Income Inequality

How to Build a GDP Measure for the Real Economy

THE ATLANTIC 10/24/13 By Michael Shank, Ben Beachy, and Justin Talbort Zorn One year ago this week, Hurricane Sandy ravaged much of the eastern seaboard, leaving tens of thousands of families homeless and nearly as many businesses shuttered.  Yet, by many estimates, the hurricane was good for the economy. It […]

What Trans-Pacific and U.S.-EU Trade Partnerships Must Tackle: Jobs

HUFFINGTON POST 06/13/13 By Michael Shank and Sabina Dewan A high-level panel appointed by United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon released its recommendations last month for a global development agenda when the Millennium Development Goals expire at the end of 2015 and when approximately one billion people will still […]

Not Just Any Jobs, But Just Jobs

THE HILL 06/12/13 By Michael Shank and Sabina Dewan Last week, a high-level panel appointed by United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon released its recommendations for a global development agenda when the Millennium Development Goals expire at the end of 2015 and when approximately one billion people will still […]

Doing Away With Food Deserts in the District

WASHINGTON POST 05/17/13 By Michael Shank It’s hard to believe that so many in America — over 50 million people — live in food insecurity.  This is the unfortunate reality all too common in Somalia or Pakistan, but America? What’s worse is that this food insecurity is most apparent in […]

Ending Global Poverty Dependent on Employment Based Growth

THE HILL 04/29/13 By Michael Shank and Sabina Dewan The World Bank has always focused on poverty reduction; it is their stated mission to ‘help reduce poverty’. But actually ending it, with a target date, was never their explicit goal, until now. In Washington, at their annual spring meeting last […]

Addressing DC’s Truancy Epidemic

WASHINGTON POST 03/27/13 By Michael Shank and Allyson Mitchell With DC Chancellor Kaya Henderson’s call this month for educational equity across the District’s divide, there is a great opportunity to address one driver of this inequity: the high school truancy and chronic absenteeism, especially for students who attend schools east […]

DC’s Poorest Set to Suffer From Federal Sequester

HUFFINGTON POST 03/13/13 By Michael Shank The District of Columbia’s poverty problem received much-needed attention recently with reporting on how D.C. General has become a home for hundreds of homeless parents and children. The over-crowded and abandoned hospital-turned-homeless shelter has become a testament to D.C. benevolence, ushering in an outpouring […]

Bill Moyers: Two New Films Address American Poverty

BILL MOYERS 03/10/13 By Michael Shank “One nation, underfed.” That’s the tagline for the new film out by Participant Productions, entitled A Place at the Table, which looks at America’s growing hunger epidemic. Participant Media, which produced Lincoln, The Help and Food Inc., does not disappoint with its latest take […]

Film Review: A Place at the Table

COMMON DREAMS 03/09/13 by Michael Shank One nation, underfed. That’s the tagline for the new film out by Participant Productions, entitled A Place at the Table, which looks at America’s growing hunger epidemic. Participant Media, which produced Lincoln, The Help and Food Inc., does not disappoint with its latest take […]

A Patriotic Fix for America’s Hunger Epidemic

THE NATION 03/07/13 By Michael Shank One nation, underfed. That’s the tagline for the new film out by Participant Productions, entitled A Place at the Table, which looks at America’s growing hunger epidemic. Participant Media, which produced Lincoln, The Help and Food Inc., does not disappoint with its latest take […]