Jun 14, 2018
This week on Off-Kilter, a new report sheds horrifying new light on the state of the nationwide affordable housing crisis. A minimum wage worker earning $7.25 an hour would need to work a staggering 122 hours per week, literally all 52 weeks of the year — the equivalent of three full time jobs — to afford a two bedroom apartment at fair market rent. Rebecca speaks with Diane Yentel, president and CEO of the National Low-Income Housing Coalition, about the new report “Out of Reach: The High Cost of Housing.”
Later in the show, while Trump and Congressional Republicans actively seek to exacerbate the affordable housing crisis, some states and cities are taking matters into their own hands. Rebecca sits down with Denver Mayor Michael Hancock to hear how Denver’s tackling their affordable housing crisis and working to curb chronic homelessness.
And finally, it’s no secret the Trump tax law that took effect earlier this year is already worsening inequality in the U.S. But it’s also a recipe for massively exacerbating racial inequality — and even mass incarceration. Rebecca talks with Darrick Hamilton and Michael Linden, both fellows at the Roosevelt Institute, about how “hidden rules of race are embedded in the new tax law.”
But first: concentration camps for kids; how Trump’s plan to reorganize the federal government is just his latest effort to redefine everything from childcare to health insurance as “welfare”; what you’re not hearing about the Trump economy: wages FELL last year (!); momentum grows for expanding paid leave to include chosen family; and more — as Jeremy Slevin, aka your beloved Slevinator, returns with the news of the week ICYMI (and an even longer beard than last week).