New in @theconversation.com In short: @rightstracker.bsky.social data show the US is behind on economic and social rights (education, healthcare, dignified work and fair pay, food and nutrition) relative to what it can afford and its peers, looking at 30 years theconversation.com/americans-ar...

New paper out with @skipmark.bsky.social and Shristi Rai, a recent UMSL grad. We find that Compliance with IMF loan concessions in the “political” and “revenue” policy categories are startlingly bad for fulfillment of ESRs. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Happy first Sweater Weather day from Winnie.

It seems quite obvious to me that the slow, then sudden closing of the grindset-to-six-figures pipeline explains quite a bit of whatever crisis of whatever is afflicting the Culture right now.

Now back to dog pics. This is what she does when she wants to hang out on the porch even though it’s a heat index of 100+.

Really proud of this work with @skipmark.bsky.social , and the article it’s based on with Meridith LaVelle and Asia Parker, so I’m self promoting again. Strengthening collective labor rights reduces inequality- not just vertical inequality like the GINI but also inequality between ethnic groups.

A shout out to @aaup.org, the URI Adjunct faculty union, and the URI Professional Staff Association (PSA), a bargaining unit affiliated with the National Education Association of Rhode Island (NEARI). You are almost always better off in a union, so join one, start one, or support one!

Promoting labor rights reduces inequality, narrows the racial wealth gap, and serves as a popular policy platform for politicians seeking to win elections. If you expand this to all labor rights, you have a political agenda that motivates a majority of diverse voters and strengthens democracy.

We use CIRIGHTS data, which codes US State Department and @amnesty.org human rights reports to assign numerical scores for two dozen human rights. For this piece, we examined the rights to unionize and engage in collective bargaining. We looked at both protection in law and in practice.

Unions have an incentive to recruit all workers. As a result, they often help to promote racial inequality faster than other parts of society (they tend to be less racist). Where collective labor rights are strong, minorities can also unionize for themselves when they are shut out of other unions

Unions, protected by collective labor rights, negotiate for higher wages, limit corporate power, and lobby for better working conditions for all workers. This is how we got the 40-hour workday, overtime pay, & restrictions on child labor. They also strengthen democracy and act as a check on power.

Building on our scholarly work, we argue that collective labor rights reduce inequality by empowering workers: they reduce the cost of organizing unions, reduce the cost of collective bargaining, create a credible threat for non-union workers to unionize, and protect the right to strike

New piece in the @us.theconversation.com with @stephenmbagwell.bsky.social The protection of collective labor rights (right to unionize, strike, and bargain collectively) reduces income inequality between individuals (poor vs. rich) and between ethnic/racial groups (white versus Black).

The richest 1% of Americans now have 5x more wealth than the bottom 50%. Meanwhile, 59% of Americans can't cover a $1000 emergency expense. Strengthening collective labor rights may reduce economic inequality, according to political scientists.

New post with @skipmark.bsky.social out at @theconversation.com theconversation.com/strengthenin...

🚺 Calling all women-identifying grad students & jr faculty! Join our Pay-it-Forward mentoring workshop at ISA-Midwest! 🗓️ Register by July 1 🍸 Thu reception | 🥗 Fri lunch + mentoring Space limited! Details in your inbox or ask us! Sign up: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

🚨 Sunday Workshops at ISA-Midwest! 🚨 Two fantastic professional dev sessions on Nov 23: 🧠 VIRP w/ Patrick James (diagram your research!) 📊 Text-as-Data w/ Leah Windsor (turn words into numbers!) Free w/ conf reg. Sign up by Aug 1 to be in the program! Sign up here: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Seeing a lot of discussion of what the War Powers Resolution does and does not permit. As always, the Congressional Research Service provides essential reading. www.congress.gov/crs_external...

🇿🇼ZIMBABWE | The Standard covers HRMI's new human rights scores for #Zimbabwe: www.thestandard.co.zw/news/article...

I think about this figure a lot.

New article now online with @malavelle.bsky.social and Matthew Rains, who isn’t on here as far as I know. From the Journal of Conflict Resolution: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Logged on here for the first time in months- happy to see this community growing from the ashes of the bad place. Doesn’t feel futile to be active over here now- let’s keep building!

Here’s my dog watching Dimension 20.

Feels weird to be starting over after twitter. I am moseying this direction, though. Hope we all find each other again!