Don’t Blame Benefits for Inflation — Blame the Global Economy

| Dec 15, 2021 | Economy / Business|Environment / Health|HP SubfeaturedHeadlines are screaming that inflation is here to stay. U.S. consumer prices have risen by an average of 6.2 percent in the past year, the sharpest increase since 1991. Although Americans are supposedly — in the words of the New York Times — “flush with cash and...

The Planet Is Not a Dumping Ground

| | Economy / Business|Environment / Health|HP SubfeaturedIn a world that’s clogged and choking with a massive overdose of plastic trash, you’ll be heartened to learn that governments and industries are teaming up to respond forcefully to this planetary crisis. Unfortunately, their response has been to engage in a global...

Mental Health Care Is Hard to Come By — Especially If You’re Low-Income

| Dec 8, 2021 | Economy / Business|Editors Picks|Environment / Health|HP FeaturedDuring the first wave of the pandemic in April 2020, my boyfriend asked, not unkindly, if I’ve ever been diagnosed with anything besides generalized anxiety disorder. I was relieved that somebody had finally asked about my mental health. All spring and summer 2020, I...

Greed Is Prolonging the Pandemic

| Dec 1, 2021 | Economy / Business|Editors Picks|Environment / Health|HP FeaturedStop me if this sounds familiar. It’s been kind of a hard year, but I felt optimistic about the holidays. My wife and I had just scheduled our COVID-19 boosters. Even better, we’d been able to get our young child vaccinated. We imagined a cautious return to simple...

Sociology Can Help the Climate Crisis

| Nov 17, 2021 | Environment / Health|HP Subfeatured|Rights / DemocracyThe recent COP26 climate summit in Glasgow was the 26th attempt to get the nations of the world to fix the climate crisis. During the summit, the Washington Post reported that countries have been under-reporting their emissions, so the negotiations are based on...

Wealthy Americans Get Paid Leave. Shouldn’t the Rest?

| Nov 10, 2021 | Economy / Business|Editors Picks|Environment / Health|HP Featured|Rights / DemocracyFor Ruth Martin, the fight for paid leave is both professional and personal. As Senior Vice President of MomsRising, she’s helped mobilize more than 870,000 calls and emails to lawmakers advocating for paid leave and other pro-family benefits in the Build Back Better...