The American worker is in crisis and faces a very uncertain future. The COVID-19 pandemic led to a deep recession and millions of layoffs.
Even before coronavirus— despite a decade of continuous economic growth— the percentage of Americans with jobs was well below normal levels. Many people had dropped out of the labor force, and gave up looking for work. For the first time in modern memory, life expectancy started to fall as substance abuse and obesity rates rose.
Our guest, conservative author Oren Cass, argues that we've abandoned the American worker, and pushed four-college at the expense of more effective solutions.
In his widely-praised book, "The Once and Future Worker", Oren argues that government policy should emphasize production, not consumption. His arguments were summarized in The Atlantic.
Read moreJoe Biden's selection of Kamala Harris to be his vice-presidential running mate is a reminder that the fall election season is about to start in earnest.
In this episode, we discuss solutions for America's voting crisis. People of all political persuasions have expressed concerns about holding an election in the COVID pandemic. President Trump made unsubstantiated claims about voter fraud. Many have protested the barriers faced by voters who find it difficult or nearly impossible to have their say in elections.
This podcast is produced with assistance from the Democracy Group podcast network. We feature groundbreaking interviews from "Democracy Works" podcast with elections expert, MIT political science professor, Charles Stewart, and former Obama speechwriter David Litt, who appeared recently on "Democracy Matters" podcast.
Read moreGerrymandering, the partisan process of redrawing political maps to favor one political party over the opposition, is often used unfairly to take power away from many voters.
Voters Not Politicians is a highly successful grassroots campaign against gerrymandering in Michigan that began with a simple Facebook post by its young founder, Katie Fahey. The group took on party bosses, won a ballot initiative, and changed state law. This episode discusses how this campaign could be a model for others.
In 2018, Michigan voters overwhelmingly approved a citizen-led ballot initiative to create an independent commission to draw up the state’s congressional and legislative maps. This week, a federal court threw out a second attempt by the state Republican Party to over-turn the result. Months from now a new state redistricting commission will be given the job of fairly drawing a legislative map.
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