All Robert Reich

Corporation are not people and do not need subsidies or tax breaks, writes Robert Reich. Powerful companies do not need 'corporate welfare' – rather, real individuals and families need more support from the government.

Senator Bernie Sanders argues that American public colleges should be tuition-free. Higher education should be, writes Robert Reich, but the US needs to reexamine and reinvent the country's entire education system to prepare for tomorrow's economy.

Small businesses owners have long joined with big corporations to back certain Republican candidates. But now they're breaking rank and telling congressional Republicans not to make the deal at the very top of big businesses’ wish list – a cut in corporate tax rates.  

President Obama chose Nike headquarters in Oregon to deliver a defense of his proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership last week, as the company announced measures to boost its US manufacturing operations.  But Nike isn’t the solution to the problem of stagnant wages in America. Nike is the problem. 

If the Trans Pacific Partnership is enacted, big corporations, Wall Street, and their top executives and shareholders will make out like bandits. Who will the bandits be stealing from? The rest of us.

Thanks to the consolidation of the airline, Internet, and other industries into a few large companies, American workers and consumers have fewer choices than we used to have. In almost every area of our lives, it’s now take it or leave it.

Flexible scheduling is designed to make retail outlets, restaurants, hotels, and other customer-driven businesses more nimble and keep costs to a minimum, at the cost of regular hours and financial stability for workers. We need a federal law requiring employers to pay for scheduled work. 

Average working people need a president who will fight for them more than any time in living memory. Can Hillary Clinton be that president? 

It’s bad enough big money is buying off politicians. It’s also buying off nonprofits that used to be sources of investigation, information, and social change, from criticizing big money. 

Despite myths to the contrary, a large and growing share of the nation’s poor work full time — sometimes 60 or more hours a week – yet still don’t earn enough to lift themselves and their families out of poverty. Meanwhile, a large and growing portion of the super-rich have never broken a sweat. 

A four-year college degree has become the only gateway into the American middle class, but not every young person is suited to four years of college. We need an alternative. 

The combination of advanced sensors, voice recognition, artificial intelligence, big data, text-mining, and pattern-recognition algorithms, is generating smart robots capable of quickly learning human actions. That's bad news for the skilled labor market. 

The US economy is picking up steam but most Americans aren’t feeling it. Most European economies are still in bad shape, but most Europeans are doing well. Thank the outsize influence of American corporations. 

The Democratic nominee for President will campaign on reviving the American middle class. But will she take on the moneyed interests – the large Wall Street banks, big corporations, and richest Americans – who have engineered the largest upward redistribution of wealth in modern American history?

Independent contractors, including Uber drivers, franchisees, consultants, and free lancers, are subject to low pay, irregular hours, and job insecurity. In order to protect these workers, we need a better way to determine who qualifies as an employee of a company. 

I used to believe in trade agreements like the upcoming Trans Pacific Partnership. That was before the wages of most Americans stagnated and a relative few at the top captured just about all the economic gains.

With the rise of on-demand jobs like Uber, we're reverting back to a 19th-century job market where 'freedom  of contract' ruled the day. It was an era when many workers were 'happy' to toil 12-hour days in sweat shops for lack of any better alternative. 

Uber, Airbnb,Instacart, and other multibillion dollar startups make up what is referred to as the 'share economy.' A more accurate term would be the 'share-the-scraps' economy,' one that allows workers to patch together barely enough to live on. 

The middle class is a hot political property for Republicans and Democrats alike, but the middle class can't be saved unless Wall Street is tamed. 

Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney have outlined plans to reverse widening income inequality, alleviate poverty, and provide 'opportunity for all.'  However, evidence suggests that almost every time a Republican has moved into the White House, his policies have widened inequality.