Off-kilter With Rebecca Vallas

Modern-day oracles are increasingly describing this moment in human history as a “battle of imaginations”—in which oppression is what happens when an individual or a whole group of people are living in someone else’s dream, instead of being free to dream their own. It’s in that spirit that the first episode of Off-Kilter’s fall season kicks off with the words of poet and activist Sonya Renee Taylor: “We will not go back to normal. Normal never was. Our pre-corona existence was not normal other than we normalized greed, inequity, exhaustion, depletion, extraction, disconnection, confusion, rage, hoarding, hate, and lack. We should not long to return, my friends. We are being given the opportunity to stitch a new garment. One that fits all of humanity and nature.”  To that end, as Off-Kilter steps out of the news cycle this fall to reflect on the broader context of the moment in human history we find ourselves in—and the roles we can all play in shaping our collective future—the pod will be diving deep into the

This week marked the thirty-second anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act—or ADA, as it’s better known—the landmark civil rights law that promised equal opportunity and economic security for Americans with disabilities. As we’ve talked about a lot on this show over the years, as important as it is to celebrate how far we’ve come in the decades since the ADA became part of the fabric of American life, every time we hit the month of July, it’s even more important to acknowledge how far will still have to go to achieve the as-yet unfulfilled promises of the ADA.  And that’s why this July, Off-Kilter has been once again spending all month long having conversations with leaders from across the disability community.  To close out that series of conversations, this week we take a deep dive into one of the most egregious and discriminatory disability policies still on the books here in America—known as section 14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act. In a nutshell, 14(c) is an archaic loophole in federal w

July marks the thirty-second anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, or ADA, as it’s better known—the landmark civil rights law that promised equal opportunity and economic security for Americans with disabilities. As we’ve talked about a lot on this show over the years, as important as it is to celebrate how far we’ve come in the decades since the ADA became part of the fabric of American life, every time we hit the month of July, it’s even more important to acknowledge how far will still have to go to achieve the as-yet unfulfilled promises of the ADA.  And that’s why this July, Off-Kilter is once again spending all month long having conversations with leaders from across the disability community. To continue that series of conversations, this week we’re taking a deep dive into the criminalization of disability in America—and how we got to a place where people behind bars in prisons and jails are three to four times more likely to have a disability than the general population. And to unpack the

July marks the thirty-second anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, or ADA, as it’s better known—the landmark civil rights law that promised equal opportunity and economic security for Americans with disabilities. As we’ve talked about a lot on this show over the years, as important as it is to celebrate how far we’ve come in the decades since the ADA became part of the fabric of American life, every time we hit the month of July, it’s even more important to acknowledge how far will still have to go to achieve the as-yet unfulfilled promises of the ADA.  And that’s why this July, Off-Kilter is once again spending all month long having conversations with leaders from across the disability community. (Catch up with Part One and Part Two in our #ADA2022 series.) To continue that series of conversations, as we all grapple with the road ahead in a post-Roe v. Wade world, this week, Off-Kilter dives into the intersection of reproductive justice and disability justice—and the impact of the Supreme Co

July marks the thirty-second anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, or ADA, as it’s better known—the landmark civil rights law that promised equal opportunity and economic security for Americans with disabilities. As we’ve talked about a lot on this show over the years, as important as it is to celebrate how far we’ve come in the decades since the ADA became part of the fabric of American life, every time we hit the month of July, it’s even more important to acknowledge how far will still have to go to achieve the as-yet unfulfilled promises of the ADA.  And that’s why this July, Off-Kilter is once again spending all month long having conversations with leaders from across the disability community—starting with a two-part special diving into the picture for the millions of Americans now living with “long COVID.” For part one of that two-part series of conversations, Rebecca sat down with Lisa McCorkell, cofounder of the Patient Led Research Collaborative; Netia McCrery, education director at th

July marks the thirty-second anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, or ADA, as it’s better known—the landmark civil rights law that promised equal opportunity and economic security for Americans with disabilities. As we’ve talked about a lot on this show over the years, as important as it is to celebrate how far we’ve come in the decades since the ADA became part of the fabric of American life, every time we hit the month of July, it’s even more important to acknowledge how far will still have to go to achieve the as-yet unfulfilled promises of the ADA.  And that’s why this July, Off-Kilter will be spending all month long having conversations with leaders from across the disability community—starting with a two-part special diving into the picture for the millions of Americans now living with “long COVID,” the incredible patient advocacy led by COVID long-haulers across the country, and how patient advocates with other chronic illnesses like myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME

The year 2021 was one for the history books in many areas of American economic policy. And one thing it will be remembered as is the year the United States finally adopted a guaranteed minimum income for families with children. Unfortunately, that policy victory was short-lived, and the expanded Child Tax Credit signed into law as part of the American Rescue Plan Act expired at the end of last year after the historic economic recovery package many of us will forever remember as “Build Back Better” stalled in the Senate—despite widespread popularity with bipartisan voters—for lack of West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin’s support as the critical fiftieth vote.  Advocates for children and for low-income families haven’t given up the fight, though chances of bringing the expanded credit back anytime soon appear dim in the current political climate. Meanwhile, millions of children across the country have fallen back below the federal poverty line—and nearly half of low-income families reported struggling to afford

Coming up on Juneteenth, which will for the second year be recognized as a federal holiday in the United States on June 20 to commemorate the emancipation of enslaved African Americans in the United States, Rebecca sat down with Trevor Smith, the director of narrative change at Liberation Ventures, an organization working to fuel the movement for Black-led racial repair, for a sneak peek at a new initiative he’s building called the Reparations Narrative Lab. As he describes it, the lab will serve as a first of its kind creative space designed to build narrative power behind reparations. Trevor is also the creator, curator, and editor of a newsletter titled Reparations Daily (ish) and working on his first book, Lethal Stereotypes: How the Stories We Tell Take Black Lives. For more: Check out the National African-American Reparations Commission’s (NAARC) 10 point plan Here’s Liberation Ventures’ repair framework Dig into Harmony Labs’ explainer on narrative change: “What’s a Narrative?” Check out Michael Krau

There’s a lot of talk about budgets in Washington—but budget debates are rarely humanized in ways that people can understand in real life terms. And that’s a problem. Because a wide array of critical agencies across the federal government have been getting systematically underfunded over the years, resulting in very real problems for American families.  A prime example is the Social Security Administration (SSA)—which oversees retirement, disability, and survivors insurance as well as Supplemental Security Income. Since 2010, SSA’s operating budget has been cut by at least 16 percent, adjusting for inflation. Its staffing is down 13 percent, and all while the number of beneficiaries has gone up 21 percent. Why? Because Democrats have failed to get Republicans to join them in increasing SSA’s administrative budget, which is so lean already it’s just 1 percent of the benefits the agency pays out.  What this kind of systematic disinvestment in a key federal agency means in human terms was the subject of a recent

Following decades of failed tough-on-crime policies in the United States, between 70 million and 100 million Americans now have some type of criminal record, standing in the way of basics like jobs and housing for a huge swath of the nation’s citizens. But a policy that’s been gaining bipartisan steam in the states over the past five years, known as “Clean Slate,” has started to chip away at that gargantuan figure, by enabling people to have eligible records automatically wiped after they remain crime-free. In a special episode of Off-Kilter recorded at the Clean Slate Initiative’s first annual convening in Detroit, Rebecca sat down with several of the leaders in the Clean Slate movement to talk recent wins in the states, how people’s lives are being changed for the better, and the road ahead for criminal record-clearing with tough-on-crime rhetoric on the rise.  This episode’s guests: Sheena Meade, managing director of the Clean Slate Initiative; Sharon Dietrich, litigation director at Community Legal Servic

Following the rare leak of a draft majority opinion in the Supreme Court case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the prospect of partial or wholesale rollback of Roe v. Wade—and with it, the bodily autonomy of women and people who can become pregnant—now looms larger than ever in the United States. So in the wake of the leak that has everyone shook up, Rebecca sat back down with Ian Millhiser, a senior correspondent at Vox and Off-Kilter’s favorite court watcher for the inside scoop on the leak, what happens if Roe goes down, and how the Supreme Court has become, in his words, “one of the chief architects of America’s democratic decline.” And in the second half of the show, Rebecca talks again with Dr. Jamila Taylor, senior fellow and director of health care reform at The Century Foundation, to unpack why rolling back Roe would be a huge setback for women’s equality and economic justice; how out of step rolling back the clock on reproductive rights is with the will of the American people; what’s on

For more than two years, student loan repayment in the United States has been on pause, and interest on those debts has been frozen in light of the pandemic. In April, that pause was extended to August 31 of this year, offering another temporary reprieve for borrowers, many of whom were struggling to make often-crushing payments well before COVID-19 became a household name. Now, after years of calls to cancel some or all of the nation’s $1.6 trillion in student loan debt, federal policymakers are seriously considering finally taking a step in that direction.  To unpack how student debt became a $1.6 trillion crisis, what’s being discussed in Washington, and why student debt cancellation must be just the beginning of the conversation on making higher education affordable, Rebecca sat down with two of The Century Foundation’s experts on the subject: Tiara Moultrie, a fellow at TCF whose work focuses on higher education accountability, and Peter Granville, a senior policy associate studying federal and state pol

This week, we’re taking a break from Off-Kilter’s regularly scheduled programming to share a special virtual discussion hosted by The Century Foundation earlier this week with Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro, and other leaders to mark the official launch of the new Disability Economic Justice Collaborative. Off-Kilter previewed the collaborative’s launch a few weeks ago in a special behind-the-scenes episode with TCF’s new Disability Economic Justice team: it brings together two dozen leading disability groups, think tanks, and research organizations to learn from each other, work in partnership, and finally break the link between disability and poverty that continues to persist in the United States more than three decades after the Americans with Disabilities Act became law.    For more:   Here’s the new TCF–CEPR study documenting the economic crisis facing the U.S. disability community (and if that’s tl;dr, here’s a fact sheet). Check out the n

How would you feel if you found out your elected leaders had voted to hand out huge sums of public money to corporations, with some of them not even knowing who the recipient is, and the rest bound by contract not to divulge its identity or what its specific plans are? Now what if we told you this happens all over the country, all the time, in deals involving wealthy corporations such as Amazon, Facebook, Google, and on and on? Unfortunately, thanks to a legal tool called a non-disclosure agreement (NDA), this kind of corrupt secret dealmaking has become the norm rather than the exception in economic development deals. These agreements—signed by governors, mayors, state legislators, and other local leaders—prevent public officials from disclosing anything about a corporate subsidy deal they’re working on, including even the recipient, until it’s finished, cutting many key stakeholders, and most importantly the public, out of the process. But a new coalition is seeking to change that. To learn more about the e

This week, Rebecca hands the mic to Ryan Prior for an Off-Kilter takeover episode. Ryan is a longtime journalist, former CNN reporter, and like Rebecca, someone who lives with invisible chronic illness. They first crossed paths when Rebecca was at the Center for American Progress (CAP) and more recently reconnected in the COVID era because of his forthcoming book The Long Haul—which looks at how COVID-19 pandemic as a mass disabling event has changed the face of disability and chronic illness in the United States. For this Off-Kilter takeover, Ryan sat down with another chronically ill journalist and author of a similarly timely book—Meghan O’Rourke, author of the New York Times bestseller Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness, which Esquire called “at once a remarkable work of scholarship and a radical act of empathy.” For more: Dig into The Invisible Kingdom and follow Meghan on Twitter @meghanor Check out Ryan’s documentary Forgotten Plague, get involved with ME Action, and follow him on Twitte

This week, Rebecca took a break from Off-Kilter’s regularly scheduled programming for a sit-down with the newest members of The Century Foundation’s brand-new Disability Economic Justice Team, which officially launched last month. Kim Knackstedt comes to TCF from the Biden administration, in which she served as the first-ever director of disability policy on the White House Domestic Policy Council, after many years as a staffer on Capitol Hill and before that, as a special ed teacher. Vilissa Thompson is the founder of Ramp Your Voice!, a former licensed social worker, and a long-time thought leader in the disability community at the intersection of race, gender, and disability.  For more on TCF’s new Disability Economic Justice Team: Read more about the team in the press release announcing its launch and follow The Century Foundation on Twitter at @TCFdotorg Here’s more on Kim, more on her prior role at the White House, and follow her on Twitter @kiknack  And here’s more on Vilissa, more on Ramp Your Voi

“We believe that it is possible to create an economy where all Black, Latinx, Asian, Indigenous, and Pacific Islander people thrive—in one generation. To accomplish this we must fight to dismantle what we call the Oppression Economy. Today, elite institutions use racism as a tool to expand their wealth and power and suppress the wealth of people of color through theft, exploitation, and exclusion. Suppressing economic power leads to suppression of political power to influence policies that oversee resources. The elite institutions that control resources use that control to change the rules of our economy in their favor, which continues the cycle of profit.” This is the vision of Liberation in a Generation, a national movement support organization building the power of people of color to totally transform the economy—who controls it, how it works, and most importantly, for whom. Formed in 2018 by cofounders Jeremie Greer and Solana Rice, LibGen as it’s come to be called, brings together advocates, community or

Sixty-one million Americans, or roughly one in four, live with disabilities. Yet people with disabilities have at best only been an afterthought when it comes to housing policy in the United States, without a seat at the metaphorical table to inform how it gets made.  Now, a new organization called The Kelsey is working to change that.  So, after a great set of conversations with some of the folks behind Next100 about how they’re working to turn the traditional think tank model on its head—we at Off-Kilter have decided to keep the conversation going about what it looks like to put directly impacted communities at the center of policy change.    For this week’s show, Rebecca sat down with three of the powerhouse disability leaders behind The Kelsey—Micaela Connery, Allie Cannington, and Fatimah Aure—for a look at the story behind the organization and how it’s working to change how housing policy gets made… by centering the perspectives of disabled people. You can learn more about The Kelsey and get involved wi

Over the course of the past few weeks, Rebecca’s been having a series of conversations with some of the folks behind Next100—a think tank that’s turning the traditional think tank model on its head, to create a public policy sector where those with the most at stake are driving the change they and their communities want to see. We at Off-Kilter enjoyed what started as a single episode conversation so much, we decided to turn it into a three-part series.  So, to wrap up that series of conversations with Next100 leaders about what it looks like to put people at the center of policy change in the areas of antipoverty policy and climate policy… for this week’s show, Rebecca sat down with a set of current and former Next100 policy entrepreneurs—Michael "Zaki" Smith, Isabel Coronado, and Vidal Guzman—all of whom are working to transform different facets of America’s Jim Crow criminal legal system, and to ensure directly impacted folks are leading the way. And ICYMI: Don’t miss the first and second episodes in thi

Last week, Rebecca sat down with some of the folks behind Next100—a think tank that’s turning the traditional think tank model on its head, to create a public policy sector where those with the most at stake are driving the change they and their communities want to see. We at Off-Kilter enjoyed that conversation so much, we decided to turn it into a three-part series.  So, continuing last week’s conversation about what it looks like to put people at the center of policy change in the area of antipoverty policy… for this week’s pod, Rebecca sat down with two more Next 100 policy entrepreneurs—Dan Mathis and Diana Martinez Quintana—who are working to change how climate policy is made in the United States, at the intersections of housing policy, immigration, and racial justice.  And ICYMI: don’t miss last week’s episode, which kicked off Off-Kilter’s series with The Next 100. For more: For more from Diana, read her recent essay, “Climate Displacement Gives America the Opportunity to Improve the Record on Im