Money

While they never intended for more than 45 million Americans to have this much debt, policymakers in the 1960s made fateful choices.

The KKK violently resisted the revolutionary gains of the Civil War and Reconstruction, and sought to keep the black masses toiling in submission.

A new history charts the forgotten ways the social politics of the Roosevelt years transformed the United States.

One of the most audacious examples of product placement at the Olympics was staged by John Carlos and Tommie Smith.

How the 33rd president finagled his way to a post–White House fortune — and created a damaging precedent.

The recent ProPublica exposé shows we need to attack the wealth and power of the rich — and that means massively increasing taxes on them.

In the two decades before the Hepburn Act’s enactment, two entities vied for the right to coordinate the price and distribution of coal.

It’s time for something better.

Newer measures of poverty may do a better job of counting America's poor, which is necessary to helping them.

The history of rural electrification demonstrates why vital public utilities cannot be left to the machinations of the market.

Fifty years ago, in response to rising inflation, he rejected several long-standing practices. His Keynesian turn holds lessons for today’s economy.

After over a century, the unelected mascot of St. Louis is finally losing its place in public life.

Long after the end of explicit discrimination in the housing market, the federal government continued to manage risk for capital, perpetuating inequality.

She used her work to live an autonomous life in a time when women were often trapped by socially constructed gender roles and systematic oppression.

The 19th-century antecedent to today’s complaints of labor shortage.

Patent medicine used to be associated with fraud and profiteering. What shifted the industry's positions on medical ethics and intellectual property?

The fight over the American Jobs Plan reflects a long history of competing visions of public works—and, most of all, who should benefit from rebuilding.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said America faces an economic crisis fifty years in the making. But how can we name the long crisis, much less explain it?

When struggling with tax enforcement, rich countries have long tried to shift blame to poor countries.

The famed economist’s theories were embraced by Beltway power brokers in both parties. Finally, a Democratic president is turning the page on a legacy of ruin.

And why they’re scared we might break up with their favorite appliance.

For economist Albert Hirschman, social planning meant creative experimentation rather than theoretical certainty.

Full employment could solve job discrimination and inadequate wages.

Private insurance companies have long dominated the provision of social security in the United States, but resistance is growing.

In the 60s and 70s, spiraling prices for staples like meat and gasoline wreaked havoc on the U.S. economy, thanks to political and policy mistakes.

The new note comes 125 years after the free silver movement tried—and failed—to use currency to forge a national identity.

Lewis Hine captured the misery, dignity, and occasional bursts of solidarity within US working-class life in the early twentieth century.

Business groups have always worked with both parties to support globalization and free trade.

Democracy requires something more than a handful of super-rich universities.

Why do so many politicians think people only work if threatened or forced into doing so?