NEWSROOM

Is the Economy Kind of Good Now?

“It is pretty clear that the investments we made in people over the course of the pandemic actually worked,” said Rakeen Mabud, an economist at the progressive think tank the Groundwork Collaborative. “It drove a tighter labor market, it drove wage gains, especially at the bottom, and people had more agency.”

Fed Raises Interest Rates by 0.25%, with More Hikes Expected

In economic news, the Federal Reserve has approved an additional quarter-point hike to its benchmark interest rate. In a statement, the Groundwork Collaborative criticized the Fed’s decision, saying, “With today’s rate hike, the Fed is pushing us dangerously close to an unnecessary recession that would spell disaster for low-wage workers, workers of color, and vulnerable communities.”

Fed Raises Rates at Slower Pace

“There’s a clear path forward to avoiding a devastating and completely avoidable recession: Chair Powell and the Fed should stop raising interest rates,” Rakeen Mabud, the chief economist for the liberal Groundwork Collaborative, said this week.

The Fed Can’t Fix Inflation Alone. Here’s Why

“Pushing millions of people out of work is not the answer to tackling inflation. Additional rate hikes could jeopardize our strong labor market — and low-wage workers and Black and brown workers would suffer the biggest economic consequences,” Rakeen Mabud, chief economist at the progressive non-profit Groundwork Collaborative, said in a statement.

Warren Calls For 'Landing the Plane Not Crashing It' After Fed Hikes Rate Despite Cooling Inflation

Roses are red The Fed wants a recession Jerome Powell's gotta stop With this job loss obsession Slower rate hikes are not enough - the Fed needs to hit pause before we tip over the edge and put millions of workers at risk of joblessness.

As Fed Meets, Experts Tell Powell to Stop 'Needlessly Threatening Jobs'

"Pushing millions of people out of work is not the answer to tackling inflation," Rakeen Mabud, chief economist at the Groundwork Collaborative, said in a statement. "Additional rate hikes could jeopardize our strong labor market—and low-wage workers and Black and brown workers would suffer the biggest economic consequences."

Would the Fed Spoil the Stock Market Party Yet Again in 2023?

Many have warned that the Fed risks pushing the US economy into a recession with its rate hikes. Rakeen Mabud of progressive think tank Groundwork Collaborative said, “It is abundantly clear that we don’t need mass joblessness to tamp down inflation.” Mabud added, “Inflation is cooling and our economy remains strong. Yet the Fed is hell-bent on boosting rates further and putting millions of workers in jeopardy.”

Inflation Cools Further Ahead of Key Federal Reserve Meeting

“It is abundantly clear that we don’t need mass joblessness to tamp down inflation,” economist Rakeen Mabud of progressive think tank Groundwork Collaborative said in a statement on Friday. “Inflation is cooling and our economy remains strong. Yet the Fed is hell-bent on boosting rates further and putting millions of workers in jeopardy.”

How Tight Will the Economic Squeeze Get in 2023?

But she said higher prices and rising unemployment are not the best strategy to curb inflation because it will throw millions of people out of work, slow down wage growth, and cause immense financial and economic pain. Mabud urged that Congress should pass a federal price gouging law and the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice should go after the profiteers.

Biden Hammers Republicans on the Economy, With Eye on 2024

Progressive groups see an opportunity for Mr. Biden to score political points and define the economic issue before the 2024 campaign begins in earnest. That is in part because polls suggest Americans have little appetite for Social Security or Medicare cuts, and have far less focus on the national debt than House Republicans do. “It is a political gift,” said Lindsay Owens, the executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative, a liberal nonprofit in Washington.

Experts on the Main Cause of the Economic Recession: In Addition to Over-reliance on Financial Subsidies, There is Another Key.

Rakeen Mabud, Chief Economist of Groundwork Collaboration, said that the Federal Reserve has raised interest rates seven times in the past year and is expected to raise interest rates again at the end of January. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell also admitted that the public has not yet felt the full impact of interest rate hikes.

Blue Dogs Devour Themselves Over Effort to Rebrand as 'Common Sense Coalition'

The departure of nearly half of the coalition suggests that the Blue Dogs "are on their last leg," tweeted Lindsay Owens, executive director of the economic justice group Groundwork Collaborative.

Corporate Profiteering Is Driving Inflation

There are other ways to understand inflationary pressures and the economy. “When folks talk about inflation, they’re very quick to the draw, to go straight to the Fed as a solution and to demand as the diagnosis of the problem,” said Rakeen Mabud, chief economist and managing director of policy and research of Groundwork Collaborative.

Experts on What Awaits the Economy in 2023

What can be fixed? Rakeen Mabud argues that Congress should pass federal price-gouging legislation and that the FTC and the Justice Department should prosecute speculators. Compared to other recessions, the economic downturn due to COVID was not so bad. “It was shallow precisely because the politicians stepped in to take action for the people. Not for banks, not for large companies, but for people,” she said.

Economic Crash or Soft Landing Ahead?

“I unfortunately have a similarly depressing assessment,” said Dr. Rakeen Mabud, Chief Economist and Managing Director of Policy and Research at the Groundwork Collaborative, a left-leaning activist group. She said there are two major threats on the horizon. “The first is that Jerome Powell pushes us into a recession. I think we are well on our way. The medicine has not yet hit the system and we are likely to see some real economic contraction, some unemployment ramping up because that’s what he’s trying to do.”

Loss of Jobs, the Biggest Fear of a Possible Recession in the US

Dr. Rakeen Mabud, chief economist and director general of policy and research at the Groundwork Collaborative, said we are not out of the woods. “The Federation has increased interest rates seven times in the last year. And there is a significant risk that the Federal Reserve will push our economy into an unnecessary recession, which would put millions of people out of work, slow wage growth, and cause immense financial economic pain.”

How the U.S. Government Amassed $31 Trillion in Debt

“Not all debt is created equal,” said Lindsay Owens, an economic sociologist who is executive director of the liberal Groundwork Collaborative in Washington. “When we’re making critical investments, and stimulus, coming out of a recession, there are a lot of economic benefits to keeping money flowing in the economy, keeping unemployment from reaching astronomically high levels, keeping small businesses from defaulting.”

How Tight Will the Economic Squeeze Get in 2023?

The threat of a recession still looms which could result in job losses and budget cutbacks that will bring pain to many Americans. How long would this recession last? What populations will suffer the most? What areas of the economy will be most affected and which ones will be resilient? And how will new political realities affect policy and legislation both at the federal and state levels? Guest Speakers: Dr. Rakeen Mabud, Groundwork Collaborative Chief Economist and Managing Director of Policy Research.

The Rick Smith Show | 1-20-23

Mike Mitchell, director of policy and research at Groundwork Collaborative, joined the Rick Smith Show to discuss the new House majority’s tax plan.

US Debt Ceiling Limit Reached; Social Security, Medicare Targeted

“It’s economically, fiscally, and morally irresponsible for the new House majority to be playing games with the debt limit and threatening an economic crisis – and there’s absolutely no reason for Sen. Manchin or anyone else to play along,” Lindsay Owens of the Groundwork Collaborative think tank said in a statement. “We saw this move in 2011 when politicians negotiated over the debt limit and ended up strangling the economy with years of devastating cuts for workers and families. We can’t let that happen again.”

How Tight Will the Economic Squeeze Get in 2023?

The threat of a recession still looms which could result in job losses and budget cutbacks that will bring pain to many Americans. How long would this recession last? What populations will suffer the most? What areas of the economy will be most affected and which ones will be resilient? And how will new political realities affect policy and legislation both at the federal and state levels? Guest Speakers: Dr. Rakeen Mabud, Groundwork Collaborative Chief Economist and Managing Director of Policy Research.

Manchin Seeks Bipartisan Cooperation on Debt Ceiling

“It’s economically, fiscally, and morally irresponsible for the new House majority to be playing games with the debt limit and threatening an economic crisis – and there’s absolutely no reason for Sen. Manchin or anyone else to play along,” Lindsay Owens of the Groundwork Collaborative think tank said in a statement. “We saw this move in 2011 when politicians negotiated over the debt limit and ended up strangling the economy with years of devastating cuts for workers and families. We can’t let that happen again,” she added.

Advocates Say 'Hell No' as Manchin Pitches Social Security Deal With GOP

Lindsay Owens, executive director of the progressive Groundwork Collaborative, said it is "economically, fiscally, and morally irresponsible" for House Republicans to be playing games with the debt ceiling and "there's absolutely no reason for Sen. Manchin or anyone else to play along."

42% of Americans Say It’s Up to Local Government to Fix Homelessness. Can They?

“I think it will be critical for local governments to make sure that they are creating zoning laws that allow for the construction of the kinds of units that are necessary to house the number of people to meet demand, and currently we are not doing,” said Michael Mitchell, a director of policy and research at Groundwork Collaborative, at a December hearing before the House Financial Services Committee.

Wages Aren’t Keeping Up with Inflation, Hitting Low-income Workers the Hardest

Groundwork’s Mike Mitchell joined Marketplace to discuss how a recession would impact workers of color.

Inflation’s Pace Eased Again. What Does that Mean for Fed’s Interest Rates?

“Today’s CPI report makes it crystal clear that we don’t need mass joblessness to bring down inflation,” Rakeen Mabud, chief economist at the progressive Groundwork Collaborative, said in a statement. “Further interest rate hikes will only weaken our economy and the most vulnerable workers will pay the biggest price.” [1/12/23]

Biden Moved Quickly on Thursday to Tout the Good Inflation News.

But some liberal groups were immediately focused on the central bank. "Chair Powell should stop further rate hikes before he engineers a totally unnecessary recession," wrote Dr. Rakeen Mabud, Chief Economist, the Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive group allied with figures like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA). Warren has also called for Powell to ease up in recent months. [1/12/23]

As Inflation Slows Again, Progressives Tell the Fed Not to 'Drive the Economy Off a Cliff'

Rakeen Mabud, chief economist at the Groundwork Collaborative, pointed to that possibility in a statement Thursday, arguing that Fed Chair Jerome Powell "should stop further rate hikes before he engineers a totally unnecessary recession. Today's CPI report makes it crystal clear that we don't need mass joblessness to bring down inflation," said Mabud. "Further interest rate hikes will only weaken our economy, and the most vulnerable workers will be the ones to pay the biggest price." [1/12/23]

Bowman, Warren Push Biden to Protect Renters From Corporate Price Gouging.

Along with the 50 lawmakers across both chambers of Congress, the letter is backed by more than 80 housing, climate, education, and immigration groups, including the Center for Popular Democracy Action, Debt Collective, Groundwork Collaborative, National Low Income Housing Coalition, People's Action, Revolving Door Project, Sunrise Movement, and Youth Alliance for Housing. [1/10/23]

Wage Growth Slowed in December, Pleasing Inflation Hawks

“It is not good for workers, and it is not good for the economy,” said Michael Mitchell with the advocacy group Groundwork Collaborative. The Fed’s efforts to cool the labor market will hit low-wage workers the hardest, as their pay has been going up the most. Mitchell argues that the central bank should pause its interest rate hikes — before they push unemployment higher and drag down workers’ purchasing power. [1/6/23]

'Bad News for Workers' as Wage Growth Slows Amid Fed Rate Hike Barrage

Michael Mitchell, director of policy and research at the Groundwork Collaborative, echoed that warning ahead of Friday's jobs report, cautioning that "as workers and families are struggling with higher prices, Chair Powell is hell-bent on bringing down wages and pushing more people out of work with his aggressive interest rate hikes. If the Fed continues with its dangerous interest rate hikes," Mitchell said, "we should brace ourselves for more hardship for working people and an unnecessarily painful recession."

How Racism Shapes the Tax Code

In this episode, Budget and Policy Center Communications Specialist April Dickinson speaks with our friend Mike Mitchell, Director of Policy and Research at the Groundwork Collaborative, a national organization committed to advancing a vision for strong, broadly shared prosperity, and true opportunity for all. Mike talks about the racist history of taxes in the United States, what inspires him in his work, and the vision that he has for his kiddo’s future.

Best of CounterSpin 2022

The pandemic threw into relief many concerns that it did not create—and offered an opportunity to address them in a serious and not a stopgap way. Rakeen Mabud is chief economist and managing director of policy and research at Groundwork Collaborative. We talked with her early in the year.

The Money Party is Over

Lindsay Owens, executive director of progressive think tank the Groundwork Collective, noted that the Inflation Reduction Act, passed in mid-2022, makes important investments in areas such as climate and health care. “There’s a pretty substantial amount of long-term investment that’s just getting started and that we’re going to see over years if not decades,” she said.

Pitchfork Economics: Revisiting Corporate Greed’s Effect on the Supply Chain (with Rakeen Mabud)

Judging by the amount of downloads for this episode, we’d say it was our listeners’ favorite from the past year. “Did Corporate Greed Break the Supply Chain?” with Rakeen Mabud from the Groundwork Collaborative exposes how the supply chain was actually designed: not for reliably getting goods to people, but for maximizing profit. Unfortunately, that’s something many Americans came to realize in 2022 as prices skyrocketed and store shelves were left empty.

CounterPunch: Corporate Monopoly Power: a Main Driver of Inflation

According to Rakeen Mabud, chief economist and managing director of policy and research at the Groundwork Collaborative: Chevron brought in $11.6 billion in the second quarter of 2022 as its production actually decreased and as its CEO touted that its goal was focused on generating returns, the best since 2008.

Lippitt's Policy and Politics Blog: CORPORATE POWER AND A BIT OF ACCOUNTABILITY

Here’s the really bad news. As corporations’ costs are starting to decline and supply chain delays are easing, they have no intention of reducing prices – they just plan to increase their profits even more. The Groundwork Collaborative has documented hundreds of examples of corporate CEOs telling investors that they have used Covid-related reasons to jack up prices and profits and, furthermore, that they have no intentions of reducing prices as costs come down.

Recession, or Recession-ish? Fed Outlook for U.S. Walks a Fine Line

"There is no such thing as a 'light' recession," said Lindsay Owens, executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative, a group that works on issues around economic equality and jobs, and argues that the Fed is putting workers too much at risk in its inflation fight. "If a million more people are unemployed, they will be disproportionately black, brown, older. The consequences will be stark even if Wall Street comes out the other side.” [12/16/22]

What's REALLY Going On With Inflation?

Dr. Rakeen Mabud, Chief Economist and Managing Director of Policy and Research at the nonprofit Groundwork Collaborative: “I like to think about the inflation we're seeing today as really sort of the tip of an iceberg. This is an issue that has been building for a really long time because of a series of policy choices we've made over the course of decades.” [12/16/22]. Listen to the full podcast here.

Outside the Box with Ben Cominos

Groundwork’s Chris Becker, Ph.D., senior economist and associate director of policy and research, joined the show to discuss Dr. Isabella Weber’s recent paper and the Fed’s decision to hike interest rates for the seventh time this year. [12/16/22]

Understanding Corporate Power and Inflation

Unregulated corporate power to raise prices opportunistically without accountability allowed corporations to come out of the crisis ahead while consumers struggled to get by. [12/16/22]

Post-Pandemic Rate Of Inflation Declines For The Fifth Straight Month After Peaking In June

See, New Research from Groundwork Collaborative Shows Link Between Price Hikes, Monopoly, and Corporate Greed: “[As] you cover this issue, it’s important to understand the real culprit behind rising prices at the checkout line: corporate power.” [12/16/22]

Off-Kilter Podcast: The Stock Market Is Not the Economy

This week, to continue the series of conversations we’ve been having on Off-Kilter about the limiting beliefs we as a collective must release and replace to pave the way for economic liberation, Rebecca sat down with Claire Guzdar—managing director of campaigns and partnerships at an organization called the Groundwork Collaborative—to unpack one of the most salient limiting beliefs hampering economic policy in the United States today: the notion that the stock market is the economy.

After Latest Fed Rate Hike, Housing Justice Activists Demand Biden Act to Fight Soaring Rents

Mike Mitchell, director of policy and research at the Groundwork Collaborative, asserted that "if the Fed triggers a recession, the consequences will be brutal for workers and families already struggling to stay afloat. And even with seven consecutive rate hikes," he added, "there is nothing the Fed can do to stop powerful corporate landlords from squeezing as much money as they can out of tenants." [12/15/22]

Workers, Not 'Stockbrokers and CEOs,' Will Pay Price for Fed Rate Hikes: Warren

Lindsay Owens: “Powell needs to put a pin in this. The latest jobs and CPI prints make clear that we don't have to choose between low prices and low unemployment. We can have both.” [12/15/22]

Discussions with Experts on U.S. Fed’s Rate Hike and Future Economic Prospects for 2023

“The main takeaway is that the Fed’s latest decision risks further pushing the US economy closer to a recession,” Jin Woo Chung, senior economist at Groundwork gave an interview with Arirang News, South Korea’s largest English speaking TV broadcaster, on the Fed’s recent interest rate hike. [12/15/22]

As Inflation Cools, Experts Warn Powell to 'Think Twice Before Hiking Up Interest Rates Again.'

“Today's cooler-than-expected CPI report sends a clear message that [Fed Chair Jerome] Powell should think twice before hiking up interest rates again," said Michael Mitchell, director of policy and research at the Groundwork Collaborative. "Powell himself has admitted that we have yet to feel the full impact of interest rate hikes on our economy. Experts from Nobel Laureate economists to business leaders agree: adding more fuel to the fire risks throwing our economy into a painful recession.” [12/13/22]

The Federal Reserve’s Artificial Recession

“Black and brown workers would be the first to be fired,” says Lindsay Owens of the progressive think tank the Groundwork Collaborative. “The impact on the long-term unemployed, older workers, and disabled workers would be really severe.” [12/9/22]

The Billionaire’s Press Dominates Censorship Beat

As for grocers, “Kroger, the largest supermarket chain in the country, cited rising inflation as the reason for hiking prices in their stores even as they cut worker pay by 8%” in 2020, Project Censored notes. Kroger’s CEO earned 909 times what the median worker earned, and “the company spent $1.498 billion on stock buybacks between April 2020 and July 2021 to enrich its shareholders,” the Groundwork Collaborative reported. [12/8/22]

Congressional Panel Hears Testimony on the Homeownership Gap

Speakers testifying during the hearing includes Nikitra Bailey, EVP of the National Fair Housing Alliance; Margaret Eaddy, Activist and Housing Seeker; Michael Mitchell, Director of Policy & Research, Groundwork Collaborative; Mark Zandi, Chief Economist for Moody’s Analytics; and Douglas Holtz-Eakin, President of the American Action Forum. “The scale of the shortfall in housing is extraordinary,” said Zandi during the hearing. [12/5/22]

Common Dreams: ICYMI: Groundwork’s Director of Policy and Research Highlights Role of Corporate Profiteering and the Fed in Driving Housing Crisis

“Thanks to timely actions taken by the Biden administration and Congress, we have experienced one of the strongest post-recession recoveries on record. However, the recovery is in jeopardy because of the Federal Reserve’s aggressive interest rate hikes,” Mitchell told the Committee. “The Federal Reserve’s actions to combat inflation are driving up rents and exacerbating a housing crisis that threatens the well-being of millions of families across the country.”

Common Dreams: Groundwork’s Mike Mitchell Previews November Jobs Numbers

Ahead of tomorrow’s Jobs Report, Groundwork’s Director of Policy and Research Mike Mitchell released the following statement cautioning that additional rate hikes will bring more pain to workers and push our economy into a recession: “Chair Powell’s aggressive rate hikes have done little to bring down rising prices, but they are threatening to undo one of the strongest jobs recoveries in recent history. Further rate hikes will only crush low-income and marginalized workers scraping to get by.”

PBS NewsHour: Some Economists Concerned Aggressive Interest Rate Hikes Do More Harm Than Good

Many progressives have criticized the pace and the scope of these rate hikes. Rakeen Mabud is among those voices. She's the chief economist and managing director of policy and research at a progressive think tank known as The Groundwork Collaborative.

The Hill: Corporate Profits Hit Record High in Third Quarter Amid 40-Year-High Inflation

“Today’s record corporate profits mirror what we have been hearing on earnings call after earnings call: Corporations are gleefully reporting that their strategy to burden families with unnecessary price hikes is working,” Rakeen Mabud, economist with the Groundwork Collaborative, said in a Wednesday statement.

Lever News: LEVER TIME: How To Be Funny In 2022

In addition, Andrew Perez sits down with Lindsay Owens, executive director of the progressive think tank Groundwork Collaborative, to talk about why the upcoming fight in Congress over the debt ceiling is so pivotal. Owens explains how inflation will play a role in the negotiations, and discusses whether or not President Joe Biden will allow the conflict to be used as an excuse to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits.

Common Dreams: As Corporations Enjoy Record-High Profits, Experts Urge Congress to 'Rein Them In'

"Today's record corporate profits mirror what we have been hearing on earnings call after earnings call: Corporations are gleefully reporting that their strategy to burden families with unnecessary price hikes is working," Rakeen Mabud, chief economist and managing director of policy and research at the Groundwork Collaborative, said in a statement. "Powerful corporations in concentrated industries will keep prices sky high until lawmakers rein them in."

NPR: The Mystery of Rising Prices. Are Greedy Corporations to Blame for Inflation?

Rakeen Mabud is chief economist for the progressive think tank Groundwork Collaborative. "Companies are taking a spoonful of sugar off the ... backs of families who are all really struggling to get by," she said. Mabud has sat in on dozens of corporate earnings calls and says she often hears CEOs bragging about how much they were able to raise prices.

Politico: Morning Money – ‘A Return to the Bad Old Days’ at the Fed

Lindsay Owens, executive director of progressive think tank Groundwork Collaborative, argued that it should be opportunistic companies, not workers, that pay the cost of bringing down inflation, through a tax on so-called excessive profits.

Politico: The Left's Message for the Fed: Stop Punishing Workers

Lindsay Owens, executive director of progressive think tank Groundwork Collaborative, argued that it should be opportunistic companies, not workers, that pay the cost of bringing down inflation, through a tax on so-called excessive profits. “We have seen increasing examples of companies talking about the fact that either they are seeing their input costs coming down, or they see a future in which their input costs come down,” she said, citing corporate earnings calls with shareholders.

Project Censored: #6 Corporate Consolidation Causing Record Inflation in Food Prices

A report for the American Prospect by Rakeem Mabud, chief economist at the Groundwork Collaborative, and David Dayen revealed that one of the most common inflation scapegoats, supply chain problems, is itself a consequence of consolidation. They argued that corporate-controlled supply chains were designed for “maximum profit rather than reliably getting things to people,” ensuring that “the problems that arose in the pandemic folded in on themselves.”

Commonweal Magazine: ‘Too Big to Compete With’

Corporate executives have proudly touted their ballooning profit margins in business pages and earnings calls. Their logic, as observers like Lindsay Owens, Robert Reich, and Steven Greenhouse have pointed out, is as simple as it is galling: using general inflation as cover, major corporations in essential sectors (including energy and food giants like Exxon, Chevron, Conagra, J.M. Smucker, PepsiCo, and Hormel) have artificially raised prices well above their own cost increases.

Business Insider: A Republican House majority will 'eagerly sow economic chaos' if Democrats don't 'grow a spine' and do as much as they can during the lame duck session, Elizabeth Warren says.

Warren stressed the importance of delivering on top priorities, like eliminating the debt ceiling, pushing for universal child care, and expanding affordable housing during a Wednesday speech at EconCon — a conference co-hosted by progressive groups like Demos Action and Economic Security Project Action — and she anticipated the GOP will "eagerly sow economic chaos... all in service to moving Donald Trump a few inches closer to the White House."

Business Insider: Elizabeth Warren slams the Fed for risking 'pushing our economy off a cliff': 'There is a big difference between landing a plane and crashing a plane'

On Wednesday, Warren delivered a speech on the role Democrats should play in helping the economy during EconCon, a convention co-hosted by progressive groups like Demos and the Economic Security Project Action. She emphasized the need for Democrats to accomplish as much as they can during the lame duck session, or the time between now and when Republicans take control of the House.

Common Dreams: Democrats Can Defeat GOP Extremism by 'Fighting for Working People': Warren.

"The 2022 midterms prove that Democrats can beat Republican extremism by fighting for working people and making our democratic values clear," Warren (D-Mass.) said at EconCon Presents, a meeting co-hosted by Demos Action, Economic Policy Institute Action, Economic Security Project Action, Groundwork Action, Omidyar Network, and Roosevelt Forward.

Nonprofit Quarterly: Solutions Centering Black Women in Housing.

Still, better policy choices will only get us so far. Ultimately, creating a just housing system must start with collectively creating a new vision, policies, and programs for housing that center Black women’s thoughts and experience. That means refining current policies to better target and uplift Black women.

Punchbowl News: McConnell, McCarthy march on.

1 p.m.: House Republicans will hold a meeting on changing their party rules. 4 p.m.: Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) delivers keynote speech at EconCon.

Politico: Trump's Massachusetts connection.

TODAY — Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito chairs a Governor’s Council meeting at noon and speaks at the Fisher College Future of Hybrid Work Summit at 1 p.m. in Boston. Warren keynotes the EconCon Presents gathering in Washington, D.C., at 4 p.m.

Yahoo Finance: Elizabeth Warren's midterm takeaway: Dems ‘called out corporate greed' — and won.

The speech Wednesday, delivered at a gathering called EconCon Presents, also offered a preview of how progressives will approach economic fights over the next two years. On the debt ceiling fight to come, Warren called for Congress to eliminate the debt limit entirely before Republicans take control of the House of Representatives in January.

HuffPost: Elizabeth Warren Says Economic Populism Drove Democratic Wins.

“A lot of people were surprised by last week’s results. Not me,” Warren said in a speech at EconCon, a gathering of progressive economic activists and thinkers in Washington, according to excerpts released by her office ahead of the speech. “The 2022 midterms prove that Democrats can beat Republican extremism by fighting for working people and making our democratic values clear,” she planned to say.

Office of Sen. Elizabeth Warren: ICYMI: In First Speech Since Democrats Held the Senate, Warren Calls on Democrats to Go on Offense and Continue Delivering for Working Families.

In a keynote speech at EconCon Presents, a conference co-hosted by Demos Action, EPI Action, Economic Security Project Action, Groundwork Action, Omidyar Network, and Roosevelt Forward, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) called on Democrats to go on the offense and tell their own economic story by continuing to deliver for working families. Senator Warren argued that Democrats can beat Republican extremists by fighting for working people and making their democratic values clear.

NPR: Corporations are booking record profits. Is it thanks to price gouging?

MABUD: We know that there were sort of record profits over the last year and on the backs of families who are already struggling to get by. VANEK SMITH: Mabud has listened to hundreds of corporate earnings calls and says CEOs talk openly about this.

The Tartan: The Fed battles record-high inflation by raising interest rates... again.

A Guardian analysis of 100 top U.S. companies revealed profits increased an average of 49 percent, with one company reporting quarterly growth over 111,000 percent. The report shows some companies — such as two of the nation’s largest home builders, PulteGroup and Lennar — increased prices by throttling production and constricting supply. Another investigation of earning calls and corporate profits by the progressive organization Groundwork Collaborative says corporate pricing power has influenced inflation.

Greenfield Recorder: The World Keeps Turning: Corporations, JFK, and ‘the public interest’.

Corporate earnings reports have recently shown (according to researchers at Groundwork Collaborative) that CEOs at the nation’s largest companies, such as those producing paint, industrial supplies, auto parts, and food are looking forward to continuing high prices. “We don’t reduce prices on the back end of these increases,” stated one. Another noted “our industry has historically not reduced pricing to reflect lower ultimate costs.”

FAIR Media: Gene Slater on Housing Crisis, Rakeen Mabud on Inflation Coverage.

We have a quick listenback to our February conversation with Rakeen Mabud of Groundwork Collaborative, when the media were working hard to tell the public that “supply chain disruptions' ' dropped from the sky like rain, rather than being connected to decades of conscious policy decision-making.

Bureaucracy Buster: SECRETS OF THE 2022 MIDTERMS.

“We can argue until the cows come home about the cause of inflation,” writes Chris Becker, senior economist at the Groundwork Collaborative. “But we can’t lose sight of the basic moral point that it is outrageous that corporations are seeing skyrocketing profits while purchasing power for so many American households is declining.”

NBC: Some Economists Say Companies Are Using ‘Cover of Inflation' to Excessively Hike Prices.

Corporate profiteering is happening "because frankly, companies are saying it is happening," said Rakeen Mabud, chief economist and managing director of policy and research at the Groundwork Collaborative, a group that, among other things, tracks corporate earnings. After listening to hundreds of earnings calls, Mabud said CEOs and other corporate executives are acknowledging that they are raising its prices simply because they can.

Blog for Arizona: October Jobs Report Stronger Than Expected; Corporations Are Using Inflation As Cover For Price Gouging To Increase Profits.

Robert Reich adds: Kudos to Groundwork Collaborative for uncovering these CEO calls and helping spread the truth about how inflation has been corporate America’s “friend” because it gives them cover to raise prices.

Boston Globe: It will take time to unwind inflation’s many tentacles.

Lindsay Owens (“Who’s really to blame for inflation,” Ideas, Oct. 30), in attributing stubborn inflation to the actions of corporate America, misses a critical factor that may explain why some large companies are holding prices high even while their expenses go down. When the Federal Reserve saw that the Biden administration was unable to stem inflation and made several moves that (in my opinion) made it worse, the central bank had no choice but to start raising interest rates.

Star Tribune: Minnesota companies have raised prices, but key margins remain below pre-pandemic times.

The Groundwork Collaborative, an advocacy group that says it works with progressive leaders, accused some companies of corporate profiteering, citing comments made by executives in recent earnings announcements.

CBS News: Amazon pauses corporate hiring; mortgage rates fall below 7%.

Amazon announced it's pausing hiring for corporate positions in a move to try to cut costs amid concerns about a potential recession. Meanwhile, mortgage rates fell below 7% this week, but they're still higher than they were last year. CBS News anchors Lana Zak and Errol Barnett spoke with Lindsay Owens, executive director of Groundwork Collaborative, about where the U.S. economy stands.

The Hill: Corporations dominated lobbying on anti-price gouging bills: analysis.

Corporations and their industry groups spent big to defeat various bills to crack down on price gouging, according to a report from the Groundwork Collaborative and Public Citizen released Thursday. Corporate interests deployed lobbyists to oppose bills taking aim at prescription drug costs, bank overdraft fees and sky-high gas prices more than 2,600 times since 2020, outnumbering the bills’ supporters 9-to-1, the progressive groups’ report found.

Vox: What Congress could actually do about inflation.

Lindsay Owens, executive director of the progressive Groundwork Collaborative, said Congress could pass legislation that would boost competition among industries such as food and consumer goods. Those companies tend to have few competitors and make essential goods, meaning that they have more pricing power than other industries, Owens said.

Common Dreams: Progressive Economists Warn of 'Catastrophic Outcomes' for Workers as Fed Hikes Interest Rates.

Anticipating Wednesday's rate hike, Groundwork Collaborative chief economist Rakeen Mabud argued Tuesday that the move is a "misguided policy with catastrophic outcomes for the millions around the country who are already struggling to make ends meet."

Sky News: US interest rates see fourth 0.75 percentage point rise to tackle inflation.

"A Fed-induced recession is still a very real - and dangerous - possibility," said Rakeen Mabud, chief economist and managing director of policy and research at the Groundwork Collaborative. "The slowdown in the housing market is the canary in the coal mine - a warning of the real price we will all pay if Chair Powell continues on his interest rate bender."

Common Dreams: Lawmakers to Powell: 'How Many Millions Will Be Thrown Out of Their Jobs' Due to Fed Policy?

"Experts are calling out Chair Powell and the Federal Reserve's interest rate bender for what it is: misguided policy with catastrophic outcomes for the millions around the country who are already struggling to make ends meet," Rakeen Mabud, chief economist at Groundwork Collaborative, said in a statement Tuesday.

WNHN FM 94.7: The Attitude with Arnie Arnesen, November 1, 2022.

We talk with Michael Mitchell of the Groundwork Collaborative, about how data should be gathered and used, when discussing the economy. Currently, the data does not reflect the quality of workers' lives. Workers themselves should be asked about their struggles, and what kinds of factors are are important, not just the 'captains of industry'.

New York Times: Jerome Powell Is Popular. His War on Inflation Could Change That.

Rakeen Mabud, the chief economist at the left-leaning advocacy group Groundwork Collaborative, thinks the Fed needs to “take a beat” to see the policy changes it has already made play out. A colleague of Ms. Mabud’s recently made what she thought was an apt analogy: “Jerome Powell needs to get a glass of water before he goes back to the bar.”

Vox: What aren’t we doing to fix inflation?

Lindsay Owens, executive director of progressive think tank Groundwork Collaborative: There are three components that are driving the price growth that we’re seeing: wage growth, input costs — like materials, sales and marketing, and energy — and the mark-up, meaning the difference between the selling price of a good or service and the cost of that good or service. Fed Chair Jerome Powell is uniquely suited to be hammering away at the pieces of this inflation that are really coming from the demand side.

Crooked Media’s What A Day: Sayonara Bolsonaro (We Hope).

The U.S. economy grew 2.6% in the third quarter, but inflation is still driving up costs for essentials — including housing. Lindsay Owens, the executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative, tells us why it’s hitting renters harder, and why addressing the affordability crisis should be a top priority.

Common Dreams: Historic Exxon, Chevron Profits Signal 'All-Out War on American Consumers'.

Lindsay Owens, executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative, argued on social media earlier this week that such a passive approach won't be enough to stop corporate profiteering. "One thing is clear: they won't stop until someone makes them," wrote Owens, who along with her Groundwork colleagues has been tracking corporate earnings calls and reports throughout the year.

Daily Kos: Why are grocery prices so high? A look at the planned Kroger-Albertsons merger offers some clues.

As the Groundwork Collaborative noted a year ago, before this merger was proposed, Kroger “spent the summer of 2021 gloating that ‘a little bit of inflation is always good in our business’ before citing inflation to justify price hikes. Kroger publicly acknowledged that they could get away with increasing prices on consumers as long as prices didn’t rise by more than 3 or 4 percent.”

WHBY: Outside the Box with Ben Cominos.

The Groundwork Collaborative's Director Of Policy And Research Michael Mitchell Talks About The Real Causes Of Inflation – Everyone's playing the blame game when it comes to inflation without offering any solutions, so I spoke to an expert about what got us into this situation, and what we can do to get out of it.

Sky News: US economy bounces back from recession territory even as storm continues to brew.

"Today's GDP figures paint a clear picture: a Fed-induced recession is still a very real - and dangerous - possibility," said Rakeen Mabud, chief economist and managing director of policy and research at the Groundwork Collaborative.

FX Trader: ECB Hands Down Hefty Rate Increase as Inflation Continues to Plague Europe.

Rakeen Mabud, chief economist at the Groundwork Collaborative thinktank weighed in on the situation recently, saying, “Raising interest rates isn’t working, and the Fed’s overly aggressive actions are shoving our economy to the brink of a devastating recession,” she said. “Supply chain bottlenecks, a volatile global energy market and rampant corporate profiteering can’t be solved by additional rate hikes.”

HuffPost: Democrats Increasingly Worry About The Federal Reserve Crushing The Economy.

But more Democrats are showing signs of Fed skepticism, said Rakeen Mabud, chief economist at Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive think tank that has been warning about the dangers of tight monetary policy all year. “We’re seeing more and more lawmakers raising the alarm that the Fed is going down the wrong path, putting the incredible recovery that we’ve seen thus far in jeopardy,” Mabud said, citing several comments from lawmakers since June.

Boston Globe: Who’s really to blame for inflation.

My colleagues at Ground Collaborative and I pored over recent earnings reports from the nation’s biggest companies. We learned that their executives are admitting to the strategy of keeping prices high because it means bigger profits for their companies and massive payouts to their shareholders.

Common Dreams: Sherrod Brown Warns Fed Chair That Rate Hikes Put Working-Class 'Livelihoods at Risk'.

One of the featured articles, published by Marketplace earlier this month, featured a stark warning from Groundwork executive director Lindsay Owens. "I think Powell's interest rate bender has us on the precipice of global recession," she said. "He is really going hard on rate hikes. And the consequences could be tremendous for so many."

Sputnik: Global Recession Could Last Until the Middle of 2024, Says Elon Musk.

“Raising interest rates isn’t working, and the Fed’s overly aggressive actions are shoving our economy to the brink of a devastating recession,” said Rakeen Mabud, chief economist at Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive think tank. “Supply chain bottlenecks, a volatile global energy market and rampant corporate profiteering can’t be solved by additional rate hikes.”

Mashed: Why Bernie Sanders Just Called Out Halloween Candy Inflation.

Axios says that "soaring inflation and supply chain wrinkles" have been the cause of the price increases, however, Lindsay Owens, the executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative — an organization that tracks company profits — told The Guardian that the pandemic, war in Ukraine, supply chain bottlenecks, and corporate pricing decisions have created a "smokescreen" that obscures questionable price increases, allowing businesses to appear to be "victims."

Robert Reich Saturday Coffee Klatch: How do we reach young people?

A video of CEOs crowing about raising prices on consumers to boost their profit margin; they speak for themselves on the relationship between corporate profiteering and inflation. (The Groundwork Collaborative has built a very useful website for these publicly-available quarterly corporate earnings calls.)

The American Prospect: Want to Know What’s Going On in Our Economy? Talk to Workers.

Failing to understand what’s actually going on with workers in our labor markets risks having more bad policy decisions in the future. But there’s an obvious solution to this problem: a Worker Sentiment Survey.

Naked Capitalism: How Corporations “Get Away With Murder” to Inflate Prices on Rent, Food, and Electricity.

The Groundwork Collaborative [an economic activist group] has been documenting all the shenanigans that have been taking place during earning calls where rivals are effectively cajoling their compatriots to reduce capacity or raise prices with them. You’ll hear an executive say, “oh, there’s too much capacity in this industry.” Or, “we’re going to take the lead on this.” They’re suggesting that others should follow without explicitly asking for it.

Other Words: REPUBLICAN ‘SOLUTIONS’ WILL MAKE INFLATION WORSE.

Don’t take Reich’s word for the second part. Experts at the Groundwork Collaborative have documented call after call in which CEOs literally brag about gouging consumers and blaming it on inflation. “A little bit of inflation is always good in our business,” confirmed Kroger CEO Rodney McMullen. A New York Times investigation identified car dealerships as especially bad actors. No argument from me!

Common Dreams: 'People Will Lose Their Jobs': Expert Chorus Against Fed Rate Hikes Grows.

Groundwork pointed to a recent assessment by conservative economist Greg Mankiw, a former George W. Bush administration official who told The Washington Post last week that he's worried the Fed may be overdoing the rate hikes, which are aimed at crushing economic demand by making borrowing more expensive.

Guardian: Latest US inflation data raises questions about Fed’s interest rate hikes.

The Fed is restricted to monetary policy and can’t directly do anything about corporate pricing or supply chains, though Powell “could be more vocal” in public about the need for a holistic approach, Owens said. If the US and other central banks go at it alone, then consequences will likely be dire and reach around the world, she added.

CNN: The Fed is losing the war against inflation.

“Supply chain bottlenecks, a volatile global energy market, and rampant corporate profiteering can’t be solved by additional rate hikes,” said Rakeen Mabud, chief economist of the left-leaning Groundwork Collaborative policy group. “It’s time for Chair Powell and the Fed to step aside and for Congress to step in.”

Common Dreams: Fed Critics Say New CPI Data Shows Rate Hikes Can't Stop 'Rampant Corporate Profiteering'.

"Today's inflation report is proof of what we've been saying for months: Raising interest rates isn't working," Rakeen Mabud, chief economist at the Groundwork Collaborative, said in a statement. "Supply chain bottlenecks, a volatile global energy market, and rampant corporate profiteering can't be solved by additional rate hikes," Mabud continued.

Common Dreams: 'Rent Is Too Damn High': Biden Pressured to Act as Housing Costs Fuel Inflation.

"The CPI's measure of rental inflation doesn't factor in rising prices in new rentals and leases, and therefore underestimates the rental inflation people face day to day," explains the analysis, which was co-authored by experts at the Groundwork Collaborative. "Some privately collected measures have reported that rents rose 7.5% year-over-year in September."

Washington Post: As the Fed fights inflation, worries rise that it’s overcorrecting.

“This idea that we take on global supply shocks with domestic interest rate policy is probably not going to age well,” said Lindsay Owens, executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive group focusing on economic policy. Owens compared the risks tied to the Fed’s approach to a frog that sits in a pot of gradually boiling water: “You don’t know you’re cooked until it’s over,” she said.

Common Dreams: Top Fed Official Says Corporate Price Hikes Are Fueling Inflation.

"Even as input costs come down, corporate executives are gleefully reporting how they plan on keeping prices high," one of the economists, Rakeen Mabud of the Groundwork Collaborative, told the lawmakers. "Megacorporations are taking advantage of recent crises to make record profits for themselves and their shareholders."

Wall Street Journal: Midterm Report Card on Biden Economy Clouded by OPEC, Fed Moves.

Lindsay Owens, executive director at left-leaning think tank Groundwork Collaborative, said the Biden administration had implemented policies that contributed to labor-market and economic strength as the pandemic waned, but that the Fed’s actions were now working against some of what Mr. Biden is trying to accomplish. “Now he sort of sits on his hands and waits to see how far Powell oversteps or if he can actually miraculously pull off something resembling the soft landing,” Ms. Owens said.

Daily Caller: Think Tank Egghead: Caring About US Manufacturing Is Just A ‘Fetish’.

A study by The Groundwork Collaborative focusing on the impacts of trade of black workers found that for every “1 percentage point increase in import exposure” there is a “3.2 percentage point reduction in the share of overall Black working age employment.”

Marketplace: Tax the rich! Tax corporate profits! Curb inflation?

But the Fed doesn’t have to fight inflation alone, said Lindsay Owens, a former adviser to Sen. Elizabeth Warren and the executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative. “It’s not the case historically that the Fed chair has always gone it alone on prices. You know, Harry Truman, Franklin D. Roosevelt — they confronted inflation without a lot of rate hikes. They confronted inflation with a suite of policy tools, from tax increases to investing in supply,” Owens told “Marketplace’s” Kai Ryssdal in an interview this week.

Common Dreams: Progressives Warn Fed-Induced Recession Will 'Throw Millions of Americans Out of Work'

"The Fed's interest rate hikes that aim to lower inflation fail to address the root causes of inflation," Clara Wilson, a policy analyst at the Groundwork Collaborative, noted on Twitter. "So if the Fed continues down this path, workers could suffer from a recession with persistent high prices, high unemployment, and lower wages."

US Jobless Claims Jump as Fed Shoves Economy to 'Precipice of Global Recession'.

Mike Mitchell, director of policy and research at the Groundwork Collaborative, voiced his disagreement in a statement Thursday. "The last thing families need right now on top of high inflation is a recession," said Mitchell. "Tomorrow's jobs report could show the early impacts of the Federal Reserve's aggressive rate-hiking approach."

Marketplace: As the Fed cranks up interest rates, critics ring warning bells.

“I think [Fed Chair Jerome] Powell’s interest rate bender has us on the precipice of global recession,” said Lindsay Owens, a former Warren adviser and the executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive policy organization. “He is really going hard on rate hikes. And the consequences could be tremendous for so many.”

Daily Beast: Dems Have Big, Totally Unspecified Plans if They Win.

“There’s not a clear legislative agenda, no consensus around what’s next,” said Lindsay Owens, executive director of Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive nonprofit. “It’s not a fatal weakness politically; on the policy side, it’s malpractice.”

Common Dreams: 'Their Price Strategies Are Bearing Fruit': Oil and Coal Profits Surge 340%.

"We've heard directly from executives in the sectors that families depend on—from oil, to auto shops, to airlines—that inflation has been good for business," Rakeen Mabud, chief economist and managing director of policy and research at the Groundwork Collaborative, said in a statement. "The latest corporate profit data shows their price strategies are bearing fruit," she added.

Truthout: Corporations’ Price-Gouging May Hurt Them in the Long Run, Says Economist.

Chris Becker: “But corporations have turned consumers’ pain into their own gain. So what we’ve seen corporations do is that they’ve used all these crises as an excuse to pass on higher prices to consumers, padding their pockets in the process, and then funneling the extra money back to their wealthy shareholders and investors.”

Crooked Media: Positively Dreaful – Is It The Economy, Stupid?

Or are we just following the leads laid out for us by media figures and political leaders who can always point to passing problems like high gas prices, or even good problems like lots of job vacancies, and convince millions of people that things are actually bad? Economic sociologist and leader of the Groundwork Collaborative Lindsay Owens joins to discuss how helpful “it’s the economy, stupid” is when the economy is always a mess, and whether we can sustain an economy that works.

Nation of Change: Fed rate hikes won’t tackle the corporate profiteering behind inflation, experts tell Congress.

Rakeen Mabud, chief economist and managing director of policy and research at the Groundwork Collaborative, was among the experts who provided written and oral testimony. Mabud made three key points in her remarks to lawmakers. First, “even as input costs come down, corporate executives are gleefully reporting how they plan on keeping prices high,” she noted, citing Groundwork’s exhaustive research on earnings calls, which reveals how “megacorporations are taking advantage of recent crises to make record profits for themselves and their shareholders.”

FAIR: ‘We’ve Incentivized Corporations to Go After This Price-Gouging Strategy’.

Chris Becker: “But corporations have turned consumers’ pain into their own gain. So what we’ve seen corporations do is that they’ve used all these crises as an excuse to pass on higher prices to consumers, padding their pockets in the process, and then funneling the extra money back to their wealthy shareholders and investors.”

Common Dreams: Fed Rate Hikes Won't Tackle the Corporate Profiteering Behind Inflation, Experts Tell Congress.

Rakeen Mabud, chief economist and managing director of policy and research at the Groundwork Collaborative, was among the experts who provided written and oral testimony. Mabud made three key points in her remarks to lawmakers. First, "even as input costs come down, corporate executives are gleefully reporting how they plan on keeping prices high," she noted, citing Groundwork's exhaustive research on earnings calls, which reveals how "megacorporations are taking advantage of recent crises to make record profits for themselves and their shareholders." [9/22/22]

KOIN CBS 6 Portland: Congress examines price hikes as big businesses make record profits.

“Big companies, like Procter & Gamble, know that they can take advantage of consumer’s basic needs because they make necessities like diapers and laundry supplies,” explained Dr. Rakeen Mabud of Groundwork Collaborative. But watchdogs say after decades of deregulation, Congress is also to blame.

The Hill: Fed hikes rates by 75 basis points for third time this year.

“The Fed is in a really, really tough position, in part because they have a very limited toolkit,” said Lindsay Owens, executive director at Groundwork Collaborative. “They have inflation that’s coming from a constellation of sources,” Owens explained.

Common Dreams: Fed in 'Full Recession-Creating Mode' Comes Under Fire for Another Interest Rate Hike.

Reich and Rakeen Mabud, chief economist and managing director of policy and research at Groundwork Collaborative, are among the experts scheduled to testify Thursday morning before a panel of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform.

Common Dreams: Ignoring Pain for Workers, Bloomberg Editorial Openly Endorses Fed-Induced Recession.

"Imagine my absolute shock that this editorial doesn't mention workers, families, and communities—the lifeblood of our economy and the people who will bear the brutal costs of a recession—at all," Claire Guzdar, managing director of campaigns and partnerships at the Groundwork Collaborative, wrote in a sarcasm-tinged Twitter post.

Daily Kos: Wondering why inflation is such a problem? What you aren't hearing.

Mary Louise Kelly of NPR and Lindsey Owens of the Groundwork Collaborative look into this. Biden is right….”In theory, this type of profiteering wouldn't really be possible, right? A competitor would come in, undercut one of the big players and drive prices down. But what we're seeing in this moment is that the companies with the biggest market share, with the most market power, the most pricing power are the ones who are really engaging in the most egregious profiteering.”

All Things Considered: Why some blame record corporate profits for high prices.

NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with Lindsay Owens, executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative, about how companies are earning unusually high profits even as inflation remains hot. “What we're seeing right now, though, is companies really exploiting this moment of crisis. And they're really taking advantage of this moment to go higher than they need to on markups and on profits.”

Common Dreams: While Fighting Workers, Railroads Made Over $10 Billion in Stock Buybacks.

"Our research shows just how far railroad executives will go to funnel record profits to their shareholders—even if that means stagnant wages, inhumane attendance policies, and throwing our supply chain into further turmoil," Mike Mitchell, director of policy and research at Groundwork Collaborative, told Common Dreams.

The Good Men Project: You Can’t Fix the Economy by Hurting People.

Bringing prices down must be a top priority for lawmakers, but Washington’s default tool for dealing with inflation — aggressive interest rate hikes — only makes life harder for these families.  That’s because aggressive interest rate hikes work by increasing unemployment and slowing down wage growth, a “cure” far worse than the disease.

FAIR Media: Sumayyah Waheed on CNN’s Copaganda Hire, Chris Becker on Inflation Coverage.

Other outlets are musing about how higher unemployment might be the best response to higher prices. Why are we doing thought experiments about hurting people? Implied scarcity—”obviously we can’t do all the things a society needs, so let’s discuss what to jettison”—is a whole vibe that major media could upend, but instead enable. We’ll talk about how that’s playing out in coverage of inflation with Chris Becker, associate director of policy and research and senior economist at the Groundwork Collaborative.

AFL-CIO: Myths and Misconceptions About Inflation and How We Fix It.

Join us as AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler convenes an economic panel discussion on the root causes of inflation ahead of the Sept. 20–21 Federal Reserve meeting where interest rates are expected to be raised again. The discussion will be moderated by Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, and features Dr. Rakeen Mabud from Groundwork Collaborative.

Crooked Media: Pod Save America – "Mitch Better Have Their Money."

The Republicans get nervous about midterms. The Senate tries to pass same-sex marriage protections. Economic expert Lindsay Owens from The Groundwork Collective joins to talk about inflation. And the guys play a new game called Two Takes and A Fake.

Common Dreams: Young Americans' Approval of Biden Soars After He Announces Student Debt Cancellation.

"Looks like removing crushing debt burdens for families is a political winner after all," Groundwork Collaborative executive director Lindsay Owens tweeted of the "remarkable" shift in just a month. "The centrist economists turned political pundits got this one wrong."

CNBC: Democrats tout big business investments to bolster their economic case ahead of midterms.

“I think there’s an understanding among progressive thinkers in the economy that we can’t just focus on redistribution. We can’t just focus on taxes and transfers,” said Lindsay Owens, executive director of Groundwork Collaborative. “We also have to focus on pre-distribution. We also have to make the market into what we want it to be.”

Rep. Katie Porter Introduces Bill to Crack Down on Big Corporations Coordinating Price Hikes.

The Competitive Prices Act is cosponsored by Representatives Jerry Nadler (D-NY), David Cicilline (D-RI), Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), and Pramila Jayapal (D-WA). It is also endorsed by American Economic Liberties Project, Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), Demand Progress, Economic Policy Institute, Food and Water Watch, Groundwork Collaborative, Indivisible, Liberation in a Generation, Revolving Door Project, and Small Business Majority.

EQUALS - Reimagining Our Economy: INFLATION: THE UNTOLD STORY – with Lindsay Owens and Irit Tamir

We're asking: What has *really* been happening in the board rooms of multinational companies? And what's that got to do with today's cost-of-living crisis being felt across the globe? This new season on EQUALS we’ll focus on the crisis, bringing stories and solutions from across the globe. Nabil and Nadia speak with Dr. Lindsay Owens and Irit Tamir.

The American Prospect: Why Obama-Era Economists Are So Mad About Student Debt Relief.

Let’s be very clear: The Obama administration’s bungled policy to help underwater borrowers and to stem the tide of devastating foreclosures, carried out by many of the same people carping about Biden’s student loan cancellation, led directly to nearly ten million families losing their homes. This failure of debt relief was immoral and catastrophic, both for the lives of those involved and for the principle of taking bold government action to protect the public. It set the Democratic Party back years. And those throwing a fit about Biden’s debt relief plan now are doing so because it exposes the disaster they precipitated on the American people.

Yahoo Finance: Corporate profits are at a 70-year high. Will the Inflation Reduction Act change that?

The new law includes a new minimum tax on corporations that have over $1 billion in the "book" profits - a measure of income reported on financial statements before things like tax credits and depreciations - and “this provision is one of many that's really going to help curb corporate profiteering,” predicts Rakeen Mabud, the chief economist at the left-leaning Groundwork Collaborative.

The Hill: Democrats peg inflation to corporate greed on campaign trail.

“Why is it that we have too few goods? It’s because we have companies throttling supply in order to keep prices high,” said Rakeen Mabud, chief economist at the Groundwork Collaborative, a left-leaning think tank. “We have an economy that is absolutely riddled with outsize market power by big corporations that use supply and demand as marionettes.”

LA Progressive: How Will Throwing Millions Out of Work Address Root Causes of Rising Prices?

From groceries to rent, prices are rising on just about everything these days — and those with already-stretched budgets are feeling the pinch. Bringing prices down must be a top priority for lawmakers, but Washington’s default tool for dealing with inflation — aggressive interest rate hikes — only makes life harder for these families.  That’s because aggressive interest rate hikes work by increasing unemployment and slowing down wage growth, a “cure” far worse than the disease.

Common Dreams: 'All of Us Are Paying the Price' as Corporate Profits Surge to Record-High $2 Trillion.

"We can argue until the cows come home about the cause of inflation," Chris Becker, senior economist at the Groundwork Collaborative, wrote in response to the new data. "But we can't lose sight of the basic moral point that it is outrageous that corporations are seeing skyrocketing profits while purchasing power for so many American households is declining." … "Corporate profiteering continues in full force—and all of us are paying the price," Mabud added. "This data should be a wake-up call for policymakers. Megacorporations are a key driver of high prices—and we need bold action to rein them in."

Institute for Local Self-Reliance: Inflation: The True Monopoly Story.

On this episode of Building Local Power, Rakeen Mabud the Chief Economist at Groundwork Collaborative and Ron Knox, Senior Researcher and Writer at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, take us on a riveting journey exposing the story of inflation that most economists don’t want to tell.

Nation of Change: Biden announces new student debt cancellation plan.

“Not only does this action begin to address the student debt crisis, it also sets an important precedent that the government can—and should—intervene to fix the broken systems that hold people back,” Dr. Rakeen Mabud, chief economist and managing director of the Groundwork Collaborative, said. “But we can’t stop here: More work is needed to end the student debt crisis, guarantee access to free college, close the racial wealth gap, and continue to build an economy where everyone can thrive.”

Other Words: YOU CAN’T FIX THE ECONOMY BY HURTING PEOPLE.

From groceries to rent, prices are rising on just about everything these days — and those with already-stretched budgets are feeling the pinch. Bringing prices down must be a top priority for lawmakers, but Washington’s default tool for dealing with inflation — aggressive interest rate hikes — only makes life harder for these families.  That’s because aggressive interest rate hikes work by increasing unemployment and slowing down wage growth, a “cure” far worse than the disease.

Washington Post: Biden to cancel up to $10,000 in student loans, $20K for Pell recipients.

“It’s great to see the president take action to forgive the crushing debt burdens of borrowers from the most disadvantaged backgrounds,” said Lindsay Owens, executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative, a left-leaning think tank.

Daily Kos: Biden exceeds expectations with student debt relief announcement.

“It’s great to see the president take action to forgive the crushing debt burdens of borrowers from the most disadvantaged backgrounds,” Lindsay Owens, executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative, told the Post. A recent poll shows 55% support for canceling debt up to $10,000, with even stronger support among people aged 18 to 44 and Black and Hispanic people.

Vice: Economists Say Life Is Going to Be More Expensive Forever, Sorry.

"Big corporations know that consumers will be forced to put up with higher prices, especially for necessities like housing or gas that people cannot live without. Since WWII, we haven't seen prices across the board come down in a sustained way—when prices rise, they tend to stay high for long periods after the initial price hikes,” said Dr. Rakeen Mabud, chief economist and managing director of policy and research at the Groundwork Collaborative, in an interview with Motherboard.

Pride Publishing Group: U.S. housing crisis and policies’ impact on women of color examined.

Black and Latina women have consistently been more likely than White, non-Hispanic men to be behind on rent and mortgage payments throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. “Stable housing is an essential part of families’ economic security—and a critical part of a healthy, sustainable economy,” said Dr. Rakeen Mabud, chief economist and managing director of policy and research at Groundwork. “Policymakers must use every available tool to address the acute crisis that so many women and families are facing today.”

New York Times: Biden Signs Climate, Health Bill Into Law as Other Economic Goals Remain.

Mr. Biden has had more success in getting Democrats, and some Republicans, to invest in the physical economy and to embrace a more interventionist view of federal power, said Lindsay Owens, executive director of the liberal Groundwork Collaborative in Washington. By embracing industrial policy and government-induced emissions reduction, she said, “He’s moved to an economic system and an economic agenda where the government is really throwing its weight around, putting its thumb on the scale.”

The National Desk: Renters faced with difficult choices as prices skyrocket to all-time highs.

“Any strategy to bring down prices must include housing and affordability. Landlords and housing corporations are telling their investors they’re ready to jack up rents as much as possible. If our policy fixes for inflation don’t target the housing market, we risk failing to meet one of the most urgent needs of millions across the country,” Groundwork Collaborative director of policy and research Mike Mitchell said.

ABC7: Inflation or profiteering? Advocacy group says companies raising prices under cover of inflation.

Rakeen Mabud of the economic policy project, the Groundwork Collaborative, keeps a close ear on corporate earnings calls and an eye on quarterly reports.She's seen what she considers a disturbing trend. "This is a trend that we've seen throughout the pandemic of big companies using their market power to jack up prices beyond what their input costs would justify," Mabud said.

Truthout: Tenants Call on Biden to Act as Rent Increases Reach a 35-Year High

For households on low or fixed incomes, rent increases mean choosing between paying the landlord and buying essentials, according to Michael Mitchell, a director of policy and research at the Groundwork Collaborative, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. “For the median tenant in one of the 50 largest American cities, you are paying $200 more now than you were last year, and that’s money people can’t spend on groceries and school supplies,” Mitchell told reporters on Thursday.

NPR: What the Inflation Reduction Act does and doesn't do about rising prices

"Prices are high now but we're talking about prices that have been putting burdens on household budgets for decades," said Rakeen Mabud, the chief economist of the Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive economics think tank. "We've been struggling with skyrocketing health care costs for a really long time and this bill is an important step forward."

Common Dreams: To Tackle Stubborn Inflation, Experts Urge Bold Action Against 'Corporate Profiteering'

"To truly see recovery on prices for consumers, policymakers need to hold companies accountable for price gouging and rein in the corporate profiteering that is driving painful prices and record profits," said Lindsay Owens, executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative.

Markets Insider: Corporate America's 'greedflation' window of opportunity is closing as consumers tighten their purse strings - and the markets will feel the pinch, experts say

Such supply chain issues force the question: "Is the supply chain we currently have the inevitable supply chain that we could have?" said Rakeen Mabud, chief economist at The Groundwork Collaborative. "The answer to that is pretty clearly no. We could have a supply chain that delivers goods on time, that is able to deal with fluctuations in demand [...] but we don't have that, and we don't have that because the supply chain that we have is built by big companies for big companies to make their profits as high as possible," she added.

Substack - Work Futures: Greedflation

The term ‘greedflation’ perfectly matches our present economics, described by many as being on the edge of a recession which is used as an excuse to raise prices (and profits). As Lindsay Owens reports: “Companies that historically might have kept prices low to pick up profit by gaining additional market share are instead using the cover of inflation to raise prices and increase profits."

Quartz: The US labor market has fully recovered from covid, adding 528,000 jobs in July

While the positive numbers alleviate recession fears, economists are still concerned that policymakers at the US Federal Reserve will crush the historic gains the labor market made during the pandemic by raising interest rates to a level that increases unemployment. Cementing those gains would require that Congress create a fairer tax code and invest in workers, healthcare, and the climate, said Rakeen Mabud, chief economist at the Groundwork Collaborative.

Richmond Pulse: Corporations Are Using Inflation to Pad Profits, Economist Says

Mega corporations are taking advantage of this crisis to pad their profits by passing along more pricing than is justified by rising input costs alone,” said Rakeen Mabud, chief economist and managing director of research and policy at the Groundwork Collaborative. Mabud spoke on a panel hosted July 8 by Ethnic Media Services to discuss current inflation and the prospect of a recession. Recent research supports Mabud’s claims about corporate profits.

Vox: Would the Inflation Reduction Act actually reduce inflation?

Rakeen Mabud, chief economist of the Groundwork Collaborative: The first thing to say is that big public investments, like those contained in this bill, are good for the economy, full stop.

Truthout: Exxon Laid Out Plans to Spend $30 Billion in Stock Buybacks as Gas Prices Soared

The Groundwork Collaborative analyzed shareholder and analyst calls within major oil companies like Exxon, Shell and Chevron and discovered that executives have effectively been celebrating high gas prices. In calls from the second quarter of this year, which just ended, the companies emphasized that their primary goals were to maximize profits and returns to shareholders and admitted that inflation and economic uncertainty are an opportunity for them.

The Hustle: What the heck is ‘greedflation’?

Enter “greedflation” AKA when corporations use inflation as an excuse to raise prices. According to economist Rakeen Mabud, the practice relies on exploiting information asymmetry.

India Currents: Is A Recession On the Cards, Or Not?

At a July 8 Ethnic Media Services briefing, Dr. Rakeen Mabud, chief economist and managing director of policy and research at Groundwork Collaborative, highlighted the need to plan for and have a better understanding of the impacts of economic fluctuations beyond Wall Street, on the lives of ordinary people and communities. “While the labor market has experienced robust job growth in recent months, we must reject calls to push the economy into a recession and put millions out of work in the name of combating inflation.”

Washington Post: White House insists economy is strong as allies grow uneasy about Fed.

“The president should sign the Inflation Reduction Act into law and then jump in front of Powell before he drives the recovery off a cliff,” said Lindsay Owens, executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative, a left-leaning think tank.

Maine Beacon: Podcast: The corporate profiteering behind inflation and what we can do about it

Jin Woo Chung, senior economist for the Groundwork Collaborative and James Myall, policy analyst for the Maine Center for Economic Policy join host Cate Blackford to discuss rising prices, corporate gouging and what can be done to address it at both the state and national level.

SuperSavingTips.Com: Corporate Greed Is Now a Big Part of Inflation and You’re Paying for It

The Groundwork Collaborative, a group that monitors economic issues here in the U.S., listened in on hundreds of corporate earnings calls between companies and their shareholders and found that executives are openly bragging about their price-gouging strategies. They use the supply chain issue as hype to explain inflation publicly, but they have been raising their prices over what is needed so it’s no wonder that corporate profits are at a 70-year high!

KALW: What explains inflation & what are real solutions for working people?

Mike Mitchell: “There is growing research leading us to believe that corporations are playing an active role in rising prices.”

Hart Energy: Price Gouging: Are Producers, Refiners, Retailers to Blame for Higher Prices?

Among other allegations, Lindsay Owens, executive director of the progressive Groundwork Collaborative, said that oil and gas companies have raised prices despite a lack of innovation or “pulling oil out of the ground more cheaply.”

KOPN: Chautauqua

Original teachers, activists, creative artists and authors guide us through our changing cultural landscape, and share ideas that can help us live our lives and transform our world. Dr. Lindsay Owens joins host Deborah Hobson to discuss the role of corporate profiteering in rising prices.

ABC News: Are record profits driving inflation?

ABC News' “Start Here” spoke with economist Rakeen Mabud about inflation and the role of corporations in rising prices.

The Louisiana Weekly: Corp. profiteering driving inflation, threatening most vulnerable

“CEOs are telling their investors that the current inflationary environment has created opportunities to extract more and more from consumers by raising prices,” explained Dr. Rakeen Mabud, chief economist at the left-leaning Groundwork Collaborative. “These mega-corporations are able to get away with aggressive and extractive pricing because they dominate the market and know more than the consumers.”

Korea Daily: [Opinion] In the era of inflation, only the common people stop sharing pain

Although (Groundwork Collaborative) is a left-wing research group, it is noteworthy that Dr Mabud said, “The big companies dominating the market are taking advantage of the current inflation situation to aggressively and predatory raise prices to consumers.” (Translated via Google)

LA Progressive: Fetterman Slams Corporate Execs 'Raising Prices on Us.’

Fetterman's remarks echoed those of progressive activists including Groundwork Collaborative chief economist Rakeen Mabud, who said Wednesday that policymakers must address "rampant corporate profiteering."

Salon: Economists to Fed: Inflation doesn't justify big rate hikes that could "push millions out of work"

"This morning's report highlights the fact that aggressive interest rate hikes by the Fed have done little to combat the inflation that continues to take a toll on workers, families and small businesses across the country," said Dr. Rakeen Mabud, chief economist at the Groundwork Collaborative. "Additional rate hikes would push millions out of work and ... raise the risk of a recession that would only worsen economic pain."

RawStory: John Fetterman slams corporate execs 'raising prices on us' after latest inflation figures

Oz responded to Wednesday's CPI figures in a statement asserting that "Pennsylvanians deserve better than more failed career politicians. It's time for change." Fetterman's remarks echoed those of progressive activists including Groundwork Collaborative chief economist Rakeen Mabud, who said Wednesday that policymakers must address "rampant corporate profiteering."

Common Dreams: Poll Shows Majority of US Voters Oppose Triggering Recession to Battle Inflation

"Larry Summers' cure for fighting inflation is worse than the disease itself," Groundwork Collaborative executive director Lindsay Owens said in a statement. "Manufacturing a recession and throwing millions out of work to bring down prices is not only cruel, it also reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of why prices are rising in the first place." The Data for Progress and Groundwork Collaborative survey of nearly 3,000 likely U.S. voters found that inflation was by far the most important economic problem facing the country today.

Peninsula 360 Press: Disadvantaged communities pay the price of inflation

In this regard, Dr. Rakeen Mabud, General Director of Policy and Research at the Groundwork Collaborative, commented that "corporations are taking advantage of this crisis" by increasing the prices of their products for consumers and justifying this increase due to inflation. Companies such as VISA, Mastercard, Walmart, among others, are using their power to increase prices for consumers, actions that not only affect customers but also small companies that cannot afford these expenses or set competitive prices with large companies. (Translated with Google)

Slavic Sacramento: From inflation to recession: what are the signs, how are we preparing and why is this happening?

“CEOs are telling their investors that the current inflationary environment has created opportunities to get more and more from consumers through higher prices,” explained Dr. Rakin Mabud. “These mega-corporations can get away with aggressive pricing because they dominate the market and know more than consumers.”

The Hill: Five takeaways from the stunning inflation numbers

“This morning’s report highlights the fact that aggressive interest rate hikes by the Fed have done little to combat the inflation that continues to take a toll on workers, families, and small businesses across the country. Additional rate hikes would push millions out of work and further raise the risk of a recession that would only worsen economic pain,” progressive economic research organization Groundwork Collaborative said in a statement. [7/13/22]

India Post: From Inflation to Recession – What are the signs, how do we prepare and why is this happening?

Dr. Rakeen Mabud, Chief Economist and Director of Policy and Research at Groundwork Collaborative, said that the current U.S. economy is experiencing a strange phenomenon, with supply chains being disrupted, inflation rate for decades, and corporate profit margins hitting 70-year highs. The epidemic has had a serious impact on small businesses, and they cannot substantially raise prices to pass the cost on to consumers.

Ethnic Media Services: Corporate Profiteering Driving Inflation, Threatening Most Vulnerable

“CEOs are telling their investors that the current inflationary environment has created opportunities to extract more and more from consumers by raising prices,” explained Dr. Rakeen Mabud, chief economist at the left-leaning Groundwork Collaborative. “These mega-corporations are able to get away with aggressive and extractive pricing because they dominate the market and know more than the consumers.”

NewsOne: Black Unemployment Declines But More Economic Policy Interventions Are Needed

In response to the economy adding 372,000 jobs, Dr. Rakeen Mabud, Groundwork Collaborative’s chief economist and managing director of policy, said that policymakers must consider thoughtful solutions to addressing inflation that does not jeopardize job growth. She said the government should move forward with necessary care, climate and housing investments to bring down costs and strengthen the economy. “While the labor market has experienced robust job growth in recent months, we must reject calls to push the economy into a recession and put millions out of work in the name of combating inflation,” Mabud said.

Tennessee Tribune: Economy Collapsed, Leaders Ousted in Sri Lanka

“The 70-year record high in corporate profit margins…..show the mega-corporations are taking advantage of this crisis to pad their profit by passing along more pricing that is not justified by rising input cost alone,” said Rakeen Mabud. She is the chief economist and managing director of policy and research at the Groundwork Collaborative in Washington D.C.

Nguoi Viet: Inflation due to COVID-19 may cause the US to have an economic crisis

The first speaker was Dr. Rakeen Mabud, chief economist of the Groundwork Collaborative, talking about the current inflation situation…The Groundwork Collaborative goes through many of the financial records of corporations and understands why profits for many corporations are at record highs. The reason is that the heads of those corporations are calling for higher prices, bringing more profits, while acknowledging that inflation is making it difficult for consumers and taking advantage of them to make profits. (Translated with Google)

World Journal: Experts: U.S. recession risk is rising

Dr. Rakeen Mabud, Chief Economist and Director of Policy and Research at Groundwork Collaborative, said that the current U.S. economy is experiencing a strange phenomenon, with supply chains being disrupted, inflation rare for decades, and corporate profit margins hitting 70-year highs. She believes that many companies, especially medium and large companies, are now taking advantage of opportunities to extract more value from consumers. (Translated with Google)

HuffPost: The Federal Reserve Can’t Fix Supply Problems, But It Can Make People Poorer

“By slowing demand too aggressively, they could very well cause an economic downturn and get a lot of people fired and make people poor, make families poor, even though they’re already struggling from rising prices,” Jin Woo Chung, senior economist at the progressive think tank Groundwork Collaborative, said in an interview.

Ethnic Media Services: From Inflation to Recession: What Are the Signs, How Do We Prepare, and Why is This Happening?

More and more economists are predicting we are heading into a recession. Experts discuss how and why inflation can turn into a recession, what people can do to prepare for it, how strong the safety net is and why is this happening at a time when corporations report record margins of profit. Panel featuring Dr. Rakeen Mabud.

Common Dreams: Economists Say Slowing Wage Growth Means Fed Must Pump Brakes on Rate Hikes

Dr. Rakeen Mabud, chief economist and managing director of policy and research at the Groundwork Collaborative, said in a statement Friday that "while the labor market has experienced robust job growth in recent months, we must reject calls to push the economy into a recession and put millions out of work in the name of combating inflation."

ProPublica: What’s Really Driving Inflation?

Prevailing narratives often blame inflation on global market forces. But ProPublica dug deeper and found some corporations are taking advantage of the supply chain crisis. Can they be held accountable? Panel featuring Dr. Rakeen Mabud.

Smerconish: Throwing Millions of Americans Out of Work Won't Fix Inflation

At the Groundwork Collaborative, we like to say that we are the economy. What we mean is that we shouldn’t evaluate the health of the economy just by how the stock market is doing, how big CEO bonuses are each year, or whether Fortune 500 profits are charting new records. Instead, we should evaluate the strength of the economy by how well the workers, families, consumers, and small business owners who power our economy are doing. So we were pretty horrified when Larry Summers recently argued that throwing millions of Americans out of work is the cure for inflation.

The Lever: How To Crack Down On Corporate Profiteering.

The White House has blamed market concentration for inflation, as has antitrust hawk Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) — while (Groundwork) polling has shown the talking point plays well. While economists dispute how much market power has played a role, many agree that it’s a factor.

Texas Public Radio (The Source): Food prices are the highest in decades due to inflation.

Which grocery items are affected the most? How can households minimize food spending? How can the community help local food banks? How much money should a household spend on food per week? Will the conflict between Russia and Ukraine continue to affect food prices? Groundwork Collaborative’s Mike Mitchell joined “The Source” to discuss.

Fingers (Substack): What does the ghost of Milton Friedman even know about beer, anyway?

Lindsay Owens Ph.D., the executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative, on why even cynical and/or pro-capitalism drinkers should care about corporations padding profits under the guise of inflation: “I mean, look: capitalism without competition is exploitation. Our economy will thrive when there's free and fair competition, when new companies with new ideas and new products are able to enter the scene and improve upon the status quo.”

Bloomberg: Odd Lots Newsletter: Inflation Expectations Are the Whole Game.

In this understanding, financial analysts and shareholders expecting short-term earnings boosts from increasing prices over and above the costs (i.e., markups) encourage firms to be price-makers instead of price-takers, and similarly punish firms that don’t exhibit or exert pricing power (Mabud 2022). The evidentiary focus here has generally been on economy-wide national accounts measures of profits and profit margins, as well as analysis from presentations of price increases on earnings calls (Owens 2022).

Rick Smith Show: The Federal Reserve, full employment, and inflation.

Groundwork’s Mike Mitchell joined the Rick Smith Show to break down Larry Summers’ recent comments, what solutions we have at our disposal regarding inflation, and why President Biden can’t raise or lower prices at the push of a button.

Glamour: Beyoncé’s ‘Break My Soul’ Is Already Inspiring People to Quit Their Jobs.

“This has led to a historically tight job market where workers have more leverage over their employers than we’ve seen in decades,” Lindsay Owens, executive director at the Groundwork Collaborative, tells Glamour. “Alongside this, we see workers also using their leverage to unionize and demand better working conditions across the country.” Now is the time when workers should be pushing for more, she adds. “Corporate profits margins are at 70-year record highs. Workers should be earning more of the value they create at work, and we have a long way to go before they will.”

BIG by Matt Stoller: On Inflation: It's the Monopoly Profits, Stupid.

But the profit contribution to inflation is too obvious to deny. Lindsay Owens at the Groundworks Collaborative, a nonprofit, has been tracking investor calls, and laid out how CEOs routinely bragged about elevated pricing power. And over the past week, several papers have come out essentially confirming the original profits-inflation analysis.

VinePair: ‘Greedflation’ Has Sent Corporate Profits Soaring, but What About Beer Prices?

“These really big firms have pricing power,” Lindsay Owens, Ph.D., the executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive policy organization, tells me in a recent phone interview. “Huge companies that have been allowed to gobble up the small guys for decades, they’ve gotten bigger. And now in this moment of uncertainty, they’re exerting their size” by raising prices.

Business Insider: Meet the activists urging the Fed to worry less about inflation and focus on helping Americans get good jobs.

Rate hikes are the Fed's best tool for cooling inflation, but they come with the side effect of slower economic growth. So far, the tradeoff doesn't seem to be working, Lindsay Owens — the executive director of The Groundwork Collaborative — told Insider. "We're all rooting for a soft landing, but the worst-case scenario is high prices and high unemployment, and I really do worry that we're headed there," Owens said. "We're getting the stock-market crash. We're getting the wage-growth deceleration. And we're not getting the energy prices down."

NewsOne: Commentary: Measure National Economic Well-being By How People Are Doing Not Just Traditional Indicators.

Dr. Rakeen Mabud, chief Economist and managing director of Policy and Research at Groundwork Collaborative, explained that high inflation was draining families across the country, particularly Black and other families of color. “Because of deeply baked inequities in our economy, communities of color tend to earn less and have less money in savings,” she explained. “As a result, rising costs on essentials means that for families of color, a bigger and bigger proportion of household budgets goes towards trying to make ends meet.”

Business Insider: Biden has few options left to quickly bring down gas prices. Now he's making a big bet by bashing Big Oil and turning to a brutal leader for help.

"Profits are four times what they were prior to the war in Ukraine," Lindsay Owens, executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative who conducted extensive research on the subject, said in an interview. "The oil company executives are bringing in huge profits and bragging about it to shareholders in earnings calls."

ProMarket: Neoliberal Economists Are Giving Biden Bad Advice on Inflation.

Recent earnings calls contain this same kind of communication. Groundwork Collaborative has documented myriad episodes in which CEOs boasted about their newfound ability to exercise pricing power made possible by the cover of inflation, sometimes telegraphing future price increases.

Daily Mail: Three quarters of CEOs expect global recession within next 12 to 18 months due to Putin's war on Ukraine and fear Russian cyberattacks could make it WORSE, survey shows.

'If our monetary policy brings about a slowdown of the economy, we're all going to pay the price,' Groundwork Collaborative executive director Lindsay Owens told activists gathered this week across the street from where Fed policymakers were meeting in Washington.

Daily Mail: Mortgage rates hit 5.78% - the largest weekly increase since 1987 and well above the 3.11% recorded at the start of the year: House prices are expected to surge despite tumbling affordability.

But many do worry. 'If our monetary policy brings about a slowdown of the economy, we're all going to pay the price,' Groundwork Collaborative executive director Lindsay Owens told activists gathered this week across the street from where Fed policymakers were meeting in Washington.

Reuters: Explainer: What Americans face now as the Fed raises interest rates.

Many, however, worry. "If our monetary policy brings about a slowdown of the economy, we're all going to pay the price," Lindsay Owens, executive director of progressive advocacy group Groundwork Collaborative, told activists gathered this week across the street from where Fed policymakers were meeting in Washington.

HuffPost: Federal Reserve Risks Recession In Order To Slow Inflation.

“You’re destroying economic activity and constraining economic growth in order to bring down prices, but in the process of doing that you’re artificially hurting the economy,” Jin Woo Chung, senior economist at Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive think tank, said in an interview.

MSNBC: The ReidOut with Joy Reid.

Groundwork Collaborative Executive Director Lindsay Owens joined The ReidOut to discuss all the latest in gas prices, inflation, and interest rates.

Politico: ‘When do you stop?’: Fed inflation fight could trigger slump.

Lindsay Owens, executive director of progressive think tank Groundwork Collaborative, told the crowd that rate increases would do little to bring down inflation that is now being driven by factors outside the Fed’s control, like Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and factory lockdowns in China. “The only thing worse than high inflation and low unemployment is high inflation and high unemployment,” she said at a press conference. “If our monetary policy brings a massive slowdown of the economy, we’re all going to pay the price.”

New York Times: Inflation and Price Gouging.

But inflation gives greedy, monopolistic companies a chance to take advantage, said Lindsay Owens, the executive director of the left-leaning Groundwork Collaborative. Profiteering “is an accelerant of price increases,” she told me. “It is not the primary cause.” Owens pointed to what companies have said in earnings calls over the past year. A Tyson Foods executive claimed that price increases for beef covered not just inflation but “more than offset” higher costs. Visa’s C.E.O. said, “Historically, inflation has been positive for us.” Owens’s organization compiled a list of similar comments from other corporations.

The Business Journal: REP. COSTA PROMOTES SHIPPING ACT AS IT NEARS FINAL VOTE.

Mabud said the shipping industry is a prime example of how consolidation has left the economy ripe for profiteering.More than 80% of the ocean shipping industry and more than 95% of the East/West trade routes are controlled by three ocean shipping alliances — 2M, Ocean Alliance and THE Alliance, Mabud. “These policy choices have allowed corporations to keep costs low for themselves and keep record profits without any risk of being undercut by competition,” Mabud said.

Affording Your Life with Attorney General Keith Ellison: What's Really Going on with Inflation.

For the Season 3 kick-off, Minnesota AG Keith Ellison chats with Richard Painter and Lindsay Owens about what's really going on with inflation. Spoiler alert: corporate greed.

Food Processing: Greedflation and Gordon Gekko.

That has led to a narrative about “greedflation” – inflation intensified by greedy corporations who raise prices beyond what they need to. In support of this idea, an organization called The Groundwork Collaborative has released a document titled “Corporate Profiteering Findings,” which purports to blow the lid off this situation.

Zyri: Inflation in the United States: The Speculation Theory and Market Fears.

But inflation gives greedy, monopolistic companies a chance to take advantage, said Lindsay Owens, executive director of the left-wing Groundwork Collaborative. Profit “is an accelerator of price increases,” she noted. “It’s not the main cause.” Owens referenced what companies have said on earnings conference calls in the past year. A Tyson Foods executive said beef price increases not only covered inflation, but “more than offset” rising costs.

Washington Post: Average U.S. gas prices top $5 a gallon, as surging energy costs squeeze economy.

“U.S. policymakers should quickly follow suit or risk continued profiteering and pain at the pump,” said Lindsay Owens, executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative, a left-leaning group. The Groundwork Collaborative found that the largest 24 oil and gas companies recorded $174 billion in profits last year — the highest increase in seven years.

Vox: Can blaming corporate greed save Democrats on inflation?

“Firms are passing along their rising costs, but then they’re going for more. And that’s leading to really historic high profit margins,” Lindsay Owens, the executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive economic nonprofit, and a former senior economic policy adviser to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), told Vox. Owens listened in on earnings calls last year to understand how CEOs were thinking about supply chain disruptions and projected earnings, only to find positive outlooks for profits.

NewsOne: Inflation Reaches New Highs As Biden Administration Urges Congressional Action.

“While families are feeling the sting of soaring energy costs, oil and gas companies are cheering the nearly $100 billion in profits they’ve already made this year off families’ pain at the pump,” said Groundwork’s Chief Economist Dr. Rakeen Mabud. “It’s past time for Congress to pass an excess profits tax to stop the outrageous war profiteering by Big Oil.”

Common Dreams: Progressives Rip Corporations for 'Using Inflation as a Cover Story to Jack Up Prices and Pad Profits'.

"While families are feeling the sting of soaring energy costs, oil and gas companies are cheering the nearly $100 billion in profits they've already made this year off families' pain at the pump," said Dr. Rakeen Mabud, chief economist at the Groundwork Collaborative.

Vox: Why meat is so expensive right now.

Michael Mitchell of the Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive economic policy group, says some ranchers are getting a raw deal as well. Increasingly, US beef comes from ranchers who sign contracts with meatpackers to sell their meat at set rates, and Mitchell says the packers aren’t raising those rates in tandem with their record profits: “It’s really creating an environment in which ranchers get squeezed,” Mitchell said. “Because demand for meat is still relatively strong … the meatpackers can make a very, very healthy profit and the ranchers don’t see that.”

Daily American: Gas hits $5 per gallon milestone in Somerset County.

“Profit margins should be coming down,” Lindsay Owens, executive director of Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive economic policy research group, previously told USA TODAY. Instead, she noted, “they’re actually growing.”

Daily Kos: Voters overwhelmingly know what is to blame for inflation: Corporate greed.

“Over and over, corporations are telling us about their corporate profiteering strategies—and the public is taking notice,” said Groundwork’s executive director Lindsay Owens. “By wide margins, voters say corporations are raising prices simply because they can—and they want lawmakers to put a stop to it.”

Socialist Worker: Baby formula shortages in the US are no accident.

“Abbott chose to prioritise shareholders by issuing billions of dollars in stock buybacks instead of making productive investments,” said Rakeen Mabud from think tank, Groundwork Collaborative. “These giant corporations need to be held to account for the vulnerabilities that they’ve created and the quality of the product that they put on the market,” she said.

The New York Times: Is ‘Greedflation’ Rewriting Economics, or Do Old Rules Still Apply?

Lindsay Owens, an economic sociologist who runs the progressive Groundwork Collaborative and has championed the greedflation argument, emphasizes how different the economy looked during America’s last bout with inflation: Labor was far more powerful, and investors less so. “It’s not surprising to me that a field that’s spent 50 years studying the ’70s didn’t think a lot about pricing and market power, because that wasn’t as prevalent during their last moment to study it,” Dr. Owens said.

OMFIF: Corporate US making consumers pay for inflation.

People are expecting prices to continue rising. Companies are taking advantage of these expectations by increasing their prices even further. As economic sociologist Lindsay Owens recently wrote in The New York Times, ‘companies that historically might have kept prices low to pick up profit by gaining additional market share are instead using the cover of inflation to raise prices and increase profits’. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell recently remarked that some companies are simply raising prices ‘because they can’.

Stanford Social Innovation Review: Electability Bias Against Female Candidates

“This paper identifies a devastating but critically important factor preventing women candidates from ascending to the highest levels of political office,” says Lindsay Owens, the executive director at Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive economic policy organization, and former economic advisor to Elizabeth Warren. “Political communicators and candidates should look closely at the authors’ recommendations for overcoming this bias if they want to improve their odds of electoral success.”

Informed Comment: Oil Profiteering: High Gas Prices, Climate Change, and the War in Ukraine share a Common Cause.

Amid the ongoing atrocities in Ukraine, rising gas prices, and the existential threat of climate change, policymakers in Washington have a long list of crises to address. But there’s one step that could help mitigate all of them: reducing our dependence on oil — and the giant oil and gas companies who profit from it.

CBS News: Companies use inflation to hike prices and generate huge profits, report says.

"Companies know that consumers expect higher prices right now and they're really seeing how far they can push that," Lindsay Owens, executive director of the left-leaning economic think tank Groundwork Collaborative, told PBS.

Ripon Advance: Rounds unveils bipartisan resolution calling for investigation into beef packing industry.

The resolution also would direct the FTC to report to Congress within one year on the monetary and other harms of anticompetitive practices and violations of antitrust law in the beef packing industry on consumers, ranchers, farmers, plant workers, and small businesses, and to make recommendations for legislation or other remedial actions, the bill summary says. The legislation has garnered support from the U.S. Cattlemen’s Association, R-CALF USA, the South Dakota Farmers Union, the South Dakota Stockgrowers Association, the Groundwork Collaborative, and Farm Action Fund.

Newton Daily News: It’s time to stop profiteering at the pump.

On quarterly earnings calls with their shareholders, big oil CEOs can’t stop bragging about how the crisis in the Ukraine is a great excuse to keep prices high and bring in historic profits — while consumers literally pay the price. Just listen to the CEO of Texas-based Pioneer Oil. When a reporter asked the CEO whether the company would consider taking measures to reduce prices after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, he replied: “No.”

Between The Lines: Corporate Price Gouging Exploits, Worsens Inflation.

Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Mike Mitchell, Groundwork Collaborative’s director of policy and research. Here, he discusses his group’s research that reveals corporate America is taking advantage of the pandemic to cash in, and why he believes Congress should impose a windfall profits tax to rein in corporate profiteering that has yielded the highest profit margins in 70 years.

Beef Magazine: Congress seeks investigation into beef price fixing.

Corporations that control 85% of the market for beef “have been using their market power to raise prices for consumers and have reduced pay for ranchers, farmers, and plant workers, all while padding their bottom lines,” Warren says. “It’s time for Congress to get back in the game and use every tool to promote competition in our markets so we can lower costs for families.” The bipartisan resolution is endorsed by the U.S. Cattlemen’s Association, R-CALF USA, South Dakota Farmers Union, South Dakota Stockgrowers Association, Groundwork Collaborative and Farm Action Fund.

CityLimits: Opinion: Price Gouging is Crushing Low-Income New Yorkers. Here’s What Gov. Hochul Should Do.

As Lindsay Owens of the Groundwork Collaborative recently noted, “Companies that historically might have kept prices low to pick up profit by gaining additional market share are instead using the cover of inflation to raise prices and increase profits. Consumers are now expecting higher prices at the checkout line, and companies are taking advantage. The poor and those on fixed incomes are hit the hardest.”

Ralph Nader Radio Hour: What’s Really Driving Inflation/War Without Death?

Ralph is joined by Lindsay Owens, executive director of the progressive economics think tank, the Groundwork Collaborative, who listened in on the earnings calls for some major corporations to hear management brag about using the current inflationary climate as cover for “plain old corporate profiteering."

Salon: Billionaires turn their backs on Biden: Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos go to Twitter to get political.

However, Lindsay Owens, Executive Director of the Groundwork Collaborative, told Salon that corporate tax hikes would disincentivize companies from applying excessive markups to their products. "Since the pandemic, about 54% of the price increases we're seeing are coming from what we call the markup," she said in an interview. "That piece gets a lot less fun and a lot less lucrative," she added, when "it's taxed back and shipped off to the Treasury."

The Guardian: Baby formula crisis: Abbott enriched shareholders as factory needed repairs, records show.

“Abbott chose to prioritize shareholders by issuing billions of dollars in stock buybacks instead of making productive investments,” said Rakeen Mabud, chief economist for the Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive economic advocacy group. “It’s important that we have high standards for something as vital as baby formula.”

WAMC: Deficit hawks are proposing austerity again. They're wrong.

The evidence for this is in the public presentations made by boards to directors to their stockholders. For evidence, see an opinion piece by Lindsay Owens in the New York Times, “I Listened In on Big Business. It’s Profiting From Inflation, and You’re Paying for It.”

Bloomberg: Democrats’ ‘Greedflation’ Claims Run Up Against Scant Evidence.

Voters also feel large corporations are using the pandemic to raise prices and increase profits, according to a survey conducted earlier this month by the progressive think tank Data for Progress in partnership with Groundwork Collaborative. At least 60% support both raising taxes on big companies as well as cracking down on those that raise prices unfairly.

Salon: Behind the Joe Biden v. Jeff Bezos beef: What their inflation spat is really about.

Director of the Groundwork Collaborative, told Salon that in order to fight inflation, Biden will need to disincentivize companies from applying the profit-driven markups to their products that are causing prices to rise. (Markups represent the difference between a product's selling price and its production cost.) "Since the pandemic, about 54% of the price increases we're seeing are coming from what we call the markup," she said in an interview, citing research from the Economic Policy Institute. "That piece gets a lot less fun and a lot less lucrative," she added, when "it's taxed back and shipped off to the Treasury." Also published in RawStory.

MSNBC: The Beat with Ari Melber.

Dr. Lindsay Owens joined MSNBC’s The Beat with Ari Melber to break down earnings results from 3M, Driven Brands, and Visa, as well as detail the role of corporate profiteering in rising prices.

OtherWords: IT’S TIME TO STOP PROFITEERING AT THE PUMP.

For decades, we’ve allowed big oil and gas companies to enrich themselves at the expense of our families, communities, and environment. Now these companies are seizing a moment of geopolitical unrest to pad their pockets even more. Oil companies are celebrating some of their biggest profits in years. In the first three months of 2022 alone, ExxonMobil raked in a record $5.5 billion, ConocoPhillips $5.8 billion, and Chevron $6 billion. On quarterly earnings calls with their shareholders, big oil CEOs can’t stop bragging about how the crisis in Ukraine is a great excuse to keep prices high and bring in historic profits — while consumers literally pay the price.

Slate — What Next: How Corporations Are Taking Advantage of Inflation (Podcast).

Consumers are paying higher prices almost everywhere as inflation continues to rise. But corporate earnings calls have revealed that many companies are using inflation as a cover to jack up prices and increase profits — all on the backs of customers. Guest: Lindsay Owens, executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative.

The Hill: Powell starts second term with greatest challenge yet.

The combination of higher interest rates and steadier price growth could be enough to slow a strong economy in much deeper pain. “This is not the kind of scenario where we’re seeing rising prices that monetary policy was built to address,” said Michael Mitchell, research and policy director at the Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive research nonprofit. “By going forward with interest rate hikes right now, they’re actually condemning a lot of people, a lot of workers and families to greater costs and more difficulty in making ends meet.”

Noahpinion: Greedflation, gouging and price controls.

Instead, they probably believe that companies are using their existing level of monopoly power to take advantage of the current economic situation in order to raise their prices (and profits) more than they would in a competitive market. For example, here’s a thread by Lindsay Owens of the Roosevelt Institute that basically makes this case.

Economic Policy Institute: Ignoring the role of profits makes inflation analyses a lot weaker.

Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell wrote last week that those pointing to the role of fatter profit margins in driving price inflation are engaged in “conspiracy theories,” and argued that the conspiracy theorists are distracting attention from things that could really lead to lower inflation: faster immigration and removing import tariffs. It’s a pretty unconvincing column all around.

New Yorker: The War on Economics.

Yet we’re not close to consensus on central questions of economic statecraft. Can the cycle of booms, bubbles, and busts be moderated? How much money can a welfare state redistribute to the poor without encouraging dependency? Economists, for all their hardcore mathematizing, still disagree with one another on basic issues. Which raises a question: Was it a mistake to entrust them with public policy in the first place?

Nation of Change: New Warren bill would empower Feds to crack down on corporate price gouging.

Rakeen Mabud, chief economist at the Groundwork Collaborative, applauded the new bill as an “important” step toward reining in corporate profiteering and argued that “a federal price gouging statute would help curtail this exploitative behavior.”

Salon: Elizabeth Warren Targets Corporate Price Gouging.

Lindsay Owens, executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative, similarly argued in a New York Times op-ed last week that "plain old corporate profiteering" is a key culprit behind price hikes nationwide. "Companies that historically might have kept prices low to pick up profit by gaining additional market share are instead using the cover of inflation to raise prices and increase profits," Owens wrote. "Consumers are now expecting higher prices at the checkout line, and companies are taking advantage. The poor and those on fixed incomes are hit the hardest."

Common Dreams: New Warren Bill Would Empower Feds to Crack Down on Corporate Price Gouging.

Rakeen Mabud, chief economist at the Groundwork Collaborative, applauded the new bill as an "important" step toward reining in corporate profiteering and argued that "a federal price gouging statute would help curtail this exploitative behavior."

Talk Business & Politics: Reports Suggest Corporate America Partially Responsible for Inflation.

The think tank group Groundwork Collaborative compiled two reports earlier this year showing how corporations' profit from the pandemic and raise consumer prices to help to fuel inflation. Groundwork Collaborative found much of corporate America is raising prices on goods and services while also growing net income to sometimes near-record levels.

Fox Business: What Can Biden Actually Do About Inflation?

Rakeen Mabud, chief economist and managing director of policy and research at the Groundwork Collaborative, said Biden and Congress need to zero in on big corporations that are "profiteering" off consumers. "Tackling inflation requires taking on the mega corporations that are jacking up prices on consumers in order to make record profits for their CEOs and shareholders," Mabud told FOX Business. "In earnings call after earnings call, CEOs are crowing about their ability to raise prices on consumers – while using inflation, the war in Ukraine, and the pandemic as cover for their price hikes."

Tangle: The inflation problem.

Tangle: The inflation problem. In The New York Times, Lindsay Owens said "corporate profiteering" is the real culprit of inflation. "Curious how C.E.O.s were justifying higher prices, my team and I started listening in on hundreds of earnings calls, where, by law, companies have to tell the truth," Owens wrote. "What was striking in the earnings calls was not the supply chain shortages or companies’ typical profit motives; it was the plain old corporate profiteering.”

Daily American: 'Compounding the Problem': Why to Expect Even Higher Gas Prices in the Coming Weeks.

“Profit margins should be coming down,” Lindsay Owens, executive director of Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive economic policy research group, previously told USA TODAY. Instead, she noted, “they’re actually growing.” Shell's adjusted earnings rose to $9.1 billion from $3.2 billion during the same period last year. BP profits rose to $6.2 billion, which is more than double last year's first quarter profits of $2.6 billion.

USA Today: Oil Giants Reap Record Profits as War Rages in Ukraine, Energy Prices Soar: Here's How Much They Made.

The net profit margin of S&P 500 companies, which include energy giants such as Chevron and Exxon Mobil, in the first quarter has been running at 12.3% based on estimates and earnings reported so far, according to FactSet. That’s down from a peak of 13.1% in the second quarter of last year, but above the pre-COVID-19 level of about 11%. “Profit margins should be coming down,” Lindsay Owens, executive director of Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive economic policy research group, previously told USA TODAY. Instead, she noted, “they’re actually growing.”

PRESS CALL TODAY, 10:30 a.m. ET: Groundwork’s Chief Economist Dr. Rakeen Mabud, Other Experts To Weigh in on April Jobs Report

Today at 10:30 a.m. ET, Groundwork’s Chief Economist Dr. Rakeen Mabud will join the Washington Center for Equitable Growth’s Kate Bahn and the Roosevelt Institute’s Lauren Melodia for a Jobs Day Press Call. Leading economists will share their real-time analysis of the April Jobs Report and what it means for workers, families, and small businesses.  “The trajectory of the labor market recovery is a testament to the people-centered investments policymakers made during the pandemic,"  said Dr. Mabud. “However, the Black unemployment rate remains at nearly double the white unemployment rate, an unacceptable inequity that has persisted for too long. We must not get complacent and settle for the pre-pandemic labor market that...

MSNBC: The Beat with Ari Melber.

Dr. Lindsay Owens joined MSNBC’s The Beat with Ari Melber to discuss her latest piece in The New York Times and the role of corporate profiteering in rising prices.

San Antonio Express-News: Ayala: Is Inflation Fueling Price Hikes, or is it Corporate Profiteering?

Lindsay Owens, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Groundwork Collaborative, whose mission is to develop and advance a progressive economic worldview, was more blunt. The headline on her New York Times commentary said, “I Listened In on Big Business. It’s Profiting from Inflation, and You’re Paying for It.” “Curious how CEOs were justifying higher prices, my team and I started listening in on hundreds of earnings calls, where, by law, companies have to tell the truth,” she writes.

New York Times: I Listened In on Big Business. It’s Profiting From Inflation, and You’re Paying for It.

What was striking in the earnings calls was not the supply chain shortages or companies’ typical profit motives; it was the plain old corporate profiteering. The Economics 101 adage that “inflation is just too much money chasing too few goods” doesn’t come close to the full story. This raises the question: When companies are exploiting consumers in a time of national crisis, when should government step in?

The Guardian: ‘What am I going to do?’: Soaring Prices Fuel Calls for US Government to Step In.

But price rises are not the only issue critics would like to see the Biden administration address. Others, like Groundwork Collaborative’s executive director, Lindsay Owens, have called for a ban or new restrictions on stock buyback programs. Joe Biden’s 2023 budget proposes prohibiting executives from selling their stock three to five years after enacting a buyback program. “The other big winner besides the shareholders in excess cash that’s going to buybacks are the executives,” Owens said. “They announce the buybacks, their stock prices soar, then they sell their shares and there are a number of ways to make this work better.”

Roosevelt Rundown: How Elon Bought Twitter.

Reading — Revealed: Top US Corporations Raising Prices on Americans Even as Profits Surge [feat. Roosevelt Fellow Lindsay Owens] – The Guardian.

Common Dreams: Seeing Inflation as 'Opportunity,' Corporations Are Profiting From Price Hikes: Analysis.

The Covid-19 pandemic, a supply chain crunch inseparable from decades of neoliberal globalization, and Russia's war on Ukraine have created a "smokescreen," according to Lindsay Owens, executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative, which has drawn attention to the relationship between "corporate greed" and rising prices. "That gray, nebulous area is fertile ground for companies right now, and you hear about it in their earnings calls," Owens told The Guardian. "Inflation itself is the opportunity."

USA Today: Critics say Corporate Greed is Making Inflation Worse, Citing Record Profits Despite Rising Costs.

Companies, they say, are jacking up prices by more than is required to offset their rising wholesale costs, padding their profits while using supply snags as cover. “They see (inflation) as an opportunity,” says Lindsay Owens, executive director of Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive economic policy research group. “It’s a convenient pretext.”

Colorado Springs Independent: Opinion: Calling Joe Biden.

You’re not likely to read about the devastating effects of monopoly from your local, hedge-fund owned newspaper, but a few taps on a keyboard will take you to a wealth of resources. Some favorites include Yale’s Thurman Arnold Project, the Roosevelt Institute, and The Groundwork Collaborative.

Common Dreams: 'Penny Wise and Pound Foolish': Democrats Urged to Reject Pivot to Austerity.

In a statement on Tuesday, ProsperUS spokesperson Claire Guzdar cautioned that "choosing to veer away from investments that succeeded so incredibly in keeping families and the economy afloat over the last two years could derail our economic recovery altogether"—an assessment that economists have echoed, citing the consequences of austerity in the wake of the Great Recession. "Starving our economy of these long-term investments," added Guzdar, "is penny wise and pound foolish and will lead to slower growth, fewer jobs, less revenue, and larger deficits in the long run."

The Incision by Abdul El Sayed: Lindsay Owens on What's Driving Inflation.

I wanted to understand inflation, and the ways that corporations have been hiding behind it to raise their prices. Lindsay Owens is the Executive Director of Groundworks Collaborative, a progressive economic policy think tank. They’ve been tracking inflation and the ways that major corporations have been using it to their advantage — and driving it in the process. She joined me to share more about inflation, what’s driving it, and what needs to be done to slow it.

USA Today: For Voters, Inflation is Top of Mind; Biden's Signature Legislation Doesn't Register.

Lindsay Owens, executive director of the progressive economic group Groundwork Collaborative, said congressional Democrats should pass legislation before November to address rising child care, health care and housing costs, as well as taking on corporate price gouging. “Congress gets back in session next week. And they should get down to the floor as soon as possible to vote for legislation to bring down costs for families and to take on corporate profiteering,” Owens said. “These focus groups should really light a fire under that.”

Public News Service: Minnesota Grapples with Inflation; Report Blames Corporate Profits.

A new report from the Groundwork Collaborative said corporations are taking advantage of the pandemic to drive up costs for things such as prescription drugs, groceries and diapers. The authors pointed to corporate earnings calls in which some CEOs openly boast about their price hikes.

CBS News: Companies Use Inflation to Hike Prices and Generate Huge Profits, Report Says.

"Companies know that consumers expect higher prices right now and they're really seeing how far they can push that," Lindsay Owens, executive director of the left-leaning economic think tank Groundwork Collaborative, told PBS.

Occupy Democrats: Unfree Market: AOC Serves Notice on Corporations Caught Bragging About Rising Consumer Prices and Record Profits.

Groundwork Collaborative has compiled data, across multiple sectors, from corporate earnings calls showing companies brazenly flaunting their near-monopolistic power grip on industries across the spectrum, thumbing their nose at the difficulties faced by American families, while engaging in predatory and unscrupulous business practices that are enabled by a lack of competition.

Politico: The Hunt for Peak Inflation.

“Policymakers should tax excess profits to encourage productive investment, pursue a federal price gouging standard to protect consumers, and make long-overdue investments in our supply chain. Regulators should also enforce existing laws to make markets more competitive and prevent collusion and price-fixing.” — Rakeen Mabud, chief economist and managing director of policy and research, Groundwork Collaborative.

PBS Newshour: Why Corporations are Reaping Record Profits with Inflation on The Rise.

Lindsay Owens: What we're seeing in this moment is really when that profit maximization and opportunity collides. And the opportunity is the cover of inflation.

Public News Service: Report: Corporate Profiteering Fueling Inflation.

Lindsay Owens, executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative, the group behind the report, said families in Nebraska and across the U.S. are on the hook, as powerful corporations tap the pandemic's economic fallout to rake in record-breaking profits. Last year, corporate profit margins reached their highest level since 1950.

Politico: The Lefty Magazine Flexing Some Biden-era Muscle.

The White House granted the publication access to officials for its recent issue focusing on fixing supply chain problems. Clearly the communications team was pleased. Dayen told West Wing Playbook that White House officials requested copies of the issue (the print magazine publishes just six times a year). At one point recently, Dayen says, a senior administration official told him a copy was placed in the Oval Office.

Politico: Opinion | To Overcome the Republicans’ Culture War, Democrats Need to Punch Up, Not Down.

Democrats can use this inclusive populist narrative to respond to voters’ top issue: inflation. As Lindsay Owens of Groundwork Collaborative has noted, corporate CEOs have repeatedly stated that they are using reports of inflation in some sectors of the economy as an excuse to raise prices on consumer goods.

Salon: Mitch McConnell Leads Republicans in Profiting Off of Corporate Price Hikes.

"They tell investors every quarter our pricing actions more than offset our [cost of goods sold]. They're passing along the rising cost of production, and they're still charging more," Owens added. "And so it's actually quite a straightforward story. It's interesting to me that there's been such a vigorous debate about it, because it's sort of just factually true."

Star Tribune: Greed or Good Business? A Look at Food Company Profits Over the Past Year.

"Corporate profits are at a record high — and, more critically, corporate profit margins are at their highest point since 1950," said Rakeen Mabud, chief economist and managing director of policy and research at the progressive Groundwork Collaborative. "What we're seeing across the board is companies are taking advantage of this moment and jacking up prices beyond what their input costs would justify."

Hill Heat: “Fossil Fuel Industries Have Been Important Agenda-Setters in Many Countries”.

Senate Budget chair Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is looking at the broader phenomenon of corporate profiteering with witnesses Robert Reich and Groundwork Collaborative’s Lindsay Owens.

Law360: Windfall Tax On Profits Would Help Consumers, Panel Told.

Lindsay Owens, executive director of a Washington, D.C.-based economic policy think tank called the Groundwork Collaborative, blamed rising inflation on corporate profiteering, investor demand for higher profits, and supply-chain control held by mega corporations.

Salon: Bernie Sanders to Hold Hearing on How "Corporate Greed and Profiteering" are Fueling Inflation.

"CEOs can't stop bragging on corporate earnings calls about jacking up prices on consumers to keep their profits soaring," Lindsay Owens, executive director at the Groundwork Collaborative, said in a statement about the analysis. "These megacorporations are cashing in and getting richer — and consumers are paying the price." Owens is one of three experts set to testify at the Senate Budget Committee's Tuesday hearing.

E&E Daily: Committees Prepare for Gasoline Price Battles.

Some Democrats are pushing legislation — including S. 3933 and S. 3802 — to implement new taxes on windfall profits. One key backer is Senate Budget Chair Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who is holding a hearing on inflation and corporate greed.

Truthout: Sanders Announces Budget Committee Hearing on Corporate Greed and Profiteering.

The hearing scheduled for Tuesday will highlight a “level of corporate greed [that] has only widened the gap between the top one percent and the working class,” according to the press release. It will feature testimony from former Labor Secretary Robert Reich and Lindsay Owens, director of Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive economic advocacy group.

Herald Chronicle: Opinion: It’s Not Just Inflation, It’s Price Gouging.

My organization, Groundwork Collaborative, recently got our hands on the transcripts from hundreds of these earnings calls. And you won’t believe what CEOs are boasting about. Knowing that the current inflation frenzy is a convenient scapegoat, these companies are charging customers even more to pad their profit margins. They aren’t just admitting it — they’re openly bragging to investors about how well it’s working.

Washington Post: As Inflation Spreads, Rising Prices Fuel Charges of Corporate Greed.

“P&G is a great example. It’s a huge, huge company with an enormous amount of market share,” said Rakeen Mabud, chief economist of Groundwork Collaborative, a nonprofit that is critical of corporate behavior. “And it throws its weight around in a number of different ways and uses that power to take advantage of the situation.”

Fortune: U.S. Companies Post Their Biggest Profit Growth in Decades by Jacking Up Prices During the Pandemic.

The progressive group Groundwork Collaborative, which focuses on economic issues and has repeatedly criticized corporate America for its price hikes during the pandemic, was also quick to come out with a statement after the corporate profit data was released. “CEOs can’t stop bragging on corporate earnings calls about jacking up prices on consumers to keep their profits soaring—and today’s annual profit data shows just how well their inflation strategy is working,” Groundwork’s executive director Lindsay Owens said. “These megacorporations are cashing in and getting richer, and consumers are paying the price.”

Common Dreams: 'Their Inflation Strategy Is Working': Corporate Profits Soared to Record High in 2021.

Lindsay Owens, executive director at the Groundwork Collaborative, argued in a statement that the new profit figures show that corporate America is successfully weathering inflationary pressures across the economy by pushing higher costs onto consumers—a tactic some CEOs have openly touted during recent calls with investors.

CNN+: Go There.

The latest from Mykolaiv, Ukraine, where residents are dealing with the aftermath of a Russian attack. Then, head to Virginia to look at price gouging. Lindsay Owens: “A really key factor behind the price increases we’re seeing is a simple one: corporations are raising prices because they can.”

The New Republic: Biden Has Been Touting the Middle Class for Two Years, but the Middle Class May Not Be Listening.

The organization is hosting a virtual kickoff event with Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley and Illinois Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky on Wednesday. Its board includes the heads of influential liberal economic groups like the Groundwork Collaborative, Americans for Tax Fairness, and the Economic Security Project.

Yahoo! Finance: US Corporate Profits Stayed High Through 2021 Even as Inflation Took Hold.

The Groundwork Collaborative group, which has hammered corporate America over high prices, immediately put out a statement charging that businesses are taking advantage of inflation to raise prices. The “annual profit data shows just how well their inflation strategy is working,” Lindsay Owens, the group’s executive director, said of business leaders. “Megacorporations are cashing in and getting richer — and consumers are paying the price.”

The National Interest: Did Biden's Approval Rating Drop When the Child Tax Credit Expired?

Per HuffPost, Biden’s approval rating was 4 percent higher among parents when the monthly payments from the enhanced credits started last July, according to researchers at Fighting Chance for Families Action, a project of the liberal groups Data for Progress and Groundwork Collaborative.

Business Insider: Raising Interest Rates Won't Fix the Real Reason Behind Inflation: Price-Gouging and Corporate Greed.

“Mabud argues that the supply chain, for instance, was weakened over the last three decades through a corporate philosophy called the "just-in-time" method, a cost-saving methodology that ruthlessly eliminates storage costs and material overruns by driving up efficiency in the global supply and distribution chains.”

The American Prospect: Interest Rate Hikes Aren’t a Solution for Supply Shocks.

“On top of all that, as our friends at Groundwork Collaborative have been hammering, companies have used the opportunity to hide behind inflation expectations to jack up prices in ways that raise their profit margins. Recognizing and combating windfall profits makes more sense than driving interest rates to a level that puts people out of a job.”

HuffPost: Loss Of Child Tax Credit Payments May Have Hurt Joe Biden’s Approval Rating

"Survey data suggests Biden’s approval was 4 percentage points higher among parents when the payments started in July, according to researchers at Fighting Chance for Families Action, a project of the liberal groups Data for Progress and Groundwork Collaborative."

Pitchfork Economics: Did Corporate Greed Break the Supply Chain? (With Rakeen Mabud).

“While many Americans struggle to make ends meet, corporate America’s 2021 profits were higher than ever. So why are corporations making more money while supply chain issues are still driving up inflation for the rest of us? The Groundwork Collaborative’s Chief Economist, Rakeen Mabud, wants you to know that the supply chain is working exactly as it was designed: for maximum profit, rather than reliably getting goods to people. And that’s the problem.”

The American Prospect: The Great Disconnect.

“Among voters who received the newly generous Child Tax Credit in 2021, evaluations of the economy were more positive than they were among similar voters who didn’t, according to a recent analysis by Data for Progress.”

KSQD: Len Beyea’s Talk of the Bay.

“Lindsay Owens on public perceptions of corporate greed, economics, and housing – and the real story.”

Salon: Stop Blaming Workers for Inflation: Corporate Greed is a Much Bigger Factor. (op-ed by Rakeen Mabud)

But let's call out this story for what it really is: a devious tactic to shift blame from their own role in jacking up prices. At the end of the day, it's greedy corporations that have gotten us into this mess, not workers. In short, the story of price increases today is one of a profit–price spiral – not one driven by workers' wages.

Inequality.org: It’s Not Just Inflation — It’s Price Gouging.

Four times a year, corporations are required by law to update their investors on how they’re doing in terms of sales and profits. These are called “earnings reports,” and the companies will usually hold calls with the investors to walk them through the latest report. My organization, Groundwork Collaborative, recently got our hands on the transcripts from hundreds of these earnings calls. And you won’t believe what CEOs are boasting about.

Salon: Stop blaming workers for inflation: Corporate Greed is a Much Bigger Factor. (op-ed by Rakeen Mabud)

But let's call out this story for what it really is: a devious tactic to shift blame from their own role in jacking up prices. At the end of the day, it's greedy corporations that have gotten us into this mess, not workers. In short, the story of price increases today is one of a profit–price spiral – not one driven by workers' wages.

The Hill: Fed Likely to Raise Interest Rates: Here's How It Might Affect You.

“Rate hikes will increase unemployment, slow down wage growth and hurt the very people who are bearing the brunt of recent price increases. Throwing cold water on the economic recovery will only calcify long-standing inequities in our labor market, harming all of us,” said Rakeen Mabud, chief economist at the Groundwork Collective, a progressive research nonprofit.

Minnesota Post: It’s Not Just Inflation — It’s Price Gouging (op-ed by Lindsay Owens).

If you’ve been slammed lately by higher prices on everything from groceries to rental cars and gas prices, you’re probably wondering what on earth is behind these skyrocketing costs. Corporations are quick to blame this new reality on the pandemic, but another major culprit is hiding in plain sight: Their own profiteering.

Sirius XM: The Michelangelo Signorile Show.

Lindsay Owens joined Joe Sunday on the Michelangelo Signorile Show to discuss the recent CPI numbers and the role of corporate profiteering and war profiteering in rising prices.

Business Insider: Biden has a Ton of Ideas to Keep Putin's Invasion from Hurting Americans' Wallets, but There's 'No Quick Fix'

"There's not a silver bullet or quick-fix solution for the administration right now," Lindsay Owens, executive director of the left-leaning Groundwork Collaborative, told Insider. "But I think there are a range of policy actions, including continued investment in the supply chain to help unsnarl supply shortages, continuing to keep a tight labor market, and to ensure that we can staff adequately to help alleviate the supply shortage."

Other Words: It's Not Just Inflation — It's Price Gouging.

If you’ve been slammed lately by higher prices on everything from groceries to rental cars and gas prices, you’re probably wondering what on earth is behind these skyrocketing costs. Corporations are quick to blame this new reality on the pandemic, but another major culprit is hiding in plain sight: their own profiteering.

House Democrats Take Aim at Corporate Greed During Inflation Hearing

“The concern here is that the investor scaffolding that undergirds our entire economy will keep prices elevated for a longer period of time and allow these huge companies to get rich while all of us pay the price,” Rakeen Mabud, chief economist and managing director of policy and research at the progressive Groundwork Collaborative, told lawmakers. Read on The Hill

The New Republic: After Two Years of Covid, the U.S. Economy Is Thriving. We Have the Great Recession to Thank.

“It is abundantly clear that Congress’s response in 2008, 2009, and 2010 was just too small and stopped too quickly,” said Rakeen Mabud, chief economist at the Groundwork Collaborative. Even if the Obama administration couldn’t have gotten a trillion-dollar-plus bill through Congress at the start, it could have made it clear that another would need to follow.

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation: Why Corporate Profiteering Could Be Helping Fuel Inflation.

These and other examples are collected in Corporate Profiteering Findings, a report by the U.S. advocacy group Groundwork Collaborative released earlier this month. The report not only includes comments by executives in investor calls but juxtaposes companies' complaints about higher operating costs with their willingness to spend millions — as Procter & Gamble, Best Buy and Whirlpool did — on buying back their own stock, a way to return cash to shareholders.

Detroit Metro Times: Four Ways Corporate Greed is Driving Inflation.

What corporate executives are willing to say on earnings calls is often a lot more honest than what they’re willing to say publicly. On those calls, they’ve made it very clear that this moment isn’t really about inflation, it’s about profit. My friend Dr. Lindsay Owens, who heads up the progressive think tank Groundwork Collaborative, just published a report showing exactly how corporations used inflation to jack prices. You can read the full report yourself, but I think she did a great job distilling its biggest findings on Twitter.

Next City: Hear Us: What’s Up With Inflation, and What Does It Mean for People of Color?

Solana Rice of Liberation in a Generation recently sat down with Mike Mitchell, the director of policy and research at the Groundwork Collaborative, to get the 411 on inflation and what it means for people of color. “It’s interesting how much of the conversation around inflation kind of looms as a specter, but we don’t actually talk about what it is, how it’s measured, or how it impacts different folks, right?”

Fatherly: Most Americans Blame “Corporate Greed” for Inflation, Survey Shows.

“Big corporations aren’t shy in telling their investors how they’re taking advantage of the pandemic to jack up prices and pad their own profits—and the public is noticing,” Lindsay Owens, executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative, said in a statement earlier this week. “Policymakers should listen to voters by cracking down on corporations raising prices unfairly, addressing corporate consolidation and monopoly power, and increasing taxes on corporations.”

Vox: Inflation, Explained by Eggs.

Some economists and politicians have flagged that a number of corporations have used inflation and current economic conditions as cover for increasing prices. “There’s absolutely, and it’s clear as day in the earnings calls, a larger sense that these companies are passing along higher costs and then some,” said Lindsay Owens, executive director of progressive think tank the Groundwork Collaborative. “They are pleasantly surprised that demand is not responsive, and what that says to them is hey, let’s go a little further still.”

Reuters: $10 toothpaste? U.S. Household Goods Makers Face Blowback on Price Hikes.

Lindsay Owens, executive director of the progressive non-profit Groundwork Collaborative, named diapers as a category with little competition, paving the way for aggressive price hikes.

Truthout: Poll Finds Most Voters Think Companies Are Exploiting Pandemic to Raise Prices.

The poll of over 1,500 likely voters, conducted by Data for Progress in collaboration with Groundwork Collaborative this month, found that 63 percent of all respondents think that corporations are using the pandemic to pad profits. Only 29 percent said that the companies have no choice but to raise prices to cover operational costs.

Bloomberg: Inflation Pai Means Biden Gets No Credit for Roaring Economy.

“Biden and the Democrats won’t be trusted on the economy without clearing inflation because voters aren’t going to reward the party in power if they feel worse off,” said Lindsay Owens, a former economic adviser to Senator Elizabeth Warren who is now executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive economic think tank.

Yahoo Finance: Corporate America's 2021 Profits Were Higher Than Ever.

The group is also releasing a new survey this week of 1,549 likely voters from Groundwork Collaborative and Data for Progress that finds 63% of respondents believe large corporations are "taking advantage of the pandemic to raise prices unfairly and increase profits." Even 51% of Republicans agreed with that sentiment.

NBC LX: Companies Used Inflation as an Excuse to Jack Up Prices, and She's Got the Receipts.

Many businesses have posted rising profits and 70-year-high profit margins since the pandemic. But executives have also talked openly in earnings calls about raising prices, and then saying the increases were due to inflation. And Lindsay Owens and her organization Groundwork Collaborative have the receipts to prove it.

Fortune: Bernie Sanders rips McDonald’s, Starbucks, and Amazon for ‘corporate greed’ as they post huge profits and price hikes.

“Sometimes we talk about inflation like we care about it for its own sake. We really care about inflation because we care about the way it affects people,” Rakeen Mabud, chief economist for the economic activist group Groundwork Collaborative, recently told Fortune’s Megan Leonhardt. “These price hikes are really, really hitting vulnerable people hard.”

Vox: Corporate Pricing is Boosting Inflation — But We’re Still Buying

The inability to dismantle those two phenomena, though, is integral to the ability of certain businesses to continue increasing prices, according to Lindsay Owens, the executive director of progressive economic policy organization the Groundwork Collaborative and a former senior economic policy adviser to Warren.

Fortune: Is Inflation Really this Bad, or are Greedy Companies Profiting Off the Pandemic?

Yet others argue that the price hikes are unjust, including Rakeen Mabud, chief economist for the Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive activist group focused on economic issues.

Biden’s Hack Gap on Inflation

But others in the expansive lefty-economics space say that, in fact, it is not “bullshit” to make these points; that those who believe so don’t appreciate the intersectionality of political power and the marketplace; and that it is a form of political insanity to shy away from a more populist approach. Read on Politico

White House Economists Push Back Against Pressure to Blame Corporate Power for Inflation

This week, two groups — the American Economic Liberties Project and the Groundwork Collaborative — sent a letter to Biden urging him to order CEA to “study market realities” and determine the connection between corporate profits and higher prices. Read on The Washington Post

The Problem with Jon Stewart:

We’re doubling up the content—and the problems. Alongside staff writers Henrik and Kasaun, Jon welcomes inflation expert Lindsay Owens, executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative, to discuss greedy CEOs jacking up prices.

Red-hot Inflation Has CEOs 'Crowing' and Consumers Crying (Sort of)

And with an economy still expanding at an appreciable rate, there’s no telling when trickle-down inflation will stop. “What we see is across sectors — across companies, CEOs are just crowing about how they can raise prices on consumers all while bringing in record profits,” Rakeen Mabud, Groundwork Collaborative chief economist and managing director of policy and research, told Yahoo Finance Live on Tuesday. Watch on Yahoo! Finance

Renters Across US Face Sharp Increases – Averaging Up to 40% in Some Cities

“If we think that rent is a really core part of our inflation problem right now, which it is, then we really do need a more comprehensive approach,” said Dr Lindsay Owens, co-author of the report and a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute. Owens argued against solutions put forth by some economists seeking to rely on contractionary monetary policies such as raising interest rates through the Federal Reserve. Read on The Guardian

How We Broke the Supply Chain Panel

In this event, the Prospect’s executive editor David Dayen hears from Rakeen Mabud, chief economist and managing director of policy and research at The Groundwork Collaborative, TAP’s editor at large Harold Meyerson and staff writer Alex Sammon, and NYC-based independent journalist Rose Adams, on just how the links in the supply chain crumbled and broke away. Watch on The American Prospect

Economist is Disgusted by These CEOs who Brag about Their High Prices While Blaming Inflation, Exposes Them on Twitter

Recently, economics and data expert Dr. Lindsay Owens has shared an illuminating explanation on Twitter about how corporate greed affects us all. “As you read today’s inflation report, pay close attention to what the CEOs who set prices are saying. We got our hands on the latest batch of earnings reports, and it’s a doozy,” Owens wrote in a thread on February 10 that has since gone viral. Read on Bored Panda

How Dems Can Punch Back on Inflation

Groundwork [Collaborative] has a rundown of how mega-retailers used the holiday season as an opportunity to jack up prices under the cloak of inflation. Read on The Message Box

Five Obstacles Biden Faces in Battle Against Inflation

“When we see supply shortages we can tamp out our demand and make people poorer, or we can boost supply,” said Rakeem Mabud, chief economist at Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive research nonprofit, in a Thursday call with reporters. “Investments that really have long lasting positive repercussions will make our economy more resilient.” Read on The Hill

Ayman Reports

There’s a heated debate over what’s driving inflation. Is it a supply crunch? Government spending? Or corporate greed gone amok? In much of America right now, says @owenslindsay1, “Things look a lot less like your Econ 101 textbook and a lot more like an episode of The Sopranos.” See on Peacock

Corporations Are Getting Off Scot-free in the Inflation Blame Game

As [Lindsay] Owens mentioned last night, CEOs have been open — giddy, even — about their plans to raise prices on products, despite the fact many of them have seen profits rise during the pandemic. Watch on MSNBC

The Michelangelo Signorile Show

How are economists and corporations allowed to scream inflation while celebrating record growth? @owenslindsay1 of @Groundwork joins @MSignorile [to discuss] the misplaced anger toward the numbers and what people should be looking at. Listen on SiriusXM

Rakeen Mabud on Supply Chain Breakdown

You will have heard many things recently about the supply chain—as the reason you can’t find what you’re looking for on store shelves, or the reason it costs so much. But what’s behind it all? Why has the system broken down in this way? Rakeen Mabud is chief economist and managing director of policy and research at Groundwork Collaborative. She’ll join us to talk about the ideas in the article she recently co-authored for American Prospect, “How We Broke the Supply Chain.” Listen on FAIR Counterspin

Armed With Teddy Bears, West Virginia Moms Fight To Save The Child Tax Credit

It’s possible that allowing the child tax credit to expire could damage Democrats’ standing with voters. According to new polling from Fighting Chance for Families, a project of the liberal groups Data for Progress and Groundwork Collaborative, Democrats in January enjoyed a 9-point advantage over Republicans on the question of “Which party do you trust more to support parents with children?” Read on Huffington Post

House Panel Debates Bill to Create Federal Price-gouging Policy

Rakeen Mabud, chief economist at progressive advocacy group the Groundwork Collaborative, testified that price hikes are contagious among publicly traded companies. “When one company is able to get away with padding their profits and price gouging, shareholders from across the board want in,” she said, adding that those who don’t endure “massive selloffs.” Read in Roll Call

Starbucks Profits Soar by 31%—But It's Raising Prices Anyway

During testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Wednesday, Rakeen Mabud of the Groundwork Collaborative noted that "in sector after sector, in company after company, corporations are jacking up prices on consumers and using concerns about inflation as cover to do so." Read on Common Dreams

Top Democrats Rip Corporations for Price Gouging. ‘Executives Brazenly Boast to Investors About Raising Prices.’

A pack of 50 Kimberly-Clark N95 masks cost $23.19 in October 2021. By mid-January, the same box of masks cost $57.15, according to the Groundwork Collaborative, a left-leaning activist group focused on economic issues. Read in Fortune

The American Prospect x Groundwork Special Issue: How We Broke the Supply Chain

Dr. Rakeen Mabud kicks off a special issue of The American Prospect: The Supply Chain Debacle. The opening story, co-authored by Dr. Mabud and Prospect Executive Editor David Dayen, explains how current supply chain chaos and rising prices stem from decades of bad policies that prioritized corporate profits above all else. Below is an excerpt from the February issue released today:  “We spent a half-century allowing business executives and financiers to take control of our supply chains, enabled by leaders in both parties. They all hailed the transformation, cheering the advances of globalization, the efficient network that would free us from want. Motivated by greed and dismissive of the public interest, they didn’t mention...

How We Broke the Supply Chain

Economic elites have ripped off the public and put us in danger for too long, and they did it largely undetected. We are in the midst of a unique crisis that has clarified the vulnerabilities of this system like never before, and the untold story of corporate takeover and catastrophe ought to trigger a rethinking about whom an economy should serve. Now’s our chance to flip the script and start building toward an economy that truly works for all of us. Read on The American Prospect

Biden Could Step into Debate on Booming Sports Gambling

“You could read hundreds of stories about this phenomenon, about the stress of longshoremen and supply chain managers and government officials, the consequences for consumers and small businesses and retailers, and superficial attempts at explaining why we got here,” David Dayen and Rakeen Mabud write in the first story of a new project by the American Prospect: “How We Broke the Supply Chain.” Read on the Washington Post.

What Should the White House Do to Combat Inflation? Use Antitrust to Curb Corporate Profiteering

As the country grapples with inflation, the Washington Post asked 12 experts across the ideological spectrum how they would fight rising prices. One of these experts was Lindsay Owens, who makes the case for addressing concentrated corporate power to bring down prices:  “Addressing concentrated corporate power isn’t the only tool the president can or should use to bring down prices that are straining family budgets. But given the pernicious and pervasive links between concentration, shortages and price hikes, any policy response must center this approach or underdeliver. American consumers can afford nothing less.” Read the full story here. 

Price of Meat on the Rise as Companies See Profits Triple

“So when there’s no competition in a market, you’re not going to get some of those dynamics that allow prices to ease,” said Groundwork’s Rakeen Mabud. The price of beef is up 20% from this time last year. The Biden administration is pointing fingers at the meat industry, which is dominated by just four big companies who control pricing." Watch on NBC News

WATCH: Rakeen Mabud Talks Inflation, Corporate Greed on Black News Channel

Economist Rakeen Mabud joins Aisha Mills on #AMplified to discuss why people are paying more for consumer goods.   

LISTEN: Should Supply Chains Really be this Fragile?

Groundwork Collaborative Executive Director Lindsay Owens lays out her argument for why corporate profit-seeking contributed to the inflation problem we have today, in the latest economics episode with POLITICO reporter Victoria Guida. Listen on Politico  

Why the Economy Can Survive Higher Rates

Rakeen Mabud, chief economist at the Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive economic think tank, said the problem with rate increases is they won’t address what folks at Groundwork and some lawmakers see as a major contributor to inflation: big businesses unfairly jacking up prices. Read on Politico

What Omicron Means for the Economy

“Fundamentally, we’re still in a world where people think the economy is made up of profits and corporate interests, and as long as we think about our economy in that way, we’re never going to get to a point where we’re actually providing the public health resources [along with] the big investments and labor market supports that actually help people thrive. And until we do that, we’re never going to get out of this situation in a healthy way,” said Rakeen Mabud, chief economist and managing director of policy and research at the Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive think tank. “We’re really seeing how public health decisions that prioritize profits over people are stacking the deck against people and their...

White House Allies Split Over Inflation Plan as Biden Trains Attacks on Corporate Greed

“The truth is the link between price hikes and profiteering is hiding in plain sight. It’s clear as day in earnings calls where CEOs can’t stop crowing about their ’pricing strategies,’” said Lindsay Owens, an economist at the Groundwork Collaborative, a left-leaning group that has encouraged the administration to take a tougher position." Read on The Washington Post

Walmart and Kroger Hike Prices for COVID Tests Amid Shortage

“This is pandemic profiteering, plain and simple,” the Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive policy organization, said late Tuesday. “Shame on Walmart and Kroger for price gouging these essential tests during the height of the worst pandemic surge.” Read on Truthout

As Prices Rise, Biden Turns to Antitrust Enforcers

“The Biden administration understands this and knows this,” said Rakeen Mabud, the managing director of policy and research at the Groundwork Collaborative, a liberal advocacy group in Washington. But, she said, “I would like to see more.” Read on the New York Times

Inflation Jeopardizes the Fed’s Goal for Inclusive Employment

“A real commitment from the Fed, and from policymakers across the monetary and fiscal space to a truly equitable recovery means really keeping an eye and a real focus on that Black unemployment rate—and until that is down at par with what every other worker in the economy is facing, we’re not done.” Read on Bloomberg

How Concentrated Corporate Power Makes Inflation Worse

The costs of these price increases are often borne by those who can least afford them and the benefits go to wealthy shareholders and executives. "[A]cross a range of sectors that produce the goods that people need to provide for their families, companies are extracting from their consumers using the excuse of inflation -- all while lining their shareholders' and CEO's pockets,'' Rakeen Mabud, Chief Economist at the Groundwork Collaborative, told Popular Information. "This has nothing to do with inflation, and everything to do with corporate greed by those who are focused on enriching themselves at the expense of workers and families." Read on Popular Information

The Fed Is Ready to Rein in its Aid. Market Tremors Are Already Emerging.

“What problems would an interest rate hike solve and what problems would an interest rate hike create?” said Lindsay Owens, executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative, one of many progressive groups that have pressed the Fed to keep rates low until full employment is reached. “How did the American economy end up in a place where our supply chain is so shoddy that we can’t stock frozen pizza? When you think about that, the answer is not related to monetary policy.” Read on Politico.

America Needs All of Biden’s Build Back Better Plan

As a former Hill staffer, I must confess that I was pretty surprised by the scale and scope of American Jobs and Families Plans President Biden released last Spring. Congress had just passed the incredibly robust American Rescue Plan – a piece of legislation that would have been unthinkable during the first year of President Obama’s Administration. At the time, I worried that the President might trim his ambitions and whittle down his Build Back Better Agenda out of a concern that moderates might not support a second piece of ambitious legislation. My initial fears were unfounded. Instead, Pres. Biden released a landmark proposal for major investments in universal child care, affordable housing, clean energy, and...

The Proposals to Tackle Racial Equity Included in Biden's Spending Bill Are at Risk

Rakeen Mabud: “Every single dollar that is subtracted from that topline number is one less dollar for the investments that are necessary to move towards a more equitable economy. And frankly, we can’t afford not to do these kinds of investments.” Listen on NPR.

Welcome to #Striketober

Mike Mitchell, the director of policy and research at Groundwork Collaborative, told Insider the strikes reflect a "huge, significant shift in power from workers to corporations and businesses." He says this is because the pandemic and ensuing Recession created so much uncertainty for workers, while inequality increased and wages remained stagnant. Read on Business Insider.

Groundwork to Co-Host EconCon21: “This gathering could not come at a more urgent time.”

Groundwork Collaborative, the nonprofit think tank at the forefront of the fight for a more inclusive and equitable economy, is once again co-hosting EconCon, a virtual conference, on October 6-7, 2021. The two-day event comes amid a critical inflection point for workers, families, and the economy as a whole.  “The inequities in our economy had been growing for decades, but the pandemic made them undeniable,” said Lindsay Owens, executive director of Groundwork. “Without smart ideas, transformative policies, and sustained action, millions of people will fall further behind. This gathering of experts, advocates, and policymakers could not come at a more urgent time.”  Registration is free and open to the press. For...

More than 7 Million Americans Lose Lobless Benefits on Labor Day

“Letting these benefits expire under the current circumstances and the current uncertainty that we're experiencing is tantamount to forcing people to fall through the cracks,” Rakeen Mabud, chief economist at the progressive research nonprofit Groundwork Collaborative, said to The Hill last week. “It's not just letting people fall through the cracks." Read on The Hill.

Memo: August Jobs Day #BeyondTheNumbers

Groundwork Collaborative wants to make sure you have the full context on the U.S. Labor Department’s August Employment Report and the investments we need for an equitable recovery and a truly inclusive economy.  Dr. Rakeen Mabud, chief economist at Groundwork, reacted with the following statement:  “Today's job report shows us in no uncertain terms that when people around the country are not doing well, the economy is not doing well. Delaying or diluting critical investments — when the Black unemployment rate remains at crisis levels and millions are facing a devastating unemployment insurance benefits cliff — will hurt all of us.”  To speak with Dr. Mabud about today’s jobs report and what this means for...

Memo: July Jobs Day By the Numbers

Groundwork Collaborative wants to make sure you have the full context on the U.S. Labor Department’s July Employment Report and the investments we need for an equitable recovery and a truly inclusive economy.  Lindsay Owens, executive director of Groundwork Collaborative, explained to Forbes how allowing unemployment benefits to expire next month will disproportionately harm Black and brown workers who face higher rates of long-term unemployment: “The historic inequities in the labor market will be laid even more bare.”  To speak with Lindsay Owens or Rakeen Mabud about today’s jobs report and what’s next for workers and the economy, please contact Jae Aron at press@groundworkcollaborative.org. This month’s...

Groundwork Responds to Sen. Manchin's Letter to Fed

Yesterday, Sen. Joe Manchin urged the Federal Reserve to reassess America’s stance on monetary policy and additional fiscal stimulus to avoid ‘overheating our economy.’ But the evidence is clear that the costs of an unequal recovery are far greater than those of manageable inflation.  As Dr. Rakeen Mabud, Groundwork’s Chief Economist and Managing Director of Policy and Research told The Hill:  “We cannot let misguided [inflation] fears keep us from investing in the workers and families who make up our economy, because the cost of inaction right now, especially for the most marginalized communities, far outweighs the costs of manageable inflation.”  Learn more below and email press@groundworkcollaborative.org to...

Consumer Sentiment Offers Another Window into Economic Recovery

“I think what we’re seeing right now is strong wage growth for the bottom of the income distribution for the first time in, in some cases, decades,” she said. If consumer sentiment stays positive, Owens said, that could be a sign those wages are making enough of a difference to offset rising prices. Listen on Marketplace.

Climate Change Puts Homeowners of Color at Greater Economic Risk

When Hurricane Harvey struck Texas in August 2017, it dumped 27 trillion gallons of rain on the greater Houston region, submerging about a quarter of the metropolitan area. To this day, it remains the wettest storm on record in the United States. The hurricane, which research would later find was 15 percent more intense and three times as likely due to climate change, caused financial hardship for thousands of families.

Biden Faces Backlash Over 'Shameful' Capitulation to GOP Governors as They End Unemployment Lifelines

Biden administration officials publicly signaled Friday that they have no intention of putting up a fight as the Republican governors of 25 states prematurely cut off emergency unemployment programs, yanking key lifelines from millions of jobless workers and depriving local economies of billions of dollars.

Opinion: New developments puncture the GOP’s ‘working-class’ makeover scam

Last month, when the GOP purge of critics of Donald Trump was at its frenzied peak, the party hit on a clever way to put a positive gloss on it. This was necessary, Republicans insisted, to maintain the GOP’s new status as a “working-class party,” by keeping millions and millions of salt-of-the-earth supporters of the former president in the fold.

Biden’s budget seeks to level racial, economic playing fields despite ‘out of touch’ Republicans

President Joe Biden wants the country to invest $6 trillion by prioritizing working families and children. One of the largest proposed investments in the American public since the New Deal, Biden’s new budget places a premium on equity in several areas and reducing racial and economic disparities. Including previously introduced proposals such as investments in infrastructure, jobs, childcare and early childhood education, the new Biden budget seeks to reposition Americans. Biden’s budget incorporates both the American Jobs Plan and the American Families Plan. The White House outlined several areas of the proposed federal budget that would advance racial justice, including investing in climate justice, upgrading and...

Bosses are acting like the pandemic never happened

For more than a year, the Covid-19 pandemic changed how America worked. Grocery store cashiers, line cooks, janitors, and millions of others — about a third of the American workforce — saw their jobs become dangerous overnight, as they were asked to keep coming to work in person in spite of the viral threat. Meanwhile, millions more transitioned from going to an office to working from their homes — the percentage of workers logging on remotely rose from 17 percent to 44 percent once the pandemic began. And workers in both groups had to figure out how to take care of their kids when schools and day cares across the country closed their doors. Among employers and in the culture at large, there was at least some minimal...

'End this game': Dems urged to ditch GOP after 'woefully inadequate' infrastructure offer

Republican senators on Thursday unveiled an infrastructure counteroffer calling for just $257 billion in new spending over the next eight years, a proposal that intensified pressure on the Biden administration and Democratic leaders to abandon their push for bipartisan compromise and unilaterally press ahead with a sufficiently bold package. While a group of four Senate Republicans led by Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia presented the GOP offer as a "serious" $928 billion plan that "delivers on much" of what President Joe Biden requested in earlier talks, roughly $700 billion of the money in the proposal would be repurposed from unspent coronavirus relief funding that was approved to help cash-strapped state and local...

Seizing the moment to make our care systems more equitable

The Biden administration’s $600 billion in proposed federal funding for childcare and long-term care is rightly being framed as an investment in the nation’s core “infrastructure.” Indeed, a robust and equitable care infrastructure is as necessary for generating economic activity as roads and bridges, with important spillover effects to the rest of the labor market. Beyond boosting the economy as a whole, investments in care can also be configured in ways that directly address deeply rooted racial and gender inequities within our society. The Just Recovery Survey, which polled 3,100 working people nationally in late 2020, illuminates the exploitation and lack of protection that women of color experience as direct...

Elizabeth Warren wants Joe Biden to go bigger on child care

A new report from the Massachusetts senator argues for a bigger investment in what she argues is a key part of infrastructure. When Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) ran for president, one of the first policies she unveiled to establish herself as the wonk candidate was a proposal for universal child care and pre-K. Warren delivered her speech for last summer’s virtual Democratic National Convention from a pandemic-shuttered daycare and used her five minutes of primetime to elevate child care as “the basic infrastructure of this nation.” She’s kept up the refrain for child care as Democrats hasten to secure an economic legacy beyond the pandemic relief package the party passed earlier this year. On Thursday, Warren...

The black box economy

The pandemic economy has been strange and unpredictable from the get-go. Throughout the past 14 months, the twists and turns have been surprising: The housing market boomed, the stock market soared, people got into day trading, everyone hoarded toilet paper, and lumber became a must-have. There’s been widespread disagreement about how much support from the government was needed, whether the country was doing too much or not enough, or whether help would come at all. We won’t know whether the country overshot or undershot the response for years, and there’s still uncertainty about what’s happening in the labor market, prices, and other areas. And the prevailing theme has been one that has nothing to do with the economy...

The resurrection of Reagan's "Welfare Queen"

To supply corporations with exploitable low-wage workers, Republicans and media millionaires are exhuming one of history’s most grotesque lies. In the early 1980s, Ronald Reagan and the GOP settled on a strategy: Building off their “silent majority” dog whistle that signaled a backlash to the civil rights movement, Republicans conjured a racist “welfare queen” myth, pretending that too many lazy, parasitic Americans were getting rich off of unemployment benefits that deterred them from getting a job. That rhetoric was boosted by conservative Democrats, including Joe Biden who warned of “welfare mothers driving luxury cars.” Republicans have spent decades trying to resuscitate Reaganism, to the point where...

Progressive groups target Koch network, other critics of Biden spending plans with new campaign

Several progressive organizations have banded together to launch a new influence campaign to target groups, such as billionaire Charles Koch’s political network, which have pushed back on significant elements of President Joe Biden’s multitrillion-dollar agenda. Details of the campaign, called “Stop Deficit Squawks,” were first shared with CNBC. It launched Monday. Nearly 20 groups have signed on to the campaign so far, including Patriotic Millionaires, a group of millionaires who believe the rich should pay higher taxes. Activist groups Indivisible and Tax March, which is currently running a seperate campaign calling for higher taxes, are also involved. The effort will initially target the Koch-backed Americans for...

US voters want much more Covid-19 relief—and they want it now: Poll

"Simply put, more is required to ensure that we build a more resilient, equal economy that works for more people." A majority of likely U.S. voters—and especially younger ones and people of color—support immediately spending much more on coronavirus pandemic relief than the nearly $2 trillion in President Joe Biden's American Rescue Plan, a poll published Monday by ProsperUS, the Green New Deal Network, and Data For Progress revealed. "This new polling shows that voters across the political spectrum see relief packages passed and government spending up until this point as only a down payment on a full recovery." —Claire Guzdar, ProsperUS The survey (pdf) found that 57% of all respondents—including 77% of Democrats...

Joe Biden wants to transform care work in America

We must start by viewing care work as an essential component not just of the economy but of life itself. President Joe Biden’s American Jobs Plan seeks to revitalize manufacturing and decarbonize the atmosphere. But one of its most vital elements is how it would transform the care economy. The state has always shaped how care is provided, but in this country the sector has been malformed since its creation. Biden’s proposal, following decades of work by activists and academics, would establish new preschools, build day cares, and fund the care of the elderly and disabled, but it also goes beyond that: It would fundamentally restructure care work in America. Throughout the 19th century, the government played a central role in...

The Nation’s Moment of Truth: The economic and moral case for investing in caregivers

Investing in a robust care infrastructure would not only create new jobs, but would also allow many others to come back, spurring the country’s economic engine. This article is a Part 2 of a two-part adaptation of the feature article from the Spring 2021 issue of Ms. Get caught up on Part 1 here. The Biden-Harris administration and the 117th Congress have an opportunity to center care work as essential work through major public investments that could establish universal access to high-quality care. Investing in care cannot be an afterthought in our recovery response. Federal investment in child care, residential health care and home health care can create high-quality employment opportunities for millions of workers...

The Nation’s Moment of Truth: America’s legacy of devaluing care

Our current caregiving crisis is the inevitable outcome of an outdated ideology that has resulted in insufficient investments in our care infrastructure and in our people. The COVID-19 pandemic “is the most discriminatory crisis we [women and girls] have ever experienced,” Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, executive director of U.N. Women, said at the opening of the 65th Commission on the Status of Women in early March. Her statement rings just as true in the U.S. as elsewhere in the world. Since the start of the pandemic a little more than a year ago, American women have lost a net total of 5.4 million jobs—1 million more than men—and by the end of February nearly 3 million women had left the workforce entirely, many of them to...

Joe Biden is about to test the politics of going big

The Biden administration’s theory of policy so far is to go big. The same goes for its politics. Taken together, President Joe Biden’s $2.25 trillion American Jobs Plan and newly introduced $1.8 trillion American Families Plan come out to slightly over $4 trillion in proposed new spending. It’s an enormous investment in American job creation; the last bipartisan infrastructure bill Congress passed in 2015 clocked in at about $305 billion — about one-thirteenth the size of Biden’s proposed plan. And Obama’s $800 billion stimulus plan of 2009 was about one-fifth of Biden’s plan, not even taking into account the $1.9 trillion in Covid-19 relief that has already been signed into law. That sheer amount of proposed federal...

Planes, trains, and working women

The carpenters training facility near Pittsburgh looked just like the sort of place where President Joe Biden would roll out a jobs and infrastructure plan. There was the circular saw perched on a workbench, easy to spot near the phalanx of American flags behind Biden’s lectern. The emblem of the carpenters’ union, a jack plane within an interlocked ruler and compass, hung high on the wall, perfectly framed in photographs of the president in profile. And then, of course, there was the location itself: Pittsburgh, a city still synonymous with the grind and glow of steel manufacturing more than half a century after much of the industry had left. The setting matched the string of Bidenisms the president unspooled early in his...

Why big-spending Biden can shrug off GOP warnings of inflation

Republicans are warning that President Joe Biden is taking a risky gamble that he can carry out his massive spending plans without triggering runaway inflation. Biden is betting on history as his defense. The specter of raging inflation — the erosion of consumer purchasing power — has become central to the debate about whether the government can afford Biden’s multitrillion-dollar “Build Back Better” programs. But years can go by before soaring inflation ever takes hold — and Biden will probably be gone from the White House if the country finds out that his critics were right. The U.S. experienced punishing, double-digit inflation starting in 1974 and it stayed high through the early 1980s, dragging down...

This top Biden economist has a plan: Create jobs, address inequality, ignore trolls

The U.S. economy added more than 900,000 jobs last month. For most White House officials, that would be considered a banner number. For Janelle Jones, the top economist at the Labor Department, there is much more work for the Biden administration to do. Jones, the first Black woman to ever hold her position, says it would take a year of similar jobs reports just to get back to where the economy was before the pandemic. But even then, she says, getting back to the status quo is not enough. "I'm not really going to be satisfied if we return the economy to February 2020," Jones told NPR. "I think we can do better than that. I think we can return the economy to a time when wages were growing for workers, when bargaining was strong...

Rejecting Biden's $715 billion proposal, Jayapal says Congress must slash the 'Bloated Pentagon Budget'

Joining fellow progressive lawmakers in rejecting President Joe Biden's request for a $715 billion Pentagon budget, Rep. Pramila Jayapal on Saturday argued that Congress must slash military spending and "invest that money into our communities" as coronavirus infections rise across the U.S. and mass layoffs continue. "This budget adds twelve billion new dollars for weapons of war; just think how that same amount could be used to invest in jobs, healthcare, and fighting inequality—especially as we fight back a once in a century public health and economic crisis." —Rep. Barbara Lee "We're in the midst of a crisis that has left millions of families unable to afford food, rent, and bills. But at the same time, we're dumping...

Economists warn Democrats 'going too small' on infrastructure risks economic and climate catastrophe

Pointing to the nation's tepid recovery from the 2009 financial collapse as a cautionary tale, economists are pressing Democratic lawmakers to dramatically expand President Joe Biden's $2.3 trillion infrastructure proposal in order to equitably rebound from the coronavirus crisis, achieve full employment, and combat the existential climate emergency. In a 38-page report (pdf) released Thursday, Dr. Adam Hersh of the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Dr. Mark Paul of the New College of Florida argue that the costs of allowing the economy to run "too cold" by under-spending on pressing needs far outweigh the risks of inflation and other potential consequences of overshooting. "We agree that it's time for...

Top White House economist defends 'care economy' as infrastructure

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Top White House economist Cecilia Rouse on Tuesday defended President Joe Biden’s plan to spend $400 billion on the “care economy” as a legitimate infrastructure investment and key part of his drive to address persistent economic inequities. Republicans have blasted Biden’s $2.3 trillion infrastructure package as riddled with liberal spending priorities, and want to strip out funding for home- and community-based jobs taking care of kids and seniors. Rouse told an online event that was faulty thinking. “So many people said, ‘Oh, the $400 billion that are being proposed for the home care workers or the home care sector, that’s not really infrastructure,’” she said. “Well I beg to differ. I...

U.S. must invest heavily to stay no. 1 economy - White House economist