economic justice

Albuquerque is a wonderful city, with a wealth of homegrown talent, intelligence, creativity and sense of community. Yet, as the urban center of one of the poorest states in the country, the people of Albuquerque have few opportunities for economic prosperity and quality of life here is not proportionate to our strenghts as a community.

We're poor. And as such, time is an obstacle we continue to face when developing an economy. Our local representative officials are placed into the role of beggars, giving handouts to every corporate entity that asks for subsidies in exchange only for jobs, any jobs (liveable wages are New Mexico's albatross), without respect to long-term economic impacts to not only local, state, city and other governments, but also taxpayers, school districts and small business owners. Our communities must participate in the city budget process and the economic vision of Albuquerque. Historically, our representative officials have put forth a model of CEO greed, developer interests and the political rhetoric of jobs by any means necessary.

Our communities are stepping away from the idea that jobs and jobs only (particularly low-wage jobs without benefits as is normally the case here) equal economic development and move towards indicators like across te board income growth, a better quality of life and an economy driven from the ground up instead of from the top down. There is growing belief in the possibility of new approaches to economic growth and distribution of wealth. Another world is possible.

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As always, visitors can volunteer.

See what SWOP has done recently...

Philips - a case study in corporate welfare

Participatory Budgeting

Property Taxes

Please use the following links to learn more about economic development:

Goodjobsfirst.org

Neweconomyindex.org