The Fairness Project

Ballot initiatives provide a path forward for improving the lives of millions of Americans even while Congress and state legislatures across the country remain paralyzed by partisan disagreement. The Fairness Project (TFP) incubates, funds, and provides strategic and technical assistance to state- and city-based ballot initiative campaigns and drives a national narrative to elevate issues of economic fairness. Through ballot initiatives, TFP offers voters the opportunity to do what politicians cannot or will not: take direct action to enact sound policy and change their own lives.

In its first four years, TFP has won 16 out of its 17 ballot campaigns and changed the lives of over 15 million people.

In the 2018 election cycle, TFP worked with state-based groups on ballot measures to raise the minimum wage in Missouri and Arkansas; provide paid sick leave in Michigan; and expand Medicaid in Idaho, Nebraska, and Utah. TFP also helped deliver victories in Massachusetts to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour and in San Antonio where the city council passed earned paid sick time – both in response to ballot initiatives.

In 2017, TFP was a key player in the nation’s first successful ballot campaign to expand Medicaid in Maine, bringing health care to more than 70,000 people.

And in 2016, a historically polarizing election year, TFP partnered with grassroots organizations in six states on ballot initiatives to raise the minimum wage, two of which also guaranteed paid sick and safe leave. The organization’s local partnerships with campaigns in Arizona, California, Colorado, Maine, Washington state, and Washington D.C. ultimately led to higher pay for eight million working Americans and paid sick days for nearly two million. To date, this has put over $11 billion dollars in working families’ pockets.

For more information about The Fairness Project, please visit: https://thefairnessproject.org