Families on Shaky Ground

Building Economic Opportunities in an Unstable Economy

March 27, 2007, 12:30pm – 2:00pm

About This Event

Financial markets these days are on a roller coaster ride amid a cascade of conflicting financial and economic news. For average Americans, though, Main Street is closer to home than Wall Street, which is why recent domestic employment numbers and savings and debt figures mean more to most Americans than the price of stocks in China. American families today want to enjoy middle class security. To do so, they need be able to reach a comfortable economic situation and maintain it over time. However, since 2001 a slow-moving labor market, rapid increases in the prices of necessary items such as housing, health care, and education, and accelerating debt burdens have caused a sharp erosion in middle-class economic security.

These shifting economic tides have affected many families, but minorities more so than whites, and low- and middle-income families more so than higher-income ones. Join the Center for American Progress and a distinguished group of panelists for a discussion about the difficulties confronting so many American families due to deteriorating economic opportunities over the past six years. The panelists will also discuss what types of policies will be needed to tighten the link between economic growth and income growth, improve the mortgage and credit markets, and create better wealth-building opportunities for the majority of American families.

Featured Panelists:
Meizhu Lui, Executive Director, United for a Fair Economy
Jeff Madrick, Editor of Challenge Magazine and Director of Policy Research, Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis, The New School
Eric Rodriguez, Deputy Vice President, Office of Research, Advocacy and Legislation, National Council of La Raza
Christian Weller, Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress

Moderated by:
John Halpin, Senior Fellow and Executive Speechwriter, Center for American Progress

Location

Center for American Progress
1333 H St. NW, 10th Floor
Washington, DC 20005

Biographies

John Halpin is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress focusing on the foundations of progressive thought, communications, and public opinion analysis. He has written extensively on the civic republican and faith traditions of the common good, and is currently developing a multi-year project to increase public awareness of the progressive movement's core values and philosophy, its history and icons, and its approach to governing. Halpin also serves as Executive Speechwriter for CAP, directing and writing reports, analytical memos, op-eds, and special projects for the Center, as well as speeches for John Podesta and the executive committee members. Halpin has been with CAP since 2003, serving as the Director of Research and a Communications Advisor. Prior to joining the Center, Halpin was as a Senior Associate at Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, providing strategic guidance and opinion research for political campaigns and issue organizations. In this capacity, he managed quantitative and qualitative research for the 2000 Gore campaign, the British Labour Party, the Austrian Social Democrats, and a range of congressional, state legislative, and initiative campaigns in the United States . He also managed organizational efforts for SEIU, the Nuclear Threat Initiative, and the Open Society Institute. Halpin received his B.A. from Georgetown University and his M.A. in American politics and political theory from the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Meizhu Lui is the Executive Director of United for a Fair Economy.Under Meizhu’s leadership, UFE has honed its messages and broadened its reach, tapping into the concerns of grassroots constituencies, including those who do not speak English as their first language. She co-authored The Color of Wealth: The Story Behind the Racial Wealth Divide, and UFE’s annual “State of the Dream” reports. Her articles appear in the Wealth Inequality Reader and Inequality Matters. Meizhu was a Boston City Hospital kitchen worker for 20 years, rising from the ranks to become President of AFSCME Local 1489. The local tackled tough issues like maintaining affirmative action gains during lay-offs. In 1993 Meizhu became an organizer for Health Care For All, building a multi-ethnic coalition that challenged Boston ’s hospitals to fund community-driven health projects. Meizhu serves on the Center for American Progress’ National Initiative to End Poverty. She is a Trustee of the Hyams Foundation. Her work has been honored by the YWCA, the Immigrant Workers’ Resource Center , Mass Senior Action Council, and the Boston Women’s Fund. Meizhu is a long-time member of Freedom Road Socialist Organization, a national organization well known for its participation in struggles for fundamental social change, against racism, and for a strong left.

Jeff Madrick is editor of Challenge Magazine, visiting professor of humanities at The Cooper Union, and director of policy research at the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis, The New School and is also an Affiliated Scholar with the Center for American Progress. He is a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books and a former economics columnist for The New York Times. He is the author of several books, including Taking America (Bantam) and The End of Affluence (Random House), both of which were New York Times Notable Books of the Year. Taking America was also chosen by Business Week as one of the 10 best books of the year. His most recent book is Why Economies Grow (Basic Books/Century Foundation). He has written for many other publications, including The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Institutional Investor, The Nation, American Prospect, The Boston Globe, Newsday, and the business, opinion-editorial, and magazine sections of The New York Times. He was formerly finance editor of Business Week Magazine and an NBC news reporter and commentator. His awards include an Emmy and a Page One Award. He was educated at New York University and Harvard University , where he was a Shorenstein Fellow.

Eric Rodriguez is the Deputy Vice President of the Office of Research, Advocacy and Legislation at the National Council of La Raza. For over 12 years, Eric Rodriguez has been an advocate at the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), the largest national Latino civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States . At NCLR, he helps to supervise and coordinate core operations of the Office of Research, Advocacy, and Legislation. He is also directly responsible for providing strategic guidance for public policy, legislative, and advocacy activities related to economic mobility and financial security policy issues. This work involves coverage of a wide range of issues including federal budget, tax, banking, homeownership, and Social Security reform. Before serving in this capacity, Mr. Rodriguez was the Director of NCLR’s Policy Analyses Center.

As part of his national-level policy and advocacy activities, Rodriguez has also written or contributed to publications on economic issues and their impact on low-income Latinos. This work includes preparing several major reports, issue briefs, opinion-editorials, and papers on Social Security reform and retirement security, financial services and wealth-building policies for the poor, welfare reform, and other related economic security issues. He has also testified before Congress on Social Security reform, mortgage lending, welfare reform, and other major issues. His work has been cited in both the English and Spanish media.

Mr. Rodriguez serves as Vice Chairman of the Board of the Coalition on Human Needs (CHN) and is a member of the National Academy of Social Insurance (NASI). He also holds a bachelor's degree in History from Siena College in New York and a master’s degree in Public Administration from American University in Washington, DC.

Dr. Christian Weller is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress. His expertise is in the area of retirement income security, macroeconomics, and international finance. Prior to joining the Center, he was on the research staff at the Economic Policy Institute, where he remains a research associate. Dr. Weller has also worked at the Center for European Integration Studies at the University of Bonn in Germany , under the Department of Public Policy of the AFL-CIO in Washington, D.C., and in banking in Germany, Belgium, and Poland. Dr. Weller is a respected academic with close to 100 publications in academic and popular publications. His academic publications have appeared in the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, the Journal of Development Studies, the Cambridge Journal of Economics, the Journal of International Business Studies, the Journal of Aging and Social Policy, and the Journal of Economic Issues, among others. His popular writings have been published in The New York Times, USA Today, and The Atlanta Journal Constitution. In 2006, he was awarded the Outstanding Scholar-Practitioner Award from the Labor and Employment Relations Association. His work is frequently cited in the press and he is often a guest on national TV and radio programs. Dr. Weller holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.