Pay the People!

Shortlisted, 2025 Goddard Riverside Stephan Russo Book Prize for Social Justice

From an unlikely source, a compelling argument that when workers are paid fairly, everyone, including businesses, benefits

"A compelling case for why it's time for America to invest in our greatest asset-our people." —Indra Nooyi, former CEO of PepsiCo

Seventy percent of the U.S. economy relies on consumer demand, yet nearly 40 percent of Americans earn less than the cost of living. Despite massive growth, nearly all economic gains made in the last several decades have gone to the top 1 percent and Wall Street, while working families whose spending habits drive the economy have fallen further behind, and our economy has suffered as a result.

In Pay the People!, John Driscoll, former Walgreens executive and healthcare CEO, and Morris Pearl, former BlackRock executive and board chair of the Patriotic Millionaires, pin the blame squarely on short-term corporate greed and policies of both government and employers that impose austerity on some of the hardest-working employees and families. They argue that business leaders’ refusal to pay wages that workers can live on and Congress’s failure to raise the federal minimum wage trap millions of workers in cycles of poverty. At the same time, Driscoll and Pearl demonstrate, these policies undermine the economy for all of us and threaten the foundation of democratic capitalism.

This thought-provoking book rebukes current wage practices and congressional paralysis and outlines a clear path to stable, inclusive growth. In an issue that is too often covered as a zero-sum game where there’s a winner and a loser, Driscoll and Pearl offer resounding evidence to the contrary.