Vermonters Lobby for Public Bank—And Win Millions for Local Investment Instead
Advocates didn’t get the public bank they wanted. But the compromise they reached in the end was still a rare and significant win over Wall Street banks.
YES! Article archive
Economy
Laid-Off Baltimore Workers Beat Disney in Court—And Ask All the Right Questions About Urban Development
By some estimates, the city of Baltimore has sunk more than $1.5 billion into its Inner Harbor. Workers and residents want their share too.
Owning Together Is the New Sharing
Companies and startups are aspiring toward an economy, and an Internet, that is more fully ours with the use of cooperatives, "commons-based peer production," and cryptocurrencies.
Neighbors Helped This Immigrant-Owned Dry Cleaner in Boston Go Nontoxic—and Stay in Business
Organizations that aim to reduce the use of toxic chemicals have long focused on shutting down offending businesses. But this story from Boston shows another way.
8 Main Street Job Creators Who Are Rebooting the Economy—Starting with Those Who Need It Most
From the Deep South to the West Coast, these entrepreneurs are making sure jobs and dollars grow—and stay—in places hardest hit by hurricanes, poverty, and gentrification.
How the U.S. Government Could End the Student Debt Crisis Today
Instead of loaning students money, the federal government could just pay for their tuition, without causing any significant economic problems.
Land, Co-ops, Compost: A Local Food Economy Emerges in Boston’s Poorest Neighborhoods
From kitchens that buy and sell locally grown food, to a waste co-op that will return compost to the land, new enterprises are building an integrated food network. It's about local people keeping the wealth of their land at home.
North Dakota Has a Unique Law Protecting Locally Owned Pharmacies—But This Ballot Measure Could Wipe It Out
In the far north of the Great Plains, you have to be a pharmacist to own a pharmacy. Next week, voters could overturn that rule—putting the state's thriving independent drugstores at risk.
New Factories Have Jobs You’d Really Want—and These Chicago Kids Are Skilling Up to Get Them
Manufacturing jobs are returning to the U.S., but to fill them we’ll have to train a new generation of workers. That’s what this school is doing in a struggling neighborhood that once hosted the country’s biggest candy empires, as factories return.
LA School District Uses Its Spending Power to Support Local Farms, Workers’ Rights, and Kids’ Nutrition
Local economies can be strengthened through the large purchasing power of local institutions. Here’s how the nation's second largest school district is doing it.
Day 5 of New Economy Week: The New Economy Is Close to Home
From California to Mississippi, people are organizing to build local power and are seeing major victories. How do we support and encourage their work?
After Years Without a Grocery Store, Greensboro Neighbors Are Building One Themselves—And They’ll Own It
Fed up with essentially begging for access to quality food, residents of this predominantly African-American and low-income neighborhood decided to open their own grocery store.
Investing in Renewables Can Relieve Our Planet—While Reviving Our Economy
Carbon reduction alone cannot solve our climate crisis, because it is continuously fed by our economic crisis. But renewables can be a critical driver in building a healthier economic system, free of the fossil fuel industry.
Day 4 of New Economy Week: Combating Climate Change Without Leaving Anyone Behind
How do we transition to an economy powered by renewable energy without leaving the workers employed by fossil fuel companies behind?
Good Jobs or a Healthy Planet? We Can Have Both
If we really want to fix the environment, then we need to join coalitions with organizations that focus on changing our economic system too.
Beating Climate Change by Retooling the Economy—The Story Begins in Navajo Country
A proposed community-owned solar project on an abandoned coal mine in Arizona illustrates how cooperative economomics make it possible to stop extracting fossil fuels—without leaving workers behind.
How Jamaica Plain Is Building Working-Class Leadership in the New Economy
How can potential leaders from underprivileged backgrounds tackle economic inequality and climate change when they spend most of their time trying to earn a decent living? Here’s what we learned in Massachusetts.
Day 3 of New Economy Week: Building a Movement That Can Win
This article was produced in partnership with the New Economy Coalition as part of the 2014 New Economy Week. Each day this week, YES! will publish articles responding to different
To Build a New Economy, a New Government Comes First
National People’s Action Campaign is training the next wave of progressive candidates for 2016. Here’s how they could win.
Three Moves for a Bigger, Stronger Worker-Owned Economy
While worker-owned co-ops provide a significant chunk of employment in several European countries, in the United States we still have a ways to go. Fortunately, opportunities for growth are everywhere.
Economists Who Say the Planet Has Infinite Resources Are Today’s Flat Earth Society
The attempt to solve our ecological and social crises through economic growth is a fool’s task, because both crises have a common cause: an infinite-planet, perpetual-growth economy has met the limits of a finite planet.
My Cousin Was Shot Dead by a Police Officer. Here’s What It Means for the New Economy Movement
Many opportunities exist for collaboration between the movements for racial justice and for an economy that works for everyone.
What Housing Organizers in Buffalo Learned from the ’70s
Why did some of the cooperative institutions built in the ’70s—especially food co-ops—get to scale and thrive in subsequent decades, while others faded away?
Day 1 of New Economy Week: The New Economy Isn’t New
Those who have suffered the most at the hands of an unfair economy are also the most experienced at imagining and building alternative futures.
Help Fund Powerful Stories to Light the Way Forward
Donate to YES! today.