Roosevelt Institute

@rooseveltinstitute.org

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Advancing ideas that rebalance power in our economy and democracy. www.rooseveltinstitute.org

Line chart titled "Unions have shrunk while the rich get richer." It compares U.S. union density (green line) with the share of income going to the top 10% (orange line) from 1977 to about 2024. Union density steadily declines from roughly 26% to 11%, while the top 10%'s income share rises from about 35% to 47%. The chart highlights an inverse trend: as union membership decreases, the share of income going to the highest earners increases. Source: EPI Data Library and World Inequality Database.
Infographic comparing two timelines for 1991 and 2025, highlighting the median age of first-time homebuyers alongside age 18 (high school graduate) and age 62 (Social Security recipient). It shows the median first-time homebuyer age increasing from 28 in 1991 to 40 in 2025, while the other reference ages remain unchanged.
The Good Life Governing Toolbox, including public options, taxes, industrial policy, antimonopoly policy, monetary policy and macroprudential tools, and countervailing power. — The Roosevelt Institute.
NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Roosevelt Institute President and CEO Elizabeth Wilkins.
Table showing Kalshi’s top trading categories from July 2021 to May 15, 2026, with trades and estimated net retail losses. Sports accounts for the most activity (279.2 million trades) and the largest losses ($371.6 million), followed by crypto (78.7 million trades, $29.5 million lost) and exotics (18.1 million trades, $100.4 million lost). Across all categories, there were 429.6 million trades and an estimated $583.5 million in net retail losses.
"We estimate that retail traders (market takers) on Kalshi have lost over half a billion dollars—$583.5 million. More than two-thirds of those losses ($371.6 million) were from sports alone. (Exotics and mention markets were also in the top five categories for retail losses, with over $100 million and $16 million in losses, respectively.) And when retail traders made money on Kalshi, it was mostly on a small number of the biggest bets. We find that 63.2 percent of all “taker” revenue on Kalshi flowed to just 6.3 percent of matched orders, those with a dollar value of at least $200."
“It remains to be seen whether [Johnson] intends to enforce the law or will just continue with the Trump administration’s unlawful efforts to shut down an agency created by Congress,” said Brad Lipton of the progressive Roosevelt Institute, formerly a staff attorney and adviser at the CFPB. “Hope springs eternal that maybe the new leadership will take the job seriously again, but the evidence is not looking good,” said Lipton.
“On July 4th, as Americans mark the 250th anniversary of our founding, it is also the anniversary of the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, a law that made the administration’s priorities painfully clear: using the tax code to protect and enrich those already at the top, while working people today–and in the future–bear the cost." — Elizabeth Wilkins, Roosevelt Institute.
"Being a Roosevelter is equipping yourself with the necessary tools, playing to your strengths in order to work alongside those who share the same desired end, and living a life of consideration for economic, social, political and environmental justice." — Jazmyn Dangler, Roosevelt Network.
“Even stopped clocks are right twice a day. By vindicating Dr. Lisa Cook's case, the Court appropriately deferred to Congress's design for the Federal Reserve and preserved its protection from political influence. While this was the right decision, it still fits the pattern that the Court breaks with Trump only when it suits Wall Street. Government institutions—from the Court to the Fed—must be accountable to the interests of the American people, not to the president’s whims or the financial industry." — Elizabeth Wilkins, President and CEO, Roosevelt Institute.
Infographic from 4C Health highlighting two years of its four-day workweek initiative, reporting high employee satisfaction, improved staffing and access to care, reduced burnout, and no negative fiscal impacts. It features statistics including 94% of employees preferring the four-day workweek, more than 250,000 hours returned to employees' personal lives, and additional metrics on team engagement, patient care ratings, and supervisor support. The graphic ends with a link to learn more about four-day workweek positions at 4C Health.
"Importantly, the design and sales pitches for these tax cuts are far more troubling than they were for past Democratic tax cut proposals or pledges to not increase taxes below certain income thresholds. That’s because they much more explicitly buy into and perpetuate the false narrative treating taxes “only as a burden to be eased rather than as a foundation for democratic governance itself,” as Roosevelt Institute President Elizabeth Wilkins put it. The proponents of these tax cuts echo anti-tax rhetoric, like how the government shouldn’t take what Americans earn. Senator Booker’s plan is in fact titled the “Keep Your Pay Act.” But there’s a fundamental problem with this. To even finance the government we have—not to mention the government we should have—the middle- and upper-middle class will have to contribute. Rhetoric likes this suggests that it isn’t worth it for them to do so—that it’s better for them to keep their pay than finance programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and so much more."
"“If you think about what it felt like to go through Covid, and then inflation, and also political unrest and instability, you come out of those things thinking, ‘How am I supposed to plan for the future?’” said Elizabeth Wilkins, president of the Roosevelt Institute, a left-leaning think tank."
""We’ve already made retirement too hard for the nearly half of Americans who have no retirement savings. For the other half, we’ve told them to put their retirement savings in passive index funds and ignore the noise. That's especially true for 401(k)s—it's basically the only retirement advice that makes sense for people who aren't professional traders. But the SpaceX IPO is designed to game exactly that, pushing stock indexes to relax listing standards to effectively force its way into the index funds other companies must earn their way onto, and driving 401(k) holders to buy insiders’ shares, whether retirement savers like it or not." – Mike Madowitz, Principal Economist, The Roosevelt Institute.
Despite historically high public support for unions, less than 6% of private-sector workers now belong to one.
Monetary Policy – The Roosevelt Institute
Antimonopoly Policy – The Roosevelt Institute
Beyond retirement, support for government investment in public options is broad and intense across every item tested—especially healthcare. Nearly 3 in 5 people strongly support establishing a public health insurance option (59%), the highest intensity of any item tested. Making public colleges more affordable (49%); investing in public parks, pools, and green spaces (45%); and expanding public transit (42%) follow closely.
The Good Life Governing Toolbox from the Roosevelt Institute.
"For instance, some advocates have pushed to eliminate the income cap on the payroll tax. Currently, workers who earn over $184,500 don't pay Social Security taxes on any amount above that. The Social Security trust fund is under strain because Congress has failed to update the program for the economy we actually have," Elizabeth Wilkins, CEO of the Roosevelt Institute, a progressive think tank. "Too much income now flows to the top, where it escapes Social Security taxation.""
The Department’s approach would also exacerbate some of the worst features of the financialization of our society—the shifting of costs and risks onto individuals to benefit the financial services industry. Traditionally, America’s retirement plans were “defined-benefit” pensions, which provided promised benefits for a retiree’s lifetime. Employers largely bore the costs and risks associated with those plans, and investment professionals managed investment decisions.
Infographic reading, "TIME: Reclaiming time for what matters."
Infographic reading, "INCOME: Boosting incomes throughout our lives."
Infographic reading, "COSTS: Making life's essentials affordable."
Infographic reading, "TRUST: Reviving the governing tools and capacities we need."
A pastel-colored infographic introduces The Good Life Agenda, organized into four themes: public tools and policy, affordable essentials, higher incomes, and greater control over time. The graphic features simple icons, brief explanatory text, and branding from the Roosevelt Institute alongside the title “The Good Life."
“We put in place guardrails after the dot-com bubble for a reason,” Elizabeth Wilkins, the President and CEO of the Roosevelt Institute the Roosevelt Institute, told Fortune. “Because we remembered that there’s real downside risk to tying retiree savings to the fortunes of not only corporate America generally, but specifically the tech sector.”
A waffle chart representing 104 weeks in a year for a two-adult household compares weeks worked in 1975 with additional weeks worked in 2025, using different shades of pink and outlined squares. The accompanying text states that the average middle-class American couple with children works a combined 600 more paid hours per year than in 1975.
A line chart shows cumulative percent change since 1978 for childcare costs and nominal median family income, with childcare costs rising much more steeply over time. By the latest year shown, childcare costs have increased to about 1,500% above their 1978 level, while median family income has increased to about 500%.
“I want to be sure that neither battles nor burdens of office shall ever blind me to an intimate knowledge of the way the American people want to live and the simple purposes for which they put me here.” — President Franklin D. Roosevelt in a 1938 Fireside Chat.
“I grew up in the America the New Deal made. It wasn’t a perfect nation by any means, but it was a vast improvement over the society we had before. Unfortunately, too many people took what America had achieved for granted, not realizing that the good lives enjoyed by many didn’t evolve by accident but were, instead, made possible by bold, effective policies.” – Paul Krugman
“Economics is ultimately about people, and the purpose of economic policy should be to help people live good lives.” — Paul Krugman
"While Americans don’t trust the government, they do want it to act. The Roosevelt survey found that large majorities at least somewhat support a public option for services including health care, public colleges, and childcare that would provide free or very affordable options in those markets, and expanding Social Security, the already existing public program for retirement benefits. The institute calls this the Good Life agenda. Enacting it will require politicians to resist the false allure of free-market solutions, and instead present a clear case for how the government can make people’s lives better. “I do think there is [an opportunity] to tap into people’s disgust and frustration with corruption in this moment,” Wilkins said, “but it needs to be paired with an affirmative vision for what life could look like if we did things differently.”"
"The common takeaway is that voters are mad at price spikes in recent years of everyday goods like gas and groceries, and at the longer-term increase of housing and health care costs. It’s become the “affordability” crisis. But a new report from the Roosevelt Institute points to a simpler yet more profound explanation: Americans no longer feel that they can achieve a good life. Whatever the economy is doing, it isn’t delivering one. “If we are talking about the core goals of economic policy, yes, we want overall growth, but to what end?” said Elizabeth Wilkins, the president and CEO of Roosevelt. “To deliver the building blocks of a good life for people, right? We fundamentally believe that progress should be about people living better lives. So, what does it look like to actually deliver that for people?”"
"Despite their conviction that government makes things worse, 78% of disillusioned voters support the Roosevelt Institute’s Good Life Agenda—a sweeping platform of healthcare affordability, living wages, expanded retirement security, housing investment, and worker protections. Their net support score (+68) is statistically identical to the electorate at large. Three-quarters say they’d be more likely to vote for an elected official who backs it. They don’t think government is incapable of acting in their interests. Nearly half (49%) think this agenda is “long overdue,” more than any other group tested."