The Commons

In its latest public statement, American Compass affirms the enduring importance of organized labor and the need for conservatives to have a stake in its future. It challenges a right-of-center accustomed to dismiss unions to instead reconsider their role in our common life as well as the deeper costs of their absence.

After spending eight years driving four hundred thousand miles to take 60,000 pictures of working class Americans, I could easily write a Labor Day essay on the dignity of work, topped by a photo of a man dirty from work, leaning on his well cared for F150 with a back-rack, silver tool box, two bright yellow cylindrical Igloo coolers, and pissing Calvin mud-flaps.

Statement on a conservative future for the American labor movement.

As we celebrate Labor Day, reducing unemployment and getting the COVID-impacted economy back to some semblance of normality is clearly the top economic task. But when that is done the economy will still face a critical labor market problem: too many workers earning too little. A recent Brookings study found that 44 percent of American adults workers make very little, with median annual earnings of just $18,000.

In a recent Commons post, Wells King argues against the Trump administration’s recent gutting of the Obama-era rule U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) rule, Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing, more widely known as AFFH. He characterizes the action of largely scrapping the rule, as opposed to merely revising it, as a case of the administration bowing to “upper class NIMBYism.” I respectfully disagree.