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EARN Friends,
Many of you have heard me and other members of the EARN team talk about ‘Rooted in Racism,’ a major new project from EARN. The first report in this series will show how the economic development model implemented across the South is fundamentally flawed as a strategy for improving the working and living conditions of most Southerners. It will show that, in fact, the Southern economic development strategy was never designed to help the vast majority of working Southerners or families across the South; rather, it reflects the efforts of Southern politicians, corporate interests, and many wealthy and powerful people across the nation to ensure that businesses have access to large pools of cheap labor, especially the cheap labor of Black and Brown Southerners. The report will also show how workers and families across the South are faring worse under these policies compared with those living in other regions of the country. This first report will be followed by additional reports, fact sheets, and blog posts that provide in-depth examinations of the various components of the Southern economic development model including the historical contexts in which it developed, current policy status, and empirical data showing outcomes for workers and families. We can’t wait to share our work with you next month in September.
We also know that there is a great deal of concern about the state of the economy: What’s happening with inflation? Why am I hearing so much about child labor? What’s happening with workers’ wages? If any of these are questions you have been asking yourself, please join us on September 7, 2023, from 2:00 to 3:15 PM for our State of the National Economy event to hear from EPI economist and EARN experts who will address these questions and many others about our economy. Make sure to register for the State of the National Economy here.
I look forward to seeing many of you at EARNCon from October 4th- 6th in Detroit MI where we can once again come together in person to uplift one another, re-energize, and share our successes, strategies, and lessons learned. Register now and don’t forget to book your hotel room!
Chandra Childers
Senior Policy and Economic Analyst for EARN in the South
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