Nick Hanauer
Nick Hanauer is a Seattle-based entrepreneur and venture capitalist, and the founder of Civic Ventures, a public-policy incubator.
Recent Articles
Want to Expand the Economy? Tax the Rich!
If Democrats want to win big in November, they must do more than just renounce trickle-down economics. They need to replace it.
Jun 26, 2018
tax_fraud.jpg This article appears in the Summer 2018 issue of The American Prospect magazine. Subscribe here . If you think the Trump/Ryan tax cuts haven’t been a huge success, you don’t know trickle-down economics. In Kansas City, Missouri, 800 Harley-Davidson employees are losing their jobs as the iconic motorcycle manufacturer uses its tax savings to shift production to Thailand. Kimberly-Clark, the maker of household brands like Kleenex, Scott, and Huggies, told investors it would use its tax savings to help pay for a restructuring plan that would close ten manufacturing plants, eliminating as many as 5,500 jobs. And on the very same day that Walmart made headlines by doling out $1,000 one-time bonuses to a whopping 7 percent of its largely poverty-wage workforce, the retail giant announced it would use tax savings to offset the expense of closing 63 Sam’s Club stores, costing nearly 10,000 workers their jobs. Altogether, corporate America has announced more...
Confronting the Parasite Economy
Why low-wage work is bad for business—and all of us.
May 16, 2016
This article will appear in the Summer 2016 issue of The American Prospect magazine. Subscribe here . There are two types of businesses in America today: those that pay their workers a living wage—the real economy—and those that don’t—the parasite economy. And all of us who live and work in the real economy should be royally pissed at the way the parasite economy is sucking us dry. Here in the real economy, we solve the problems, build the things, and pay the wages that make America great. When politicians of both parties promise to attract “good jobs” to their districts or states, they’re talking about the kind of real-economy jobs that pay a decent middle-class wage—jobs that provide the income, benefits, and security necessary to participate robustly in the economy as a consumer and taxpayer. It is the real economy that drives both production and demand, and that fills our tax coffers with the money needed to educate our children,...
