The purpose of an economy is to promote human flourishing, innovation and self-determination in peaceful, sustainable and tranquil environments. People are the most creative, productive, and valuable resources in our political economy.
Who We Are
Founded by world renowned economist Professor Darrick Hamilton and housed at The New School, a University founded on the just values of economic and political inclusion, the Institute hosts a Hub of activities for nearly 70 researchers, analysts, and organizers, powering the adoption of transformative policy solutions and stewarding economic inclusion.
Our team of top tier talent includes full-time program directors, faculty and external fellows, and graduate student researchers who bring skill sets and backgrounds in everything from community organizing to feminist economics. Our team has held roles such as the former Senior Economist in the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the former president and CEO at Prosperity Now, the former Vice President of Research at PolicyLink, a Pulitzer Prize winning poet working on narratives related to our stratified political economy, and an award winning documentarian and former Editor at the Washington Post.
Our Framework
Our economy should center people and the environments in which we live. We believe that the purpose of an economy is to promote human flourishing, freedom, purpose, innovation, peace, tranquility and self-determination. People are also the most creative, productive, and valuable resources in our political economy.
Evidenced by growing inequality, environmental vulnerability and political discord, our current political economy is not designed to serve us. Instead of empowering the poor, our political economy promotes social isolation and segregation, income maintenance rather than income mobility, incarceration, in mass, military conscription, and the control of family formation.
Throughout history, race has been used as a scapegoat to justify this inhumane treatment. By stigmatizing the poor and people of color, we stigmatize government’s interventions.
Grounded in an analytical framework that recognizes the inseparability of politics, economics, and identity, we understand the essentiality of resources and the power of investing in human capacity.
Choice is limited for individuals who lack basic resources such as employment with adequate income, shelter, food, or health care. Rather than benefiting from markets, most people are at the whim of markets. Group-based inequality is not rooted in individual deficits, but rather resources, power and structure.
Our perspective is not new. Government interventions, particularly New Deal-era programs like the GI Bill, can and have built a stable middle class by investing in people, albeit not in racially inclusive ways. Inequalities that formed over centuries cannot be undone with small ideas. Structural problems require transformational actions and policies grounded in rigorous research. We demonstrate how a host of solutions can work together.
Today, racially inclusive policies have the power to build racially inclusive wealth.
We envision an economy that invests in our most treasured resources: all people and the environments in which we live.