Off-kilter With Rebecca Vallas

“The War on Drugs has disproportionately harmed communities of color. People have lost jobs, education, housing, their liberty, their families, and their lives to this War. Now they deserve equity, justice, and repair: ownership of cannabis businesses, full and automatic expungement, and community reinvestment of tax revenue and corporate philanthropy.” This is the vision of a marijuana justice organization called Cage Free Cannabis and its sister organization Cage Free Repair. As Off-Kilter continues #SecondChanceMonth, to mark 4/20, Rebecca sat down with Adam Vine, cofounder of Cage Free Cannabis & Cage Free Repair, and Felicia Carbajal, interim director of programming with National Expungement Week and a member of Cage Free Cannabis’s advisory board. Learn more about Cage Free's work at CageFreeCannabis.com NationalExpungementWeek.org Follow their work: @CageFreeRepair @ExpungementWeek

Off-Kilter continues our Second Chance Month series with two of the directly impacted leaders driving transformational change on second chance policies and rights restoration in the states, who also happen to be a powerhouse husband-wife team: Desmond Meade, executive director of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, best known for the visionary Amendment 4 campaign that restored the right to vote for 1.4 million people with felony convictions in Florida—and Sheena Meade, one of the leaders in the Amendment 4 campaign and now the managing director of the Clean Slate Initiative, a bipartisan national movement to expand record-clearing and make it automatic to put second chances within reach for everyone, not just folks who can afford a lawyer.   Learn more about FRRC's work: floridarrc.com Learn more about the Clean Slate Initiative: cleanslateinitiative.org

In recognition that a criminal record shouldn’t be a life sentence to poverty, there’s been a whirlwind of momentum in the states in recent years to expand eligibility for criminal record-clearing—with over half the states expanding laws for expungement, sealing, and other tools for enabling people to wipe their records clean so they can have a fair shot at jobs, housing, education and more. There’s just one tiny problem. The expungement systems that states have been building are leaving behind the vast majority of the folks they’re supposed to help. To kick off a series of conversations with leaders in the field of reentry and criminal records reform for April as Second Chance Month, Rebecca talks to two of the leading academics behind a critical new line of research on what’s now being called the “second chance gap”—JJ Prescott, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School, and Colleen Chien, a professor at Santa Clara University School of Law and Paper Prisons Project—whose research on who’s getti

Poverty researchers estimate that the income-boosting provisions in the American Rescue Plan Act, which President Biden signed into law last month, will cut child poverty in half, and that overall poverty in the U.S. will fall by one-third over the next year. But should we expect those promised reductions in poverty to transfer from spreadsheets to real life? A lot of the answer to this question hinges on whether federal policymakers take the steps needed to ensure we don’t just make folks ELIGIBLE for historic income security protections like the new child allowance, the EITC expansion for workers not caring for kids in their own homes, and $1,400 relief checks—but whether we make sure low-income individuals and families can actually ACCESS these benefits.    So for this week's pod, Rebecca sat down with two of the advocates working on the access part of the equation: Nina Olson, executive director of the Center for Taxpayer Rights, who served from 2001 until 2019 as the IRS’s internal watchdog known as t

Amid a global pandemic that has killed people of color at dramatically higher rates, and forced so-called 'essential workers'--again, disproportionately people of color--to risk illness and death to keep the a struggling economy churning... the outlook for predominantly white corporate monopolists has never been brighter. According to a new report from Liberation in a Generation, from March - November 2020, 644 U.S. billionaires saw their combined wealth increase by $931 billion (from $2.95 trillion to $3.88 trillion)--a jump of 31.6 percent. All the while, U.S. poverty worsened, and the unemployment rate was hovering at roughly double its pre-pandemic low. Rebecca talks to one of the report's authors, Jeremie Greer--who's also one of Liberation in a Generation's co-founders and co-executive directors--about the case for centering grassroots leaders of color within the anti-monopoly movement, and reimagining the antitrust movement’s work through a racial justice lens.

Results are in from the first year of a universal basic income experiment in Stockton, California, which gave randomly selected residents $500 per month with no strings attached—and they’re striking. The income boost improved recipients’ employment prospects, economic stability, physical and mental health, overall well-being, and more, according to an independent study released last week. The pilot’s striking results only add to a growing body of evidence making the case for guaranteed income policies that provide recipients unconditional cash. They come on the heels of another groundbreaking guaranteed income experiment called the Magnolia Mother’s Trust, which provides low-income African-American mothers living in affordable housing with $1000 in unrestricted cash per month, for 12 months straight. The mounting evidence in support of guaranteed income as a strategy for dramatically increasing economic security comes as the U.S. begins a guaranteed income experiment of its own, in the form of a 1-year child

With President Joe Biden’s signature, the American Rescue Plan Act became law on Thursday of this week. This wide-ranging package of relief measures—which despite garnering widespread bipartisan support among voters, passed both chambers of Congress without a single Republican vote—authorizes a set of landmark expansions of existing income security policies and programs—including an historic expansion of the Child Tax Credit, that for the next year at least, turns the CTC into a fully available child allowance that’s estimated to cut child poverty in half by establishing a guaranteed minimum income for families with children. To break down the major income-boosting elements in the American Rescue Plan Act, now that help is on the way—and for a look at what families can expect to receive in the way of economic relief—Rebecca sat down with Seth Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and a former advisor to President Obama for tax policy.

For this week's pod, we're bringing you a conversation Rebecca moderated at this week's National Academy of Social Insurance conference on "Pathways to Economic Security" about how America's social insurance and public assistance system is falling short for disabled people and care workers who provide home and community based care services; the human consequences of how hard we've made it to access Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI); outdated program rules that trap disabled people in poverty and keep them from marrying; the "care crisis" that's resulted from underpaying and undervaluing direct care providers; and more. Guests: Matthew Cortland, policy director of Be A Hero and a former SSI recipient; Bethany Lilly, director of income policy at The Arc of the United States; and Beverly Yu, state government affairs director of United Domestic Workers/AFSCME Local 3930.

Earlier this week, in a hearing on the state of America's economic recovery, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell testified before the Senate Banking Committee that the employment rate for low-wage workers—those hit hardest by the pandemic—is “probably above 20 percent.” With President Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID relief package on the move in Congress, and with the first glimmers of what a $3 to $4 trillion infrastructure and jobs package might look like on the horizon to follow, Rebecca talks to Claudia Sahm, a senior fellow at the Jain Family Institute and a former economist at the Federal Reserve, about the economic debate over Biden’s COVID relief package, why we shouldn’t be worried about inflation right now, what concerns about "runaway inflation" have to do with the toxic culture of economics, and more.

Rebecca joined Greg Duncan and Sam Hammond for a panel discussion about the prospects for a U.S. child allowance -- and why it's needed now more than ever -- hosted by the American Constitution Society's New York Chapter. Subscribe to Off-Kilter on iTunes. show notes: https://offkiltershow.medium.com/the-case-for-a-u-s-child-allowance-1bb04067c3d3

Rebecca talks to Brookings Fellow Lauren Bauer about the steps the Biden administration is taking to increase too-low federal food assistance benefits, starting with updating an archaic policy called the "Thrifty Food Plan" -- and the larger agenda to expand SNAP. Show notes: https://offkiltershow.medium.com/how-biden-is-expanding-snap-c9c64b8013ce

Rebecca sits down with Be A Hero’s Matthew Cortland for a look at the challenges with the vaccine rollout so far, and what it would take to get to the vaccination rates we need in the U.S. and globally to bring the COVID-19 pandemic to an end. Show notes: https://offkiltershow.medium.com/when-will-the-pandemic-end-45d6d69250c2

Rebecca sits down with the Economic Policy Institute's David Cooper for a deep dive into Democrats' Raise the Wage Act, which would raise the federal minimum wage to $15 by 2025. show notes: https://offkiltershow.medium.com/inside-the-raise-the-wage-act-with-epis-david-cooper-2d6ee58ab1f6

Rebecca talks to Vox's Ian Millhiser about the ongoing debate over what to do with the filibuster -- and why it isn't just standing in the way of much of the Biden-Harris agenda, but key democracy reform measures the GOP wants to stop at all costs. show notes: https://offkiltershow.medium.com/voxs-ian-millhiser-on-why-we-need-to-nuke-the-filibuster-to-save-democracy-c6d432e5fadb

Vox's Dylan Matthews breaks down everything you need to know about "budget reconciliation" -- a tool that if used strategically in the Senate could mean Dems' fragile majority could be enough to create a pathway for powerful policy change at a critical time. Show notes: https://offkiltershow.medium.com/how-president-elect-biden-could-cut-poverty-in-half-without-the-gop-f647a0452e0e

Sherrod Brown on the COVID relief workers & families urgently need Mini-pod: With poverty on the rise, Rebecca talks to Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown about the debate in Congress around COVID economic relief -- and the stakes for the tens of millions of workers and families struggling to stay afloat right now. Show notes: https://offkiltershow.medium.com/sherrod-brown-on-the-covid-relief-workers-families-urgently-need-c7df53e6dcae

Rebecca talks to the Brennan Center's Ames Grawert & Terry Ann Craigie about their research finding that people who spend time in prison see their lifetime earnings cut in half, further entrenching poverty and the racial divide -- the annual earnings loss by Americans with criminal conviction records now totals $372 billion per year. Show notes: https://offkiltershow.medium.com/how-mass-incarceration-became-a-poverty-trap-6211e6712380

Rebecca talks to Dorian Warren & Angela Hanks about the work ahead now that the Biden/Harris transition team has been formed; some of the most exciting new members of Congress to watch; why Jan 5 matters so much; how Democrats can avoid falling into another austerity trap, and more. Show notes: https://offkiltershow.medium.com/transition-talk-with-dorian-warren-angela-hanks-e986b94f43f7

Rebecca talks to Daniel Nichanian, founder of The Appeal's Political Report, for a deep dive into some of the most important down-ballot stories from the 2020 election -- from ballot measures to state and local races that will shape policymaking in 2021 and beyond. Show notes: https://offkiltershow.medium.com/down-ballot-deep-dive-with-daniel-nichanian-c000fcf09b04

Rebecca talks to disability lawyer Matthew Cortland about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the disability community so far, the ageism and ableism underpinning claims that "we need to learn to live with it," and more. Show notes: https://offkiltershow.medium.com/the-purge-2020-edition-32c38a059666