Ralph tackles the topic of income inequality from two angles. First, he talks to veteran labor journalist, Sam Pizzagati, about his book, “The Case for a Maximum Wage,” about a plan to link top wages to bottom wages. Then, Steven Shafarman returns to give us an update on the Universal Basic Income with his new book, “Our Future: The Basic Income Plan for Peace, Justice, Liberty, Democracy, and Personal Dignity.”
Sam Pizzigati is a veteran labor journalist and associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies. He co-edits Inequality.org, the Institute’s weekly newsletter. Mr. Pizzigati has authored a number of books on the subject of inequality, including his most recent, The Case for a Maximum Wage, which offers a path to ending what has become to be known as America’s second Gilded Age.
“The maximum ought to be tied to the minimum, so what we say is that income over a specific multiple of the minimum wage ought to be subject to a 100% top tax rate and if we made that linkage, if we link that 100% top tax rate to the minimum wage than the very richest and most powerful Americans would have a vested personal interest in raising the minimum wage and improving the well being of America’s poorest and most powerless people. And that’s the sort of society that I’d like to live in.”
Sam Pizzigati, author of “The Case for a Maximum Wage”
“Portland in the end of 2017 passed what Branko Milanovic, one of the top world’s economists studying inequality, calls ‘the world’s first inequality tax’ so corporations doing business in the city of Portland, Oregon and that includes all the big corporations in the United States, Microsoft on down. Those corporations must pay a surtax on their normal city business tax if the gap between their CEO and typical worker compensation goes over 100 to 1. So, if they pass that 100 to 1 barrier they pay a 10% surtax. In other words, their city business tax gets increased by 10%. If the gap is over 250 times between CEO and typical worker pay they pay a 25% tax. And Portland is the first city that has done that.”
Sam Pizzigati, author of “The Case for a Maximum Wage”
Steven Shafarman has written five books on Universal Basic Income (UBI), including Our Future: The Basic Income Plan for Peace, Justice, Liberty, Democracy, and Personal Dignity.
“Even liberals today, liberal Democrats, tend to support military spending that goes to their state or district. And military spending often is promoted as a way to create jobs and promote economic growth. I’m saying that when everyone has a basic income it will no longer be government’s role to create jobs for people. It will no longer be appropriate to subsidize the military contractors or other big corporations, and so we will have the means to begin cutting the waste and excess in the military.”
Steven Shafarman, author of “Our Future: The Basic Income Plan for Peace, Justice, Liberty, Democracy, and Personal Dignity.”
Maximum Wage/Universal Basic Income