During the Great Depression, President Roosevelt enacted a series of economic policies that helped lift up the lower classes, and established the progressive mindset of protecting laborers against capitalists. Minimum wage traces back to the latter part of the New Deal in a statute called the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, also commonly called the Wages and Hours Bill. Nearly 80 years later, minimum wage remains a hot-button issue. The fact is, the minimum wage has not kept pace with economic inflation since 1938—if that were the case, minimum wage would be at a shade under $20 an hour in 2017. But even an increase in minimum wage to…

Christine Lagarde, IMF Director, 2013.Demotix/ Omar Franco Perez Reyes.All rights reserved. On July 2, the IMF released its analysis of whether Greek debt was sustainable or not. The report said that Greek debt was not sustainable and deep debt relief along with substantial new financing were needed to stabilize Greece. In reaching this new assessment, the IMF stated it had learned many lessons. Among them: Greeks would not take adequate structural reforms to spur growth, they would not sell enough of their assets to repay their debt, and they were unable to undertake sufficient fiscal austerity. That left no choice but to grant Greece greater debt relief and to provide…

The future of American politics feels completely uncertain to us. For some, though, that isn’t the case. It’s their job—their ability—to cast projections on the future that oftentimes come true. So, we had a thought. What if we asked three extraordinary people what they think 2017 would look like in Trump’s America? Of course, the answers varied, but they were all insightful, coming from a unique perspective within the Venn diagram of each’s expertise. Trump has been stressing a lot of us out. His antics, his temper, and his Cabinet picks all seem like direct digs at the foundations of our liberal democracy. This angst has no doubt spilled into other corners of the…

Iranians pour onto streets ( t-shirt shows Minister of Foreign Affairs), July 14, 2015. Demotix/Meysam Mim. All rights reserved.Europeans hope that diplomatic success on the nuclear issue will have a spin-off effect, allowing broader engagement with Iran. For the past decade, Europe has adopted a containment policy on Iran, which has been pursued through a mixture of sanctions, threats of military strikes by the US and Israel, and a diplomatic freeze with Iran on regional conflicts. This has given Europe leverage in the nuclear negotiations, while allowing it to reduce Israeli fears and prevent the risk of a long and costly military confrontation with Iran. But the deliberate exclusion of…

Halloween, despite its scary reputation, is the one day of the year parents feel comfortable letting their kids wear whatever they want and take candy from strangers. It doesn’t seem like a weird thing until you think about it, and if you think about it long, you’re probably left wondering where this bizarre tradition came from in the first place. According to Today I Found Out, it all started with the ancient Celtic tradition of Samhain that involved dressing up like demons—not for fun, but for the sake of survival. Back in the day, Celts were convinced that evil spirits could rise from the dead and wander the earth on the eve of their…

A protest arranged outside the Saudi Arabian Embassy in London. S Li/Demotix. All rights reserved. Sudan’s decision to join Operation Decisive Storm with Saudi Arabia and a coalition of Gulf countries to fight Yemeni Houthi rebels comes as no surprise. The government of Sudan has no limits when it comes to its regional and international allies. Aerial bombardments were one of the techniques being used against people in South Sudan during the 1990s civil war, and more recently in the Darfur Genocide and in the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile regions. Nuba Reports, who report from the frontlines in South Kordofan, stated that 3470 bombs targeted civilians since April 2012.…

Alexis Tsipras addresses the Greek people after the elections, January, 2015. Demotix/Nikolaus Georgiou. All rights reserved.A man goes to the tailor to pick up a custom-made suit. He puts it on, and notices that the sleeves are too long. When he complains, the tailor says: ‘just bend your arms a little’. ‘But the collar is too low!’ ‘Just raise your back a little’ says the tailor. ‘But the trousers are too long!’ ‘Just stand on your toes’ says the tailor. The man goes out into the street and can barely walk in his new suit. Everyone says: ‘poor guy’. ‘Yes, but great suit!’ This joke represents the structure of entanglement…

Sean Spicer might be the White House Press Secretary, but it seems he’s still having some trouble navigating the intricacies of the internet. A few days back, he tweeted out what appeared to be a password to…something, then followed it up by doing the exact same thing the next morning:  Now, he’s got some more egg on his face after sending a tweet claiming that a quick satirical profile piece from The Onion totally nailed what his daily job is:  Here’s The Onion’s tweet that “nailed it” by Spicer’s own admission. While this is very likely a bullet point of most every press secretary in every administration, few tasked with the…

Protests began in Tamil Nadu in January 2017 against the banning of the ancient sport jallikattu, where people try to tame a raging bull. Xinhua/SIPA USA/PA Images. All rights reserved. Just prior to the United Nations Humans Rights Council’s (UNHCR) March 2017 hearings on war crimes committed during Sri Lanka’s civil war, the main political party of Sri Lanka’s Tamils, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), had urged the UN to pressure the Sri Lankan government to expedite its investigations. Instead, the consensus resolution passed on 23 March provided the Sri Lankan government with a further two years to investigate the war crimes. This comes as no surprise because the March 2017…

To wring silver lining from an election that has left millions consumed by anxiety, cannabis is a good place to start. Of the five states considering legalizing recreational marijuana on Tuesday, four passed their proposals. Meanwhile all three states considering medicalization voted to permit medical use of the drug, and Montana voted to expand its existing medical marijuana laws. Over 64 million Americans—more than one-fifth of the country’s population—now live in states where cannabis is fully legal. An unprecedented portion of the public has firmly rejected the Drug War-era relic that is criminalization. And a majority of states now rebuke the federal government’s long-debunked claim that this plant has no medical value. These are the states…