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living wage
Why the Democrats Are Not Radical Enough
Until left Democrats are willing and able to support meaningful job guarantees, they have little chance of reaching the working people they have lost over the past 40 years of wholesale job destruction.
Mar 11, 2026
Centrist Democrats argue that the party should not “go so far left in a primary that they can’t win against MAGA in the general.” As the Center for Working Class Politics observes, these “Third Way” Democrats stress “affordability” and “abundance” without taking on the billionaire class. Progressive Democrats, including groups like the Democratic Socialists of America and Working Families Party, are seen as just too radical to attract working-class voters.
I disagree. I think the problem is that Democrats, even progressive Democrats, are not radical enough.
We have only to look at former President Franklin D.. Roosevelt’s 1941 “Four Freedoms” State of the Union address to be reminded of what our politics could be and should be. The “Four Freedoms” (of speech and religion, from want and fear) are properly the best remembered parts of the address. But just before these “four essential human freedoms,” Roosevelt listed “the simple, basic things that must never be lost sight of in the turmoil and complexity of our modern world.” They are:
- Equality of opportunity for youth and for others.
- Jobs for those who can work.
- Security for those who need it.
- The ending of special privilege for the few.
- The preservation of civil liberties for all.
- The enjoyment of the fruits of scientific progress in a wider and constantly rising standard of living.
What did he want? He thought we “should bring more citizens under the coverage of old-age pensions and unemployment insurance,” which (thankfully!) has been done, although the support should be increased.
He believed we should “widen the opportunities for adequate medical care,” which has been done in part, with much more to do.
And he called for the nation to “plan a better system by which persons deserving or needing gainful employment may obtain it,” which we have pretty much stopped talking about altogether, except to mouth empty phrases about economic growth and job creation.
And this is where, in particular, progressive Democrats are not radical enough, at least not for the thousands of workers I have talked to, worked with, and taught. The economic plans offered by the Democratic Party, even those from left Democrats, fail to offer “a better system by which persons deserving or needing gainful employment may obtain it.” And until they do, Democrats will continue to lose traction with working people, who live with job fear each and every day.
Why Are Democrats Not Talking About Guaranteeing a Job at a Living Wage for Everyone Who Wants to Work?
The government guarantees everyone with money to spare a safe place to put it to earn a fair market rate of return. It is called a US Treasury bond. Why doesn’t the government also guarantee everyone with labor to spare—everyone who wants to work but can’t find a job—with a place to work at a fair market rate?
There are no voices, except for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who proclaim loudly and clearly that all working people should be guaranteed a job at a living wage. Why not? Members of the moneyed class are able to protect themselves from financial risk by easily diversifying their investments. But the working class’ most critical investment—their job—is always at risk.
The jobs of working people are increasingly precarious as corporations lay off workers whenever they please, whether for good reasons, bad reasons, or no reasons at all. Today we see millions of layoffs taking place to finance mergers (watch out Hollywood!), leveraged buyouts, and stock buybacks to enrich the richest of the rich. And who knows what AI holds in store?
The millions of workers in rural America who have suffered one mass layoff after another need the power that comes from employment security—jobs that don’t just depend on the profit-maximization strategies of corporate America.
A government-backed guarantee of a job at a living wage would end the wholesale immiseration of families and communities hit by mass layoffs. It would end the kind of job blackmail that makes it difficult for workers to form unions to seek higher wages and better working conditions. This is what counterbalancing corporate power really looks like!
How would it work? Corporations would remain free to reduce their workforces. But every laid-off worker who wants to keep working would be able immediately to find equally remunerative work nearby in the public sector if private sector jobs are not available.
Also, just as employers are able to lay off anyone for business reasons, workers would be free to quit any job they no longer want and easily find another. This kind of “employment assurance” is the worker equivalent of the portfolio diversification and hedging that the wealthy use to protect and enhance their wealth. (And as we all know, when this financial system crashes, the federal government always protects the assets of the wealthy, but not the jobs of working people.)
Is there sufficient public sector work to support such a program? Of course there is, especially if the country commits to rebuilding its physical and human infrastructure. Surely every municipality and state agency needs more workers right now to meet their current goals, let alone new ones to enhance the public’s interests. There’s no shortage of public goods that need to be produced.
Could we afford it? Yes, it would be costly. But the money would be well spent to build better communities. Just ask any group of workers what their communities need, and they will quickly rattle off how to improve them.
And if we all share the costs in proportion to our wealth, we can certainly afford it. Warren Buffett’s tax rate should not be lower than his secretary’s! A small tax on the trade of stocks, bonds, and derivatives might even cover it.
Working-Class Empowerment
Funding and practicality are not the only things holding progressive Democrats back. I worry that power of capital has, if just unconsciously, narrowed their vision. Too many Democrats of all stripes seem to believe that corporate control over employment is an unalterable fact of economic life. Therefore, they don’t go for the jugular—employment guarantees.
The millions of workers in rural America who have suffered one mass layoff after another need the power that comes from employment security—jobs that don’t just depend on the profit-maximization strategies of corporate America.
Until left Democrats are willing and able to support meaningful job guarantees, they have little chance of reaching the working people they have lost over the past 40 years of wholesale job destruction. Massaging the messages is no match for saying loudly and clearly that if you want to work, there is an acceptable job waiting for you.
Many left Democrats believe that we need to shift from a profit-first to a people-first economy. All to the good. But that has little meaning unless working people are assured of a decent paying job if they are looking for work. And also, able to leave a bad job without suffering economic annihilation!
It’s time for the left to become economic radicals again!
(Many thanks to labor historian Mike Merrill for his assistance on this piece.)
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America Runs on Care Work, and I’m Tired of Pretending Otherwise
The labor that sustains human life gets pushed to the margins, while the labor that scales software gets paraded on magazine covers.
Mar 08, 2026
A few days ago, I stared at a federal bar chart on my laptop and felt my stomach drop. I started asking people a party-trick question: What’s the biggest occupation in America? Almost everyone guessed something visible: teachers, retail, fast food, office work. That’s what our culture trains us to notice.
Then I pulled up the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) “largest occupations” data, and the answer was sitting there in plain English: Home Health and Personal Care Aides, 3,988,140 people.
I’m not reading that as an abstract statistic but something I see daily through my work in running CareYaya, a social enterprise that helps families find affordable in-home care support. I hear the voices behind those numbers every day: the exhausted daughter trying to keep her job, the older man determined to stay in his own house, the care aide who shows up anyway even when her own life is fraying.
What hit me wasn’t just the size of the workforce, but the silence with which society treats caregivers.
Care work sits at the intersection of everything America avoids looking at directly: aging, disability, dependence, death, and the truth that every “independent” adult is one accident, cancer, or dementia diagnosis away from needing help.
In a country that can’t stop talking about “the economy,” I rarely see the economy described the way it actually functions at street level. I see caregivers keeping older adults safe so that family members can work, so the bills get paid, so other industries keep humming. I see care work acting like the hidden scaffolding under everything else.
And, I see how quickly that scaffolding gets treated as disposable labor.
When I talk to families, they often whisper about their difficulties getting care support almost like they’re confessing a moral failure. “We’re trying,” they tell me, as if the need for help is some private weakness instead of a predictable part of aging or serious illness. When I talk to care aides, they talk about the stress from the care work. They talk about rushing between clients. They talk about loving the work and sometimes still not being able to make rent.
PHI’s snapshot of the direct care workforce puts numbers to what I keep hearing, that median annual earnings for direct care workers were just $25,015. I read that figure and think about what it really means in 2026 America: The largest job category in the nation is, effectively, a low-wage backbone.
I also think about who gets stuck holding the bag. Care work is still treated as “women’s work” in the cultural imagination, and that bias leaks into policy, pay, and prestige. I watch the same pattern repeat: The labor that sustains human life gets pushed to the margins, while the labor that scales software gets paraded on magazine covers.
What makes me angrier is that this isn’t a small sector we can ignore until later. The BLS projects 17% growth from 2024 to 2034 for home health and personal care aides, with about 765,800 openings each year on average. This is not a “future” problem but rather a present problem that is going to grow much worse, faster.
And yet I keep watching public conversations drift toward fantasy. I hear endless speculation about AI replacing workers, while the largest workforce in America can’t even get a stable ladder, a living wage, or basic respect. I hear investors pitch “aging tech” like it’s a consumer gadget category, while the core issue is whether a real human being can afford to do this work and stay in it.
I don’t think this is an accident, but rather, a choice embedded in our system.
Care work sits at the intersection of everything America avoids looking at directly: aging, disability, dependence, death, and the truth that every “independent” adult is one accident, cancer, or dementia diagnosis away from needing help. So we do what societies often do with uncomfortable truths. We outsource them, we underpay them, and we call them “personal responsibility.”
Even the funding structure says it all. Medicaid is the main payer of long-term services and supports in the US, and a recent Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services brief says so plainly: “Medicaid is the largest payer for long-term services and supports (LTSS) in the United States.” I read that line and think about the whiplash families face when they confront a vast public health need paired with political rhetoric that treats caregivers and recipients like line items to be squeezed.
So when I’m asked what to do, I start with a moral stance and then I get practical.
I want a country that pays the people who keep elders safe, like they truly matter. I want Medicaid rates and payment models that stop forcing providers into churn, and stop forcing workers into poverty. I want training and advancement pathways for care workers, and I want the caregiving workforce to have real power: bargaining power, scheduling power, and dignity at work.
I also want us to stop acting surprised when the care workforce pipeline breaks. If the biggest job in America is care, then the “care crisis” isn’t a niche issue, but a core labor rights issue; a public investment issue; and an economic issue that’s as critical as housing, wages, and healthcare.
When I look back at that BLS bar chart, I don’t see a pop-quiz type question anymore. I see millions of workers holding up millions of families. I see the work that makes the rest of American life possible.
And I can’t unsee the insult of how little we talk about it.
If I want anything from readers, it’s this: I want you to say the name of the job out loud, and then demand that we build an economy that treats it as essential, because it is.
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'Now Is Your Time of Need': Bernie Sanders, Mayor Mamdani Join Striking Nurses in NYC
"Don't tell me you can't provide a good nurse-staff ratio when you're paying your CEO at New York Presbyterian $26 million a year, the CEO at Montefiore $16 million a year, Mount Sinai $5 million a year," said Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Jan 20, 2026
As the largest nurses strike in the history of New York City marched into its second week with no resolution in sight, US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Mayor Zohran Mamdani joined hundreds of picketers in the bitter cold on Tuesday to support their fight for better pay and workplace protections.
Last week, the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) announced that nearly 15,000 NewYork-Presbyterian, Mount Sinai, and Montefiore hospital employees had "no choice" but to go on strike after the hospitals failed to meet their demands for safe staffing, workplace violence protections, safeguards against the use of artificial intelligence in healthcare, and to maintain 100% of their healthcare benefits.
Outside Mount Sinai West on 10th Avenue, Mamdani, attending his second picket, called for a "swift and urgent resolution" to the workers' demands after negotiations with the hospitals stalled last week and the chains began hiring replacement workers.
"This is about safe working conditions. This is about a fair contract. This is about dignity. And today is day nine—day nine—of those demands, and I want you to know that wherever I go in New York City, I hear about the plight of our nurses," the democratic socialist mayor said. "Now is your time of need, where we can ensure that this is a city that you don't just work in but a city that you can also live in."
In comments to CBS News New York, the hospital chains have scoffed at the NYSNA's demands for a 25% pay increase, especially in the wake of massive healthcare funding cuts from President Donald Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act last year.
A spokesperson for NewYork-Presbyterian said its nurses—who it said earn $163,000 on average—are among the highest-paid in the city, calling demands for a pay increase "unrealistic." A Montefiore spokesperson told the network that progress on negotiations will be impossible until the nurses "back away from their reckless and dangerous $3.6 billion demands."
But New York is also one of the most expensive cities in the world to live in. According to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Living Wage calculator, the nurses' wages are often barely enough to meet a family's basic needs, especially for single parents with children.
NYSNA, meanwhile, has said management "is threatening to discontinue or radically cut nurses’ health benefits" and has done nothing to combat severe understaffing.
"We’re talking an emergency room filled to the brink,” said one of the strikers, staff nurse Morgan Betancourt. “Ninety patients, and we have maybe nine nurses.”
On Tuesday, Sanders (I-Vt.) emphasized that the hospitals' sudden frugality has been of little concern when it comes to compensating hospital executives.
"Don't tell me you can't provide a good nurse-staff ratio when you're paying your CEO at NewYork Presbyterian $26 million a year, the CEO at Montefiore $16 million a year, Mount Sinai $5 million a year," Sanders shouted to applause from the strikers. "Don't tell me you can't treat nurses with dignity when you're spending hundreds of millions of dollars on traveling nurses."
According to the Greater New York Hospital Association, the three hospitals combined had spent approximately $100 million to pay temporary nurses as of the fourth day of the strike. Temporary staffing agencies have required hospitals to pay scabs two to three times as much as they'd pay their regular nurses, Bloomberg reported.
Negotiations remain at a total standstill after breaking down last week. While the hospitals claim the union refused to budge on unreasonable demands, Jonathan Hunter, a negotiator for Mount Sinai nurses, told Spectrum News NY1, "They basically stonewalled us, presented us with nothing, and we left with nothing."
The strike has left the hospital system in a state of upheaval, forcing some patients to be moved and nonemergency surgeries to be canceled. Mamdani said it's all the more reason for the hospitals to reach an agreement with their workers.
"Too often when we see a strike, people forget that that is not where workers want to be," Mamdani said. "A strike is an act of last resort. What workers want is to be back at work. So what this will mean is making that possible. And so we call on every side to come back to that negotiating table. Have a swift and urgent resolution."
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