What Has Democracy Done for You Lately?

What happens when the people who keep a democracy running can no longer afford to live in it?

“No one has done more to move forward the rights of food and restaurant workers than Saru Jayaraman. This is the story of the next steps in the movement, as told by the woman who is creating them.” —Mark Bittman, author of The Kitchen Matrix and A Bone to Pick: The Good and Bad News About Food

Across the United States, millions of Americans work full time—often at two or three jobs—and still fall behind. As wages lag far behind the cost of living, faith in democratic institutions has quietly eroded. For many working people, the question is no longer ideological but painfully practical: What has democracy done for me lately?

In What Has Democracy Done for Me Lately?, Saru Jayaraman and Rayan Semery-Palumbo argue that the crisis of American democracy cannot be separated from the crisis of economic inequality. Drawing on decades of organizing, original research, and vivid stories—from restaurant workers and caregivers to teachers and small-business owners—the authors show how a broken wage system has drained work of dignity and democracy of credibility. They trace how appeals to “save democracy” ring hollow when work doesn’t pay, and why symbolic recognition without material improvement leaves millions vulnerable to false populism.

This book offers more than diagnosis. By chronicling the rise of the Living Wage for All movement, it shows how democracy has been rebuilt before—and how it can be rebuilt again—by advancing bold, inclusive campaigns that inspire people and delivering tangible improvements in people’s lives that prove that democracy is worth saving. At a moment of deep economic anxiety and rising authoritarianism, What Has Democracy Done for Me Lately? makes a clear, urgent case: when work pays, democracy works—and without that promise, it cannot survive.