After years of making loans from his Little Rock barbershop, Arlo Washington has chartered the state’s newest credit union – offering a blueprint for communities to create their own financial institutions.
Decibels for dollar, soda taxes or “sugary beverage taxes” spark some of the loudest policy debates relative to the amount of money they raise. Part of the reason is because sugary beverages have so deeply ingrained themselves into our collective minds – Santa Claus is always dressed in red today because of Coca-Cola marketing. In this free-flowing conversation, we’ll discuss what the latest data are actually revealing about the impact of these policies so far and whether they live up to the promises early proponents made about them — and just what were those promises to begin with? Since Berkeley became the first city to pass a soda tax in 2014, the debates have gotten louder and more complex, with seven other cities passing their own versions, billionaire philanthropists jumping in to support their expansion, and big beverage corporations fighting back with a vengeance. Meanwhile, peer-reviewed studies are now available that actually reveal what ha
The guaranteed income receipts continue coming in, and they continue to tell a similar story of overwhelmingly positive impact for families and children. But as this collective body of evidence continues to grow, what exactly are some of the most powerful and relevant observations? Who still needs to be convinced and how are guaranteed income pilots and studies designed to dispel the most persistent myths about no-strings cash assistance? In this conversation, we’ll go on a tour of guaranteed income findings so far, led by the co-directors of the Center for Guaranteed Income Research at UPenn. They’ve been working with more than two dozen cities and counting across the country to collect robust data on guaranteed income pilots. At the same time the expanded child tax credit during the pandemic also added to the evidence base for guaranteed income. But the racist political tropes maintain a powerful grip on many in Congress, the ultimate target for guaranteed income su