Governor Rick Snyder was inaugurated on January 1, 2010. Coming from big business and venture capital, he only took six weeks in office to propose a radical redistribution of the state’s shrinking tax base.

Lead, racism and poverty poisoned the Flint water supply. Add in a tablespoon of media silence and a gallon of government denial, and you’ve got a two year crisis that Michigan Governor Snyder has called, “…his Katrina” – alluding to the Bush administration’s disaster of hurricane management.

An emergency manager appointed by Governor Snyder triggered the crisis in 2014. Attempting to fund corporate hand-outs through cuts to Flint, Snyder’s emergency manager switched Flint from Detroit’s water supply to the polluted Flint River.

After the switch, the story, and the water, got darker. Since January 2015, state workers in Flint have been receiving bottled water instead of being obligated to drink contaminated water. Despite government knowledge, hundreds of citizen complaints were ignored, email pleas from health officials passed over, and an outbreak of rashes overlooked.

New movements call for new solutions. And this year, we’re taking a new approach to our annual State of the Dream report. 

Make a resolution of justice for 2016. Whether it’s fighting for $15 with low-wage workers, standing against police violence with #BlackLivesMatter, or pushing for a public postal bank, we’ll work with you for a better future. New beginnings are new opportunities for change. 

Jeannette Huezo, our Executive Director, shares a holiday message of thanks.

Fossil fuel corporations want you to be obsessed with the Paris climate talks. They want you to see quotes from the Paris agreement text, and glaze over. They want you to forget the words of Margaret Mead, that “…a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world.” And those citizens don’t need suits and a board room in Paris.

Our friends at Resource Generation hit the nail on the head in this letter to Mark Zuckerberg and the Facebook founder's recent $45 billion "gift."  Written by Jesse Spencer, this article can be read in full on the Huffington Post.

This is one of the many eye-popping findings of a new report, Billionaire Bonanza: The Forbes 400 and the Rest of Us, released by the Institute for Policy Studies.

Dear Supporters, Last night five black protestors were shot by alleged white supremacists in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  They were participating in a peaceful protest outside of the 4^th precinct police headquarters in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  

I superglued my hands to a friend to stop the Keystone Pipeline. Our action along with the work of indigenous people in Canada, farmers in Nebraska and other resistors along the route and across the country forced Obama to stop the project. 

Postal banking gained more widespread attention when Sen. Bernie Sanders endorsed it, but activists for economic equality and those fighting privatization of the postal service have long advocated its merits. Mike Leyba, director of communications for United for a Fair Economy and principal author of State of the Dream 2015: Underbanked and Overcharged discusses why some Americans don’t have access to major banks and how this will help them. 

From personal experience, I know that when you're outside of the banking system, things get expensive. I would cash a paycheck (for a fee), buy a money order at a supermarket to pay rent (for a fee), put money on a reloadable debit card (for a fee). When you're making every dollar stretch, fees make a big difference.