
Robin Hood Tax rally to kick off People’s Climate March
Congressman Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) will join community, health, labor, student and environmental groups to kick start the People’s Climate March...
Casino Mogal Sheldon Adelson Spends $10 Million in an Attempt to Buy the 2014 Elections for Republicans
Las Vegas casino mogul Sheldon Adelson has donated $10 million to a Karl Rove-backed outfit boosting Republican Senate candidates and...
American Airlines, US Airways Workers Vote Overwhelmingly To Join Union
Thousands of service agents at American Airlines unionized with their new colleagues at U.S. Airways on Tuesday, making the most...
Why Are Employers Checking Job Applicants’ Credit Histories?
It’s the classic Catch-22 of the doomed job search: How do you get a job? You need experience. And how...
Shareholders Push for Full Disclosure of Publically Traded Companies’ Political Spending
If you own a share of a company, how much information about the company are you entitled to? That is...
An Epidemic of Wage Theft Is Costing Workers Hundreds of Millions of Dollars a Year
Millions of Americans struggle to get by on low wages, often without any benefits such as paid sick leave, a...
Arizona Is Becoming The Cayman Islands For Dark Money
Dark money groups have already poured more than $5 million into Arizona’s elections this cycle. These organizations, carefully constructed to...
Elizabeth Warren on Fighting Back Against Wall St. Giants
In Oklahoma, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and her brothers grew up in “an America that invested in kids like us...
Fight for 15 Gets into the Ring with Taco Bell
MADISON — The chant “come on out, we’ve got your back!” echoed through the air at Taco Bell as peaceful...
Paid Sick Days for Six Million Californians to Become Law
When Governor Jerry Brown signs Assembly Bill 1522, California will join a growing number of states where temporary or part-time...
Charles Koch Personally Founded a Group Protecting Oil Industry Handouts
“Lifestyles of the Rich Environmentalists,” produced by a group called the Institute for Energy Research, is a slick web video...
How Did New York Become the Most Unionized State in the Country?
With all the filthy lucre sloshing around on Wall Street, New York City may not strike you as a bastion...
McConnell Promises Billionaire Donors He Won’t Waste Time On ‘Gosh Darn’ Minimum Wage Increases
At a Koch Brothers-hosted secret strategy conference of right-wing millionaire and billionaire political activists in June, Senate Minority Leader Mitch...
Country’s Newest Law Guaranteeing Workers Paid Sick Days Passes Unanimously
The city council in Passaic, New Jersey unanimously passed an ordinance requiring paid sick leave on Tuesday night with a...
After 13 Years Of Fighting For Wall Street, Eric Cantor Will Make Millions At An Investment Bank
Former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), who resigned last month after losing renomination to an underfunded college professor, spent...
The True Story Of How One Man Shut Down American Commerce To Avoid Paying His Workers A Fair Wage
In 1894, Chicago was the Midwest’s gateway to the rest of the United States. Twenty-four different railroad lines centered or...
Koch Brothers’ Top Strategist: Minimum Wage Will Turn USA Into Nazi Germany
In a newly released audio recording, obtained by The Undercurrent, a man identified as a top Koch strategist warned that...
I’m making $21 an hour at McDonald’s. Why aren’t you?
I work for McDonald’s and I make $21 an hour. No, that isn’t a typo. It’s really my salary. You...
U.S. fast-food workers arrested in protests for wage hike
(Reuters) – U.S. fast-food workers staged protests in some 150 cities on Thursday in a fight for higher pay, and...
How U.S. Corporations Skip Out on Their Tax Bill
Reading companies’ annual reports to the Securities and Exchange Commission is a reliable cure for insomnia. Every so often, though,...
California Legislature Passes Bill to Protect Temp Workers
The California legislature has passed a bill that would hold companies legally responsible if the temp agencies and subcontractors they...
New Scorecard Grades CEO Pay Reform
The Institute for Policy Studies’ 2014 Executive Pay Reform Scorecard – part of the just-released latest edition of the IPS...
Some ALEC Funders Flee, but Koch, Big Tobacco, and PhRMA Remain Loyalists
At least 72 corporate funders have cut ties with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) in the wake of the...
Microsoft’s Staggering Tax Dodge Alone Would Fund the Entire State of Washington for Two Years
Reading companies’ annual reports to the Securities and Exchange Commission is a reliable cure for insomnia. Every so often, though,...
A Kentucky Objection to McConnell’s Pandering to Millionaires and Billionaires
When the political mercenaries of American oligarchy jet off to consort with their electoral paymasters, they never imagine that the...
Inequality: A Broad Middle Class Requires Empowering Workers
On Labor Day, families gather, politicians pay tribute to values of hard work, and some workers even get an extra...
Victory Declared as Supermarket Standoff Ends With Worker-Friendly CEO’s Return
Bringing to a close a summer-long supermarket standoff, a deal was reached late Wednesday to sell the majority stake of...
