THE BOOKS
Ending Extreme Inequality: An Economic Bill of Rights to Eliminate Poverty
ISBN-978-1-61205-727-9
Length: 198 pages
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Poverty and economic inequality are at record levels. Today, forty-seven million Americans live in poverty, while middle class incomes are in decline. The top 20 percent now controls 89 percent of all wealth. These conditions have renewed demands for a new economic Bill of Rights, an American idea proposed by Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and Martin Luther King Jr.
The new Economic Bill of Rights has a coherent plan and proclaims that all Americans have the right to a job, a living wage, a decent home, adequate medical care, a good education, and adequate protection from economic fears of unemployment, sickness, and old age.
Integrating the latest economic inequality and social data, this new book explores these rights. Each chapter includes an analysis of the social problems surrounding each right, a historical overview of the attempts to implement these rights, and assessments of current solutions offered by individuals, civic organizations, and politicians.
These contemporary, real-life solutions to economic inequality can inspire students and citizens to become involved and open pathways toward a more just society.
Rebuild America: Solving the Economic Crisis Through Civic Works
ISBN-978-1-59451-722-8
Length: 160 pages
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In Barack Obama’s America public works is once again a part of the national dialogue. Today it is offered as a solution to the economic downturn and to the public infrastructure crisis. This timely book examines the reasons for the economic inequality crisis facing Main Street, and connects them to why the nation has structurally deficient bridges, weak levees, poorly maintained dams, and dilapidated schools.
This book explores the new emerging dominant paradigm that will govern the nation, with a particular focus on the federal government’s new emphasis to create jobs and build infrastructure. The book analyzes the history of U.S. public works, drawing upon and updating lessons from the New Deal, to understand the most effective way to organize a modern U.S. civic works project, as well as a civic works pilot project for the Gulf Coast. The pilot project is based on the Gulf Coast Civic Works Act, which would create a minimum of 100,000 prevailing wage jobs and training opportunities for local and displaced workers on infrastructure projects and restoring the coastal environment using emerging green building technologies.
One chapter features new contributions from Howard Zinn, Angela Glover Blackwell, and other leading scholars, public policy advocates, and community organizers weighing in on how an U.S. civic works project might solve our economic, infrastructure, and environmental crises. Issues discussed in this section include using civic works to create green jobs, to alleviate poverty, to train the next generation of Rosie the Riveters, to organize Gulf Coast residents, to end the human rights crisis in the region, and to implement a national government-run public works project.
Social Solutions to Poverty: America's Struggle to Build a Just Society
ISBN-978-1-59451-211-7
Length: 360 pages
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The voices of famous and lesser known figures in America's quest to reduce poverty are collected for the first time in this comprehensive historical anthology. The book traces the most important ideas and contributions of citizens, activists, labor leaders, scholars, politicians, and governmental agencies to ensure American citizens the basics of food, housing, employment, education, and health care.
The book follows the idea of poverty reduction from Thomas Paine's agrarian justice to Josiah Quincy's proposal for the construction of poorhouses; from the Freedmen's Bureau to Sitting Bull's demand for money and supplies; from Coxey's army of the unemployed to Jane Addams's Hull House; from the Civil Works Administration to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s call for an Economic Bill of Rights; and from William Julius Wilson's universal program of reform to George W. Bush's armies of compassion.