Lenny Mendonca
Social Europe
Half Moon Bay, CA, United States
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Past articles by Lenny:
From California capitalism to Bidenomics – Laura Tyson and Lenny Mendonca
The Biden administration's ambitious spending and investment programmes have already proven highly successful in the country's most dynamic state. → Read More
The US Economy Needs a Booster Shot by Laura Tyson & Lenny Mendonca
Heading into the holiday season, the United States is confronting a spike in COVID-19 infections and renewed restrictions on commerce. Unless Congress acts immediately to extend and expand support for workers, households, small businesses, and state and local governments, the hard-won gains from the previous stimulus could be lost. → Read More
Expanding America’s Expansion by Laura Tyson & Lenny Mendonca
Having undergone its longest expansion on record, the US economy appears to be thriving. But behind the headline numbers is a more complicated story: wages are growing, but not as fast as they should be; and inequalities based on place, race, gender, and other factors remain unacceptably high. → Read More
Keeping US Workers in the Game by Laura Tyson & Lenny Mendonca
With unemployment at a near-historic low, US policymakers might think they don't need to worry about the state of the American workforce. But they would be wrong: without far-reaching measures to expand opportunities for education and reskilling, severe skilled-labor shortages will become inevitable. → Read More
The Birthplace of America’s New Progressive Era by Laura Tyson & Lenny Mendonca
At a time of rising inequality, White House tweet storms, and deepening political gridlock in Washington, DC, it is easy to think that the decline of American democracy is inexorable. And yet, as in the early twentieth century, states like California are embracing their constitutional role as laboratories of reform. → Read More
America’s New Democracy Movement by Laura Tyson & Lenny Mendonca
While media coverage since the 2018 US midterm elections has focused squarely on Donald Trump, a growing movement of citizens and activists from across the political spectrum is thinking more broadly about the future of American democracy. And progressive political reforms have been winning support in some unexpected places. → Read More
Climate Action Trumps Trump by Laura Tyson & Lenny Mendonca
President Donald Trump continues to deny the realities of man-made climate change, even in the face of warnings by his own administration that it will impose massive costs on the US. Fortunately, in the absence of federal leadership, businesses, citizens, and state and local governments are taking action on an unprecedented scale. → Read More
America’s Homelessness Crisis Is Deepening by Laura Tyson & Lenny Mendonca
Despite strong GDP growth and an extraordinarily low unemployment rate, more than a half-million people in the United States are homeless on any given night. And with housing prices rising while median wages remain stagnant, the problem will get worse unless policymakers intervene. → Read More
Universal Basic Income or Universal Living Wage? by Laura Tyson & Lenny Mendonca
The challenge for the future of work is not really about the quantity of jobs, but their quality, and whether they pay enough to provide a decent standard of living. In the US, ensuring that they do starts with raising the minimum wage and ensuring that other existing tools don't go unused. → Read More
No Worker Left Behind by Laura Tyson & Lenny Mendonca
In recent years, a growing chorus of academics and policymakers has been sounding the alarm about technological disruption of the labor market. Millions of jobs could soon be performed by machines, and that means millions of workers will need to be furnished with the skills to pursue new forms of work. → Read More
Investing in Poverty Reduction by Laura Tyson & Lenny Mendonca
After almost a year of accomplishing nothing, the Republican-led US Congress has managed to enact a far-reaching tax law and budget legislation that will shape the contours of future government spending. Neither will solve America's most pressing economic challenges, but each does include at least one sensible idea for tackling poverty. → Read More
A People’s Democracy in America by Laura Tyson & Lenny Mendonca
In November 2016, even as Donald Trump was winning the presidency, minimum-wage increases passed in Arizona, Colorado, Maine, and Washington by margins of 10-18 percentage points. And this year, initiatives for democratic reforms are in the process of being qualified across the country. → Read More
Saving America from Trump’s Tax Reform by Laura Tyson & Lenny Mendonca
In principle, US President Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans were not wrong to pursue corporate-tax reform, with the goal of boosting US competitiveness. But, at the behest of the party's donors, the legislation they enacted will increase inequality, impede growth in the most productive states, and blow up the federal budget. → Read More
Facing the Four Structural Threats to US Democracy by Laura Tyson & Lenny Mendonca
During a time of deep political dysfunction in the United States, it is easy to assume that American democracy has gone off the rails, perhaps for good. But if Americans can look past the slow-motion travesty unfolding in Washington, DC, they will find that it is still within their power to effect meaningful change. → Read More
The Affordable Care Act’s Second Act by Laura Tyson & Lenny Mendonca
Now that efforts by the US Congress to repeal Obamacare have failed, it's time to redress the 2010 health-care law's shortcomings. Solutions are available, and they are to be found not in disingenuous Republican grandstanding about socialism, but in innovations that leverage the federalist flexibility that is a defining feature of US democracy. → Read More
How Trump Could Rebuild America
At a time when Americans seem to agree on little else, almost everyone agrees on the need to bring the country’s infrastructure into the twenty-first century. The task now is to turn consensus into action. → Read More
Kansas or California?
As Donald Trump turns to domestic tax reform, he should learn from progressive states like California, where the earned income tax credit and the minimum wage have reduced poverty and inequality, and stimulated demand. These states, unlike the supply-side embarrassment that Kansas has become, are clearly doing something right. → Read More
How Federalism Can Trump Populism
US President Donald Trump did not accomplish much in his first 100 days. But, as a growing movement of progressive federalism demonstrates, he did unwittingly remind many Americans that the US Constitution delegates substantial political authority to states, cities, and individual citizens. → Read More
The Pie-in-the-Sky UBI
According to the conventional wisdom in Silicon Valley, robots will soon eat everyone’s job, and a universal basic income will become necessary. But this hypothetical future has not yet arrived, and proposals for a UBI in the US risk diverting policymakers' attention from the many more pressing challenges confronting workers today. → Read More
Paul Arnold
TechCrunch is a leading technology media property, dedicated to obsessively profiling startups, reviewing new Internet products, and breaking tech news. → Read More