Single-payer healthcare has become the quintessential issue for some on the Democratic left. Joshua Holland, fellow at the Nation Institute, argues in this Nation piece that there may be more realistic—and effective—paths to universal healthcare access.

In this refreshing piece of journalism from The Nation, author-journalist Ann Jones looks at the prospects for establishing single-payer healthcare, and other social democracy intitiatives, at the state level. The article takes an especial look at the candidature of Ben Jealous for Maryland governor.

Writing on the Social Europe website, Karin Pettersson (political editor-in-chief at Aftonbladet, Scandinavia’s biggest daily newspaper and visiting professor at Harvard) offers a trenchant evaluation of today’s economic imbalances and calls for a greater commitment to core social democratic principles.

41 million Americans work for less than $15 per hour: it is time that all who make our economy work be granted a respectable livelihood.

This Washington Post “Wonkblog” piece looks at the damage inflicted on real people by Kansas’s mean-spirited and intellectually bankrupt obsession with reducing taxes under Tea Party governor Sam Brownback.

After-school programs, which have been shown to improve outcomes in academic achievement, behavior and future success for the 1.1 million mostly low-income children they serve, are on Trump’s demolition list. Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers and Emily McCan, CEO of Citizens Schools, make the necessary case for supporting them vigorously.

A prominent German economist considers the state of social democracy in the U.S.

Dynasties of wealth are repugnant to democracy, equal opportunity and the meritocratic ideal which supposedly stands at the heart of the American social contract. As such, The Social Democrat believes that wealth should not be passed on between generations. In this Guardian article, journalist Abi Wilkinson makes the case for a 100% inheritance tax to fund social needs.

Delaware Governor Jack Markell has spearheaded an effort to create employment-ready high school graduates, frontally attacking the “skills-mismatch” issue behind much of our unemployment.

This insightful New York Times op-ed piece looks at the increasing balkanization of America into a globalist, socially liberal camp and a Christian, “America-first” camp. The implications for building a solidaristic social democracy in America are profound.

The Social Democrat finds it fascinating to watch politics in a nation where social democracy is an established, ongoing experiment. No issue has been more prominent in French politics of late than France’s extensive employement code. Critics, like France’s new president, claim that its protections for workers go too far, hindering job creation. For the old-guard socialist left, the employment code is sacred turf, its critics traitors to the leftist project.  Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell offers a neat summary of the issue.

Military-style drug raids have led “time and again to avoidable deaths, gruesome injuries, demolished property . . . and . . . enduring trauma,” writes Kevin Sack in the New York Times.

The Palm Beach Post, considering the city’s poor record of police shootings, looks at options for citizen review. The Social Democrat supports ward-level citizen review boards with expert authorities, legal counsel, subpoena power, and the authority to dismiss unwanted officers.

California leads the way in moving to sustainable energy production. Writing in Mother Jones magazine, Gabriel Kahn explains how the Golden State is doing it.

Chicago’s rails-to-trails initiative turned a former 2.7-mile freight line into an elevated greenway and has been a boon to the working class neighborhoods that it transects. The green space has made the adjacent areas attractive to high-end developers, however, and long-time residents fear being displaced by gentrification. The Chicago Tribune looks at the controversy.