News & Updates
A More Complete Picture: What the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce Misses in Its Business Benchmarks Report
The Minnesota Chamber Foundation recently released its 2026 Business Benchmarks report, offering a snapshot of how Minnesota’s economy is performing. In many places, we agree with their assessment. Minnesota’s economy is at a crossroads, and it’s essential that...
Expanding Possibilities: The Role of Nuclear Energy in Minnesota’s Carbon-Free Future
Expanding Possibilities by Aaron Rosenthal
A Roadmap to Compliance
The State of Working Minnesota 2025
2025 State of Working Minnesota by Aaron Rosenthal
No Exemptions for Exploitation: Protecting the People who Build Saint Paul
As Saint Paul considers exempting new multi-family housing from its rent control ordinance to encourage development, it has an opportunity—and a moral imperative—to ensure exploitation does not continue to occur to its residents and workers. To seize this opportunity, the most effective tool at the city’s disposal is requiring a prevailing wage on larger, new multi-family housing projects that are exempt from rent control.
Medical Assistance or Millionaire Tax Cuts: Minnesota Has a Choice
The Trump Administration is pulling a reverse Robin Hood: stealing health care from the poor to give tax cuts to the rich. How should Minnesota respond?
An Unbelievable Script
Amidst an impending recession induced by a self-defeating trade war, the rapid fire, nonsensical cuts brought about by Elon Musk and Donald Trump can be hard to track. This research brief provides an overview of the damage done to Minnesotans so far and the harm that could still be coming.
Digging a Bigger Hole: Worsening Issues with Broadband Installation Damage in Minnesota
In 2024, North Star Policy Action released “Digging into Danger,” a report focused on damage caused by underground drilling for broadband internet installation. We found that telecom installation was the leading cause of damage to buried infrastructure in the state, frequently hitting essential natural gas and electric utilities in ways that have led to dangerous, and even deadly, consequences. Now, by bringing in more recent data on underground damage in the state, we find that the problems associated with broadband installation are getting worse.
Exploited Youth: Strengthening Child Labor Protections in Minnesota
At 10 PM, a 16-year-old clocked in to their shift. They spent the next 6 hours cleaning a meat grinder with a pressure hose. At 4 AM they clocked out. At 8:50 AM, their school day started. Though this scene may sound like an excerpt from Upton Sinclair’s 1906 novel,...
The Misplaced Priorities of “Business” Leaders
Minnesota’s economy is under siege after the first month of a chaotic Trump administration. We’re in an on-again-off-again trade war with our closest neighbors, employers are planning “recession-level” layoffs, the Executive Branch is unilaterally canceling contracts...
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