States are on the front lines of fighting inequality
“The federal government could reduce inequality by raising the federal minimum wage, raising taxes on the wealthy, regulating the financial sector and strengthening labor unions. Instead, the federal government has more often done the opposite in recent decades, and these actions have contributed to growing inequality. In my recent book with William Franko, ‘The New Economic Populism: How States Respond to Inequality,’ we examine what the states are doing to combat inequality in the absence of federal action to address it.”