Suzanne Kahn
@suzmkahn.bsky.social
Historian of social insurance and feminism. VP Think Tank @rooseveltinstitute.org & Roosevelt Forward. Previously @32bjseiu.bsky.social, @seiu.org, @columbiauniversity.bsky.social History Dept linktr.ee/suzmkahn
New must read from @kedseconomist.com. We're all going to be hearing a lot more about Social Security in the next few years. Kathryn unpacks how the economy and Social Security are linked and what that should mean for reform.
What the 1983 Social Security Reform Missed—and 2032 Must Get Right
Kathryn Anne Edwards explains how wage inequality and economic mismanagement weakened Social Security—and what the next reform must get right before 2032.
rooseveltinstitute.org
Given the summer we are having, very proud to have been a small part of getting this out in the world.
Todd Tucker@toddntucker.com · 6d agoNEW @rooseveltinstitute.org: as wildfires & heatwaves rage, we are not powerless. As 19 authors argue in our 157-page "Building Up in 2029" report, we can adapt & expand Biden & Trump experiments to create lasting state capacity to tackle climate change. 🧵🧵 rooseveltinstitute.org/publications...
NYC’s plan for five municipal grocery stores is a useful test of a public option: government providing an affordable baseline alongside private grocers. The reaction has been predictable. But the idea itself is hardly unprecedented.🧵
Mamdani’s city-run grocery stores to offer 30% price cuts on meat, produce
The first store won't open until 2027, but the mayor is seeking help now from grocers.
gothamist.com
Care is economic infrastructure, but too often the people giving and receiving it are left out of the policy choices that dictate who bears the costs. That's why today's Day to Have Your Say centers those experiences through 1 Million Care Conversations. careconversations.com
The latest in my series of interviews with state and local childcare experts - check it out. Those of us that think about childcare solutions at the national scale have so much to learn from these folks!
Roosevelt Institute@rooseveltinstitute.org · 3w agoVermont has quietly become one of the country’s strongest examples of ambitious childcare policy. @lbilik.bsky.social spoke with Sarah Kenney about the decade of organizing behind Act 76, why affordability and supply must grow together, and why passing a law is only the beginning.
Must read from @dsreddy.bsky.social. I love this exploration of the importance of coworkers to our social and democratic fabric.
Roosevelt Institute@rooseveltinstitute.org · 4w agoNEW 📰: The future of work debate has overlooked one of employment's greatest strengths: its ability to build trust, cooperation, and social connection. In a new brief, @dsreddy.bsky.social makes the case for preserving and strengthening employment as a social institution. 🧵
"The green transition, in short, requires capable states." New brief from @danieldrisc.com on what tools states need to successfully manage the green transition we need. rooseveltinstitute.org/publications...
The Four Pillars of Green State Capacity
Markets alone cannot deliver decarbonization. Daniel Driscoll explains why the green transition requires capable states that can govern, finance, innovate, and protect people at the same time.
rooseveltinstitute.org
Check out the first installment of a series of interviews I'll be doing with state and local childcare experts -- Local implementors all over the country are proving that it is 100% possible to expand public childcare. We can learn a lot from them.
Suzanne Kahn@suzmkahn.bsky.social · last mo.New interview from @lbilik.bsky.social brings both inspirational vision and technical advice from Kristin Spanos: rooseveltinstitute.org/blog/applyin... "Everything that currently exists is a social construction, which tells me reimagining new and improved ways programming is also possible."
New interview from @lbilik.bsky.social brings both inspirational vision and technical advice from Kristin Spanos: rooseveltinstitute.org/blog/applyin... "Everything that currently exists is a social construction, which tells me reimagining new and improved ways programming is also possible."
How Childcare Happens—Applying a “Surgical Rigor” to Policy Implementation
In our first installment of How Childcare Happens: Lessons from Frontline Implementers series, we speak with one of those experts: Kristin Spanos, Chief Executive Officer at First 5 Alameda and the ad...
rooseveltinstitute.org
Start of the summer means parents (like me) are scrambling to figure out care arrangements in even more complex ways than during the school year. @jessicacalarco.com's new piece vividly shows how this isn't an individual problem but a collective and structrual one.
Roosevelt Institute@rooseveltinstitute.org · last mo.New 📰: Every society needs care. The question is who gets stuck doing it. @jessicacalarco.com's new paper argues that America's default answer has been: whoever has the least power to refuse. 🧵 rooseveltinstitute.org/publications...
New estimates show that Social Security's trust fund will be depleted in just six years. @bbkogan.bsky.social breaks down the cause: President Trump's tax and immigration policies are making a long-term shortfall even worse. @scrippsnews.bsky.social
Our political system is built to preserve the status quo, but the status quo right now is....not great. Check out this excellent new paper that unpacks how we got to our oligarchic moment. rooseveltinstitute.org/publications...
How US Policymaking Institutions Reinforce Inequality and Favor the Status Quo
When income inequality is high, Congress passes fewer economic laws, and the gridlock itself makes inequality worse. A new Roosevelt Institute paper explains the structural reasons why.
rooseveltinstitute.org
The story of UPK is a story of building programs that build countervailing power. It has critical lessons for @rooseveltinstitute.org's whole good life agenda.
Roosevelt Institute@rooseveltinstitute.org · 2mo agoNew 📰: NYC's Pre-K for All is a rare success story and an example of building policy that can survive attack and expand. This new paper from Josh Wallack has lessons for anyone designing progressive policy to last.
Today, the Trustees announced that the OASI Trust Fund—the reserve that helps pay full benefits when Social Security tax revenue falls short—will run out by 2032, a full quarter earlier than last year’s projection. This is not bankruptcy, but it is a warning: Congress must act. 🧵
"To be a parent in America is to race constantly in vain against the clock." www.nytimes.com/2026/06/08/m... This excellent piece is why I'm so excited that our new Good Life Agenda included a whole section on time. (rooseveltinstitute.org/publications...)
The American Family Is at a Breaking Point. Our Politics Have Finally Noticed.
nytimes.com
The financialized retirement system puts people at risk, those who have retirement investment accounts & the 4 in 10 Americans who don't have these accounts. We should focus on how we get more people more stable and secure retirements (*cough* Social Security) not making their investments riskier.
Roosevelt Institute@rooseveltinstitute.org · 2mo agoAs @elizabethwwilkins.bsky.social says, this is part of a broader pattern—”allowing the kind of insatiable hunger for capital to erode our safeguards for ordinary savers.” Our recent comment letter raises similar concerns about a DOL proposal that could expose 401(k) savers to riskier investments.
Roosevelt's Good Life Agenda is out today. We argue that the only way to renew faith in democratic governance is to build a government that is committed to making people's lives better and equipped with the tools to do so by controlling costs, raising incomes, and creating more time in our days.
Roosevelt Institute@rooseveltinstitute.org · 2mo agoWe’ve spent decades told that if the economy grows, people’s lives will get better. Millions are working harder, paying more, and losing faith that institutions can deliver. Imagine an economy and democracy that actually make life better. That’s why today, we’re launching The #GoodLife Agenda. 🧵
New 📰: Patrick Oakford explores how stronger labor standards are foundational to the economic security of working families—raising the federal minimum wage to $20/hr by 2030, establishing just cause protections, and strengthening enforcement against wage theft. 🧵
Federal Employment Standards as the Foundation of Economic Security: Revisiting Minimum Wage, Just Cause, and Tools to Combat Wage Theft
Patrick Oakford proposes raising the minimum wage to 2/3 of median earnings ($20 per hour by 2030), implementing just-cause protections, and expanding wage theft enforcement to restore economic securi...
rooseveltinstitute.org
Lots of good context for the problems we need to tackle: rooseveltinstitute.org/publications...
Who Makes Up the Labor Force?: Projecting Workforce Growth over the Next Decade
In this brief describing the state of the labor force, Oskar Dye-Furstenberg analyzes the deepening “k-shaped” economy. His research shows that service industries drive 80% of GDP, and future job grow...
rooseveltinstitute.org
Roosevelt Institute@rooseveltinstitute.org · 3mo agoBoth home care and fast-food workers are disproportionately non-white and predominantly female. The problem? Both of these fastest-growing jobs are also among the lowest-paying: less than $20 per hour.
The US economy runs on childcare. Our new brief from Sarah Jane Glynn examines how families arrange care each week and what those patterns reveal about gaps in the system. 🧵 rooseveltinstitute.org/publications...
NEW from me and Oskar Dye-Furstenberg for @rooseveltinstitute.org: Against Manufacturing Doomerism: Why and How Making Stuff Matters. In which we give you over 50 pages of charts and graphs showing why manufacturing still matters. 🧵with some highlights! rooseveltinstitute.org/publications...
Against Manufacturing Doomerism: Why and How Making Stuff Matters
This report by Todd Tucker and Oskar Dye-Furstenberg examines US manufacturing’s evolving role, highlighting its continued importance for innovation, productivity, and exports despite a declining shar...
rooseveltinstitute.org
Alex Hertel-Fernandez@awhf.bsky.social · 3mo agoExcited that this piece with my colleague Kate Andrias is out in the world! On the anniversary of abundance the book and May Day, we lay out how worker power has to be part of any abundance movement. Grateful to @monicapotts.bsky.social for writing about the report: newrepublic.com/article/2096...
FDR stood for building lots of things and for labor unions. You can too.
Roosevelt Institute@rooseveltinstitute.org · 3mo agoThe "abundance agenda" aims to solve our supply crises, but often ignores a critical factor: worker power. In our new report, Kate Andrias & @awhf.bsky.social argue for "Democratic Abundance"—a vision where workers shape the future they’re building.🏗️💪
The latest ghoulish news from this admin: they want to decrease the # of adults to children in Headstart. This when the childcare crisis is named over&over as a major economic burden for families right now. Deregulation is NOT a solution to the childcare crisis: it will only make things worse. A 🧵:
Trump’s Top Child Care Official Wants a ‘Bonfire of Regulations’
nytimes.com
NEW from @rooseveltinstitute.org: 🔥Major report from @betonyjones.bsky.social @joepeck.co.uk on how Biden pursued pro-labor clean energy policy. 🔥Me 👇on why this matters, and what a new World Bank about-face on industrial policy tells us about this era rooseveltinstitute.org/blog/what-th...
What the Biden Admin’s Labor-Forward Clean Energy Strategy Tells Us About Inclusive Industrial Policies
As a surprising new World Bank report further mainstreams industrial policy, the debate over incorporating labor standards persists.
rooseveltinstitute.org
We’re excited to introduce the first wave of our 2026 Good Life Residents for Social Security and Fed cohorts. This program brings together leaders to tackle the most pressing questions in economic policy—from strengthening our safety net to financial accountability.
Great work by @rooseveltinstitute.org @elizabethwwilkins.bsky.social rooseveltinstitute.org/publications...
The Public Options Tool Kit: Ensuring Access, Public Value, and Accountability in the Economy
Market-only solutions aren't enough. Suzanne Kahn shows how "Public Options" can fix our cost-of-living crisis and put people over corporate profits.
rooseveltinstitute.org
Must read piece on this wild stat: More than 400 day cares in Oklahoma have gone out of business since November. Don't miss the parents sending their kid to live in a different state b/c they don't have care. It's past time for universal childcare! www.nytimes.com/2026/04/13/u...
The Last Day at Kids of Faith: Parents Navigating a Child Care Crisis
nytimes.com
Great new piece from Jess Forden. I think a lot about how a majority of older Americans think Medicare covers long term care. We are not ready.
Roosevelt Institute@rooseveltinstitute.org · 4mo agoNEW 🗞️: While headlines claim millennials will be the wealthiest generation ever, a silent crisis is draining that inheritance before it ever reaches them: the skyrocketing cost of long-term care. 🧵 rooseveltinstitute.org/publications...
