Media clips
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Richard Rothstein speaks With Ta-Nehisi Coates About Forgotten History
Slate/Politics and Prose
On this episode of Live at Politics and Prose, Richard Rothstein discusses his new book, The Color of Law, with Ta-Nehisi Coates
Slate May 19, 2017 -
Lawrence Mishel is stepping down as president of the Economic Policy Institute. You may not have heard of him — or even of EPI — but it’s a bittersweet moment for leftist economics. Wherever the left edge of mainstream economics can be found in American politics, you will find EPI pushing the envelope. Support for a $15-an-hour minimum wage? Check. Compiling data to show that systemic injustice impoverishes minorities? Check. Arguing the economy’s output gap is far larger than most realize? Check. Rejecting the idea that inequality and a perpetual lack of good jobs is a fait accompli of automation? Check. Now, the entire team at EPI is invaluable, and you should be reading their all work. But the fact that EPI has become a bastion of the American left can’t be disentangled from Mishel’s leadership. As EPI vice president Ross Eisenbrey put it: “Before the Occupy Wall Street movement or the presidential campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders, there was Larry Mishel.”
The Week May 18, 2017 -
‘The Color Of Law’ Details How U.S. Housing Policies Created Segregation
NPR’s All Things Considered
NPR’s Ari Shapiro speaks with author Richard Rothstein about his new book, The Color of Law, which details how federal housing policies in the 1940s and ’50s mandated segregation and undermined the ability of black families to own homes and build wealth.
All Things Considered May 18, 2017 -
Delaware has nation’s lowest unemployment rate among African Americans
Delaware Public Media/James Morrison
The unemployment rate for African Americans in the First State was 5.8 percent in the first quarter of the year, while neighboring Pennsylvania had the nation’s highest rate at 11 percent. Janelle Jones prepared the report for the Economic Policy Institute. She said there’s probably a number of reasons why the unemployment rate is drastically different between Pennsylvania and Delaware. One is that Delaware has less black people than Pennsylvania. Another is that Pennsylvania’s large manufacturing industry has failed to recover from the recession, and a lot of African Americans were employed in these jobs. (whole story)
Delaware Public Media May 18, 2017 -
More than 14 percent of Ohioans live in poverty – a situation that new research suggests could be avoided for some if they weren’t being cheated out of pay. The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) examined reports of minimum-wage theft in the 10 most populous states, including Ohio. Among the states, the report found each year that 2.4 million workers are being paid less than minimum wage, amounting to more than $8 billion in lost wages annually. Report co-author David Cooper, a senior economic analyst with EPI, says nearly 1 in 5 of these workers live in poverty.
Public News Service May 18, 2017 -
America is still segregated. We need to be honest about why
The Guardian/Richard Rothstein
The Guardian May 17, 2017 -
The Washington Post/Jared Bernstein
I just finished Richard Rothstein’s masterful new book, “The Color of Law,” on the history of explicit racial residential segregation in America, the vestiges of which remain crystal clear today. Then there’s this quick, powerful interview with Heather Ann Thompson on racial inequity and violence in the criminal justice system. (Rothstein cited throughout)
The Washington Post May 17, 2017 -
In fact, 2016 federal data showed that poor, black and Hispanic children are becoming increasingly isolated from white, affluent children in America’s public schools. Given that, how should Brown v. Board be evaluated? Given persistent school segregation, was it a failure? This post addresses that question. It was written by Richard Rothstein, a research associate at the Economic Policy Institute, a non-profit created in 1986 to broaden the discussion about economic policy to include the interests of low- and middle-income workers. He is also a fellow at the Thurgood Marshall Institute of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and he is the author of books including “Grading Education: Getting Accountability Right, and “Class and Schools: Using Social, Economic and Educational Reform to Close the Black-White Achievement Gap.” His newest book, published this month, is “The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America.” He was a national education writer for The New York Times as well. (Rothstein column featured)
The Washington Post May 17, 2017 -
How the Labor Department Could Lift Many in U.S. Out of Poverty
Next City/Oscar Perry Abello
The U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD) is charged with investigating cases of wage theft and bringing those cases to court, winning judgments and collecting back wages owed to workers. In FY2016, WHD collected more than $266 million in wages stolen from workers, on par with each of the five previous years. That’s around $730,000 a day in stolen wages recovered. But that is just barely the tip of the iceberg. In the 10 most populous U.S. states, 2.4 million workers lose $8 billion annually to minimum wage violations, nearly a quarter of their earned wages, according to a new report from the Economic Policy Institute. The report says this form of wage theft affects 17 percent of low-wage workers. The majority of workers with reported wages below the minimum wage are over 25 years old and are native-born U.S. citizens, nearly half are white, more than a quarter have children and just over half work full time. (whole story)
Next City May 17, 2017 -
Every year, U.S. workers lose out on billions in pay
CBS Moneywatch/Irina Ivanova
For some workers, it means getting paid $20 for an entire day washing cars. For others, it means being paid to perform at a football game after attending mandatory rehearsals for no money. Sometimes, it’s being hired to file papers, answer phones, make copies and run errands — as an unpaid intern. Or a waitress being required to give part of her tips to a restaurant’s manager. Labor advocates call these practices “wage theft,” and they hit millions of workers every year. In 2015, businesses underpaid workers by as much as $15 billion, the liberal-leanng Economic Policy Institute found in a recent report. By comparison, the total damage from property crime in the U.S. that year — larceny, burglary, car theft and arson — was $14.3 billion, according to FBI data. (whole story)
CBS Moneywatch May 16, 2017