Our Economy, Our Government

Coming Soon: A True New Deal

On Monday, the Roosevelt Institute is releasing a new foundational report that, by leading with inclusion, makes the case for a 21st century New Deal. Similar to today, FDR’s America needed bold, inventive government action to stabilize the economy and build a more stable future. As we draw inspiration from the original New Deal—which offered a new framework for using government to shift power in our economy and society—we also heed its lessons and flaws. Today’s New Deal must be different, dismantling policy choices that reward and replicate white supremacy and patriarchy, reclaiming public power from private hands, and building institutions that ensure broadly shared prosperity. 

• More from Roosevelt: On Wednesday, we’re officially launching a new, forward-looking website to better align with our forward-thinking vision for the American economy and democracy. Visit www.rooseveltinstitute.org later next week to check it out.

What to Watch: #HiddenRules and Reparations Webinar

Yesterday, Duke University’s William “Sandy” Darity Jr. and Community Change President Dorian Warren joined Roosevelt President & CEO Felicia Wong for a special-edition webinar on the hidden rules of race and the role of reparations. “Wealth is crystalized history. What you have and don’t have is a reflection of what your parents and grandparents had or didn’t have—and that is a reflection of rules that cast very, very, very long shadows,” said Wong. “But it’s also a [reflection of a] set of choices: We can make choices to make different rules that can actually reverse some of that history.” Watch it now. 

Preparing for the Worst

Congress’s ad-hoc response to the COVID-19 crisis today and to the Great Recession of 2008 is “inefficient at best and malpractice at worst,” co-wrote Great Democracy Initiative (GDI) Fellow Lindsay Owens in a recent report. She’s on the latest episode of Pitchfork Economics discussing why we need to make structural changes to the economy that help everyone, not just the privileged few—and why we need to stop relying on crisis legislation that barely patches us through calamities. Listen here.

What We’re Reading

America’s Highest-Paying Jobs Have the Worst Black-White Salary Gaps [feat. Roosevelt’s Anne Price] – Quartz

The Coronavirus Pandemic Has Intensified Systemic Economic Racism Against Black Americans [feat. Darity and Roosevelt’s Darrick Hamilton] – The New Yorker 

Republicans Want to Punish Americans for Not Working—but It Doesn’t Make Economic Sense [by GDI’s Lindsay Owens] – Newsweek

Under Watch: Employer Health Monitoring in a Pandemic – Modern Consult

As Pandemic Rages, the United States Slashes an Economic Lifeline [feat. Roosevelt’s Mike Konczal] – Foreign Policy

How the Pandemic Defeated America – The Atlantic

Extra Unemployment Is Over. So Are Most Eviction Moratoriums. Here’s What Relief Could Be Coming Next [feat. Roosevelt’s Felicia Wong] – CNBC

How Has the Electoral College Survived for This Long? – New York Times

COVID-19 Puts Workers in Danger. It’s Another Reason We Need Unions – The Guardian