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.

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. 

Nearly 28 percent of U.S. households (or 100 million people) are either unbanked or underbanked. This lack of access to affordable financial services drives the working poor to rely on costly, and often predatory, alternatives. But what if a trusted, accessible, and secure government agency (that receives no tax dollars for operating expenses) with the world’s largest retail network existed that could help fill this void? It does exist. It’s the U.S. Postal Service.