Prof. Robert Reich

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Posts by Prof. Robert Reich

• The Stock Market Is Not The Economy - OpEd

  Whatever happens to the economy – jobs, wages, the hardships so many are facing – the stock market seems to be in a world of its own. Why?

  
  

• What Happened To The Voting Rights Act?

  This country has a long history of disenfranchising and suppressing the votes of people of color, particularly in the South. But in 2013 the voter suppression efforts of yesteryear came roaring back. That’s when the Supreme Court gutted key provisions in the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

• Big Tech Must Be Broken Up

  ‘Facebook, Amazon, Google, Apple, and Microsoft now have the highest market values for all public corporations in America.’  In this TruthDig opinion, Reich expounds on the key reasons we must break up big tech, from economic to environmental.

• America’s Corporate Elite Must Place the Health of Their Workers Before Profit

  It’s up to CEOs to rise above their arrogance and stop treating coronavirus as an obstacle to revenues.

• Under Trump, American Exceptionalism Means Poverty, Misery and Death

  Reich considers why the U.S. has suffered such a devastating fate with coronavirus compared to other advanced nations.

• Coronavirus and the Height of Corporate Welfare

  With the coronavirus pandemic wreaking havoc on the global economy, Reich explains how massive corporations are shafting the rest of us in order to secure billions of dollars of taxpayer-funded bailouts.

• Why America Can't Respond to the Current Crisis

  There is no public health system in the US, in short, because the richest nation in the world has no capacity to protect the public as a whole, apart from national defense.

• Corporate Social Responsibility Is a Scam

  Reich argues that if companies were committed to corporate social responsibility beyond the rhetoric, they would support the laws that would actually make that a reality.

• Medicare for All or Bust

  Reich explains why Medicare for All would be better than our current for-profit healthcare system.

• CEOs Have the Whole System Gamed

  Reich explains the explosion in CEO pay relative to the stagnant pay of average workers and how to reverse this trend.

• America Urgently Needs a Wealth Tax

  The crisis of income inequality in America is well-known, but there is another economic crisis developing much faster and with worse consequences. I’m talking about inequality of wealth.

• America's Economy Is Unsustainable

  The biggest economic story of our times isn’t about supply and demand. It’s about institutions and politics. It’s about power.

• The 12 Biggest Myths About Raising Taxes on the Rich

  In this TruthDig opinion, Reich explains the myths around taxing the rich and why they are mostly wrong.

• America Faces a Threat Far Greater Than Trump

  Reich writes about how President Trump seeks divide and conquer strategies to distract us from the “grotesque imbalance” that threatens our very democracy: the deep and growing imbalance in wealth and power between an elite minority and the vast majority of American people.

• American Democracy Seems Rigged Because It Is

  In the 2018 midterms, Americans demanded an end to the corruption. And there are signs lawmakers are finally getting message. House Democrats’ first piece of legislation aims to end the big-money takeover.

  This article, by Robert Reich argues why getting money out of politics is the most important thing we can do to save our democracy. 

• Do Good Fences Make Good Neighbors?

  In 1998 Robert Reich wrote this piece about the growing inequality between the rich and the poor and how walls do not help fix the problem. As President Trump shuts down the government to fund a border wall, it is important to this argument.

• The Shutdown and the Economic Precipice

  I was in Bill Clinton’s cabinet when Newt Gingrich pulled the plug on the federal government in 1996. It wasn’t a pretty picture. A long shutdown hurts millions of people who rely on government for services and paychecks.

  Trump’s shutdown also adds to growing worries about the economy...

• Living in a New Gilded Age

  The Trump Justice Department has approved a $69 billion merger between CVS, the nation’s largest drugstore chain, and insurance giant Aetna. It’s the largest health insurance deal in history.

  Executives say the combination will make their companies more efficient, allowing them to gain economies of scale and squeeze waste out of the system.

  Rubbish. This is what big companies always say when they merge.

• It's Up To You

  Okay. Time to stop complaining about Trump.  November 6 is your chance to create a firewall against this catastrophe, and flip the House and even the Senate.

• Why I'm Betting on Millennials This November 6th

  Millennials (and their younger siblings, generation Z’s) are the largest, most diverse and progressive group of potential voters in American history, comprising fully 30 percent of the voting age population.

• The Three Big Lessons We Didn't Learn From the Economic Crisis

  Ten years ago, after making piles of money gambling with other people’s money, Wall Street nearly imploded, and the outgoing George W. Bush and incoming Obama administrations bailed out the bankers.

• The Dangerous Myth of Deregulation

  They say getting rid of regulations frees up businesses to be more profitable. Maybe. But regulations also protect you and me — from being harmed, fleeced, shafted, injured, or sickened by corporate products and services.

• The Next Crash

  September 15 will mark the tenth anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers and near meltdown of Wall Street, followed by the Great Recession.

• 10 Steps to Finding Common Ground

  Most Americans aren’t passionate conservatives or liberals, Republicans or Democrats. But they have become impassioned for or against Trump.

• The Biggest Threat to Our Democracy That You Haven't Heard Of

  The biggest threat to our democracy that nobody is talking about is the real possibility of a rogue Constitutional convention – empowering extremists to radically reshape the Constitution, our laws, and our country. 

• The Roadblock to Common Sense Pension Reform

  55 million Americans — about half of the entire private-sector workforce — have no employer-sponsored retirement plan at all. Many work for small businesses in the low-wage service and hospitality sectors. If they don’t save money independently, they will have nothing when they stop working. 

• Why Wages Are Going Nowhere

  The official rate of unemployment in America has plunged to a remarkably low 3.8%, but the official rates hide more troubling realities. 

• 7 Truths About Immigration

  A record high of 75% of Americans now say immigration is a good thing for the country. 

• The Military-Industrial Drain

  President Dwight D. Eisenhower once noted, “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed." 

• Why The Only Answer Is To Break Up The Biggest Wall Street Banks

  On Wednesday, Federal bank regulators proposed to allow Wall Street more freedom to make riskier bets with federally-insured bank deposits – such as the money in your checking and savings accounts.

• Voter Turnout is Everything

  The largest political party in America isn’t the Democratic Party or the Republican Party. It’s the Party of Non-Voters.

• Thinking Beyond Trump: A Federal Jobs Guarantee

  Robert Reich explains the benefits of a federal job guarantee.

• How to End Partisan Gerrymandering

  One of the biggest challenges to our democracy occurs when states draw congressional district lines with the principal goal of helping one political party and hurting the other. It’s called “partisan gerrymandering.” 

• THE MONOPOLIZATION OF AMERICA: The Biggest Economic Problem You’re Hearing Almost Nothing About

  Antitrust laws were supposed to stop what’s been going on. But today, they’re almost a dead letter. This hurts you.

• How Our Industrial Policy Is Leaving Us Behind

  Until about a decade ago, the United States was the world leader in solar energy. Federal tax credits along with state renewable electricity standards helped fuel the boom.

• 5 Reasons The NRA Is Wrong

  The next time you hear someone repeating pro-gun NRA propaganda, respond with these five points.

• 6 Ways Millenials Will Clean Up The Mess Boomers Left Them

  Baby Boomers – my generation, born between 1946 and 1964 – dominated politics and the economy for years. There were just more Boomers than people of any other generation.  But that’s no longer the case. Now, the biggest generation is the Millennials, born between 1983 and 2000. 

• Why We Need Rise-Up Economics, Not Trickle Down

  How to build the economy? Not through trickle-down economics. Tax cuts to the rich and big corporations don’t lead to more investment and jobs. 

• Why The Common Good Disappeared And How We Get It Back

  In 1963 over 70 percent of Americans trusted government to do the right thing all or most of the time; nowadays only 16 percent do. 

  There has been a similar decline in trust for corporations. In the late 1970s, 32 percent trusted big business, by 2016, only 18 percent did. 

• The Meaning of America

  When Trump and his followers refer to “America,” what do they mean?

  Some see a country of white English-speaking Christians.

  Others want a land inhabited by self-seeking individuals free to accumulate as much money and power as possible, who pay taxes only to protect their assets from criminals and foreign aggressors.

• Our Federal Budget Priorities

  Last week, the Federal Government shut down. While it is back up and running again, the "continuing resolution" did not solve the problem. 

  The underlying issue is not just the tradeoff between a path to citizenship for young undocumented immigrants and funding a border wall. It is also, more basically, coming up with a federal budget that reflects our national priorities. 

  In the Budget Control Act of 2011, Democrats and Republicans agreed to match changes in defense spending with changes in domestic spending. Currently, Republicans in Congress are demanding that the Federal Government spend as much as $180 billion more in defense spending.

  This joint video by the Sanders Institute and Inequality Media outlines this complicated issue.

• More Buybacks, More Inequality

  Trump’s promise that corporations will use his giant new tax cut to make new investments and raise workers’ wages is proving to be about as truthful as his promise to release his tax returns.

• The Next Big Fight

  Fresh off passing massive tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy, Trump and congressional Republicans want to use the deficit they’ve created to justify huge cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

  As House Speaker Paul Ryan says “We’re going to have to get… at entitlement reform, which is how you tackle the debt and the deficit.” 

• The Big Picture: How We Got Into This Mess, and How We Get Out of It

• Why We Must Protect Net Neutrality

  The FCC is voting Thursday on whether to repeal the “Net Neutrality” rule adopted in 2015.

• Robert Reich and Ro Khanna In Conversation

  In this conversation, Robert Reich and Ro Khanna talk about how net neutrality relates to anti-trust regulation and its relevance to the 2018 elections, and also how expanding the earned income tax credit (EITC) will lead to bottom-up economic growth. Congressman Ro Khanna is a leader in the fight to preserve net neutrality. 

• How to End Croney Capitalism

  The largest corporations and richest people in America – who donated billions of dollars to Republican candidates the House and Senate in the 2106 election – appear on the way to getting what they paid for: a giant tax cut.

• Why We Must All Fight for the Dream Act.

  By repealing DACA – Deferred Action For Childhood Arrivals – Trump has endangered both these young immigrants and the economic security of America.

• Why The Republican Tax Plan Is More Failed Trickle-Down Economics

  Trump and conservatives in Congress are planning a big tax cut for millionaires and billionaires. To justify it they’re using the oldest song in their playbook, claiming tax cuts on the rich will trickle down to working families in the form of stronger economic growth. 

• Why We Need Sanctuary States

  California lawmakers have just passed “sanctuary state” legislation – the first state since Oregon, which 30 years ago passed a law preventing state agencies from targeting undocumented immigrants solely because of their illegal status. 

• Why We Must Raise Taxes on Corporations and the Wealthy, Not Lower Them

  When Barack Obama was president, congressional Republicans were deficit hawks. They opposed almost everything Obama wanted to do by arguing it would increase the federal budget deficit.

• Why We Should Abolish the Debt Ceiling

  Most modern democracies don't have debt ceilings. Raising the debt ceiling is always a political football, used by whichever party is in the minority to extract concessions from the majority party or from the majority party’s president.

• When Big Money Buys Off Criticism of Big Money

  Since its founding in 1999, the New America Foundation – an important voice in policy debates on the American left – has received more than $21 million from Google, from its parent company’s executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, and from his family’s foundation.

• Medicare for All

  In this video, Robert Reich explains why healthcare is a right that should be guaranteed for all Americans and why moving towards a Medicare for all system would deliver better healthcare at a lower cost. 

• It's Time for Medicare for All

  American spending on healthcare per person is more than twice the average in the world’s thirty-five advanced economies. Yet Americans are sicker, our lives are shorter, and we have more chronic illnesses than in any other advanced nation. Medicare for all would avoid all these problems, and get lower prices and better care.

• Trumpcare Truth: A Gift to the 1% and a Kick to the Sick and Poor

  The Senate’s bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act is not a healthcare bill. It’s a tax cut for the wealthiest Americans, paid for by a dramatic reduction in healthcare funding for approximately 23 million poor, disabled, and working middle class Americans.

• In the News: Robert Reich on CNN panel discussing the AHCA

• Closing the Women's Wealth Gap

  Month's after the Women's March, this video lays out the difference between the wealth and income gap. They explain that while women earn 79 cents to the dollar that men earn, there is an even larger gap between how much women own: “Women own only 32 cents on the dollar that men own, and black and Latina women own pennies on the dollar compared to white men and white women”

  This large wealth gap exists for a number of reasons, including:

  1) Women make less than men

  2) Women are more likely to work part time (usually because women are caring for family members)

  3) Women often can't access tax subsidies that encourage savings (because of the way they are structured)

  Robert and Elena call to keep pushing for pay equity, affordable childcare and, paid family leave to address this disparity. Ultimately, they advise that whenever your local area, state, or national government is considering legislation, it is important to ask: "who benefits?" Ultimately, legislation that benefits women, benefits all of the United States.

• 7 Economic Fundamentals

  In this video, Robert Reich lays out the 7 economic fundamentals that demonstrate the problematic nature of the nation's current wealth distribution. 

  1. Workers are Consumers

  2. Consumer Spending = 70% of Economic Activity

  3. Wealthy Spend Smaller Percentage of Income

  4. Concentrated Wealth = Not Enough Purchasing Power

  5. Sufficient Demand Requires the Middle Class and Poor

  6. Policies to Help Working Families

  7. Wealthy do Better in a Growing Economy 

• Lecture: Truth as a Common Good

  Economist Robert Reich, the Clinton-era Labor Secretary and prominent Democratic pundit, gives a rousing talk on how the intersection of politics and economics led to the rise of Donald Trump and describes the concerns he shares with Republicans who fear that Trump's way of governing is harming American institutions. Reich is the featured speaker at UC Berkeley's Goldman School of Public Policy's Board of Advisors Dinner held in March 2017.  Recorded on 03/29/2017. 

• The Big Picture: Strengthen Unions With Robert Reich

  In this video, Robert Reich describes why unions are important to the U.S. and how to strengthen them.

  50 years ago, unions were "the countervailing power to business." They were successful in raising wages, improving working conditions and supported legal protections like the 40 hour work week and worker safety.

  However, the decline in private sector union membership has mirrored the decline in the middle class. Reich points out that "Strong unions means a strong middle class which means a strong economy."

  His three steps to strengthening unions are:

  1. Make it easier to form a union
  2. Build in real penalties to companies that violate labor laws.
  3. Overturn state  “Right to work” laws

  He ends with the statement that, “if we want working Americans to get a fair share of the gains from economic growth they must be able to unionize.”

• Coal And The Energy Future

  During the 2016 presidential race, Donald Trump talked a significant amount about "putting people back to work. And one of the industries he focused on most was the coal industry."

  In this video, Prof. Robert Reich looks at the numbers of jobs in the coal industry compared to the solar and wind industries: "In 1985 the coal industry employed a over 178,000 miners. By 2016, it employed just 56,000. By contrast, in 2016, wind and solar energy provided more than 6 times the number of jobs as coal. The trend is toward even more jobs in wind and solar, regardless of what Trump does."

  Reich believes that the country should focus on helping people get jobs in the growing wind and solar industries rather than the coal industry. 

  "It’s our choice." 

• Lecture: Truth as a Common Good

• Voter Suppression, And How It Works

• Are Trade Deals Good For America?

  Both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump are blaming free-trade deals for the decline of working-class jobs and incomes. Are they right?

  Robert Reich points out that "America has lost a significant number of factory jobs over the last three decades. In 1980, 1 in 5 Americans worked in manufacturing. Now it’s 1 in 12."

  Reich explains that the reduction in manufacturing jobs is as a result of a number of factors including automation and technology, as well as increasing trade. However, Reich explains that the loss of manufacturing jobs through better technology and more trade is not necessarily a bad thing. Instead, it is bad because "trade has widened inequality and imposed a particular burden on America’s blue-collar workers" without offering an opportunity for those workers to enter other professions."The core problem isn’t really free trade, or even the loss of factory jobs per se. It’s the demise of an entire economic system in which people with only high-school degrees, or less, could count on good and secure jobs."

  The article ends with an appeal from Reich that "Trade has contributed to the loss of this old system, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we should give up on free trade. We should create a new system, in which a greater share of Americans can be winners." 

• Lecture: Why We Worry About Inequality

• Saving Capitalism

  UC Berkeley economist Robert Reich reveals how power and influence have created a new American oligarchy, a shrinking middle class, and the greatest income inequality and wealth disparity in 80 years. Citing his latest book, "Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few," Goldman School of Public Policy Professor Reich lays out what he argues must be done to restore democracy and rebuild the US economy. Reich is the featured speaker for the 7th annual Michael Nacht Distinguished Lecture in Politics and Policy. Recorded on 12/01/2015. (#30462)

• The Big Picture: Fight For $15 With Robert Reich

  Robert Reich begins this video talking about morality - that "the majority of Americans agree that no-one who works full time should be in poverty, and neither should their family."

  Reich describes the current situation where the minimum wage is not high enough to raise workers out of poverty and that "the working poor remain impoverished"

  Reich argues that if the minimum wage kept up with inflation it would be $10.52 and if it kept up with productivity it would be more than that. He also describes what he calls the "virtuous cycle" where when individuals make a higher minimum wage, they spend that money which creates more demand, and therefore more jobs. 

• Lecture: Inequality for All

• Inequality For All: A Visual Story

  To compliment his film Inequality for All, Robert Reich put together this visual story to demonstrate and shine light on the economic inequality in the United States. 

  

• Inequality For All: Interview With Bill Moyer

  In this video, Bill Moyers talks with Economic analyst Robert Reich about the new film Inequality for All. 

  Reich talks about the ideas within the film and why he used this medium to communicate about income inequality in the United States.

  Ultimately, Reich wants to educate his viewers about the economy, what has happened with income inequality in the last couple decades and what can be done to benefit workers, the middle class, and "the little guy."

• Debate: The Rich Are Taxed Enough

• Political Civility Should Not be an Oxymoron

  UC Berkeley Professor Robert Reich is one of the nation's leading experts on work and the economy. He has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. He discusses the state of civility in politics today.

• Lecture: The Next Economy and America's Future

  Robert Reich has served in four national administrations including those of Presidents Ford, Carter, Clinton, and Obama. He addresses why income and wealth have become so concentrated at the top --more concentrated than at any time since 1928 - and the consequences of such concentration, both for the economy and for politics. Then addresses what, if anything, can or should be done about it. Series: "UC Berkeley Graduate Council Lectures"

• Lecture: How Unequal Can America Get?