Inland Southern California is apt to get a sobering take on the economy when former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich visits UC Riverside on Tuesday.

Reich will be attending a screening of his documentary “Inequality for All.” The 89-minute film addresses job loss and wage stagnation among the middle class. He asserts that “almost all the economic gains over the last 30 years have gone to the very top.”

The documentary was directed by Jacob Kornbluth. It debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2013, and was released the following fall.

In an email interview, Reich acknowledged that the economic picture has brightened in the past two years but remains challenging to wage earners.

“The good news is that the economy is doing a bit better and unemployment has come down. The bad news is too many Americans are still stuck, and wages haven’t risen.”

Reich served in President Bill Clinton’s adminstration from 1993 to 1997. He is now a senior fellow at the Blum Center for Developing Economies at UC Berkeley.

Through the Blum Center, he has screened the film at several UC campuses. On Tuesday, he will meet with students at UCR and participate in a Q&A with economist Anil Deolalikar, founding dean of UCR’s School of Public Policy.

In his email, Reich says there is “a lot of work to do” to strengthen the middle class.

Here is what he advocates:

• Raising the minimum wage across the board to “help turn the jobs we have into ones that will boost the economy.”

• Strengthening workers’ voices by making it easier to form labor associations or unions.

• Investing in education “to ensure that everyone has access to a great education from early childhood to post-secondary, and make college affordable.”

• Reforming Wall Street “to ensure the financial sector is working honestly and accountable to prevent it from taking over our economy,” and limit the size of the big banks.

• Fix the tax system “to ensure that everyone is contributing their fair share, and the tax burden doesn’t fall disproportionately on the poor and middle class (as it does, for example, under sales taxes, property taxes, and so-called ‘user fees.’)”

• “Get Big Money out of politics and overturn Citizens United so that corporations can’t spend unlimited amounts of money on campaigns and in return affect public policy and spending politics.”

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