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How Baby Bonds Could
Reduce the Racial Wealth Gap
In another tragic week, which began
with the shooting of Jacob Blake and saw the murder of two protestors,
a landmark New Jersey proposal provided a glimmer of hope. Gov. Phil
Murphy’s baby bonds initiative builds on the work
of Roosevelt Fellow Darrick Hamilton and Senior Fellow William “Sandy”
Darity Jr. and
would grant $1,000 to the children of families making less than
$131,000 a year. That money, plus interest, would be accessible to
children when they turn 18 and could begin to address racial wealth
inequality. “The source of inequality generally is that some young
adults have capital and others do not,” Hamilton told the
New York
Times. “This is saying:
Irrespective to the family you are born into, that you have a
birthright to capital when you become an adult.” Read
on.
Win the Green New
Deal
Hurricane
Laura and California’s
wildfires are the
latest natural disasters in a season full of them—and the latest
reminder that government must do far more to prepare for and mitigate
the climate crisis. In a new book of essays, the Sunrise Movement
outlines how to do it. Featuring pieces by Roosevelt Climate Director
Rhiana Gunn-Wright and Roosevelt Chief Economist Joseph Stiglitz,
Winning
the Green New Deal: Why We Must, How We Can
provides the roadmap activists and
policymakers need for the pivotal decade to
come.
 Renew the Civil
Service
The two million civilians employed by
the federal government play a vital role in solving challenges like
racial injustice and climate change, but years of anti-government
action and deliberate bureaucratic decay have sidelined and weakened
them. In a new report from the Great Democracy Initiative, Rudy
Mehrbani, Tess Byars, and Louis Katz propose three
recommendations to structurally reform the federal personnel
system.
 Help Midsize Businesses
“When the Fed announced its intent
to create the [Main Street Lending] Program in April, it said the
Treasury’s $75 billion investment would support up to $600 billion in
loan purchases. More than four months later, the results are dismal,”
Roosevelt Managing Director of Corporate Power Bharat Ramamurti writes
in
a Bloomberg op-ed. “After first taking three months
to set up the program, the Fed has since purchased just $472 million
in loans. That’s 0.08% of the $600 billion the Fed had touted.”
As
he told the Wall Street Journal, “This is on Congress a little bit, because
Congress didn’t say clearly in the CARES Act . . . we expect you to
invest this money aggressively, and we’re fine with you taking
losses.”
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