A declaration worth hearing out in a time of growing inequality—and indignity. In turn, this thoughtful take reminds us of our capacity for progress when we put people at the center—and defend the dignity of all.” —Stacey Abrams   “In a time of ever more powerful technologies and growing economic uncertainty, we need to be clear on our values. It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. . He keeps looking over and over again in the same spot. 20���q��X��4S�EQ��?�[�E JA*�yù%� JFK's line that "a rising tide lifts all boats" is often used to promote GDP as an ultimate end goal based on a kind of faith that a rise in growth will automatically lift the well-being of all people. Sperling critiques conservatives for paying “lip service” to the working class while voting against measures that would improve their lives, such as minimum wage increases and child-care subsidies; advocates for increased government spending; and defends the merits of a well-regulated free market. Gene Sperling speaks on economic dignity and the three pillars that should define it. 974 0 obj <>stream Sperling is one of the most important economic thinkers of our time.” —Ro Khanna, member of Congress    “Never have I come across a book that is so intellectually engaging, deeply compassionate, and solutions oriented at the same time. This is not a theoretical exercise: consider Norway and Saudi Arabia. Some who seek to push GDP as the only goal that matters suggest that the question of whether all boats are in fact lifted in a rising tide is a second-order matter of "distribution." Economic Dignity is a must-read for every policymaker, economist and citizen.” —Erik Brynjolfsson, professor at MIT and co-author of The Second Machine Age   “Gene Sperling, one of the nation’s most distinguished public servants, reminds us that while money matters, life is about much more, and proposes that policymakers focus on dignity, that economic dignity ‘should be the North Star to guide our journey’ toward greater justice. Follow Vonny Sweetland on Twitter. The dignity of the human person, realized in community with others, is the criterion against which all aspects of economic life must be measured. As painfully slow income growth over the last several decades has been one of the great drivers of economic inequality and insecurity for working families, sustained and robust increases in median income would clearly be a critical ingredient to more shared prosperity. A s the protests against economic inequality continued over the past year, more and more Chileans argued that the creation of a new constitution would be the path to dignity. Defining dignity, admits Sperling, can be a kind of “I know it when I see it” problem, but it does not exist where people are a paycheck away from homelessness; the fact, however, that people widely share a view of indignity suggests the “intuitive universality” of its opposite. Finally, a helpful pedestrian tries to help and asks, "So I take it you think you lost them in this spot?" That said, the author identifies three qualifications, one of them the “ability to meaningfully participate in the economy with respect, not domination and humiliation.” Though these latter terms are also essentially unquantifiable, Sperling holds that this respect—lack of abuse, in another phrasing—can be obtained through a tight labor market and monetary and fiscal policy that pushes for full employment. A singular focus on even median income can make invisible much of the anxiety, economic fear, abuse at work, and economic disillusionment that has been part of the recent angst with status quo politics in the United States and across much of the world. I haven’t read Sperling’s book but “economic dignity” sounds like another way of saying everyone deserves equal outcomes when the real focus should be equal opportunities. We believe the purpose of work should be to support a healthy and thriving life, family, and community. Expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit could help achieve what he feels is an essential “economic dignity wage,” he noted. While that name may sound like a rock band or military plane, it provides a much better economic picture of not just who is unemployed, but who is struggling due to working part-time against their will or has given up looking for a job because they are so discouraged. For many years, I bought into the notion that the way to get beyond GDP as the end goal of the economic policy world was simply to push our focus toward other economic metrics that were better proxies for shared growth and shared prosperity. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them. Economic Dignity is Sperling's effort to do just that - to frame our thinking about the way forward in a time of wrenching economic change. A healthy economy not only delivers the goods, he reminds us; it also provides the basis for mutual respect among citizens.” —Michael J. Sandel, author of What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets“Gene Sperling gets it. He also discusses the need to address shortcomings in contract workers’ benefits and rights, and to amend the current Social Security system. h�bbd```b``e��A$��d��l{A����"�S@��*�:H2*i��L`s�����`�&�U&�U>�� ���� D�?�,�`�~ ������+A���6#3�m��%�>��������` �� (May), One of Amazon's best Business and Leadership books of 2020 so far“Sperling makes a forceful case that only by speaking to matters of the spirit can liberals root their belief in economic justice in people’s deepest aspirations—in their sense of purpose and self-worth.” —The New York Times“As the coronavirus pandemic devastates the economy and unemployment claims surge to epic heights, economist Sperling argues that numbers don’t tell the whole story . He understands that the Dignity of Work isn't just a political slogan — it's an ethos; it's who we are as progressives, and it's how we must govern. In fact, Kennedy never used the "rising tide" line to defend tax cuts or the types of market fundamentalist policies that conservatives frequently use it to advance. His clear-eyed, sharp analysis demands a close read by policy makers and the rank and file alike. In Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, a royal family leads the government and owns the world's biggest oil company, which dominates the country's economy. Plus, while the US needs a better social safety net, I agree with Cooperman, decide how large we want the US government to be and then live within its means. If, for example, the need to support family or to pursue economic potential leads millions to experience harmful abuse or harassment at work, or compromises their capacity to care for their children or other loved ones, why should that not be seen as a major economic issue-whether or not it shows up in a traditional economic metric? Economic Dignity shakes up static debates about education, tax policy, labor, and American values, and it should galvanize actors across the political spectrum to reexamine our common purpose. . Economic dignity will never be Moneyball. Yet even those metrics are still means to larger economic ends-and have shortcomings when they are considered ends in themselves. Gene Sperling reconnects economics to moral and civic purpose and offers a framework for a much-needed debate about how to help those left behind by the winner-take-all economy of recent times. . Wendy Northcutt is back, asking, Have we evolved at all? Sperling rightly stresses that we need bold steps to ensure what he calls an ‘economic dignity wage’ and economy that provides true first and second chances, and that government must play a far bigger and smarter role in ensuring the innovation, worker power, and skills we need to make economic change work for the many and not just the few. That type of inquiry avoids the unfortunate tendency in the economics profession to only dignify an issue as "economic" when it shows up in a traditional economic metric-a habit that allows too much economic pain to be invisible. If we start with the agreement that economic dignity requires basic health security or that all Americans should be able access and complete higher education without financial barriers, it will not end vigorous debate. Yet the benefits of this strong GDP vary dramatically for each country's citizens. 0 In a nation that structures its markets and economic policy to lift up all of its people, a 4 percent growth rate can be a vital means to the end goal of a more just society. Yes, economic dignity for all is a possibility if we are willing to look in that direction. This book is an exemplary guide toward policies that promote not just employment and good wages, but also the life of purpose and meaning that has been lost to so many Americans in recent decades.” —Professor Sir Angus Deaton, Nobel Laureate in Economics 2015   “Sperling’s call to make economic dignity our North Star provides a powerful moral frame for guiding economic policy that can be unifying for all progressives—even when we don't agree on every solution. Alongside all the metrics and estimates and reckonings of GDP, inflation, and the supply curve, he holds the great goal of economic policy to be the advancement of human dignity, a concept intangible enough to chase the econometricians away. Economic dignity, Sperling maintains, can be … What is Economic Dignity? The economics profession should do everything in its power to design economic indicators that paint a more refined and accurate picture of whether the quality of most people's lives is improving. Indeed, the first time JFK used the line as president was in Colorado on August 17, 1962, to appropriately praise congressional approval of a giant dam project. The answer: Not all of us. The only logical end goal for economic policy in a democracy is that which lifts up what matters most in the lives of the people that policy is supposed to serve. Economic Dignity is all of those things on a topic as encompassing and defining as the economy." Both are relatively high-wealth nations with major oil reserves. I vehemently disagree. And there is increasing evidence of how promotion of aspects of economic dignity complement, not detract from, growth. It is the whole ball game, the only legitimate end goal of economic policy. Whether all boats are being lifted in the ways that matter most to people's lives is the test for whether economic growth is working-and never to be assumed to be a by-product of GDP. Of course, growth is important. The “unparalleled romantic adventure”* of Nalini Singh’s New York Times bestselling series continues as a LA, a no-nonsense guide to analyzing big egos, deflecting power plays, and taking control of any room.Behind Tracy Tutor's on-screen persona is an uncanny knack ... “You either love Andrea Camilleri or you haven’t read him yet. But the focus on GDP represents the most classic economic confusion of means and ends. prescient.” –The National Book Review“Gene Sperling draws a compelling case for looking beyond the numbers to the nature and quality of work in the twenty-first century. Economic dignity is a concept with four dimensions that draw from different aspects of dignity. None of this is to suggest we should give up on economic metrics. If a country had a 1, it would mean that one person controlled all of a nation's income. Heather Boushey, head of the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, has made great progress in promoting an important new measurement of GDP-GDP 2.0-that aims to tell us how much growth is going to people at the bottom, middle, and top of the income ladder. Consider your own life. When I was the national economic adviser under President Clinton, I can remember during the boom of the late 1990s that the classic economic metrics-GDP, jobs, poverty, median income-were all clicking so well. . So yes, the review of all economic metrics was of course worthwhile. Each novel in this If it was 0, it would mean that income was perfectly equal among all its citizens. This balanced and authoritative take shows how to work within the system to produce meaningful change. His argument combines moral and intellectual seriousness with actual high-level policy experience. endstream endobj startxref The hilarious New York Times bestselling phenomenon and the perfect funny gift! Former director of the National Economic Council in the administrations of Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, the author has long taken a view of the dismal science that takes economic justice fully into account. Its ultimate value lies in the degree it serves as a means to lift up what is most universally treasured and precious in people's lives. Economic dignity would mean being able “to care for your family and enjoy the most meaningful moments of family life, without economic deprivation taking … Norway is famously egalitarian, its increased growth broadly shared. Economic Dignity is all of those things on a topic as encompassing and defining as the economy.” —Ai-jen Poo, Director, National Domestic Workers Alliance   “Economic Dignity points us beyond our fixation on GDP to the ends economic policy should serve—promoting the dignity of work and the well-being of families and communities. Learn how to enable JavaScript on your browser, There is a joke about an inebriated man looking in a parking lot for his car keys one night. If the number is moving toward 0, it means your nation is improving when it comes to economic inequality. [I]t measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. Gross National Product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. But why? Economic Dignity is all of those things on a topic as encompassing and defining as the economy.” —Ai-jen Poo, Director, National Domestic Workers Alliance “Economic Dignity points us beyond our fixation on GDP to the ends economic policy should serve—promoting the dignity of work and the well-being of families and communities. While there are few economic goals as important as reducing economic inequality, even a measure like reducing the Gini coefficient cannot be seen as an ultimate end goal in itself.

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