Daily Digest – January 6: Who Needs Independent-Minded Advisors at the SEC?

Nobel Laureate Stiglitz Blocked From SEC Panel After Faulting High-Speed Traders (Bloomberg News)

Dave Michaels reports that Roosevelt Institute Chief Economist Joseph Stiglitz believes he was blocked from the advisory panel because he is not “owned” by the industry in any way.

Fossil Free AU (WKOK)

Mark Lawrence interviews Katie Kirchner, president of the American University chapter of the Campus Network, about the campaign to get her university to divest from fossil fuels.

Poverty Leads to Death for More Black Americans Than Whites (The Guardian)

Jana Kasperkevic speaks to the study’s lead researcher, who explains possible reasons that increases in income inequality would reduce mortality rates for whites and increase them for Blacks.

Cities Set to Take Minimum-Wage Stage (WSJ)

Eric Morath looks at the trend of cities raising their own minimum wage, in the face of state and federal GOP resistance. Federal action is seen as particularly unlikely with the current Congress.

The Mortal Threat to Medicaid — and How to Fix It (LA Times)

On January 1, a short-term raise in Medicaid reimbursement rates expired, and Michael Hiltzik says that unless that raise is restored, Medicaid enrollees will struggle to find doctors.

American Consumers are More Upbeat (WaPo)

Catherine Rampell suggests that Americans’ renewed confidence in the economy could be due to small improvements in wages and jobs – or because even mediocrity looks good today.

New on Next New Deal

Wall Street’s Choice: Antonio Weiss Nomination Illustrates What’s Wrong With Economic Policy

Roosevelt Institute Senior Fellow Brad Miller argues that Weiss’s nomination is part of a larger anti-democratic pattern of prioritizing the financial sector’s prosperity above all else in economic policy.