Research Roundup

Recent reports from the Center for American Progress Action Fund on the central role of the multi-billionaire Koch brothers in funding the right wing movement in the states and on the critical role that unions have played in creating and sustaining the American middle class; the Economic Policy Institute on the thirty-year trend of stagnating wages in the private sector, the increasingly dramatic gap between the super-wealthy and the rest of Americans following the Great Recession, and the continuing importance of pursuing expansionary fiscal policy in the states; the Institute for Women’s Policy Research on state-by-state figures showing the numbers of workers with access and without access to Paid Sick Days; the National Employment Law Project on the case for reforming criminal background checks for employment; and more.

State-Based, Single-Payer Health Care – A Solution for the United States? - This article by William C. Hsiao, Ph.D. in the New England Journal of Medicine examines whether state-based single payer systems like the one under consideration in Vermont could serve as models for other progressive states.

Back to Work: A Public Jobs Proposal for Economic Recovery - This DEMOS policy brief argues that to effectively address slow economic recovery and persistently high unemployment, the federal government should invest in a direct public jobs program, which would be more cost-effective and create more jobs than measures the federal government has taken to combat the effects of the recession in the past few years.