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How Australia Weathered the Sudden End of the Mining Boom

08.22.16

Most Australians today accept that the mining boom of the mid-to late 2000s, which reshaped the country, is largely over. But an overlooked segment of history is that the end of the stunning run in bulk commodity prices came as a rapid and unexpected shock to most of the nation. Despite predictions of weaker Chinese […]

Business and Regulation

Raising the Minimum Wage Won’t Stop Machines From Replacing Workers

08.15.16

BY KAVI PATEL Democrats added a $15 federal minimum wage to their platform before the Democratic National Convention at a time when the minimum wage debate is a hot topic and the “Fight for 15” Movement has already been successful in California and New York.  Advocates of an increase in the minimum wage argue that it […]

Education, Training and Labor

To Live Together: Focus On Our Differences

08.11.16

Our children will have to deal with a more divided world. They’re going to grow up in a world where simmering racial tensions have boiled over into street violence, where a crowing xenophobe can become an elected President, and where religious fundamentalists are able to rouse thousands to perish in their name. To thrive in […]

How Weddings Condemn India’s Poorest to Bonded Labor

08.8.16

BY MALIKA NOOR MEHTA “Birth. Marriage. Death. In India, these three landmarks are celebrated with zeal,” says Rajneesh Yadav, the India Country Director at Free the Slaves, an international NGO working to eradicate sex trafficking and debt bondage. “When families refuse to perform the rituals associated with each of these events, they are considered social […]

Gender, Race and Identity

Fighting the Gender Pay Gap: Going Beyond a Policy Approach

07.22.16

BY JESSICA KAHLENBERG Last month, while I was sitting in a rocking chair overlooking the beautiful Lake Chautauqua, my uncle casually asked me about my summer internship. I responded that I was working to close the gender wage gap in Boston. When I asked what he, as a prominent businessman, was doing at his own […]

Designing America’s Defense for the Digital Age

07.13.16

BY JOSHUA WELLE While the post-9/11 wars waged, the Department of Defense (DoD) did not focus on two imperatives to ensure military superiority: technology innovation and talent management.[i] To millennials, these concepts are linked.[ii] The Pew Research Center found that 24 percent of those born between 1980 and 1995 believe their generation’s uniqueness is tied […]

Fair Housing: Regulation Is Not the Answer

07.6.16

BY VANESSA CALDER The US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has promulgated a new rule that requires equal housing outcomes in an attempt to clarify and give teeth to the Fair Housing Act of 1968, which requires racial groups be given equal access to housing. HUD’s “Duty to Affirmatively Further Fair Housing” requires […]

Cities and Communities

Fight for Reproductive Rights in Texas Continues Even After Supreme Court Ruling

07.1.16

BY LAUREN WINDMEYER For a woman in Lubbock, Texas to access an abortion provider, she must get in her car and drive 350 miles to the nearest clinic in Fort Worth. She must arrive at the clinic a full 24 hours before her procedure to receive an ultrasound, as mandated by the state. If she […]

The Dirty World of Ranking Cities

06.22.16

BY SAM SALKIN Cities differ vastly from one another. That’s probably too obvious of a statement. During the summer of 2015, I worked for a non-profit consulting firm advising cities around the world on how to solve the nasty issues plaguing their citizen’s quality of life. One of our clients, a major European city, came […]

Interview with Dr. Houchang Chehabi: Environmental and Water Issues in Iran

06.20.16

Dr. Houchang Chehabi, PhD, is a leading expert in Iranian studies at The Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University where he is Professor of International Relations and History. Houchang Chehabi has taught at Harvard and has been a visiting professor at the University of St. Andrews, UCLA, and the Universidad Argentina […]

Environment and Energy
The ancient Greek philosopher Plato argued that in order for a democratic society to function properly, the wealthiest members should never be more than five times as rich as its poorest. Yet, in modern America, CEOs and other elites can earn up to 600 times the wages of their lowest-paid employees. Responding to this disparity, a small but growing number of laborers are forgoing work in traditional businesses and investing in an alternative model: the worker cooperative.

Worker Cooperatives: A Bipartisan Solution to America’s Growing Income Inequality

06.15.16

BY BENJAMIN GILLIES This piece appeared in our 2016 print journal. You can order your copy here. The ancient Greek philosopher Plato argued that in order for a democratic society to function properly, the wealthiest members should never be more than five times as rich as its poorest.[i] Yet, in modern America, CEOs and other elites […]

Education, Training and Labor

Filipinos for Garcetti: Ethnic Political Organizing in Los Angeles and Asian American Civic Engagement in Cities

06.13.16

This piece was published in the 26th print volume of the Asian American Policy Review. Introduction In this decade the U.S. Census and Asian American policy advocates have identified Asian Pacific Islanders as the fastest growing racial population in the United States.[i] This rise has been accompanied by scholars who point out that this demographic explosion […]

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