Posted on

What the US gets wrong about minimum wage

Raising the minimum wage doesn’t have to be so hard.

Vox | August 15, 2019

The American federal minimum wage hasn’t gone up in a decade. That’s the longest wait since the US first set a minimum wage in 1938. Today, Congress is debating whether they should raise it again. But the fact that Congress has to debate it at all is… kind of weird.

In the US, unlike in other developed countries, the minimum wage is a political issue. That means it gets raised irregularly and unpredictably. And that causes a bunch of problems for American workers and businesses.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Posted on

How Trump took over America’s courts

How Trump and McConnell are changing the country for a generation.

Vox | July 22, 2019

President Donald Trump is building his longest-lasting legacy in a place that’s often overlooked: the federal courts. It’s not just the Supreme Court that’s important — it hears less than 100 cases a year — his impact is being seen in places like the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

This court has stopped many of Trump’s most controversial executive orders: the travel ban, emergency funding for a border wall. But this historically liberal court won’t look very liberal at the end of Trump’s first term.

Posted on

NAFTA, explained with a toy car

NAFTA made your car cheaper, USMCA could change that.

Vox | October 30, 2018

When the North American Free Trade Agreement began in 1994, auto companies in the US, Canada and Mexico could trade parts and cars without paying tariffs. And they could source parts and labor from the cheapest places. That is a big reason why US car prices have only risen seven percent in 25 years.

But the proposed US Mexico Canada Agreement — or USMCA for short — could change that; President Trump’s new deal would increase the regulations that car manufacturers need to meet in order to sell tariff-free cars.

We built a Ford Mustang to explain.

Posted on

Why America needs automatic voter registration

A simple fix to get more Americans to vote.

Vox | September 25, 2018

Americans are notoriously bad at voting, but it’s not because they’re unpatriotic or lazy. It’s because most states make it really difficult to even register to vote.

It’s time for the US to join other advanced democracies and implement automatic voter registration. It will make the voting system more accurate and more secure, plus it could give nearly 50 million eligible Americans a chance to decide how their country is run.

Posted on

Who Has Better Florida Ground Game—and Will It Matter?


Wall Street Journal |November 1, 2016
In Florida, Democrats put a lot of effort into getting out the vote. But some in the Trump camp question whether a ground game matters in an era of such high-profile candidates. WSJ looks at the differing strategies in this key swing state. Photo: Getty.

Check out the other stories I did while in Florida:

Trump, Clinton Vie for the Haitian Vote in Florida

Trump, Clinton Fight for Must-Win Florida