I grew up in poverty and homelessness in Arizona. Because of the people around me, I went to Yale on a full scholarship, then to Oxford, where I was a Rhodes Scholar and earned a PhD in Public Policy.
Now I’m based in New York City. If you’ve read my About page, you know the longer version — from my father’s departure after 9/11, to being homeless with my mom and sisters, to the journey that brought me here. That page tells you why I write.
This page tells you what I’m working on.
The Work I Do In the World
I am fighting to create an America that honors and respects the people who hold it all up.
People want to do their part and be paid and respected for what they give. Our country fails them. That is what we most need to fix.
I’m working to change that. With One Fair Wage, I help lead the Living Wage For All campaign. We are a coalition of labor unions, community organizations, and civil rights groups working to raise the minimum wage to a true living wage — starting with at least $25 to $30 an hour. We are in 11 states, with 13 campaigns, and can win a raise for 17 million workers. The argument is simple. One job should be enough. If you spend your life sustaining this country, it owes you more than survival.
At the Economic Security Project, I've been working on an idea: significant cash payments from the government — funded by reclaiming wealth from the richest corporations — are part of how we can repair America. And it won’t be charity. It is money people earned through their work and never received. Calling it what it is changes everything about who owes whom what.
I co-wrote What Has Democracy Done For You Lately? with Saru Jayaraman (The New Press, 2026). The central thesis: if work doesn’t pay, democracy doesn’t work. We drew on worker interviews, worker-led organizing, and the history of how our economy was designed. We wrote from inside the crisis and the work to fix it.
I'm co-leading a project with Andy Stern (President Emeritus of SEIU, the major labor union). We're designing worker protections against AI and automation. We're starting with the autonomous vehicle transition — and drivers are at the center of the project: their concerns, their expertise, their preferred solutions. Not after they've been displaced, but now, while the rules are still being written. If we get it right for rideshare drivers, we'll have a replicable model for every industry AI transforms next.
I wanted to know what is wrong and what could be right in America. That is my study. It is about what we owe each other. My PhD examined the American Dream and the idea of meritocracy — the story we tell about who deserves what and why. The story that the poor are poor because of their flaws, and the rich are rich because of their virtues. Yet, the values at the heart of America — fairness, opportunity, reward for contribution — are not the problem. Rather, if we followed them, as almost all Americans want, they would lead us to a transformed world: a world where our work connects us, freedom is true, and America’s promises are kept.
All of my work is about the truth: People deserve better, because people hold it all up.
Where to Start Reading
Here are recommendations for pieces to begin with, depending on what brought you here.
If you want the argument at the center of my work: Who Deserves More. If you only read one thing, read this.
If you’ve felt guilty for doing okay in an economy that isn’t: The Guilt of Walking Around in a Broken Economy — on the feeling the system wants us to carry, and why we shouldn’t.
If you came here from the AI conversation: They Are Setting Our Expectations — on who gets to tell us what the future looks like, and why it keeps shrinking.
If you want to see the pattern in one policy: No Tax on Tips Was Never for Workers — on a policy sold as help, built to do nothing.
If you’d rather watch than read: War Turns Life Into Death — two minutes, one argument.
For everything else, the writing lives under the Writing tag and the videos under Videos.
I will share the questions, reflections, and insights that emerge from my work. I am sharing because the future we deserve needs all of us to build.
This is an act of love and trust. Hard times require our best selves, and I will do my best to give mine — openly and freely.
Thank you for being here.
Rayan
