Massachusetts senator pushes bill to make US companies do more than make their rich shareholders richer

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The Warren Plan

Elizabeth Warren this week introduced a plan for legislation that would rein in big business, redistribute wealth and potentially curb corporate political donations.

The Accountable Capitalism Act, which Warren announced in an article for the Wall Street Journal, “restores the idea that giant American corporations should look out for American interests”, the Massachusetts senator and potential presidential candidate wrote.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Elizabeth Warren. Photograph: Cj Gunther/EPA

“In the early 1980s, large American companies sent less than half their earnings to shareholders, spending the rest on their employees and other priorities,” Warren added.

But between 2007 and 2016, large American companies dedicated 93% of their earnings to shareholders. Because the wealthiest 10% of US households own 84% of American-held shares, the obsession with maximizing shareholder returns effectively means America’s biggest companies have dedicated themselves to making the rich even richer.

Corporations have a “feedback loop”, according to Warren, in which executives receive shares in a company “as a reward for producing short-term share-price increases”. That, Warren says, is one of the reasons why the average chief executive of a big company makes 361 times what an average worker makes. In 1980, a top CEO made 42 times the average worker’s wage.

The bill would eliminate those incentives and give workers more of a voice on company boards. Companies with more than $1bn in annual revenue would be required to have employees elect 40% of directors, and have the approval of 75% of directors and shareholders before making any political donations.

Read Warren’s full plan here.

National non-profit day …

… was on Friday. In honor of that, we thought we would share some links to organizations that work across causes including civil rights, immigration, environment, LGBTQ rights and more.

Jezebel put together a list the day after Trump’s election; EveryAction has thought of 32 organizations that are leading the resistance; while Bustle recently listed 12 immigrant advocacy organizations that need support.

Given Donald Trump’s ever-increasing attacks on the free press, it seems worth throwing in some of the best non-profit news organizations. The Institute for Nonprofit News has a great list some of the best stories reported by such organizations through 2017.

What we’re reading

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez campaigning for fellow Democrat Kaniela Ing in Hawaii. Photograph: Marco Garcia/Reuters

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is “the Democratic party’s new rock star”, according to John Nichols in the Nation, and she’s “storming the country on behalf of insurgent populists”. While some of the candidates Ocasio-Cortez has backed have failed to win, she has “said from the start that she won’t play it safe”, Nichols says.

“She talks instead about a movement strategy: go for the wins that are possible, but also look to ‘build power’ and ‘make unlikely races flippable for the next cycle’. That’s a smart way to use one’s newfound prominence to ‘advance the front lines for economic and social justice everywhere’.”