Heartland Blog

The rampant opioid crisis – involving escalating addictions to opioid prescription pain relievers, heroin and synthetic opioids, like fentanyl – has taken a toll on many American communities. Sadly, the human impacts are widespread and devastating. Overdose deaths from prescription opioids have increased five-fold from 2000 to 2016. Opioids accounted for more than 60% of overdose deaths in 2014, according to data from the CDC. The number of opioid prescriptions exceeds the po

The Pusher Man You know, I've seen a lot of people walkin' 'round With tombstones in their eyes But the pusher don't care Ah, if you live or if you die God damn, the pusher God damn, I say the pusher I said God damn God damn the pusher man By Hoyt Axton Performed by Steppenwolf In 2017, Eric Eyre of the Charleston Gazette-Mail won the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting for his coverage of the opioid crisis in small-town West Virginia, according to Eyre’s home

The opioid epidemic. Out of control CEO pay. Managers of mining companies who ignore safety warnings, leading to death and injuries. Wage theft and abuse of workers here and around the world in the supply chains that provide our everyday essentials. Firms skirting environmental regulations What the hell can we do about any of this? Join us Friday, July 20th at Noon to find out! The Heartland webinar series continues by covering the topic of Corporate Governance. Our speakers

Our old friend Andy Levin, Congressman Sander’s son and Senator Carl’s nephew, is running for Michigan's 9th Congressional District, his father’s current seat. Here at Heartland and the SVA, we’ve worked extensively with Andy over the years. The Levin’s, of course, have been formidable champions of workers’ rights, civil rights, good health care, fair trade and responsible financial regulations, and many of the most important issues of the last five decades. They fought to

Responsible investing is widely understood as the integration of environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors into investment processes and decision-making. ESG factors cover a wide spectrum of issues that traditionally are not part of financial analysis, yet may have financial relevance. This might include how corporations respond to climate change, how good they are with water management, how effective their health and safety policies are in the protection against acc

A stubborn stereotype of Chicago is that it doesn’t make things anymore. It does. Among economic sectors, manufacturing remains one of the Chicago region’s biggest employers, with a workforce of more than 363,000 in 2017. Between April 2017 and March 2018, manufacturing yielded more than 58,000 job postings, according to a new study by the Century Foundation and the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Great Cities Institute. That outpaced more than a dozen other sectors, incl