Category: Economy

In One Year, the Wealth of Billionaires Increased by 16.5%

November 22, 2025 news brief from the New Anticapitalist Party-Revolutionaries (NPA-R) in France, translated from French. On the occasion of the G20 summit, held in Johannesburg, South Africa, on November 22 and 23, the NGO (nongovernmental organization) Oxfam calculated that the wealth of billionaires living in these countries increased from $13.4 trillion to $15.6 trillion, […]

Millions of American Workers Face Food Insecurity While Billionaires Rake in Profits

650,000 people. That is the number of working class and poor people whose CalFresh (California’s SNAP implementation) benefits are at risk under the new guidelines to be enforced by the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill.” An estimated five million people depend on food assistance in California alone, the wealthiest state in the world’s wealthiest country. Millions are struggling […]

Amazon Plans to Automate Away Jobs

The New York Times reports that Amazon is planning to eventually replace 600,000 jobs with robots by 2033. Amazon’s robotics team has a goal of being able to automate 75% of its operations. If Amazon is successful in automating away blue-collar jobs, other companies such as Walmart and UPS are likely to do the same […]

US Bailout for Argentina: Workers and Farmers Pay the Price

While a Republican government shutdown halts services and threatens healthcare for millions, the White House has no problem finding $20 or $40 billion for things it wants. But the money isn’t for struggling Americans. Instead, it’s for a bailout intended to help prop up Argentina’s far-right president, Javier Milei, and a couple of Treasury Secretary […]

Trump’s Cuts Will Affect All of Us Everywhere

Since taking office in late January, Trump and his anti-worker bureaucrats have already begun to slash and burn many of the programs and resources that we need. Now that Congress has passed and Trump has signed into law what they called their “Big Beautiful Bill,” the larger cuts that we have all worried about are […]

Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” Shows Whose Side He’s On…Again

The Republican crafted and Trump supported tax and budget bill passed by the House of Representatives and now going to the Senate for debate does many things. The bill keeps taxes low on the rich for years or decades to come and increases funding for the military and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Meanwhile […]

Trump’s Tariffs Are An Attack on Workers

On April 2nd, Trump announced a range of new tariffs on goods imported into the United States from almost every country in the world. The Trump administration has implemented a 10% baseline tariff on almost all goods imported into the U.S., with even higher “reciprocal tariffs” on goods from a select group of countries that […]

More Pain From Budget Cuts Will Hit Soon

As Trump has issued executive order after executive order and his billionaire bureaucrats have cut the federal workforce by tens of thousands, millions more are waiting anxiously for the pain to begin. While those who have lost their jobs are already feeling the emotional and financial stress of their loss, the rest of us know […]

Trump’s Cancellation of Union Contracts: An Assault on All Workers

On March 27, President Trump declared that a million federal workers would lose their collective bargaining rights. He claimed that the targeted workers are ineligible for union representation because their work involves national security. But the order extends far beyond that sector and includes workers at the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Environmental Protection Agency, […]

Tariffs And Trade Wars: Another Price For The Working Class To Pay

The Trump administration has been threatening and implementing tariffs and trade wars with Mexico, Canada, China, and the European Union, the top trading partners of the United States. Trump said in his State of the Union speech that there would be reciprocal tariffs for any country who lays tariffs on the United States. In retaliation, […]

Trump And Musk Make It Easier To Rip Us Off

In the recent slashing and burning of various government workers and agencies during the early days of the second Trump administration, one of the institutions targeted was the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). The agency was created in 2008 in response to the subprime mortgage crash to create at least some guardrails to protect consumers […]

Consumers and Producers

This article is reprinted from the Speak Out Now newsletter for BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit), a rapid transit rail system in the San Francisco Bay Area Many people are wondering what they can do to oppose what is going on in Washington, D.C. There are small actions across the country. People are demonstrating against […]

Energy Companies Profit, and We Pay the Price!

BGE (Baltimore Gas and Electric Company) is increasing their prices for gas and electricity again, and Baltimore area residents will be paying through the nose. BGE is owned by Exelon, a national corporation that rakes in profits from its energy sales. According to Exelon’s 2024 financial report, BGE made $423 million in profits for Exelon […]

Unhoused Population Reaches New High

The latest data on homelessness from the Department of Housing and Urban Development shows that the number of unhoused in the U.S. increased by 18% over just the past year, to at least 770,000. Analysts correctly note that the end of Covid-era eviction protections plus a surge in immigrants to a few urban areas like […]

Bankrupt or Not, Working People in Oakland will Bear the Brunt

On November 15, Oaklandside, a local Oakland news outlet, published an article on the city of Oakland’s imminent bankruptcy based off a report from the city’s legislative website. However, on the very same day the article was published, the city removed the report and published a different version. The original report projected the city would […]

The Other Big Lies – Are Immigrants to Blame for Problems We Face?

Beginning in 2016, Donald Trump and the Republicans started attacking immigrants. Trump has said such racist statements as, “when Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best…they’re rapists,” and that “immigrants are poisoning the blood of the nation.” The Republicans and Trump scapegoat immigrants for the many problems we face, and now the hostility […]

The East Coast and Gulf Ports Longshore Contract Expires September 30: Will the Union Settle or Strike? 

Negotiations for new contracts covering 45,000 longshoremen, working at 11 ports on the Atlantic seaboard and the Gulf Coast, are at a standstill. On June 10th, the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) broke them off, saying that longshore employers were continuing to violate the existing contract. The ILA has scheduled a meeting of local union officers for September 4th and […]

California’s Gavin Newsom Declares War On Poor People

On Thursday, California Governor Gavin Newsom passed an executive order that would call on state officials to begin dismantling houseless encampments. The displacement of unhoused people is nothing new and the eviction of encampments from public parks and under freeways and bridges happens all of the time. But this new attack is made possible by […]

Behind the Prime Deals: Amazon Workers Suffer Record Injury Rates

Amazon’s Prime Day has become notorious not just for its deals, but for the massive toll it takes on the company’s warehouse workers. According to a recent Senate investigation, injury rates in Amazon warehouses skyrocket during this period, revealing the dire consequences of the company’s relentless drive for profit.  Prime Day and the holiday season […]

Boeing Machinists Authorize Strike

Boeing’s unionized machinists held strike authorization votes on July 17th. As many as 30,000 of the company’s 33,000 unionized employees voted by 99.9% to authorize a strike. Bargaining started in the spring, but union officials say there has been little movement by the company. The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) called a […]

Bangladesh: Students Mobilize Against Quotas for Government Jobs

Since the beginning of July, demonstrations and blockades have been taking place in several cities across Bangladesh. The students behind the movement are contesting the quota system for government jobs: this system reserves 30% of positions for the children and grandchildren of those who fought for Bangladesh’s independence in 1971. In fact, this system favors […]

Eviction Crisis in Rural U.S.

Since moratoriums on evictions were lifted following the first two years of the Covid-19 emergency, we know that eviction filings by landlords have again climbed to pre-pandemic levels. In the past year alone, a little over one million evictions were filed nationwide. New research by the Princeton Eviction Lab shows that the rural U.S. is […]

Biden’s Budget: It Does Nothing for Workers, and It Won’t Inconvenience the 1%

When President Biden sent his proposed Tax and Budget proposal to Congress on March 11th, he claimed it would end the so-called “trickle down” government economic policies which favor the rich and big corporations. His actual proposals, however, show a huge gap between his rhetoric and the real policy of his administration. To manage the COVID […]

Bosses have a new tactic to stop workers from forming unions

Workers at big non-union corporations like Tesla and Amazon have been trying to organize unions for the last several years. Some of them have been fired in order to scare the rest of the workers away from the effort. In spite of the firings, however, workers at these companies continue to organize. This alarms the […]

Mergers: Another Attack on our Wallets

The largest grocery store merger in history is taking place between Albertsons and Kroger. These chains boast over 5,000 grocery stores in 48 states, and employ almost 700,000 people. These chains include Safeway, Ralphs, Kroger, and Vons. If this merger goes through it would be worth $24.6 billion and would cause 22% of the grocery […]

Profits for the Rich, Inflation for the Poor

As oil and gas companies make record profits, gas prices continue to rise. From 2021 to 2023, the country’s top-10 wealthiest of these companies made a combined net income of $313 billion. Average gas prices have now reached $3.34 per gallon, costing people $40 to $50 to fill up their car tank. But, in some […]

Farmers of India March for Economic Survival

Farmers in India have marched to the capital, New Delhi, to urge the government to meet their demands. This is the second time farmers in India have mobilized themselves to this level in the past three years. In 2020 and 2021, tens of thousands of farmers protested three agricultural reform laws that would have weakened […]

Let Them Sit In The Dark

PG&E is increasing rates to pay for infrastructure upgrades they should have done a long time ago.

Climate Crisis In Panama Threatens To Choke The Global Poor

The Panama Canal, which has historically connected commerce from the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans is facing a potentially serious crisis. In normal times, roughly 5 percent of all seaborne trade of the entire world passes through the Panama Canal. The Canal is one of the most important choke points in global trade. However, a prolonged […]

A Government Shutdown Would Hurt Workers and Poor the Most

The immediate threat of a U.S. government shutdown that emerged in late September has been avoided for now. However, the short-term funding extension extends only through mid-November and the threat of lost wages for millions of workers and suspension of important services for millions of families continues to loom. Consequences could be disastrous for federal […]

A World of Forced Migration Caused by the Capitalist System

Today, according to the United Nations, there are 110 million people in the world displaced from their homes. More than half of those people are internally displaced within their countries. The rest are refugees fleeing their home countries, or asylum seekers or people seeking other legal protections in other countries. This number only counts those […]

An Economic Recovery … Of Profits

It seems like every day we are told how great the Biden administration has been for the economy. But it is only the super rich and the corporations that are doing great. Many corporations made record profits in the last two years, especially when inflation was at its peak. Their profits came down a little […]

War over Ukraine Starves People around the World

Earlier this month, Russia pulled out of the Black Sea grain deal. This agreement was negotiated between Turkey, Russia, and Ukraine in 2022 to ensure that Ukraine, one of the world’s largest suppliers of grain, would still be able to export this essential food source to the rest of the world even after Russia’s invasion. […]

Raising Minimum Wage Lowers Unemployment

A new study from UC Berkeley economists dismantles the lie often told by the bosses that raising the minimum wage would lead to job losses. The study was done through the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment (IRLE) and examined 47 different counties, mostly in New York and California, to analyze the effects of […]

Hedge Funds Profit Off High Food Prices and Human Misery

Following “momentum driven” algorithms that automatically determine when to buy or sell commodities at the most profitable moments as their prices rise and fall, a group of 10 major hedge funds bought up huge amounts of wheat, corn and soybeans in the months leading up to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. A new report now […]