Legislation introduced in Massachusetts aims to reduce the racial wealth gap by creating a statewide "Baby Bonds" program. It is a publicly-funded, pooled trust fund for newborn children in low-income households without inherited wealth or opportunities to build it. Deb Goldberg, state treasurer, said the child can access the funds once they turn 18 to help them go to college, start a business or even buy a home. .
Minnesota announced this week it has joined a multistate lawsuit against Facebook s parent company Meta, over claims of addictive social media features harming teens. It coincides with growing research about teens and gambling. Serena King, professor and chair of psychology at Hamline University, has been working with the Minnesota Alliance on Problem Gambling to analyze results from the most recent Minnesota Student Survey while the legal action plays out. .
Migrant farmworkers and small family farmers in North Carolina got together to form an alliance to advocate for sustainable agricultural supply chains, expand and maintain union farmworker jobs and enact more protections to combat exploitative practices. Santiago Ramirez Martinez, an H-2A temporary agricultural worker in North Carolina, said foreign nationals like him come to the U.S. to fill essential, seasonal ag jobs which in his words "produce a lot of what is brought to the table for American consumers." He, like others, is calling for stakeholders to adopt better practices and improve the global supply chain to be more "equitable and sustainable." Martinez does not speak English and the following was translated: "He feels wages are very low. .
Nearly one in three Americans carry some form of medical debt, and consumer groups are warning patients about the risk of medical bankruptcy posed by some hospital billing practices. Adam Fox, deputy director of the Colorado Consumer Health Initiative, said hospitals are a significant driver of health care costs, in part because consumers have no way of knowing what the price of care will be, or if the cost is reasonable. "Because of the lack of transparency in health care billing, and hospital billing in particular, this puts consumers at risk of medical debt and unexpectedly high bills," Fox explained. " .
Tax breaks for companies engaging in what sometimes are illegal union-busting tactics could be prohibited by new federal legislation. Labor groups, including in Pennsylvania, contend companies hire consultants who threaten workers with termination for exercising their right to unionize and then claim the cost of those consultants as a tax deduction. Elena Lopez, senior legislative specialist for the Communications Workers of America, said it means people are organizing for better pay and working conditions, but taxpayers are subsidizing efforts to stop them. .