About George Tyler

George Tyler began his career working in the United States Congress as an economic adviser to Senators Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota and Lloyd Bentsen of Texas and as senior economist on the Congressional Joint Economic Committee. Appointed by President Clinton as a deputy Treasury assistant secretary in 1993, George worked closely with international financial institutions and in 1995 became a senior official at the World Bank. He is the author of What Went Wrong: How the 1% Hijacked the American Middle Class ... And What Other Nations Got Right.

George Tyler

US economy mired in viral stagnation loop

by George Tyler on 31st August 2020

The travails of the US economy come amid a politics never so poisonous since the civil war. Best medical practices to ameliorate the Covid-19 … [Read more...]

A European Union climate agenda for COP26

by George Tyler on 27th February 2020

The EU should bring a new climate agenda to Glasgow—including a roadmap for emerging nations to embrace a future beyond fossil fuels. European … [Read more...]

Unpacking supreme courts to restore checks and balances

by George Tyler on 7th November 2019

Democracy is threatened by politicisation of constitutional courts. Unorthodox tactics are required to restore their role. The election of … [Read more...]

The superiority of codetermination

by George Tyler on 16th July 2019

The United States should learn from the better performance of European companies which have worker representation on boards. In comparison … [Read more...]

What European Democracies Can Teach America

by George Tyler on 22nd June 2018

Amid authoritarian and illiberal forces buffeting social democracies, it is helpful to renew appreciation for their political architectures, … [Read more...]

Fake News And The Fairness Doctrine

by George Tyler on 23rd May 2018

Fake news in America’s public square is a failure of its information marketplace. Remediation should occur through enhanced marketplace competition, … [Read more...]

Codetermination Enters The American Political Debate

by George Tyler on 20th April 2018

Three senators have introduced unprecedented legislation mandating that employee representatives must comprise one-third of Boards of Directors at … [Read more...]

Social Media Platforms Should Tell The Truth

by George Tyler on 26th March 2018

The high quality democracies of northern Europe are an unnatural construct, history teaching us that the universal default setting of human society is … [Read more...]

American Democracy Sold To The Highest Bidder

by George Tyler on 30th January 2018

Aristotle measured the quality of democracy by the extent to which politics constrains the economically powerful, allowing the preferences of the … [Read more...]

Trump: Reaganomics Redux

by George Tyler on 22nd November 2016

It’s wages, stupid! Analysts are pondering why millions of the same voters who favored President Obama in 2008 and (less enthusiastically) in 2012 … [Read more...]

Why US Democrats Must Derail Republican Party Nationalist Populism With Economic Populism

by George Tyler on 15th February 2016

The Republican presidential aspirant nominated at this summer’s convention is likely to become that party’s nominee in part by invoking jingoist and … [Read more...]

Labor Day: Good Time To Readdress Pay And Collective Bargaining

by George Tyler on 7th September 2015

President Obama has belatedly awakened to the plight of America’s middle class whose economic fate is dependent almost entirely on wages. Taking a … [Read more...]

Why We Need A Cultural Revolution In American Capitalism

by George Tyler on 10th August 2015

Corporations are at the center of market fundamentalist capitalism practiced in the UK and US. Yet, in contrast to northern Europe, they are only … [Read more...]

Why President Obama Needs To Reframe The Wage Debate

by George Tyler on 28th November 2014

Stagnant wages have robbed the American middle class of opportunity. Wage compression is why fewer Americans now believe they are middle class; … [Read more...]

President Obama Is Emulating Buchanan Instead Of Lincoln

by George Tyler on 21st July 2014

Obama is Leaving Economic Inequality for his Successors to Fix President Obama is emulating former President James Buchanan. His economic agenda is … [Read more...]

Britain’s, Not France’s, Middle Class Is Being ‘Run Into The Dust’

by George Tyler on 20th February 2014

While France and Britain cooperate on multiple fronts, the Cameron government is not above using its neighbor as a political foil. Grant Shapps, … [Read more...]

Global Wage Report 2020/21: wages and minimum wages in the time of Covid-19

The ILO’s Global Wage Report is a key reference on wages and wage inequality for the academic community and policy-makers around the world. This seventh edition examines the evolution of real wages, giving a unique picture of wage trends globally and by region. The report includes evidence on how wages evolved in the first half of 2020 during the Covid-19 crisis: in the case of Europe, the report shows 1.2 per cent real wage growth during 2019, while the impact of Covid-19 would have reduced the total wage bill by 6.5 per cent by the second quarter of 2020.

The report reviews minimum-wage systems across the world and identifies the conditions under which minimum wages can reduce inequality and presents extensive data on levels of minimum wages, their effectiveness and the number and characteristics of workers paid at or below the minimum wage. It highlights how adequate minimum wages, statutory or negotiated, can play a key role in a human-centred recovery from the crisis.

‘The Global Wage Report is central to the analysis of wage trends and labour market developments as well as to the theoretical debate about the role of labour in the econom’—Hansjörg Herr, Berlin School of Economics and Law.

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WSI policy brief: the formula for a social Europe

The strengthening of the social dimension of the EU is back on the agenda of European politics. The European Pillar of Social Rights, the revision of the Posted Workers Directive and the initiative for a European minimum wage are interpreted by some as a turning point. However, the road to a more social Europe is still very long. Against that background, this paper formulates a social Europe thus: social minimum standards plus a reconfiguration of the internal market and economic and monetary union in a manner compatible with the pillars of the European social model.

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ETUI policy brief: collective bargaining and self-employed workers—the need for a paradigm shift

EU competition law imposes limits on the scope of collective labour law, as it precludes self-employed workers from collective bargaining. There are a rising number of self-employed workers whose livelihoods are characterised by increasing precariousness and whose working conditions could be improved by ensuring that collective agreements fall outside the scope of competition law.

The European Commission intends to reform the scope of EU competition law and this could offer an opportunity to define a new regulatory paradigm. This policy brief discusses a possible reconfiguration of the coexistence between collective bargaining and competition law. Access to collective bargaining should ensure that employing businesses with a dominant bargaining position do not get to define labour conditions.

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Living, working and Covid-19 (update April 2021): mental health and trust decline across EU as pandemic enters another year

The third round of Eurofound's Living, working and Covid-19 e-survey, fielded in February and March 2021, sheds light on the social and economic situation of people across Europe following nearly a full year of living with restrictions. The report analyses the main findings and tracks developments and trends across the 27 EU member states since the survey was first launched in April 2020. It pinpoints issues that have surfaced over the course of the pandemic, such as increased job insecurity due to the threat of job loss, decline in mental wellbeing, erosion of recent gains in gender equality, fall in trust vis-à-vis institutions, deterioration of work–life balance and growth of vaccine hesitancy. The results of the survey highlight the need for a holistic approach to support all the groups hit hard by the crisis, to prevent them from falling further behind.

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Discover the new issue of the Progressive Post!

Social rights for platform workers, fiscal-rules reform and EU enlargement, as well as the challenges and opportunities for social democrats in the post-pandemic context, are the main topics of the latest Progressive Post magazine.

After more than a year of the pandemic, we are in a crucial political moment: policy decisions made now will drive reforms and sustainable growth in the years to come. For progressives to take ownership of these topics, this issue of the Progressive Post analyses some of these opportunities.

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