Programs to reduce inequality hypothetical question

[billqui]

If you could make any programs you wanted to reduce income inequality, gender inequality, and racial inequality, what would you do, how would you do it, and why would you do it?

 

 

[billqui]

nobody has any ideas?

[TakeruK]

I think your question is so open and vaguely defined that it is difficult for anyone to give an actual answer!

[juilletmercredi]

What is the purpose of this question?  I'm curious.  I live in the United States for context.

 

-Raise the federal minimum wage; make it based upon a cost of living index that would be pegged to inflation and the cost of living in a moderately expensive U.S. city.  It should be such that a person working full-time at minimum wage would be minimally able to care for a family.  For example, right now I think the minimum wage should be at least $15/hour and perhaps closer to $20/hour.

 

-Universal single-payer health care, provided for by the government - like in Canada or the UK.  Not this mish-mosh "universal" system provided by a lattice of private insurers.

 

-Universal paid parental leave.  Parents would have to be given a minimum of 6 months of paid leave; the cost would be shared by the employer and the government.  They should be guaranteed their original position or a position equivalent in pay and prestige when they come back.  Also, any tenure or promotion clocks should be stopped during that time.  Parents of all genders will be welcome to take the leave within the first three months of having a child or adopting one; and they will also have the option of an additional 6 months of unpaid leave.

 

-Mandated paid time off.  Employers would have to give employees a certain number of paid sick days that employees could take without penalty.

 

-Make it illegal for employers to dock the pay of waitstaff when their customers walk out on the bill, and severely punish any restaurants who do this.  (I just read an article in the NYT the other day about this; it's apparently not illegal to do this and restaurants do it all the time!)

 

-Subsidized healthcare on a sliding scale based upon income, and university pre-kindergarten for children beginning at age 3 or 4.

 

-Sponsored education programs and summer programs for students interested in certain fields.  The target groups would be underrepresented groups in those fields - women in math and science and racial/ethnic minorities in lots of fields, but also potentially men in elementary education and nursing.  The idea would be to have a series of programs beginning in elementary school and extending through college that were partially funded by the government but designed and run by educators at all levels, in a sort of grant operation much like the NSF or NIH gives grants now for training programs.

 

Students wouldn't have to go through all of them, of course, but a little girl who's interested in math in fourth grade could, for example, do a Saturday math exploration course sponsored by her local community college, and then do a two-week math immersion program that summer to learn more.  And then maybe in high school she decides to take an advanced math course in the summer after her junior year.  Rich kids do these kinds of programs all the time, but they are usually very expensive and poor kids can't afford them, so the idea would be to give enrichment capabilities to poor and middle-income kids who want to explore fields and prepare them to compete for college admission, as well as get them interested in careers in which they are underrepresented.

 

-More money in public schools, less emphasis on standardized tests, pay teachers a LOT more money.  If you pay them well you attract top talent, so maybe making the starting salary of a teacher around $50,000 (instead of $30,000), with mid-career being around $70,000 and end-of-career teachers just shy of six figures.  Also, pay student teachers an internship salary, so that more students can afford it.  I know a couple of people (including my husband) who have considered teaching but dismissed it or are afraid to take it on because they don't think they could adequately support a family on teaching income, and/or the amount of work is not worth the low salary.  In exchange, though, teachers need to be highly educated and well-prepared for the jobs.  Maybe fund programs to lure experienced professionals into teaching, so that people who do have other work experience can bring their experiences into the classroom.  (One of my favorite teachers was a Georgia Tech-trained mechanical engineer before he started teaching high school physics and calculus, and because of this he didn't just teach us math as an abstract concept - he wrote his own homework problems and taught us exactly what physics and calculus were used for in the real world.  It had a tremendous impact, as I went to a predominantly black school and a disproportionately high number of my classmates went on to get engineering or math/science degrees, because of him.)

 

I think I'll leave it at this for now.

 

Also, this has little to do with real inequality problems, but I'd put a cap on how much contingent labor is allowed at a college/university before they lose their accreditation, INCLUDING graduate student instructors of record.  Instead require the majority of instructors to be either tenure-track faculty or non-tenure track permanent lecturers on contracts (with full-time pay and benefits).  Not only do I think this would directly affect the market - by removing the incentive administrators have to cut tenure lines and hire adjunct faculty - I also think it would indirectly affect the academic market by cutting down on the number of doctoral students programs bring in.  If programs can't make money off them by requiring all of them to teach, for fear of going over their percentage and losing money, then perhaps they would admit fewer students.