Roosevelt Rundown: Six Ways to Address Today’s Price Changes

Inflation 101

To understand why price changes are happening—and how to address them with policy—we have to dig deeper than headline inflation numbers.

 In a new issue brief, Roosevelt’s J.W. Mason and Lauren Melodia break it all down.

“. . . energy, automobiles, and a handful of industries directly affected by the pandemic account for all of the excess inflation this year . . . Higher interest rates and fiscal austerity will not address any of these problems,” they write.

“If inflation fears lead the Fed to raise rates aggressively or Congress to scale back or abandon the Build Back Better agenda, those policy decisions will turn today’s temporary disruptions into a permanently weaker economy with higher unemployment and greater racial and income inequality.” 

Read on for six tools policymakers can use instead in “Rethinking Inflation Policy: A Toolkit for Economic Recovery.”

A New Approach to Economic Governance

This week, the G7 Panel on Economic Resilience—on which Roosevelt President and CEO Felicia Wong represented the US—released its final report. 

The panel’s proposals offer a new approach to economic governance, recognizing the central role governments must play in shaping markets, raising labor standards, and making the collective investments necessary to address global challenges.

Last week’s historic global minimum tax agreement—a recommendation of the G7 panel—is a big step in that direction, as Wong said on Marketplace. 

It’s also a victory for democracy, writes Roosevelt’s Todd N. Tucker, and could “upend the Senate minority’s expansive veto powers.”

Learn more in “How the Global Minimum Tax Deal Could Bolster Democracy and Make Government Work Better.”

The Building Blocks of a Better Economy

As negotiations continue around President Biden’s Build Back Better agenda, the bottom line remains the same: We can’t afford not to invest in climate, education, and care.

For the blog, Roosevelt experts explain why private markets can’t or won’t address these urgent needs, and how these overdue public investments would promote equity and boost the economy.

• “We Need Build Back Better’s Climate Investments—for the Economy, Equity, and the Planet” by Rhiana Gunn-Wright and Kristina Karlsson
• “How Build Back Better’s Investments in Universal Pre-K and Community College Address Racial and Gender Inequities” by Trisha Maharaj and Joseph Miller
• “Build Back Better’s Care Investments Offer a New Way to Think about the Role of Government” by Steph Sterling

Up Next at the Four Freedoms Awards

“Democracy doesn’t belong to the politicians. It belongs to the people,” US Senator Raphael Warnock said at this week’s Four Freedoms Awards ceremony, the first of three in the coming weeks. 

Warnock, this year’s Freedom of Worship Medal recipient, was speaking with Community Change co-president Dorian Warren, who also interviewed Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, the recipient of the Freedom of Speech and Expression Medal during the virtual event which you can watch a recording of on our Facebook page.

And this Wednesday at 7pm, tune in for night two, when we’ll be honoring immigrant rights and economic justice advocate Deepak Bhargava and worker rights activists Sixta Leon Barrita, Rubiela Correa, Sonia Pérez Garcia, and Maria Isabel Sierra—all of whom will be interviewed by United We Dream’s Cristina Jimenez. 

What We’re Reading

Unemployment Isn’t a Good “Fix” for Inflation [feat. Roosevelt’s J.W. Mason and Lauren Melodia] – The Week

The Thorny Truth about Socially Responsible Investing [feat. Roosevelt’s Lenore Palladino] – Vox

Private Equity Funds, Sensing Profit in Tumult, Are Propping Up Oil – New York Times

Report: Corporations Are Tanking America’s Best Shot at Fighting Climate Change – Grist