Demos In the News

The Challenge of Creating Good Jobs

Thu, 08 Sep 2011 11:36:00 EST

In their new book, "Good Jobs America: Making Work Better for Everyone," Paul Osterman and Beth Shulman argue that the United States needs to worry about not just creating millions more jobs but also ensuring that the jobs are good ones.

By good jobs, the authors mean jobs that pay enough to support a family and provide decent, safe conditions. The authors voice concern that many middle-class jobs have disappeared or deteriorated into low-wage ones that cause families to fall below the poverty line.

Taking a view contrary to that of many economists and politicians, they argue that government can and should play a vigorous role in encouraging employers to create good jobs - perhaps by providing tax incentives that require employers to pay a living wage.

Mr. Osterman is a professor of human resources and management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Ms. Shulman, who died last year, was a senior fellow at Demos, chairwoman of the National Employment Law Project and co-chairwoman of the Fairness Initiative on Low-Wage Work.

Here are excerpts from an interview with Mr. Osterman.

What would you recommend that President Obama and Congress do to create more jobs?

I strongly want to argue you should not just talk about creating jobs but the quality of the jobs you create. The general point I would make is there's a shortage of economic demand, and as a result, the government needs to create jobs directly.

The critique of that is, one, that it's wasteful. The image is the government pays you to dig a hole and pays me to fill it up. There is a lot of work that's not like that, whether it's building infrastructure or being day-care teacher or health-care provider, work that provides lasting benefits to society.

The other critique is this would crowd out private-sector jobs. When the economy has slack resources - and right now we have a high unemployment rate and low interest rates - it's not true that you'd be crowding out jobs.

What do you mean when you say good jobs?

The concept of what are good jobs is very broad. We can talk about wages, about benefits, about autonomy at work. In the book we make it simple: we talk about wages. We look at two standards. One standard is two-thirds of the median wage. (The median wage is $17.60 an hour, the book says, and two-thirds of that is $11.73.) That's a standard used internationally and in the states. If you're below that, if you're that far from the average, you're really in difficulty in society.

The other standard is whether wages for a full-time worker are below the poverty line for a family of four. (That's $10.60 an hour.) Nearly 20 percent of American adults work in such poverty-level jobs. That's a remarkably high percentage.

Many people question the wisdom and efficacy of having government adopt policies to create good jobs. Many people say, for instance, if you get a good education, then don't worry, you'll find a good job.

One objection we hear is that these bad, low-wage jobs are transitory, that people just move through them on their way up. But that's not true. Overwhelmingly adults stay in these jobs for years and years. It's not Horatio Alger. It's not transitory.

Then there's the objection people raise that we can solve our problems through education. I don't want to get in a box and say education is not important. But if you do a thought experiment and say all of a sudden, everyone has a degree from a community college, all these jobs won't suddenly go away. There will still be jobs for janitors, jobs cleaning hotel rooms and chopping lettuce that goes into your salad. The question is, how much are they going to pay?

Then you also hear that the government shouldn't be making employment standards. The book makes the point that you've always had labor market standards and that there's broad support for that ever since the Shirtwaist Fire a century ago.

Another objection you hear is that if you try to raise the floor in the labor market, you'll kill jobs. That's what you hear all the time about the minimum wage, but if you review the research on the minimum wage, the effects are a lot less scary than opponents make you believe. And if you look at France and Germany, which have a far lower percentage of workers in low-wage jobs, the employment to population ratio for adults is much better than we have in the United States.

In your book, you say corporations and other employers play a central role in determining whether the jobs that are created are good jobs or not good jobs. Can you discuss that?

The book does not take the stance this is all about evil employers. It's much more sympathetic than what you hear from some people. Employers are under intense competitive pressures. There are bad employers out there, there are employers that violate minimum wage and overtime laws, but they're certainly not a majority. The fact that employers are under intense competitive pressures doesn't mean you let standards be driven downward. You want to push the floor up.

Like all of us, employers look for the path of least resistance. The path of least resistance is not to invest in your work force, not to invest in a career ladder, to squeeze on wages and benefits, to make your work force more contingent and flexible.

At the same time, the human resources departments of most firms have been weakened. In many American companies, human resources is seen as the least prestigious function, a residual function. And labor unions are no longer in as strong a position to push for other behavior, to stop this drift downward in employment standards.

What would you do to help ensure that companies do indeed create good jobs?

What you need is a strategy, carrot and stick, in setting standards and positive incentives to raise the floor and assistance to firms in doing so.

Government, historically, in the United States has been very influential in setting employment norms. At the turn of the 20th century, it was civil service reform, and that became a model for private-sector corporations. During World War II, the War Labor Board was influential in shaping the labor market and labor peace.

Government can play an important role in incentivizing and modeling good behavior. It can use its zoning power or community benefit agreements so that if someone wants to build a large project and needs zoning approval, the government can set a wage standard as a condition for approval - for the construction jobs as well as the resulting jobs. Or if you use tax incentives to attract companies to your area, it should be required that those companies pay a living wage. A number of states have done that. Or if government outsources jobs, a living-wage standard should be applied to jobs that get contracted out.

There have been a number of experiments at the state level to provide tax incentives to encourage companies to train front-line workers. With training, workers could go from cleaning hotel rooms to being a line cook or waiter.

In the health-care sector, reimbursement schemes put enormous pressure on nursing homes to pay their certified nursing assistants poorly. That's public policy. That's not the market.

In a variety of ways, governments can play a positive role and do so by walking the talk themselves.

Originally Published: New York Times "Economoix"

Stephen Goldsmith, victim of bad law: Mandating arrests robs cops of discretion

Wed, 07 Sep 2011 11:54:00 EST

Law that tries to exclude human judgment of right and wrong always veers towards unintended places - as with the Rockefeller drug laws, or "three strikes" laws that send petty criminals to jail for life. In his book "Street Level Bureaucracy," Michael Lipsky describes how police cannot "possibly make arrests for all the infractions they observe" and analyzes the moral complexity of daily choices by public officials who are "constantly confronted with the apparent unfairness of treating people alike." Making fair public judgments, he demonstrates, always requires context.

Originally Published: New York Daily News

New York state's storm cleanup could take months

Fri, 02 Sep 2011 12:13:00 EST

ALBANY — Cleanup of hard-hit areas in New York from Tropical Storm Irene is expected to take months because roads and bridges have to be rebuilt, farms restored and infrastructure reconstructed.

While experts say the flooding was impossible to prevent, the storm that ravaged upstate wasn't initially expected because most of the original focus was on New York City and its suburbs, which ultimately didn't get hit as badly as rural areas.

Sen. Greg Ball, R-Patterson, said the storm showed the state has to develop a better emergency-response system, and he plans to hold a hearing on the state and federal response to Irene.

"Everybody in government should accept blame for the fact that New York state right now, 10 years after 9/11, is not prepared for either a man-made or natural disaster," said Ball, who heads the Senate Committee on Veterans, Homeland Security, and Military Affairs.

Howard Glaser, Gov. Andrew Cuomo's director of state operations, on Thursday defended the state's preparations for Irene, saying it was ready for the storm's impact on upstate communities.

In some areas, such as Montgomery County, northwest of Albany, officials were in place last Friday before the storm and were asked by residents why they were there.

"While the TV cameras were focused on downstate, our state emergency-management efforts were focused on all of the state that was at risk," he told Gannett's Albany Bureau. "On Friday, before the storm, without even having a firm storm track, we deployed our state agency heads to all of the upstate areas east of I-81 (in central New York)."

Days before the storm, the state asked operators of a number of upstate reservoirs to draw down water, Glaser said. The state also pre-positioned personnel, supplies and equipment upstate, he said.

Cuomo was on the ground in Margaretville, Delaware County, on Sunday, while all the attention was still downstate, Glaser said. As the storm track became clearer that day, state officials began to focus on counties that were getting the most damage. They positioned National Guard troops and equipment so they would be able to quickly assist in Schoharie and Greene counties, Glaser said.

He said on Talk 1300 AM radio in Albany on Thursday that the governor asked President Barack Obama to declare a pre-disaster emergency in New York so communities could be reimbursed for spending on storm preparations. That helped urge counties to prepare. He also declared a state of emergency to make it easier for the state to procure goods and services and work on non-state roads.

The number of rescues required, 249, would have been much higher if the state had not done the evacuations it did on Sunday, Glaser said. There were 10 deaths.

"In terms of the preparation, all of those efforts were far more than the state has done in the past," he said.

The governor said this week that the state concentrated a lot of resources in New York City and on Long Island because all the storm models pegged them as the main targets.

Some residents of Prattsville and Windham, both in Greene County — where water rushed through downtowns after funneling down mountains and spilling over bloated creeks and rivers — said no one could have predicted the extent of the damage.

Former Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, D-Greenburgh, said Irene showed the weaknesses of the state's preparedness; it needs a more comprehensive plan because each local government has its own rules and evacuation guidelines.

Originally Published:

The GOP War on Voting

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 11:28:00 EST

As the nation gears up for the 2012 presidential election, Republican officials have launched an unprecedented, centrally coordinated campaign to suppress the elements of the Democratic vote that elected Barack Obama in 2008. Just as Dixiecrats once used poll taxes and literacy tests to bar black Southerners from voting, a new crop of GOP governors and state legislators has passed a series of seemingly disconnected measures that could prevent millions of students, minorities, immigrants, ex-convicts and the elderly from casting ballots. "What has happened this year is the most significant setback to voting rights in this country in a century," says Judith Browne-Dianis, who monitors barriers to voting as co-director of the Advancement Project, a civil rights organization based in Washington, D.C.

Republicans have long tried to drive Democratic voters away from the polls. "I don't want everybody to vote," the influential conservative activist Paul Weyrich told a gathering of evangelical leaders in 1980. "As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down." But since the 2010 election, thanks to a conservative advocacy group founded by Weyrich, the GOP's effort to disrupt voting rights has been more widespread and effective than ever. In a systematic campaign orchestrated by the American Legislative Exchange Council - and funded in part by David and Charles Koch, the billionaire brothers who bankrolled the Tea Party - 38 states introduced legislation this year designed to impede voters at every step of the electoral process.

All told, a dozen states have approved new obstacles to voting. Kansas and Alabama now require would-be voters to provide proof of citizenship before registering. Florida and Texas made it harder for groups like the League of Women Voters to register new voters. Maine repealed Election Day voter registration, which had been on the books since 1973. Five states - Florida, Georgia, Ohio, Tennessee and West Virginia - cut short their early voting periods. Florida and Iowa barred all ex-felons from the polls, disenfranchising thousands of previously eligible voters. And six states controlled by Republican governors and legislatures - Alabama, Kansas, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin - will require voters to produce a government-issued ID before casting ballots. More than 10 percent of U.S. citizens lack such identification, and the numbers are even higher among constituencies that traditionally lean Democratic - including 18 percent of young voters and 25 percent of African-Americans.

Taken together, such measures could significantly dampen the Democratic turnout next year - perhaps enough to shift the outcome in favor of the GOP. "One of the most pervasive political movements going on outside Washington today is the disciplined, passionate, determined effort of Republican governors and legislators to keep most of you from voting next time," Bill Clinton told a group of student activists in July. "Why is all of this going on? This is not rocket science. They are trying to make the 2012 electorate look more like the 2010 electorate than the 2008 electorate" - a reference to the dominance of the Tea Party last year, compared to the millions of students and minorities who turned out for Obama. "There has never been in my lifetime, since we got rid of the poll tax and all the Jim Crow burdens on voting, the determined effort to limit the franchise that we see today."

To hear Republicans tell it, they are waging a virtuous campaign to crack down on rampant voter fraud - a curious position for a party that managed to seize control of the White House in 2000 despite having lost the popular vote. After taking power, the Bush administration declared war on voter fraud, making it a "top priority" for federal prosecutors. In 2006, the Justice Department fired two U.S. attorneys who refused to pursue trumped-up cases of voter fraud in New Mexico and Washington, and Karl Rove called illegal voting "an enormous and growing problem." In parts of America, he told the Republican National Lawyers Association, "we are beginning to look like we have elections like those run in countries where the guys in charge are colonels in mirrored sunglasses." According to the GOP, community organizers like ACORN were actively recruiting armies of fake voters to misrepresent themselves at the polls and cast illegal ballots for the Democrats.

Even at the time, there was no evidence to back up such outlandish claims. A major probe by the Justice Department between 2002 and 2007 failed to prosecute a single person for going to the polls and impersonating an eligible voter, which the anti-fraud laws are supposedly designed to stop. Out of the 300 million votes cast in that period, federal prosecutors convicted only 86 people for voter fraud - and many of the cases involved immigrants and former felons who were simply unaware of their ineligibility. A much-hyped investigation in Wisconsin, meanwhile, led to the prosecution of only .0007 percent of the local electorate for alleged voter fraud. "Our democracy is under siege from an enemy so small it could be hiding anywhere," joked Stephen Colbert. A 2007 report by the Brennan Center for Justice, a leading advocate for voting rights at the New York University School of Law, quantified the problem in stark terms. "It is more likely that an individual will be struck by lightning," the report calculated, "than that he will impersonate another voter at the polls."

GOP outcries over the phantom menace of voter fraud escalated after 2008, when Obama's candidacy attracted historic numbers of first-time voters. In the 29 states that record party affiliation, roughly two-thirds of new voters registered as Democrats in 2007 and 2008 - and Obama won nearly 70 percent of their votes. In Florida alone, Democrats added more than 600,000 new voters in the run-up to the 2008 election, and those who went to the polls favored Obama over John McCain by 19 points. "This latest flood of attacks on voting rights is a direct shot at the communities that came out in historic numbers for the first time in 2008 and put Obama over the top," says Tova Wang, an elections-reform expert at Demos, a progressive think tank.

No one has done more to stir up fears about the manufactured threat of voter fraud than Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a top adviser in the Bush Justice Department who has become a rising star in the GOP. "We need a Kris Kobach in every state," declared Michelle Malkin, the conservative pundit. This year, Kobach successfully fought for a law requiring every Kansan to show proof of citizenship in order to vote - even though the state prosecuted only one case of voter fraud in the past five years. The new restriction fused anti-immigrant hysteria with voter-fraud paranoia. "In Kansas, the illegal registration of alien voters has become pervasive," Kobach claimed, offering no substantiating evidence.

Kobach also asserted that dead people were casting ballots, singling out a deceased Kansan named Alfred K. Brewer as one such zombie voter. There was only one problem: Brewer was still very much alive. The Wichita Eagle found him working in his front yard. "I don't think this is heaven," Brewer told the paper. "Not when I'm raking leaves."

Kobach might be the gop's most outspoken crusader working to prevent citizens from voting, but he's far from the only one. "Voting rights are under attack in America," Rep. John Lewis, who was brutally beaten in Alabama while marching during the civil rights movement in the 1960s, observed during an impassioned speech on the House floor in July. "There's a deliberate and systematic attempt to prevent millions of elderly voters, young voters, students, minority and low-income voters from exercising their constitutional right to engage in the democratic process."

The Republican effort, coordinated and funded at the national level, has focused on disenfranchising voters in four key areas:

Barriers to Registration Since January, six states have introduced legislation to impose new restrictions on voter registration drives run by groups like Rock the Vote and the League of Women Voters. In May, the GOP-controlled legislature in Florida passed a law requiring anyone who signs up new voters to hand in registration forms to the state board of elections within 48 hours of collecting them, and to comply with a barrage of onerous, bureaucratic requirements. Those found to have submitted late forms would face a $1,000 fine, as well as possible felony prosecution.

As a result, the law threatens to turn civic-minded volunteers into inadvertent criminals. Denouncing the legislation as "good old-fashioned voter suppression," the League of Women Voters announced that it was ending its registration efforts in Florida, where it has been signing up new voters for the past 70 years. Rock the Vote, which helped 2.5 million voters to register in 2008, could soon follow suit. "We're hoping not to shut down," says Heather Smith, president of Rock the Vote, "but I can't say with any certainty that we'll be able to continue the work we're doing."

The registration law took effect one day after it passed, under an emergency statute designed for "an immediate danger to the public health, safety or welfare." In reality, though, there's no evidence that registering fake voters is a significant problem in the state. Over the past three years, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement has received just 31 cases of suspected voter fraud, resulting in only three arrests statewide. "No one could give me an example of all this fraud they speak about," said Mike Fasano, a Republican state senator who bucked his party and voted against the registration law. What's more, the law serves no useful purpose: Under the Help America Vote Act passed by Congress in 2002, all new voters must show identity before registering to vote.

Cuts to Early Voting After the recount debacle in Florida in 2000, allowing voters to cast their ballots early emerged as a popular bipartisan reform. Early voting not only meant shorter lines on Election Day, it has helped boost turnout in a number of states - the true measure of a successful democracy. "I think it's great," Jeb Bush said in 2004. "It's another reform we added that has helped provide access to the polls and provide a convenience. And we're going to have a high voter turnout here, and I think that's wonderful."

But Republican support for early voting vanished after Obama utilized it as a key part of his strategy in 2008. Nearly 30 percent of the electorate voted early that year, and they favored Obama over McCain by 10 points. The strategy proved especially effective in Florida, where blacks outnumbered whites by two to one among early voters, and in Ohio, where Obama received fewer votes than McCain on Election Day but ended up winning by 263,000 ballots, thanks to his advantage among early voters in urban areas like Cleveland and Columbus.

That may explain why both Florida and Ohio - which now have conservative Republican governors - have dramatically curtailed early voting for 2012. Next year, early voting will be cut from 14 to eight days in Florida and from 35 to 11 days in Ohio, with limited hours on weekends. In addition, both states banned voting on the Sunday before the election - a day when black churches historically mobilize their constituents. Once again, there appears to be nothing to justify the changes other than pure politics. "There is no evidence that any form of convenience voting has led to higher levels of fraud," reports the Early Voting Information Center at Reed College.

Photo IDs By far the biggest change in election rules for 2012 is the number of states requiring a government-issued photo ID, the most important tactic in the Republican war on voting. In April 2008, the Supreme Court upheld a photo-ID law in Indiana, even though state GOP officials couldn't provide a single instance of a voter committing the type of fraud the new ID law was supposed to stop. Emboldened by the ruling, Republicans launched a nationwide effort to implement similar barriers to voting in dozens of states.

The campaign was coordinated by the American Legislative Exchange Council, which provided GOP legislators with draft legislation based on Indiana's ID requirement. In five states that passed such laws in the past year - Kansas, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin - the measures were sponsored by legislators who are members of ALEC. "We're seeing the same legislation being proposed state by state by state," says Smith of Rock the Vote. "And they're not being shy in any of these places about clearly and blatantly targeting specific demographic groups, including students."

In Texas, under "emergency" legislation passed by the GOP-dominated legislature and signed by Gov. Rick Perry, a concealed-weapon permit is considered an acceptable ID but a student ID is not. Republicans in Wisconsin, meanwhile, mandated that students can only vote if their IDs include a current address, birth date, signature and two-year expiration date - requirements that no college or university ID in the state currently meets. As a result, 242,000 students in Wisconsin may lack the documentation required to vote next year. "It's like creating a second class of citizens in terms of who gets to vote," says Analiese Eicher, a Dane County board supervisor.

The barriers erected in Texas and Wisconsin go beyond what the Supreme Court upheld in Indiana, where 99 percent of state voters possess the requisite IDs and can turn to full-time DMVs in every county to obtain the proper documentation. By contrast, roughly half of all black and Hispanic residents in Wisconsin do not have a driver's license, and the state staffs barely half as many DMVs as Indiana - a quarter of which are open less than one day a month. To make matters worse, Gov. Scott Walker tried to shut down 16 more DMVs - many of them located in Democratic-leaning areas. In one case, Walker planned to close a DMV in Fort Atkinson, a liberal stronghold, while opening a new office 30 minutes away in the conservative district of Watertown.

Although new ID laws have been approved in seven states, the battle over such barriers to voting has been far more widespread. Since January, Democratic governors in Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire and North Carolina have all vetoed ID laws. Voters in Mississippi and Missouri are slated to consider ballot initiatives requiring voter IDs, and legislation is currently pending in Pennsylvania.

One of the most restrictive laws requiring voter IDs was passed in South Carolina. To obtain the free state ID now required to vote, the 178,000 South Carolinians who currently lack one must pay for a passport or a birth certificate. "It's the stepsister of the poll tax," says Browne-Dianis of the Advancement Project. Under the new law, many elderly black residents - who were born at home in the segregated South and never had a birth certificate - must now go to family court to prove their identity. Given that obtaining fake birth certificates is one of the country's biggest sources of fraud, the new law may actually prompt some voters to illegally procure a birth certificate in order to legally vote - all in the name of combating voter fraud.

For those voters who manage to get a legitimate birth certificate, obtaining a voter ID from the DMV is likely to be hellishly time-consuming. A reporter for the Tri-State Defender in Memphis, Tennessee - another state now mandating voter IDs - recently waited for four hours on a sweltering July day just to see a DMV clerk. The paper found that the longest lines occur in urban precincts, a clear violation of the Voting Rights Act, which bars states from erecting hurdles to voting in minority jurisdictions.

Disenfranchising Ex-Felons The most sweeping tactic in the GOP campaign against voting is simply to make it illegal for certain voters to cast ballots in any election. As the Republican governor of Florida, Charlie Crist restored the voting rights of 154,000 former prisoners who had been convicted of nonviolent crimes. But in March, after only 30 minutes of public debate, Gov. Rick Scott overturned his predecessor's decision, instantly disenfranchising 97,491 ex-felons and prohibiting another 1.1 million prisoners from being allowed to vote after serving their time.

"Why should we disenfranchise people forever once they've paid their price?" Bill Clinton asked during his speech in July. "Because most of them in Florida were African-Americans and Hispanics and would tend to vote for Democrats - that's why."

A similar reversal by a Republican governor recently took place in Iowa, where Gov. Terry Branstad overturned his predecessor's decision to restore voting rights to 100,000 ex-felons. The move threatens to return Iowa to the recent past, when more than five percent of all residents were denied the right to vote - including a third of the state's black residents. In addition, Florida and Iowa join Kentucky and Virginia as the only states that require all former felons to apply for the right to vote after finishing their prison sentences.

In response to the GOP campaign, voting-rights advocates are scrambling to blunt the impact of the new barriers to voting. The ACLU and other groups are challenging the new laws in court, and congressional Democrats have asked the Justice Department to use its authority to block or modify any of the measures that discriminate against minority voters. "The Justice Department should be much more aggressive in areas covered by the Voting Rights Act," says Rep. Lewis.

But beyond waging battles at the state and federal level, voting-rights advocates must figure out how to reframe the broader debate. The real problem in American elections is not the myth of voter fraud, but how few people actually participate. Even in 2008, which saw the highest voter turnout in four decades, fewer than two-thirds of eligible voters went to the polls. And according to a study by MIT, 9 million voters were denied an opportunity to cast ballots that year because of problems with their voter registration (13 percent), long lines at the polls (11 percent), uncertainty about the location of their polling place (nine percent) or lack of proper ID (seven percent).

Come Election Day 2012, such problems will only be exacerbated by the flood of new laws implemented by Republicans. Instead of a single fiasco in Florida, experts warn, there could be chaos in a dozen states as voters find themselves barred from the polls. "Our democracy is supposed to be a government by, of and for the people," says Browne-Dianis. "It doesn't matter how much money you have, what race you are or where you live in the country - we all get to have the same amount of power by going into the voting booth on Election Day. But those who passed these laws believe that only some people should participate. The restrictions undermine democracy by cutting off the voices of the people."

This story is from the September 15, 2011 issue of Rolling Stone.

Originally Published: Rolling Stone

Read About and Speak Out for the Middle Class

Tue, 30 Aug 2011 17:50:00 EST

Oregon's middle class is fraying, with well-paying jobs in short supply and the cost of raising a family dramatically increasing.

As Bob Herbert, former New York Times columnist and now a distinguished senior fellow at Demos, notes "The American Dream is vanishing before our eyes. Sadly, Oregonians who work hard and play by the rules can no longer expect to provide a decent life for their families."

The recession upped the pressure on Oregon's middle class, but the stress had been building over several decades The problem is set out in The Fraying of Oregon's Middle Class (PDF), a new report released today by the Oregon Center for Public Policy (OCPP) and Demos.

The report examines three developments that have seriously strained Oregon's middle class: the scarcity of well-paying jobs, the rising costs of raising a family and the economic hardships faced by young workers, such as student debt levels and stagnant or declining wages.

This report should be a wake-up call for Oregon lawmakers and our congressional delegation to rebuild the middle class, the backbone of the state's economy.

That's why we released it on the eve of "jobs not cuts" rallies throughout Oregon this week heading into Labor Day.

Here's the schedule for the rallies. Read The Fraying of Oregon's Middle Class(PDF) and make your voice heard at a rally.

Help stop the fraying of the middle class.

Chuck Sheketoff is the executive director of the Oregon Center for Public Policy. You can sign up to receive email notification of OCPP materials at www.ocpp.org.

Originally Published: BlueOregon

OCPP: Middle class faces pressures

Tue, 30 Aug 2011 15:03:00 EST

A Silverton think tank said Tuesday that Oregon's middle class faces big issues in coming years.

The Oregon Center for Public Policy, in a report called The Fraying of Oregon's Middle Class, contends that well-paying jobs are in short supply as the cost of maintaining a family continues to increase. The center compiled the report with New York-based researcher Demos.

Specifically, the report notes that Oregon manufacturing jobs comprised 13 percent of all jobs last year, compared to 23 percent in 1980. The wages of a typical Oregon worker has also only grown by $477 a year since 1994.

"Sadly, Oregonians who work hard and play by the rules can no longer expect to provide a decent life for their families," said Demos' Bob Herbert, in a statement.

Chuck Sheketoff, the Oregon group's executive director, called on state lawmakers to ensure that all economic development spending is tied to creating jobs.

Sheketoff and Herbert also want lawmakers to reinvigorate the state's labor movement, as a means toward rebuilding the middle class.

"Lawmakers must remove the barriers to organizing that unions face," said Herbert. "Organized labor must grow if the American Dream is to endure."

Originally Published: Portland Business Journal

The Haimish Line

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 11:05:00 EST

Recently I did a little reporting from Kenya and Tanzania before taking a safari with my family. We stayed in seven camps. Some were relatively simple, without electricity or running water. Some were relatively luxurious, with regular showers and even pools.

The intellectual, cultural and scientific findings that land on the columnist's desk nearly every day.

The simple camps were friendly, warm and familial. We got to know the other guests at big, communal dinner tables. At one camp we got to play soccer with the staff on a vast field in the Serengeti before an audience of wildebeests. At another camp, we had impromptu spear-throwing and archery competitions with the kitchen staff. Two of the Maasai guides led my youngest son and me on spontaneous mock hunts - stalking our "prey" on foot through ravines and across streams. I can tell you that this is the definition of heaven for a 12-year-old boy, and for someone with the emotional maturity of one.

The more elegant camps felt colder. At one, each family had its own dinner table, so we didn't get to know the other guests. The tents were spread farther apart. We also didn't get to know the staff, who served us mostly as waiters, the way they would at a nice hotel.

I know only one word to describe what the simpler camps had and the more luxurious camps lacked: haimish. It's a Yiddish word that suggests warmth, domesticity and unpretentious conviviality.

It occurred to me that when we moved from a simple camp to a more luxurious camp, we crossed an invisible Haimish Line. The simpler camps had it, the more comfortable ones did not.

This is a generalized phenomenon, which applies to other aspects of life. Often, as we spend more on something, what we gain in privacy and elegance we lose in spontaneous sociability.

I once visited a university that had a large, lavishly financed Hillel House to serve as a Jewish center on campus. But the students told me they preferred the Chabad House nearby, which was run by the orthodox Lubavitchers. At the Chabad house, the sofas were tattered and the rooms cramped, but, the students said, it was more haimish.

Restaurants and bars can exist on either side of the Haimish Line. At some diners and family restaurants, people are more comfortable leaning back, laughing loud, interrupting more and sweeping one another up in a collective euphoria. They talk more to the servers, and even across tables. At nicer restaurants, the food is better, the atmosphere is more refined, but there is a tighter code about what is permissible.

Hotels can exist on either side of the Haimish Line. You'll find multiple generations at a Comfort Inn breakfast area, and people are likely to exchange pleasantries over the waffle machine. At a four-star hotel's breakfast dining room, people are quietly answering e-mail on their phones.

Whole neighborhoods can exist on either side of the Haimish Line. Alan Ehrenhalt once wrote a great book called "The Lost City," about the old densely packed Chicago neighborhoods where kids ran from home to home, where people hung out on their stoops. When the people in those neighborhoods made more money, they moved out to more thinly spaced suburbs with bigger homes where they were much less likely to know their neighbors.

In the 1990s, millions of Americans moved outward so they could have bigger houses and bigger lots, even if it meant long commutes. Research by Robert Frank of Cornell suggests this is usually a bad trade-off.

People are often bad at knowing how to spend their money - I've been at least as bad as everybody else in this regard. Lottery winners, for example, barely benefit from their new fortunes. When we get some extra income, we spend it on privacy, space and refinement. This has some obvious benefits: let's not forget the nights at the Comfort Inn when we were trying to fall asleep while lacrosse teams partied in the hallways and the rooms next door. But suddenly we look around and we're on the wrong side of the Haimish Line.

We also live in a highly individualistic culture. When we're shopping for a vacation we're primarily thinking about Where. The travel companies offer brochures showing private beaches and phenomenal sights. But when you come back from vacation, you primarily treasure the memories of Who - the people you met from faraway places, and the lives you came in contact with.

I can't resist concluding this column with some kernels of consumption advice accumulated by the prominent scholars Elizabeth W. Dunn, Daniel T. Gilbert and Timothy D. Wilson. Surveying the vast literature of happiness research, they suggest: Buy experiences instead of things; buy many small pleasures instead of a few big ones; pay now for things you can look forward to and enjoy later.

To which I'd only add: Sometimes its best to spend carefully so you can stay south of the Haimish Line.

Originally Published: New York Times

How Credit Affects Your Insurance Score

Wed, 24 Aug 2011 09:36:00 EST

Amy Traub, a senior policy analyst at watchdog group Demos, says that credit-based insurance scores hurt lower-income people more because they are more likely to have lower scores. She noted a study that showed while those with lower scores made more claims because they couldn't swallow the costs, the cost of those claims were not necessarily greater.

Originally Published: Fox Business News

Is Your Credit Report Hurting Your Job Search?

Mon, 15 Aug 2011 09:34:00 EST

In its bombshell of a report “Discrediting America,” the nonpartisan public policy research group Demos sums up the problem for black and Latinos:

Credit reports largely mirror racial and economic divides, with African Americans and Latinos disproportionately likely to have lower scores. In turn, these communities are more likely to be offered high-priced loan products, which may contribute to more defaults, maintaining and amplifying historical injustice.

“It’s like living in a prison without walls,” says Amy Traub, a Demos senior analyst who co-authored the study. “Using credit reports this way is like taking inequity in one realm and expanding it into another. If your community is full of unsafe and unfair loan products, that can affect your job prospects. You can [easily] get caught in this cycle of bad credit.”

Originally Published: Color Lines: News For Action

Demos Responds to First Circuit Opinion in National Organization for Marriage v. McKee

Fri, 12 Aug 2011 17:54:00 EST

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

August 12, 2011

CONTACT:

Lauren Strayer, lstrayer@demos.org, (212) 389-1413

Anna Pycior, apycior@demos.org, (212) 389-1408

Demos Responds to First Circuit Opinion in National Organization for Marriage v. McKee

Boston, MA - Yesterday, the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit -- covering Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island -- issued a decision upholding Maine's campaign finance disclosure provisions, which had been challenged by the anti-gay marriage National Organization for Marriage. In response, Lisa Danetz, Demos Senior Counsel, issued the following statement:

"We are extremely pleased that the First Circuit continues to recognize the important role played by campaign finance disclosure regulations in informing the citizenry to make political choices. In the wake of Citizens United, we are living in a world of ever greater amounts of private money in our political system. The majority of Americans want a system that does not allow concentrated wealth to dominate but rather that honors the equal voices of all. The First Circuit rightly recognized the need for the citizenry to have the tools to assess the credibility and motives behind political messages received during a political campaign.

"As the First Circuit stated, disclosure laws 'require the divulgence of information to the public or the Commission, but do not directly limit speech' and therefore these laws were clearly constitutional. Although the current Supreme Court has struck down or cast doubt on many other campaign finance regulations, it has made abundantly clear that disclosure laws remain vital to the functioning of our democracy.

"The First Circuit explained in quite a bit of detail why it is so important for the citizenry to have information about the source of political money and how it is to be spent. Initially quoting the seminal Supreme Court case Buckley v. Valeo, the court stated:

'In a republic where the people are sovereign, the ability of the citizenry to make informed choices among candidates for office is essential.' . . ..'[Disclosure] allows voters to place each candidate on the political spectrum more precisely than is often possible solely on the basis of party labels and campaign speeches. The sources of a candidate's financial support also alert the voter to the interests to which a candidate is most likely to be responsive and thus facilitate predictions of future performance in office.' . . .

In an age characterized by the rapid multiplication of media outlets and the rise of internet reporting, the 'marketplace of ideas' has become flooded with a profusion of information and political messages. Citizens rely ever more on a message's source as a proxy for reliability and a barometer of political spin. Disclosing the identity and constituency of a speaker engaged in political speech thus 'enables the electorate to make informed decisions and give proper weight to different speakers and messages.... Additionally, in the case of corporate or organizational speakers, disclosure allows shareholders and members to 'hold them accountable for their positions.'... In short, 'the First Amendment protects political speech; and disclosure permits citizens and shareholders to react to that speech in a proper way.'

We are gratified that the Court took its role seriously and tool such great pains to explain the continuing role and importance of disclosure of political spending to our citizens."

Demos submitted an amicus curiae brief to the First Circuit in NOM v. McKee on behalf of Maine Citizens for Clean Elections. The amicus curiae brief is available here: http://bit.ly/orypy1

###

Originally Published:

Contract for the American Dream

Wed, 10 Aug 2011 10:54:00 EST

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

August 9, 2011

CONTACT:

Lauren Strayer, lstrayer@demos.org, (212) 389-1413

Post Austerity Debt Deal: Demos Partners with Rebuild the Dream for Launch of New "Contract For American Dream"

Crowd-sourced Ten Point Plan Is Progressive Vision to Grow and Strengthen the Future Middle Class, Rebut Conservative Austerity Agenda

WASHINGTON DC-- In the wake of an austerity debt ceiling deal that will cost 1.8 million jobs in 2012 and do nothing to address inequality and the decline of the American middle class, today the Rebuild the Dream Campaign – with the support of partner organization Demos – announced a new Contract for the American Dream.

“Today, Demos is proud to join the American Dream Movement as a policy partner to advocate for the ideas that will ensure that there is a robust, diverse and broad future middle class in America. The Movement recognizes that our nation can’t afford to jettison the structures of opportunity that created the great American middle class generations ago,” said Heather C. McGhee, Director of Demos’ Washington Office and co-editor of a series of policy background papers released with the Contract. “The Contract’s 10 ideas form a platform that, taken together, will ensure that America’s greatest days are still to come.”

The Contract is a crowd-sourced document, created by people – from think tank experts, including staff at Demos, to college students, retirees, workers and stay-at-home parents – who submitted over 25,000 policy ideas online in July. Over 125,000 Americans participated online and in person at 1,600 house meetings last month, casting 6 million votes on each others’ ideas. The Rebuild the Dream Campaign then distilled 10 leading ideas to form a Contract for the American Dream. Demos provided policy background expertise and co-edited a series of fact sheets, to be released today, on each of the 10 ideas in the Contract.

View the full Contract here: http://bit.ly/q04o19

The Contract represents a sharp contrast with the anti-government, anti-tax austerity vision represented in the debt debates of recent weeks.Members of the American Dream Movement will take the Contract directly to members of Congress during the August recess to demand "Jobs Not Cuts", beginning with hundreds of actions around the country on August 10th.

Two weeks ago, over 25,000 citizens allied with the American Dream Movement held 800 rallies across the country to protest the final debt deal that sacrifices America’s future middle class to protect tax breaks for today’s millionaires, billionaires and large businesses.

###

Originally Published:

Fannie and Freddie ask for $7 billion more

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 13:00:00 EST

Freddie Mac, the mortgage finance house, said Monday that it will ask for an additional $1.5 billion of taxpayer money to make up for losses stemming from weak housing markets.

The request falls on the heels of an announcement last week by Freddie Mac's sister organization, Fannie Mae, that it will need $5.1 billion to make up its shortfall. The two coincide with Standard & Poor's downgrade of the U.S. government's credit rating from AAA status to AA+, which has the potential to affect the institutions' lending and collecting abilities.

But how the Treasury Department chooses to respond to the requests of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could be the catalyst for definitive reform of the institutions.

Both the Obama administration and Congress have insisted on reform of the two entities since 2008, but few steps to reform have been taken by either branch on this politically charged issue.

"No one should be surprised by the request for more funding," saidHeritage Foundation's James Gattuso.

"It's a reminder that while the other bailouts that began in 2008 have been or are being resolved, the taxpayer bailout of Fannie and Freddie are continuing," said Gattuso.

The government seized both institutions nearly three years ago in the midst of the financial crisis, with Freddie Mac having drawn $65.2 billion from the government since September 2008.

Nonetheless, Gattuso concedes, the Treasury Department may have no choice but to provide the funds requested, which "only underscores the necessity of fixing the system so that taxpayers are not again put in such a position."

But Gattuso is not arguing for reform so much as abolition.

"Such reform should include a gradual but definitive liquidation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and their replacement by private institutions that enjoy no federal guarantees," he said.

Robert Kuttner, distinguished senior fellow at the New York-based progressive think tank Demos, argues that if Fannie and Freddie are going to receive public money, then they should be public entities.

"Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should go back to Fannie's pre-1969 role as a public corporation run entirely by the government," said Kuttner. He added, "They should not be in the business of facilitating complex financial slicing and dicing. Prior to 1969, Fannie Mae worked like a Swiss watch."

Kuttner also said that, as public institutions, Fannie and Freddie should be "force]s] for the drastic simplification of the mortgage industry."

Originally Published: Washington Post

Optomen TV signs with WGA East

Thu, 04 Aug 2011 11:46:00 EST

The Writers Guild of America East has unionized Optomen Television, the fourth nonfiction TV company that's come under WGA East jurisdiction.

The WGA East announced Wednesday that Optomen employees had voted to be repped by the guild by a 5-4 vote. The org said the employees included those who write and produce nonfiction TV shows including "Monsters Inside Me," "Samantha Brown's Great Weekends" and "Worst Cooks in America."

First contract negotiations at two other WGA-repped companies -- Atlas Media and Lion Television -- are set to begin on Thursday and Monday, respectively.

"We are excited that the talented people of Optomen have voted to join the Writers Guild East," said WGAE prexy Michael Winship in a statement. "Theirs is the latest in a series of guild election victories in the realm of nonfiction television. We look forward to working with them and to continue reaching out to the many creative men and women of nonfiction production."

The WGA East noted that the National Labor Relations Board election at Optomen took place in December but a final vote count had been stalled due to "procedural delays." It said the final ballot was unsealed Wednesday and that a formal certification of the result by the NLRB is expected shortly.

WGA East exec director Lowell Peterson will lead the bargaining team in negotiations with Lion and Atlas.

The WGA East has also unionized ITV.

Originally Published: Variety

What Diversity Teaches Us

Wed, 27 Jul 2011 09:53:00 EST

There are clearly swaths of the United States that are predominantly non-Hispanic white. Consider Rich Benjamin’s work on whitopias—growing white enclaves around the country where residents allegedly try to find refuge from the country’s growing multicultural reality. In exploring why people are drawn to these communities, Benjamin argues that the country is still more racially and economically segregated than those who claim we live in a “postracial” society are willing to admit.

Originally Published: Center for American Progress

Cheating: The Experts Weigh In

Tue, 26 Jul 2011 09:51:00 EST

On July 18, the Bloomberg Businessweek Getting In blog publicized the story of NYU Stern Professor Panos Ipeirotis, who caught 20 percent of his class cheating and found the effort he put into rooting out the cheaters was not worth it. In the future, Ipeirotis said he would assign projects requiring more original thought to creatively channel the energies of his highly competitive students.

Some of those who commented on the blog faulted Ipeirotis, blamed the cheating on the Stern grading curve, or said that cheating was common at many schools. Bloomberg Businessweek asked two ethics experts about the views they expressed.

David Callahan is a senior fellow at Demos, a public policy organization in New York. He has a Ph.D. in politics and has written extensively about ethics on his blog for years and in his book, The Cheating Culture, published in 2004.

Originally Published: Bloomberg Businessweek

Nonprofits innovate to help low-income people establish credit

Mon, 25 Jul 2011 09:48:00 EST

In the past 15 years the ramifications of poor credit have grown, as credit score "mission creep" has set in, said Amy Traub, a senior policy analyst with the New York-based think tank Demos and author of the recently released report "Discrediting America." Credit scores determine not just the interest rates paid on material goods, such as a cell phone or car, but also the pricing of utilities and insurance. Approximately 60 percent of employers use credit reports to screen job applicants.

Originally Published: CreditCards.com

Merrill convenes Election Performance Task Force

Wed, 20 Jul 2011 11:06:00 EST

HARTFORD - Secretary of the State Denise Merrill today convened an Election Performance Task Force to review Connecticut's election system and recommend improvements.

"The mission of this task force is to review our current election system, evaluate its effectiveness and recommend changes to improve and modernize the system," says Merrill, Connecticut's top elections official. "We need to look at our system from the perspective of the average voter. For example, is there a way to improve their experience at the polls? Do voters want more convenience? We also plan to look at new, innovative technologies that could make life easier for our local officials."

"We need to imagine what the voting experience can be like five or ten years from now if we make the right decisions today," Merrill said.

The task force began its work with a discussion of baseline data on voter registration and turnout rates, as well as a review ofConnecticut's current elections system. The review covered the roles of registrars of voters, town clerks, the Office of the Secretary of the State and the State Elections Enforcement Commission in Connecticut's decentralized elections system. Merrill asked the group to consider a number of questions including: Why do certain individuals choose not to vote? Why are there turnout disparities among various populations? Are there barriers to registration and voting that discourage people? What is working in other states to improve participation and why?

Merrill said the group will study potential reforms including online voter registration, Election Day or "same day" registration, absentee ballot reform, mail-in voting, regional voting centers and changes designed to bring more consistency to the system across town and city lines.

At its next meeting, the task force will view demonstrations of new voting and elections administration technology.

All task force meetings will be open to the public and may be viewed on CT-N. The Office of the Secretary of the State will be posting information about the task force on its web site at www.ct.gov/sots.

MEMBERS OF THE SECRETARY OF THE STATE'S ELECTION PERFORMANCE TASK FORCE

· Denise Merrill, Secretary of the State

· James F. Spallone, Deputy Secretary of the State

· Tony Esposito, President of the Registrars of Voters Association of Connecticut and Registrar of Voters, Hamden

· Judi Beaudreau, Registrar of Voters, Vernon

· Urania Petit, Registrar of Voters, Hartford

· Therese Pac, Town Clerk, Bristol

· Lisa Valenti, Town Clerk, North Branford

· Kachina Walsh-Weaver, Connecticut Conference of Municipalities

· Brian Sear, First Selectman, town of Canterbury

· Cheri Quickmire, Common Cause

· Carol Young-Kleinfeld, Connecticut League of Women Voters

· Shannon Clark Kief, State Elections Enforcement Commission

· Kevin Ahern, State Elections Enforcement Commission (alternate)

· Steve Carbo, Demos

· Professor Heather Gerken, Yale Law School

· Professor Bilal Sekou, University of Hartford

· John Murphy, Coventry

· Attorney Richard Bieder

Originally Published: Wall Street Journal

Is US a nation of liars? Casey Anthony isn't the only one

Wed, 20 Jul 2011 09:58:00 EST

"This culture of accepted cheating and lying tends to empower the people at the top and ... amplifies the inequality in our society, all of which has negative ramifications," says David Callahan, author of "The Cheating Culture." "It sort of moves us more toward Russia or Brazil with oligarchs who can do whatever they want. We're not that bad, but we could be headed in that direction."

Originally Published: Christian Science Monitor

A Window Into Region's Housing Crisis

Mon, 18 Jul 2011 13:35:00 EST

“The middle class is not on the same solid footing that it once was,” said Jennifer Wheary, who cowrote a study on the recession’s impact on middle-class African Americans and Latinos with Brandeis University and the New York think tank Demos.

In the prerecession years of 2000 to 2006, middle-class workers earned less, saved less, and borrowed more than they did in the 1990s. They watched benefits packages shrink. College costs went up, and parents took loans or dipped into retirement savings to help their children. All these factors left them with little protection against the economic storm of 2007.

“A generation of progress has really been erased,” Wheary said. “People who had little ground to lose lost it all.”

Originally Published: Philadelphia Inquirer

The Three-Digit Number that Can Wreck Your Life

Mon, 18 Jul 2011 12:31:00 EST

It sounds like a perfect solution for businesses — a single data point that lets companies know who is trustworthy and who isn’t. That’s the idea behind credit scores, which were developed in 1958 by FICO Inc. as a way for lenders to determine the likelihood that a customer would repay. Since then, however, the use of the scores has spread well-beyond the financial services industry. And for people emerging from the recession with a low number, that could mean higher interest rates, rejection by a landlord, and an even tougher time finding a job. Now lawmakers and consumers’ advocates are challenging the widespread use of the numbers.

Originally Published: The Fiscal Times

Study Says PA 6th in College Debt

Sat, 16 Jul 2011 13:24:00 EST

Pennsylvania ranks sixth in the country for the highest number of indebted college graduates and seventh for the average amount of debt those graduates incurred, according to an economic report due to be released Monday.

The report from Harrisburg-based Keystone Research Center and Demos, a nonpartisan research and advocacy group in New York City, found that the ability of Pennsylvania's young adults, aged 25 to 34, to reach or even maintain middle-class status is becoming increasingly difficult as wages decline, college costs rise and employer-provided benefits of health insurance and retirement plans become increasingly rare.

On top of that, unemployment continues to bedevil the economic recovery.

"College graduates are less likely to get a job," said Anna Pycior, a spokeswoman for Demos. "If you do manage to get a job, it is getting less and less likely you will be provided with health benefits and you will face the increasingly bleak prospect of a retirement plan.

"All of it while trying to address your $27,000 on average in student debt."

Joblessness is not just a major issue for the state population, but also for the state government. The state lost 350,000 jobs during the Great Recession and still needs to add 230,000 to get back to a normal employment level, when the number of jobs that are still missing -- a full-two years into the recovery -- is added to normal population growth.

The authors estimated this lack of jobs has cost the state $726 million in revenues in the form of income and sales taxes, which has led to the spiral of the state cutting jobs to make up for the lost revenue.

One of the effects of that lost revenue has been greater increases in the cost of tuition at state colleges and universities.

For the 2009-10 school year, in-state tuition at Pennsylvania's state-subsidized colleges and universities averaged $10,761, which does not include room and board. In-state tuition to state schools has tripled in the past 25 years and is now nearly $4,000 more than the national average for the state universities.

Rising tuition has meant that more graduates -- 72 percent in 2009 -- are coming out of school with an average of $27,066 in student debt.

The report found that 25 percent of young workers are not offered health insurance and just over 40 percent do not have any sort of employer-sponsored retirement plan such as a defined income pension or a 401(k).

While benefits to workers have been cut and the out-of-pocket cost for health care has risen for insured workers, Pennsylvania's wages have not kept pace with the rising costs. Median earnings in the state, after peaking at $36,750 in 2003, fell to just over $34,000 during the recession. Wages have since recovered to $36,050, which is still down almost $13.50 a week.

The growth in median earnings from about $31,000 in 1980 to almost $37,000 in 2010 has been mostly because of the rise in mean earnings for women. Women's wages grew by 52 percent over those years from just under $20,000 to just over $30,000 a year, in 2011 dollars, while men's wages grew during the same time by just under 10 percent, from just over $40,000 to $44,840 last year.

Child care also is a major expense for young families. The researchers found that full-time center-based child care costs $12,388 for an infant and $8,704 for a 4-year-old. Taking a baby to a sitter is less, costing $8,835 for infants and $7,428 for a preschooler.

The income disparity is growing in Pennsylvania. The top 5 percent of earners saw their incomes rise by 58.8 percent from the late 1980s to the middle 2000s, the top 20 percent saw their incomes rise by 37.3 percent, the middle 20 percent experienced a 16.7 percent rise in their incomes and the bottom 20 percent earned 8.2 percent more.

The researchers concluded that "for the first time in generations, more people are falling out of the middle class ranks than joining its ranks."

Ann Belser: abelser@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1699.

Originally Published: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Is LATFOR Really Defending Itself?

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 16:30:00 EST

Why is it important for civil rights and good government groups to to be granted status as intervenor defendants in a lawsuit about counting prisoners in redistricting?

Because the legislative commission charged with drawing the lines, LATFOR, hasn't exactly been vigorous in defending itself in a lawsuit filed about the issue, they say.

"As far as I know, LATFOR has not entered an appearance. All they've done is sent a letter to the judge saying a speedy disposition is important," said Dale Ho, a lawyer with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. "They haven't even moved to defend the statute. From the perspective of our clients, that's problematic: if one of the entities defending the statute isn't even doing so, then there needs to be an opportunity for those protected by the statute to have their rights defended."

This makes perfect sense: LATFOR is co-chaired by Assemblyman Jack McEneny, D-Albany and Sen. Mike Nozzolio, R-Seneca County. Nozzolio has expressed doubts about the legality of a 2010 law that directed LATFOR to count prison inmates at their last home address instead of at their jail cells. Counting inmates in jail has been derided as prison-based gerrymandering, and inflates population in upstate, rural, largely Republican areas at the expense of downstate, urban, largely Democratic precincts.

Several of Nozzolio's Republican colleagues in the Senate, including Betty Little of Queensbury, are plaintiffs in the suit. LATFOR is so-far ignoring the new law, which is causing groups like the NAACP to cry foul.

The request for intervenor status is pending before Judge Eugene Devine.

(Also, a quick clarification: my article today didn't specify which groups on the intervention request are actors and which are their legal representatives. The groups requesting to intervene are Common Cause New York, NAACP New York State Conference, and Voices of Community Activists and Leaders- New York (VOCAL-NY). They are represented legally by the Brennan Center for Justice, the Center for Law and Social Justice at Medgar Evers College, Demos, LatinoJustice PRLDEF, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (NAACP-LDF), the New York Civil Liberties Union Foundation, and the Prison Policy Initiative.

Originally Published: Times Union

Cuomo's no liberal lion

Tue, 05 Jul 2011 15:36:00 EST

After signing a bill legalizing gay marriage, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is being hailed -- and is hailing himself -- as the new progressive standard bearer for the Democratic Party. A former Clinton administration staffer who now heads a gay rights group calls Cuomo "the most important progressive leader of our party" while the governor is quoted in a Maureen Dowd column declaring himself an "aggressive progressive."

Sounds fantastic, doesn't it? He sounds like Howard Dean echoing Paul Wellstone lines. Hell, he sounds like his father, Mario Cuomo, the great liberal lion.

But there's just one problem with all the hullaballoo: When Andrew Cuomo's record is evaluated as a whole, it's clear that his tolerance on social issues combined with his lockstep corporatism on economic issues makes him not some proud representative of the "Democratic wing of the Democratic Party," but rather what is typically called a standard-issue Northeastern Republican.

Unlike Dean, who gradually renounced the New England Republicanism that often marked his Vermont governorship, and unlike Mario Cuomo, who rarely ever backed away from progressive economics, Andrew has championed a cookie-cutter economic conservatism that's almost indistinguishable from Northeast Republican governors like Chris Christie of New Jersey.

Take just a few recent headlines about Cuomo's economic agenda:

"Cuomo Vows Offensive Against Labor Unions" -- New York Times, 10/24/10

"Gov. Andrew Cuomo: 'No new taxes, period'" -- Associated Press, 1/1/11

"Cuomo Taps Wall Street" -- Institutional Investor, 2/28/11

"Cuomo Will Seek to Lift Ban on Hydraulic Fracturing" -- New York Times, 6/30/11

"Cuomo's Budget Proposed New York Budget Would Make Deep Cuts in School Aid, State Agency Budgets" -- Syracuse Post-Standard, 2/1/11

"Cuomo budget would limit drug choices for poor, raise costs for elderly" -- Buffalo News, 3/4/11

So while wealthy elite columnists like Maureen Dowd insist that Cuomo has created a "Utopia on the Hudson" and as former Clinton administration officials tout him as the Democrats' 2016 presidential standard-bearer, on kitchen-table blue-collar economic issues that these elites never have to worry about, Cuomo is governing the most economically unequal state in America as a devoted arch-conservative. Indeed, so far to the right is Cuomo on these economic issues that billionaire and sometime Republican Mayor Michael Bloomberg is publicly reaming the governor for his budget proposals.

No doubt, Cuomo is thrilled about the reaction to his brand of Northeastern Republicanism; after all, if he has created a "utopia on the Hudson," it is most certainly a political one for himself. With his economic policies, he gets to coddle corporate interests for the purposes of raising future campaign cash. Meanwhile, his position on social issues lets him tell Democratic voters that he's a great liberal champion because he supports gay marriage -- a cause that's perfect for his formula because it doesn't offend, challenge or economically undermine his corporate benefactors in any significant way. In the end, Cuomo comes out of the whole transaction looking like some sort of brave and innovative "independent."

Cuomo, a lifelong politician, knows that the elite New York media and donor class, a group dominated by the very wealthy, will help him with this sleight of hand. He realizes, for instance, that the New York elite media that trumpets him as a great liberal for his gay marriage position will largely ignore the fact that, like a hard-core energy-patch Republican, he bowed down to the fossil fuel industry just days after the gay marriage bill was signed.

In short, Cuomo knows that many of the wealthy elites who control our political discourse define acceptable blue-state "liberalism" as the standard Northeastern Republicanism of "social liberalism and economic conservatism" because that serves that elite's specific cultural and financial self-interests.

As former longtime New York Democratic legislator Richard Brodsky writes, this is all part of a grand strategy -- and one with significant downsides for the cause of economic justice (emphasis added):

[Cuomo's strategy] is shrewd and insightful -- maybe. He has adopted the economic policies of the Right, but is aggressively supporting the liberation and identity struggles of the Left. He is carefully courting the leaders of New York's many religious, ethnic and language minorities, and has made enactment of a gay marriage bill a top priority.

Cuomo exercised considerable muscle to get it done, with Democrats falling in line and Republicans preparing to trade enough votes for other things they want. He's betting that a true human rights victory, and an important one, will allow him to reclaim the liberal mantle his father fashioned and wore for so long, no matter what his economic policies are.

To put it in the Wall Street terms that Cuomo and other super-rich New Yorkers can understand, the governor is essentially shorting the Democratic Party base, betting that it's too disorganized, too stupid or too gullible to see what he's up to.

To be sure, gay marriage is a hugely significant progressive cause, and Cuomo's signing of New York's gay marriage bill was a big progressive victory (though certainly not an act of great political courage for a Democrat in a blue state where polls show strong support for gay marriage). And make no mistake, Cuomo's political strategy mixing social liberalism and economic conservatism may be a shrewd electoral tactic. After all, he's operating within a Democratic Party that, according to polls, largely supports a Democratic president who has perpetuated and often expanded Republican wars and civil liberties policies all while giving away the store to Wall Street. So he's certainly making an informed wager.

But as Brodsky says, at least for clarity's sake, it's important to step back and realize that Cuomo's agenda does not make him "the most important progressive leader" of the Democratic Party. It makes him the most important Republican leader of the Democratic Party.

David Sirota is a best-selling author of the new book "Back to Our Future: How the 1980s Explain the World We Live In Now." He hosts the morning show on AM760 in Colorado. E-mail him at ds@davidsirota.com, follow him on Twitter @davidsirota or visit his website at www.davidsirota.com. More: David Sirota

Originally Published: Salon

Here's a debt reduction plan: Collect billions from tax cheats

Thu, 30 Jun 2011 17:53:00 EST

One niche industry helps taxpayers avoid paying taxes altogether. Between 1 million and 1.5 million Americans are believed to have undeclared offshore accounts where untaxed income is hidden and accessed through credit and debit cards, said David Callahan, a senior fellow at Demos, a liberal research and advocacy group in New York.

Others hide money in phony offshore companies under the guise of payments for business services.

Callahan said the Taxpayer Bill of Rights made it easier to cheat by requiring the IRS to show evidence of intent to prove tax evasion.

"Sophisticated people know that if you cheat on your taxes and get caught, you're going to have to pay the money back. But if you say 'I lost my receipts,' 'I didn't understand how the deductions work,' you're off the hook," Callahan said, with "a slap on the wrist."

Originally Published: McClatchy

Andrew Cuomo is on Quite the Roll

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 11:54:00 EST

My earliest memory of Andrew Cuomo was in 1982, when he was an adviser to his father Mario's successful campaign for the state house. Bill Haddad was the manager. The younger Cuomo suffered from a bad back at the time and I have a picture of him in my mind, lying on a rug in the dingy campaign headquarters on the West Side and participating in discussions.

You could tell then that politics was in the young man's DNA. And he proved it in the just completed January-to-June session of the Legislature, his first as governor.

You have to hand it to him. He was highly successful. He passed much of his agenda -- quite a feat for a freshman governor.

Andrew Cuomo grew up middle class in Queens. It's hard to pin a label on him. Like his father, he has political fire in his belly.

Certainly his accomplishments so far are most impressive: the gay marriage law and an on-time budget that closed a $9-billion deficit. Also, he bit the bullet, cutting health care and education costs and pledging to end fiscal insanity. This hardly pleased the unions that have been a bulwark of both Cuomos' political strength -- but Cuomo insisted it was vital to the state's future.

He won ethics reform, involving greater disclosure of legislators' outside income. But the new law falls short of having enough enforcement machinery. The new governor won an extension of rent control.

Eliot Spitzer promised to be "a steamroller" in his first months in office. Instead, he had to resign after a prostitution scandal. So far, Cuomo has proved to be the steamroller that Spitzer wasn't.

One longtime liberal voice in Albany, former Assemblyman Richard Brodsky of Westchester, takes a severe view of Cuomo's first months. He thinks Cuomo, who says he hasn't shut the door on running for president in 2016, is playing two sides in the political game. On the one hand, says Brodsky, he has proved to be a liberal by leading the drive for a gay marriage law. But Cuomo, says Brodsky, has also appealed to conservatives by his fiscal austerity in the fields of health and education.

Brodsky thinks it could be a prescription for running for president. Says Brodsky: "You could call him a 'conliberal' -- that is, a cross between a conservative and a liberal."

Yet George Arzt, a political consultant who has watched the political scene since the days of Governor Nelson Rockefeller, says: "The governor's accomplishments are impressive. He's had the most auspicious beginning of any governor in my experience." He calls Cuomo a "pragmatist."

When asked Monday whether he was shutting the door on running for president in 2016, Cuomo said simply: "No."

That could provide fuel for pundits and analysts for possibly the next five years. Yet Cuomo will put that subject on hold. As an old pro, he knows he has to concentrate on state business and the national campaign of 2012, lest he turn off voters.

Most likely, he'll he invited to a lot of political dinners around the nation and bide his time until the 2016 season rolls around.

Originally Published: NBC Nightly News

'Countdown' announces more regular contributors

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 15:41:00 EST

David Shuster will be guest host when Keith Olbermann is unable to be in-studio, says a release. Show regulars will include Matt Taibbi, John Dean, Heather McGhee, Jeremy Scahill, Donald Sutherland and other “notable policy-makers, thought leaders, journalists, comedians, activists and other progressive voices.” || Politico.com: Olbermann, Glenn Beck start over on smaller, riskier TV platforms. || “We’re in this for the long haul,” says Olbermann. || “The Current TV release is after the jump.

Press release

CURRENT TV’S “COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN” ANNOUNCES DAVID SHUSTER AS GUEST HOST; TAPS KEY CONTRIBUTORS MATT TAIBBI, HEATHER MCGHEE, JOHN DEAN, MAYSOON ZAYID, DONALD SUTHERLAND AND MORE TO LEND THEIR VIEWS AND VOICES AS A REGULAR PART OF THE “COUNTDOWN” LINE UP

SHOW PREMIERES MONDAY, JUNE 20 AT 8 P.M. ET

NEW YORK – June 17, 2011– “Countdown With Keith Olbermann,” the highly-anticipated weeknight commentary show slated to launch on independently owned Current TV on June 20th at 8PM ET (replayed at 11 p.m. and 2 a.m. ET) announced today that veteran television anchor David Shuster will serve as the primary guest host for occasions when Keith Olbermann is unable to be in-studio, as well as an additional number of regular contributors, which include notable policy-makers, thought leaders, journalists, comedians, activists and other progressive voices.

Lending their views and voices to “Countdown” on a regular basis will be Rolling Stone journalist Matt Taibbi; John Dean, Former White House counsel to President Richard Nixon; Heather McGhee, Director of the Washington office of Demos, a non-partisan policy center; Jonathan Turley, law professor at The George Washington University School of Law; comedian and activist Maysoon Zayid; Kate Sheppard, Mother Jones energy and environmental reporter and investigative journalist and author Jeremy Scahill. Actor Donald Sutherland and Derrick Pitts, Chief Astronomer and Planetarium Director for the Franklin Institute will also regularly appear on the program. Mr. Pitts, like previously announced Countdown contributor Ken Burns, will be contributing non-political elements to the show.

“Once again I have the pleasure of welcoming home so many old friends to this medium’s new primary network for progressive news, and am delighted they’ll be helping me defend Freedom Of Television,” said Olbermann, Current TV’s Chief News Officer.

These contributors join other “Countdown” contributors who were previously announced (press release available here).

Originally Published: Poynter Online

Winship to run unopposed in WGAE race

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 13:19:00 EST

Writers Guild of America East president Michael Winship is running unopposed for a third two-year term in the post.

Winship, a former senior writer for "Bill Moyers Journal," was first elected to a two-year term in September 2007 over Tom Phillips and became part of the WGA's negotiating team about a month before the guild launched its 100-day strike against the congloms. He was re-elected unopposed in 2009.

The WGA East made the announcement Thursday as part of disclosing the nominees for its council race. The New York-based WGA East, which reps about 4,000 scribes, has set its annual membership meeting for Sept. 15 and usually announces results the next day.

Winship is co-editor of the upcoming book "Bill Moyers Journal: The Conversation Continues." Winship has won an Emmy along with two WGA Awards for commentaries written with Moyers.

The WGA West, which negotiates jointly with the WGA East on the master contract covering feature and TV work, is expected to announce its candidates next week.

The WGA East announced Thursday that councilmembers Jeremy Pikser and Matt Nelko are seeking the VP slot, currently occupied by Bob Schneider.

And Schneider is running unoposed for the Secretary-Treasurer post, currently occupied by Gail Lee.

The 14 candidates for the six open freelance seats are Robert Levi, Leslie Nipkow, Henry Bean, Tom Jennings, Bernardo Ruiz, Elliott Kalan, Daryn Strauss, Courtney Simon, Bonnie Datt, Michael Kantor, Richard Vetere, Susan Kim, Jenny Lumet and John Marshall. Kim and Simon are incumbents.

The four candidates for the three open staff seats are Gail Lee, Duane Tollison, Sue Brown McCann and Phil Pilato.

Originally Published: Variety

Panel: Struggling Middle Class Helped Most By Education

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 11:32:00 EST

The best long-term assistance to Michigan's struggling middle-class, especially young persons aspiring to get better paying jobs, is to boost focus on education, a panel said at a program hosted by the Michigan League for Human Services on Thursday.

Investment in other programs, such as infrastructure repair and putting a greater focus on better directing individuals to areas where there are jobs, are also needed to help put an immediate boost into job growth, panel members said.

But in terms of building long-term wealth for the state, a greater focus has to be on getting more people educated with college degrees, panel members said.

Dave Waymire, of Martin Waymire Advocacy Communications, speaking on behalf Michigan Future, said even blue-collar and skilled trades workers who do not have college degrees fare better in the states that have the highest level of college-educated residents.

Tamara Draut, with the New York City-based research and advocacy group Demos, said the middle class has struggled tremendously in the last 30 years.

When adjusted for inflation, persons between age 25 and age 34 made an average of $34,112 a year in 1985 in Michigan, and that has fallen to $30,600 in 2010, she said.

Just looking at men's income, the change was more stark, she said, as average incomes, adjusted for inflation, fell from more than $47,600 to $35,000.

In terms of what state residents pay in annual college tuition, the average in Michigan has increased from $7,300 in 2004 to $10,170 in 2010, she said. That compares to average tuition nationally of $5,900 in 2004 to $7,605 in 2010. The increase is tuition is contributing significantly to a large number of college dropouts, she said.

Charles Ballard, an economics professor at Michigan State University, said the primary reason for tuitions being forced so much higher is a cutback in state support for universities. Just at MSU, the share of state spending towards total university funding has gone from 78 percent in 1960 to about 28 percent in 2010.

He too said improving overall education attainment is critical to building overall wealth in the state. In Massachusetts, which has the highest number of people with college degrees, the per capita state income is 127 percent of the national per capita income while in Michigan the per capita income is 86 percent.

Sam Singh with the New Economic Initiative, and a candidate for the House, said, however, specifically dealing with youth employment there are a number of factors that affect the ability of younger people to get work.

One is the shift in demographic profiles, as older people are working longer and taking many of the jobs that in the past would go to younger people. A lack of good mass transit, especially in the Detroit area, also hurts the ability of younger people to get to jobs.

And, ironically, he said, increases in minimum wage also hurt the ability of younger people to get jobs.

But jobs are available in the state and a major problem the state faces is doing a better job of making the connections of what jobs are available to the kinds of training offered students, he said.

Governor Rick Snyder has also called for improving that training-to-jobs demand connection as part of a special message to the Legislature he intends to send in the fall.

But Mr. Singh said it is critical for the state to put greater investment into education at all levels. And he said the state should restore the Michigan Promise Scholarship in some form for college students. Restoring the scholarship does not have to come in the form of actual payment to students, he said, suggesting the state could forgive its loans to a student if the student stays in Michigan for a number of years after graduation.

Ms. Draut said nationally, efforts have to be made to reinvest in the middle class. While factors like globalization have affected economies worldwide, she said, other nations have seen less of an effect on the middle-class because those nations engage in support for child care services, have higher minimum wages and provide greater support for college training.

And Mr. Ballard said even after the state suffered dramatically during the recent economic downturn, it still has a large number of resources concentrated in wealthier individuals.

Nationally, he said, if income distributions were at the same level that they were in the 1950s and 1960s, then the top 1 percent of the wealthiest Americans would have $1 trillion less and the middle class would have $1 trillion more in resources.

"That's not chump change," he said.

Originally Published: Gannet News

WGA East Briefs Capitol Hill on Internet Issues

Wed, 15 Jun 2011 11:58:00 EST

The WGAE reinforced its key positions on those issues: The WGAE supports net neutrality; the WGAE opposes Internet piracy; the WGAE does not believe an open Internet will encourage piracy, and the WGAE strongly supports the proposed PROTECT IP Act.

Members of the Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE), led by WGAE President Michael Winship and Executive Director Lowell Peterson, went to Capitol Hill yesterday to hold a briefing on the Internet. The group of about ten television, news, and web writers addressed issues including net neutrality and Internet piracy.

"A free and open Internet presents infinite possibilities for content creators [and citizens]," said Winship in a statement. "It is critical that the potential of the Internet and other digital media - their diversity, accessibility, competitiveness and imagination - not be stifled by multinational corporate behemoths that would restrict access for their own commercial use."

Peterson reiterated this point as well.

"The Internet remains a true meritocracy. A video becomes popular because it's entertaining, not because Sony's boardroom decided to shove it into 3,000 theaters," said writer Tom Ruprecht.

"Residual payments from my past TV work support me in between jobs," said writer Gina Gionfriddo. "When people pirate my shows it actually takes money out of my pocket" by reducing DVD sales and legal downloads.

Originally Published:

Why Raising the Retirement Age Is a Lousy Idea

Tue, 14 Jun 2011 14:45:00 EST

One proposal for cutting the federal deficit that has received support from Republicans and Democrats alike is raising the retirement age. Sen. Richard Shelby, R.-Ala., even favors periodically increasing it "every few years."Labor economist Teresa Ghilarducci argues persuasively that this is a terrible idea:

Raising retirement ages is not a good policy and support for it is based on two wrong assumptions: one, that people can and should work longer and, that two, society cannot afford to pay for retirement because pensions and health care spending for the elderly take too many resources away from younger people.

She also makes this vital point in rebutting the blithe assertion that, with people living longer, it's only natural that people put off retirement: Shrinking pensions and patchy health care coverage is already forcing people to retire later.

Research suggests that employees who earned between $31,200 and $72,500 will have to work to age 72 to have a 50-50 chance of having enough money to cover their basic retirement needs. Those with income of $11,700-$31,200 will have to work until 76. Only people earning more than $72,500 have a 50 percent of quitting work at 65 (the age at which a person born in 1937 or earlier many collect full Social Security benefits) and being able to afford their golden years.

The myth of generational warfare

Ghilarducci also notes that withholding retirement benefits is a poor way to cut government old-age spending. For instance, older Japanese men work more than their peers in other developed economies, yet still have higher projected pension costs than those of American retirees.

Why is it mistaken to assume that, as is commonly heard claim in debates over protecting the solvency of Social Security, the current level of pension and health care benefits for the old somehow rob the young? Simply because there's little hard evidence that it does, she says. By contrast, Ghilarducci found in a survey of 58 countries that public spending on such programs doesn't curb government benefits for younger people.

Hard work, tired backs

Another reason to oppose raising the retirement age - it's not fair to workers in physically demanding jobs, such as janitors, plumbers, construction workers, carpenters, cashiers and cooks. In the U.S., that encompasses one in three employees over age 58, or roughly 9 million Americans. Mounting economic insecurity in recent years adds to the burden of later retirement for blue-collar workers, who tend to pay into Social Security for a longer period of time because they start working earlier. Ghilarducci says:

Though many Americans, especially professional workers, can control when they stop working, most workers leave their job before they plan to because of layoffs and health problems. Though a greater share of older Americans are working longer or looking for work than in the last 30 years, the evidence suggests that older workers are increasing their labor force participation because pensions as a source of safe and secure retirement income is eroding not because employers have made jobs more attractive, better paid, and easier to do.

This country clearly faces serious fiscal challenges (although thethreat to Social Security is overblown). But glib pronouncements about the virtues of working into old-age ignore the harder truth that for many people, postponing retirement is a hardship. The issue requires far more study than many of our political leaders seem willing to give it.

Chart courtesy of Demos

Originally Published: bnet.com