Update: Dec. 13, 4:05 p.m.: Douglas Lape has been added as a guest to the panel. We want to hear from you If you would like to receive details about the event or submit a question, click here. A Center for Public Integrity investigation revealed that U.S. Postal Service workers across the country have been cheated […]
Posted inCheated at Work
Llegó la época de compras navideñas, ¿se les pagará a los carteros por todo su trabajo?
Un cartero de 43 años de la zona rural de Texas les tiene pavor a las próximas dos semanas. No porque sea la época del año de mayor actividad para el Servicio Postal de Estados Unidos, sino porque le preocupa no cobrar todas las horas extra que va a trabajar. Ha estado laborando unas 12 […]
Posted inCheated at Work
The holiday rush is here. Will mail carriers get paid for all their work?
A 43-year-old mailman in rural Texas is dreading the next two weeks. Not because it’s the busiest time of year for the U.S. Postal Service, but because he worries he won’t get paid for all the extra hours he will be working. He’s been clocking about 12 hours of overtime each week since the start […]
Posted inWatchdog newsletter
Challenges to the Voting Rights Act far from over
When the U.S. Supreme Court decided an important voting rights case earlier this year, its ruling made it more difficult for voters to challenge restrictive state voting laws. Now, the state of Texas is making an argument that, if adopted, would further hobble use of what remains of the Voting Rights Act. In a brief […]
Posted inCoronavirus and Inequality
Six lessons from the Paycheck Protection Program
As a key pandemic-aid program pushed money out faster to bigger companies and majority white areas than to small firms and communities of color, the U.S. Small Business Administration made repeated changes to try to make it more equitable. Some worked. Some didn’t. Now that the Paycheck Protection Program is almost entirely in the rearview […]
Posted inHousing in Crisis
HUD got $9 billion to combat COVID-19 impacts. Only a quarter has been spent.
Tucked in the massive pandemic relief act in March 2020 was about $9 billion for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to divvy up between cities and states for housing-related coronavirus fallout. The funds could be used on rental assistance for tenants struggling to pay their landlords, housing homeless people in safe, sanitary […]
Posted inCheated at Work
Chart: Clothing factories have a wage theft problem
Wage theft is pervasive in the U.S. In 2019 alone, the Department of Labor cited about 8,500 employers for stealing $287 million from workers. This long-standing practice affects companies large and small and in every industry. Even the venerable USPS is a major offender. Immigrants are among the workers most vulnerable to wage theft. A […]
Posted inInequality
Carol Anderson: The Second Amendment is anti-Black
The constitutional right to a well regulated militia and to keep and bear arms does not apply equally to Black and white Americans — just as intended. Carol Anderson lays out the evidence in her book, The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America. “The Second Amendment was really a bribe to the […]
Posted inCriminalizing kids
Students wanted police out of schools. The replacements have guns.
In June 2020, amid protests over the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police, school districts across the nation began to reexamine their relationships with law enforcement agencies. Denver was among the districts that ended contracts with police and pulled school resource officers off its campuses. Padres & Jôvenes Unidos, a Denver-based […]
Posted inCoronavirus and Inequality
The evidence is piling up that pregnant people should get vaccinated
There’s a long list of things pregnant people are taught to avoid: soft cheeses, cat feces, sushi. So perhaps it’s no surprise so many expectant mothers are wary of a new vaccine: Only 34% of pregnant women are vaccinated against COVID-19, according to estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, even as nearly […]