Where Do We Go From Here: Pursuing Rights, Justice, and Love as Economic Goals for New Jersey and the Country

Part 3 of SPIA in NJ's Fall 2024 series, New Jersey and the American Economy: What’s Needed for the Garden State to Lead a Thriving Country.

Speakers

Asha Banerjee

Affiliation

Princeton University
Darrick Hamilton

Affiliation

The New School
Ryan Haygood

Affiliation

New Jersey Institute for Social Justice
Brandon McKoy

Affiliation

The Fund for New Jersey

Details

As big ideas like basic income and reparations evolve and advance, how do we think about them in a broader and holistic understanding of our economy that meets the tangible needs of our communities? The economy, after all, is people. This conversation will explore the idea of an economics that promotes human rights, justice, and love as explicit goals when policymakers design and implement public policy. What does that mean at the local level and the national level, and how can New Jersey lead in this vein?

	Asha Banerjee enters the Population Studies and Social Policy program from the Chief Economist’s Office at the U.S. Department of Labor where she was an economic analyst. Previously she was an analyst on the research team at the Economic Policy Institute. Asha’s research interests focus on labor and the historical development and persistence of racial disparities and structural inequality in the economy. She hopes to analyze the roles migration and demographic change play, as well as the power and limitations of government and other institutional interventions. Asha has a B.A. in Economics and History with a minor in Classics from Columbia University, and MPhil with distinction in Economic and Social History from the University of Oxford.
	Darrick Hamilton is a university professor, the Henry Cohen Professor of Economics and Urban Policy, and the founding director of the Institute on Race, Power and Political Economy at The New School. Considered one of the nation’s foremost scholars, economists, and public intellectuals, Hamilton’s accomplishments include recently being profiled in the New York Times, Mother Jones magazine, and the Wall Street Journal and being featured in Politico Magazine’s 2017 50 Ideas Shaping American Politics and the People Behind Them issue. Also, he is a member of the Marguerite Casey Foundation in partnership with the Group Health Foundation’s inaugural class of Freedom Scholars. Hamilton has been involved in crafting policy proposals, such as Baby Bonds and a Federal Job Guarantee, which have garnered a great deal of media attention and served as inspirations for legislative proposals at the federal, state, and local levels. He has served as a member of the economic committee of the Biden-Sanders Unity Task Force; he has testified before several Senate and House committees, including the Joint Economic Committee on the nation’s potential policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic-induced health and economic crises; he was a surrogate and advisor for the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign; and he has advised numerous other leading Members of Congress, as well as various 2020 presidential candidates.
	Ryan P. Haygood, a nationally respected civil rights lawyer, is President & CEO of the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice. The Institute’s mission is to empower Black, Brown, and other people of color by building reparative systems that create wealth, transform justice, and harness democratic power in New Jersey and beyond. Under Ryan’s leadership, the Institute’s racial justice advocacy—powered by a dynamic team and stellar Board of Trustees—has become a model for states as places to build community power from the ground up. The Institute led historic campaigns to strengthen and expand New Jersey’s democracy, including restoring the vote to 83,000 people on probation and parole, a right denied since 1844; establishing online voter registration and early voting; ending prison-based gerrymandering; and lowering the voting age to 16 for Newark School Board elections. The Institute is also a leading voice on New Jersey’s staggering racial wealth gap, publishing original data and championing policies like the $15 minimum wage, universal basic income, and baby bonds. The organization also works to expand homeownership opportunities, establish fair home appraisal policies, and cancel student loan debt. As part of its economic justice work, the Institute convened the first-of-its-kind New Jersey Reparations Council to finally confront and repair the enduring harm from slavery in the Garden State. Under Ryan’s leadership, the Institute has been at the forefront of the movement to reduce the footprint of law enforcement and help keep communities safe, including championing a statewide First Amendment policy to protect the right to record police conduct; a historic closure announcement for two of New Jersey’s youth prisons; and a nearly $10 million investment in youth restorative justice hubs in communities most impacted by youth incarceration. As a member of the Independent Monitoring Team overseeing the Newark Police Division’s Consent Decree with the Department of Justice, the Institute has led the effort to center community engagement in the development of 16 new policies urged by Newark residents since the 1967 Newark Rebellion.  Prior to leading the Institute, Ryan served as Deputy Director of Litigation at the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF), where he litigated some of the most important civil rights cases of our time. This included twice serving on LDF’s team that defended the heart of the Voting Rights Act before the United States Supreme Court and successfully challenging Texas’ racially discriminatory photo ID law. Ryan speaks and writes regularly on issues concerning race, law,  justice, democracy, and power.  He received his J.D. from the University of Colorado School of Law and a B.A. in American History and Political Science cum laude from Colorado College, where he was nominated for a Rhodes Scholarship and received an honorary doctorate. He also earned academic and athletic All-American and Hall of Fame honors as a football player.   Ryan is a Trustee and Vice-Chair of the Board of Colorado College and a member of the Board of Directors of the New Jersey Performing Arts Center.
	Brandon McKoy is an established leader in public policy analysis and advocacy statewide and nationally. Before his current position, he worked as the Vice President for State Partnerships and Co-Leader of the State Fiscal Policy Division at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington, D.C. Brandon is well known for his accomplishments from his time at New Jersey Policy Perspective, where he held several roles over seven years, first as a State Policy Fellow through the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities’ program, next as a Policy Analyst, and then as Director of Government and Public Affairs, before assuming leadership of the organization as NJPP’s President from 2019 through late 2021. Throughout those years, he researched and promoted a variety of issues including the minimum wage, paid sick leave, equitable taxation, public budget processes, the legalization and regulation of cannabis, and much more. Returning to The Fund for New Jersey in 2024 served as a homecoming given that Brandon worked as a Program Associate at the organization and served as its first philanthropy fellow from 2012 to 2014. Brandon completed his bachelor’s degree at The College of New Jersey and earned a master’s degree from the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University. He is a lifelong New Jerseyan and now resides in Hunterdon County with his family.

Co-sponsored by: The Program for Research on Inequality.