A Community Forum on Challenging
Concentrated Wealth and Power
Wednesday, May 28
6- 8:30pm
Jane Addams Hull-House Museum
Residents’ Dining Hall
800 South Halsted Street
Chicago, IL 60607

Please join us for another event the following evening:
May 29- Extreme Inequality: Why it should matter for our democracy
(see below for more information)

 
A Community Forum on Challenging Concentrated Wealth and Power 
 
with Presenter Chuck Collins, senior scholar at Institute for Policy Studies, Washington D.C., co-founder of United for a Fair Economy and co-author with Bill Gates Sr. of Wealth and Our Commonwealth and, with Felice Yeskel of, Economic Apartheid in America: A Primer on Economic Inequality and Insecurity,
 
 
and Community Respondents:
  • Wendy Pollack, Women's Law and Policy Project at the Sargent Shriver National Center on Povery Law
  • Ralph Martire, Center for Tax and Budget Accountability
  • Josina Morita, Applied Research Center
  • James Thindwa, Jobs With Justice
We have witnessed, over recent decades, the most colossal redistribution of wealth in modern world history. We are now living in our nation's second Gilded Age, a period of extreme inequality of wealth and power, the worst since 1929.  Such concentrations of private wealth, then as now, dominated - and corrupted - our democracy and made for a politics more focused on preserving privilege than helping average, working families.
 
How unequal are we?  How did it happen?  Why is this issue not on the political agenda?  What policies would directly reverse these inequalities? 
 
Please join us for a discussion about the dangers of grave accumulations of income and wealth, its threat to our general well-being, and the possibilities for building a network to address extreme inequality here in Chicago.  
 
For more information including presenter bio, please click here to visit our website.

Event co-sponsors: Applied Research Center, Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, Crossroads Fund, Global Initiatives Chicago, Jane Addams Hull House Museum, Jobs With Justice, Program on Inequality and the Common Good at Institute for Policy Studies, and Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law. 
 
Please R.S.V.P. to Kristen Cox at econjustmidwest@gmail.com by May 22nd. Refreshments will be served.

A Community Forum on Challenging
Concentrated Wealth and Power
Wednesday, May 28
6- 8:30pm
Jane Addams Hull-House Museum
Residents’ Dining Hall
800 South Halsted Street
Chicago, IL 60607

This event is FREE.
Donations accepted.
Paid parking is available across the street.

This event is ADA accessible. If you have a disability and need additional accommodations to attend an event, please inform us at the time of reservation.


The Jane Addams Hull-House Museum is part of UIC College of Architecture and the Arts and serves as a dynamic memorial to social reformer and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Jane Addams (1860-1935) and other resident social reformers whose work influenced the lives of their immigrant neighbors as well as national and international public policy.  The Museum's exhibits and public programs preserves and develops the original Hull-House site for the continuation of the historic settlement house vision, linking research, education, and social engagement.

More information about the museum and its programs can be found at: www.hullhousemuseum.org.


Thursday, May 29, 7 to 8:30 p.m.
in Hull Chapel at First Unitarian Church5650 S. Woodlawn Ave., Chicago IL 60637 

Extreme Inequality: Why it should matter

for our democracy, economy, and spirituality. A conversation with scholar, author, and organizer Chuck Collins 
Come join born and raised UU, Chuck Collins, for a lively workshop and conversation examining the growing disparity of income and assets over the last thirty years and its adverse impact on our democratic institutions, public health, economy, and civic life. Right before our very eyes, American history is repeating itself - we are living in a Second Gilded Age. A century ago, progressively minded Americans faced the same extreme inequality we face today. Grand concentrations of private wealth, then as now, dominated — and corrupted — our democracy and made for a politics more focused on preserving privilege than helping average families.

However, the Working Group on Extreme Inequality, an emerging coalition of national labor, religious, business and civic organizations are taking extreme inequality to heart and are organizing around poverty, economic insecurity and "raise the floor" policy campaigns. Chuck will talk with us about the dangers of concentrated wealth and power – and introduce specific policies that could help reduce concentrated wealth.

Come Learn About The Working Group on Extreme Inequality and
its organizing work in Chicago!
 
Sponsored by: U. U.s for Social Justice, Task Force on Economic Justice and Homelessness, the Social Justice Council of First Unitarian Church, and Program on Inequality and the Common Good at Institute for Policy Studies


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Chuck Collins is a Senior Scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), the oldest progressive think tank in the U.S. where he directs the Program on Inequality and the Common Good and chairs the Working Group on Extreme Inequality. His most recent book is The Moral Measure of the Economy (Orbis 2007), co-authored by Mary Wright of Just Faith which was listed as One of the Best Spiritual Books of 2007, according to Spirituality and Practice. Chuck is a national expert on economic inequality in the U.S. and coordinates a national effort to preserve the federal estate tax and co-edits www.inequality.org, a portal for data, analysis and action. Chuck co-authored with Bill Gates Sr., Wealth and Our Commonwealth, a case for taxing inherited fortunes and authored Economic Apartheid in America: A Primer on Economic Inequality and Insecurity (New Press, 2005). He is the co-founder of the Boston-based organization, United for a Fair Economy.