Paying for Low-Wage Pollution

Whether it’s half a dozen of one or 6 of another, we continually find ourselves contributing to the socialization labor costs as corporations incorporate poverty wages into their wage compensation schemes.  The article below may look at how Cook County, IL is looking for ways to combat those practices, but I thought it was apropos as food for thought, as you vet those candidates you choose to support with your coveted vote at the ballot box this fall.

---

Economic justice activists are championing laws that shift the costs of toxic poverty wages from communities to corporations.
— by Liz Ryan Murray

Imagine if a corporation set up shop in your community and immediately dumped toxic sludge in your local waterways and buried radioactive waste next to your biggest playground. You and your neighbors, I bet, would demand full compensation from that corporation to pay for the clean-up and public health costs.

You’d have a strong case.

What about corporations that pollute communities not with chemicals, but with poverty wages? The impact can be every bit as toxic, and yet companies that pay low wages get off scot-free. In fact, their CEOs usually get bonuses.

Economic justice activists across the country are fighting back against this outrage. They’re demanding that corporate polluters pay a price for low wages.

In the Chicago area, for instance, Cook County commissioners are considering a bill that would slap fees on corporations employing more than 750 workers at less than the local living wage — currently $14.57 per hour, or $11.66 with health benefits.

Courtesy of National People’s Action

Under this proposed Responsible Business Act, companies would pay the local government $750 per employee each year for every dollar their wages fall below the living wage. The bill would generate an estimated $580 million in the first four years.

Community stakeholders would get a voice in deciding how to spend this revenue to help low-income residents. For example, some of that money might boost health care options, pre-trial services, and housing assistance.

Why not just raise the minimum wage? In an ideal world, it would be the best solution. That’s why “Fight for $15″ campaigns are catching on. Unfortunately, the vast majority of Americans still live in places where wages won’t lift working families out of poverty anytime soon.

Low-wage employer fees provide a good alternative by targeting the large corporations that can afford to pay their workers more, but are choosing to drive low-wage pollution instead. This approach encourages these companies to raise wages while leveling the playing field for the businesses that are already taking the high road.

As long as poverty wages persist, we’ll all pay the price.

Poverty wages leave workers with too little buying power. Local businesses suffer when local people can’t afford to buy their products and services.

And young people suffer, too. Researchers have linked high poverty rates to lower educational achievement and poor health. And poverty wages make high poverty rates inevitable.

Low-income people, especially in communities of color, also face a far greater risk of being arrested and jailed for minor offenses, leaving them with even higher barriers to future economic opportunities.

Who subsidizes these poisonous poverty wages? Taxpayers.

To keep their families healthy and safe, low-wage workers have little choice but to turn to public assistance programs. Reforms like Cook County’s Responsible Business Act could help us recoup some of these costs.

Large corporations are “socializing labor costs,” sums up Will Tanzman of IIRON, the Illinois-based economic and social justice organization that’s part of a growing movement for the Responsible Business Act. One local poll, he points out, shows county residents favoring the bill by a 2-1 margin.

Connecticut activists pushed a similar bill last year. A new law in that state mandates the creation of an advisory board where workers will join employers, public assistance recipients, elected officials, and other stakeholders to develop recommendations for how the governor and state legislators can address the public cost of low-wage work.

Activists and elected officials elsewhere, including Colorado and New York, are also exploring the possibility of applying low-wage employer fees.

These campaigns aren’t about demonizing public assistance. In the richest country in the world, we should have a safety net strong enough to ensure that all our most vulnerable people live in dignity. That ought to be a matter of national pride.

But a system that lets overpaid CEOs underpay workers and then get taxpayers to foot the bill for the damage that results? None of us can take any pride in that.

---

Liz Ryan Murray is the National People’s Action policy director. Distributed by OtherWords.org and cross-posted at Inequality.org

Generational Impacts of Environmental Racism and the Republican Austerity Agenda

For months, government officials in Michigan have been scrambling to address the fallout of the man-made water catastrophe in Flint that poisoned thousands of mostly low-income people of color. This video explores the five most pressing facts about the crisis and what needs to happen next.

Make a difference.  Engage this election season and vote for a change in leadership in Congress.

New Speaker, Same Old Policies

— by CAP Action War Room

Paul Ryan’s Record Indicates We’re In For The Same Broken GOP Policies

Speaker of the House — Paul Ryan (R-WI)

After much chaos and dysfunction, the House of Representatives elected Representative Paul Ryan from Wisconsin to be Speaker of the House. The Republicans have lauded their new Speaker as their “thought leader” who creates the “blueprints” for policies: he was Mitt Romney’s running mate in 2012 and chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. Much of the GOP rhetoric around Ryan’s run for speaker has suggested that he will usher in a new era of moderate, pragmatic, and effective leadership that will be both good for the economy and the American people. Though we hope Ryan can bring sanity to this House of GOP crazies and stop them from holding the government hostage time and again, we’re not holding our breath for a “new day in the House of Representatives.”

Despite GOP rhetoric, the reality of Paul Ryan’s record, including his signature 2014 budget, suggests that his Speakership will be full of the same old, out of touch, extreme Republican policies that undermine working families to help the rich get richer—policies that voters already rejected in the 2012 election. Here are a few reminders of Ryan’s record:

• Bad for low-income families. Ryan tried to paint himself as an anti-poverty crusader, by embarking on poverty tour in 2014 and releasing a report documenting his concerns about poverty. But in reality, Ryan creates policies that cut programs that are vital for working families and blames poverty on personal failures, claiming that it is the result of a “culture problem.” The bulk of the Ryan Budget’s spending cuts—69 percent—come from gutting programs that serve low-income people. And after his 2014 poverty tour, he proposed slashing $125 billion from the
  (SNAP), also known a food stamps, over the next 10 years, and converting it to a flat-funded block grant. He also proposed cuts to Medicaid, a critical program that provides health care to 70 million Americans, including low-income children, seniors, and people with disabilities. And of course, Ryan wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which has provided health insurance for 17.6 million people.
• Bad for seniors. In his 2014 budget, Ryan abandoned the pledge Republicans made to protect anyone age 55 or older from Medicare cuts and instead advocated for forcing seniors to pay more by radically altering Medicare. He also supports turning Medicare into a voucher system, which would increase premiums for traditional Medicare by 50 percent, according to the CBO. Ryan has also attacked one of the other pillars of economic security for seniors: Social Security. Despite the fact that Social Security survivor benefits made it possible for him to pay for his college tuition, Ryan’s 2010 budget cut benefits and privatized a substantial portion of the program, instead of lifting the Social Security payroll tax cap so that the rich pay their fair share of payroll taxes.
• Bad for women. Ryan’s dismal record on women’s issues has earned him a 0 percent score from Planned Parenthood on women’s issues. He has voted numerous times to defund Planned Parenthood and is a leading advocate for personhood bills. And though Paul Ryan used his power to guarantee time with his family despite his Speaker duties, he refuses to support legislation, such as guaranteed paid sick and paid family leave, to help others have this right. Unlike Paul Ryan, no one else has federally guaranteed paid time off for illness, holidays, vacation, or the arrival of a new child. Women usually still most feel the burden of this lack of paid leave. More than 40 percent of mothers have cut back on work to care for family. And as new research shows that boosting women’s earnings helps slow the growth of inequality, it is apparent that Paul Ryan’s extremism hurts not only women, but also the economy.
• Bad for the economy. Ryan’s budgets and rhetoric tout the same failed trickle-down economic theories that have only helped the rich get even richer but leave middle class and working families behind. His budget proposed giving millionaires a tax cut of at least $200,000. And analyses indicate, there is no way to implement Ryan’s tax cuts for millionaires in a deficit-neutral way without raising taxes on the middle class. Ryan also advocates for austerity measures that have never worked and would hurt the economy. And yet, his budget advocates for enormous cuts to investments in education, science, and other programs that benefit the middle class.

BOTTOM LINE: Though we’d like to hope that Paul Ryan’s new title will cause him to reevaluate his policies and support legislation that will actually help working families, his record of damaging polices creates huge warning signs. If Paul Ryan’s reign as speaker is anything like his record, we’re in for another period of GOP extremism that hurts families, seniors, women, and the economy. But now that the chaos has cleared, Republicans in the House of Representatives should take this opportunity under new leadership to pass policies that support working families, rather than the wealthy few.

---

This material [the article above] was created by the Center for American Progress Action Fund. It was created for the Progress Report, the daily e-mail publication of the Center for American Progress Action Fund. Click here to subscribe.  ‘Like’ CAP Action on Facebook and ‘follow’ us on Twitter

With $10.10

On 10/10, 10 Facts About A $10.10 Minimum Wage

—by CAP Action War Room

Friday, October 10th, was National Minimum Wage Day in honor of the efforts by progressives to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour. At $7.25 an hour, today’s minimum wage is worth 30 percent less than the $1.60 minimum wage of 1968. It has been five years since the last increase in the federal minimum wage and nearly three-quarters of Americans support an increase, yet we have seen no progress. Just this morning four former Republican US Representatives announced their support for an increase in the federal minimum wage. The article begins, “When the cost of living goes up, so should wages. It’s common sense.”

Despite the fact that 22 previous increases in the minimum wage have passed through Congress with bipartisan support, Republicans in Congress have tied the issue up in partisan politics, ignoring the needs of their hard working constituents.

To continue with the theme, we’ve put together 10 key facts you should know about raising the minimum wage.

1. Raising the minimum wage would allow 28 million American workers to see their wages increase by a total of $35 billion.
2.  A $10.10 minimum wage would lift approximately 4.6 million workers out of poverty.
3. The country’s GDP would increase by $22 billion over the phase-in period of the increased wage.
4. Over that same period approximately 85,000 jobs would be created.
5. Six million working mothers would see their wages increase and 14 million American children would see an increase in their family’s income.
6. Since the last increase in the minimum wage, prices have skyrocketed: groceries are 20 percent more expensive, a gallon of gas is 25 percent more expensive and tuition at a community college is 44 percent more expensive than it was in 2009 at the time of the last increase.
7. Federal spending on poverty programs, specifically spending on SNAP (formerly known as food stamps) would decrease by $4.6 billion a year.
8. Sixty percent of business owners agree that the federal minimum wage should be increased, and 82 percent of business owners already pay their workers above the minimum wage.
9. More than 600 economists, including seven Nobel Prize winners support raising the minimum wage and argue that it has little to no effect on business.
10. Seventy three percent of Americans support raising the minimum wage to $10.10.

BOTTOM LINE: Raising the minimum wage isn’t just good for workers who earn the minimum wage, it’s good for the American economy. What minimum wage workers need—what the American economy needs—is for lawmakers to put aside partisan politics and get behind creating an economy that works for everyone, not just the wealthy few. The answer is simple: give hard working Americans a wage they can live on. Raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10.

---

This material [the article above] was created by the Center for American Progress Action Fund. It was created for the Progress Report, the daily e-mail publication of the Center for American Progress Action Fund. Click here to subscribe.

Paul Ryan Envisions New, State-Based Castigation Opportunities

Rep. Paul Ryan has released yet another “plan” to fix poverty and the Safety Net.  He’s release a new discussion draft, “Expanding Opportunity in America.” This latest draft proposes a new “pilot project” which he asserts will strengthen the safety net.  He also proposes a number of reforms to the EITC, education, criminal justice, and ‘regressive’ regulation.

Upon releasing the discussion draft, Chairman Ryan made the following statement:  “Hardworking taxpayers deserve a break in this country. Too many Americans are working harder and harder to get ahead, and yet they’re falling further and further behind. Whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat, we can all agree: America deserves better.   “So with this discussion draft, I want to start a conversation. I want to talk about how we can expand opportunity in America. I don’t have all the answers; nobody does. But by working together, we can build a healthy economy and help working families get ahead.”

I can agree that we need much better than Rep. Ryan, who is now proposing state-led pilot programs.  Under his latest rendition, he proposes to consolidate funding for 11 federal programs, including food stamps, housing vouchers, heating aid, child-care assistance and welfare payments into an “opportunity” grant that would be managed at the state level by those opting into his grand experiment.  Participating states could then “experiment” with various methods for delivering services, as long as they meet certain standards defined by Rep. Ryan and his GOP cohorts.  Something tells me execution of this approach will go about as well as executions of death row prisoners have performed of late by Republican governors. As Rep. Ryan envisions our Safety Net should be handled, a “life plan” contract would be developed for each recipient by case managers working for non-profit or for-profit organizations.  I guess he’s proposing to get around “big government” by having private contractors administer any services to be received (the first step in siphoning off monies from those block granted funds, like Haliburton did in Iraq).  At a minimum, each “life plan” contract would be required to include, at a minimum:

• A contract outlining specific and measurable benchmarks for success
• A timeline for meeting those benchmarks
• Sanctions for breaking the terms of the contract
• Incentives for exceeding the terms of the contract
• Time limits for remaining on cash assistance
• A commandment that to receive any benefits at all — “thou shalt work”

Holy crap!  The GOP may talk “small government” — but they certainly don’t walk that talk.  His grandiose plan is going to take some serious bureaucracy, albeit a huge state-level network of private contractors, to get that done.  Just think about it.  It’s like having to hire a whole bunch of parole officers, oops, I mean case managers, who would need to monitor things like parenting skills, substance abuse, finances, living situation, and relationships with friends and family members. Plus—they would need to have authority to castigate those whom might not be in conformance with their “life plan.”  What I see is “overseers” and shaming for the recipients, but I don’t see—is oversight for the castigators. I also don’t see assurances of consistency from state to state, or across audiences of recipients within a state. Ryan claims that states, being closest to the recipients of these programs really do know best what their citizens need.  Really?  Just like they really know who should vote and who shouldn’t?  How long before “Jim Crow-like” permutations begin spreading through the disparate “life plan” contracts being imposed on certain citizens based on race, ethnicity, gender, gender-identity, etc.?  How long would it take before governors like Sam Brownback of Kansas, or Rick Scott of Florida, or Pat McCrory of North Carolina can find ways to channel those grant dollars into the pockets of rich and powerful individuals and corporations across their states instead into programs helping the truly needy? Those funds they’ll be doling out are our Federal tax dollars that, as it is now, are disparately disbursed to States, with Red State taking a larger portion of that bucket of available dollars. If the GOP truly believes those programs should be State-based programs, owned and managed by the States, then they should have the intestinal fortitude to propose eliminating those programs entirely from the Federal budget and tell the States they’ll just need to increase their taxes to fund what they’re willing to provide. Modifying National programs which have been created over time to help those in need in such a way as to victimize and unjustly punish them for seeking help, is flatly contrary to our Nation’s established moral principles.  As far as I’m concerned, it’s well past time to end Mr. Ryan’s tenure as House Budget Committee Chairman.  I’ve had enough, thank you! Know Thine Enemy — Other References:

• Expanding Opportunity in America – Discussion Draft
• Paul Ryan:  War on Poverty–50 years Later
• Paul Ryan: Path to Prosperity FY 15 Budget Resolution
• Paul Ryan: An opportunity to cut poverty – USA Today op-ed
• Expanding Opportunity in America – Chairman Ryan Remarks at the American Enterprise Institute
• The Fiscal Times: Paul Ryan’s State-Based Poverty Plan Could Assure “Two Americas”
• MSNBC:  Paul Ryan unveils new anti-poverty plan
• HuffPost Politics:  In the Name of Protecting Children, the Poor, and the States, the Ryan Budget Does the Opposite

 

If CEOs Can Be Continually Awarded Monster Increases, It’s Definitely Time to Raise the Minimum Wage

The Ryan Budget Is a Broken Record of Failed Trickle-Down Economics

By Anna Chu and Harry Stein

For the past three years, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) has been trotting out the same conservative, top-down policies that have failed the nation’s middle- and working-class families, seniors, and the economy. The House Republican budget is built around the tenet that nearly everyone else must sacrifice in order to continue to give billions of dollars in tax breaks to millionaires, big corporations, and Big Oil. At every turn, the House Republican budget reveals its vision of an economy and government that only works for the wealthiest individuals and special corporate interests at the cost of everyone else.

Now for the fourth consecutive year, the House Republican budget proposes dismantling traditional Medicare and slashing investments that drive our economy, all while cutting taxes for the rich and protecting taxpayer subsidies for big businesses and oil companies. The American people have seen this before, and we know how it ends—with millionaires, big corporations, and Big Oil as the only ones who are better off. Everyone else gets left behind, and our economy only gets weaker. Read more.

Grand Bargain or Raw Deal?

Many elderly Americans are close enough to poverty’s edge that Social Security cuts of any size could push them over the brink.

— By Peter Hart

Following the government shutdown drama, politicians in Washington appear hopelessly divided, according to conventional wisdom.

Fair enough. But there’s at least one area where many politicians from both of the major parties agree — and many of the TV talking heads and newspaper pontificators are with them, too. Social Security, they insist, “needs” to be cut.

For the last few years, after a major standoff, the usual Beltway pundits have been talking about something they like to call the “grand bargain.”

That sure sounds like a good thing. Who doesn’t love a bargain? Well, here’s the question you should ask yourself: Who’s actually getting one? It’s more likely than not that the savings aren’t headed your way.

In Washington-speak, a “grand bargain” means some kind of budget deal where everyone is forced to give a little in order to reduce the budget deficit and tackle the country’s debt. To get Republicans to agree to raise more revenue (i.e., taxes), Democrats have to agree to some spending cuts.

As with most things, the devil’s in the details. There’s essentially unanimous Republican opposition to raising taxes on the wealthy. That makes authentic bargaining tough. And on the other side, the cuts are intended for programs like Medicare and Social Security, key elements of the safety net and perhaps the most popular government spending programs.

Medicare and Social Security are remarkably successful in helping keep seniors and others in need out of poverty. But “households relying on (Social Security) for a significant share of their income often live dangerously close to the poverty line,” according to the Economic Policy Institute. That means cuts of any kind could jeopardize their living standards.

Pundits and journalists cheer this talk of a “bargain,” and they praise politicians — especially Democrats — who have the “courage” to back such cuts.

For the past few decades, politicians and pundits have ginned up a “crisis” over Social Security’s finances. At this point, you can say almost anything about Social Security and get away with it.

Right now, yet another wave of scare stories about Social Security has soaked the media. 60 Minutes recently did a segment about the allegedly rampant fraud in the Social Security disability system. But back in reality, disability benefits are difficult to collect, and the program is watched very closely for signs of cheating.

The Washington Post ran a big story about the problem of people collecting benefits for their deceased loved ones. Front-page news in the nation’s capital — but if you read closely, you would discover that we’re talking about 0.006 percent of the checks.

So long as the media can keep churning out this misleadingly alarmist Social Security coverage, more politicians will talk up the idea of “fixing” the program. When you hear them say this, you should know that they mean cutting benefits.

Be on the lookout: When the TV talking heads and politicians all agree that it’s time to strike a “grand bargain” to “protect” or “fix” Social Security, check the fine print. Someone’s getting a bargain, but it’s probably not you.

---

Peter Hart is the activism director of Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting. www.fair.orgCartoon Credit:  Fixing Social Security, an OtherWords cartoon by Khalil Bendib.   Distributed via OtherWords. (OtherWords.org)

Related Posts:

• Proposed Fixes to Social Security, Financial Planning Association
• To Fix Social Security, Some Democrats Want To Lift Wage Cap, NPR 
• 5 Ways To Fix Social Security, Huffington Post
• CEOs Looking To ‘Fix The Debt’ By Cutting Social Security Sit On Huge Retirement Accounts, Think Progress

Putting Some Real Pop in Populism

Washington should do more than the minimum on minimum wage.

— by Jim Hightower

“In the wealthiest nation on Earth,” President Barack Obama declared in his State of the Union speech, “no one who works full-time should have to live in poverty.”

Right! Not only does his call to raise America’s minimum wage put some real pop in populism, but it could finally start putting some ethics back in our country’s much-celebrated, (but rarely honored) “work ethic.”

Kudos to Obama for putting good economics and good morals together — and for putting this long overdue increase on the front burner.

But then came the number: $9 an hour. Excuse me, Mr. President, but that means a person who “works full-time” would nonetheless “have to live in poverty.” Yes, nine bucks is a buck-seventy-five better than the current pay, but it’s still a poverty wage. It doesn’t even elevate the buying power of our wage floor back to where it was in 1968.

This isn’t merely about extending a badly needed helping hand to people struggling to work their way out of poverty, but about letting them give a jolt of new energy to our economy, which it desperately needs.

Ironically, the rich save and the poor spend. While super-rich corporations are hoarding trillions of dollars in offshore accounts and refusing to invest in America, minimum-wage workers invest every extra dollar they get in America — spending it right where they live on clothing, food, health care, and other basic needs.

A 2011 Federal Reserve study found that a one-dollar hike in the minimum wage produces an additional $2,800 a year in spending by each of those households. This is no time to shortchange these workers.

Yes, I know that GOP lawmakers and corporate lobbyists oppose even a $9 wage. But a poll last June found that seven out of 10 Americans (including a majority of Republicans), support raising the wage above $10 an hour. This is a time, Mr. President, to think big and listen to the grassroots.

---

OtherWords columnist Jim Hightower is a radio commentator, writer, and public speaker. He’s also editor of the populist newsletter, The Hightower Lowdown. OtherWords.org

Sequestration Cuts To Education Programs Threaten To Widen Education Gap Between Rich And Poor

— by Adam Peck on Feb 22, 2013 at 6:15 pm

The achievement gap between school districts in high-income neighborhoods and those in low-income ones is already more canyon than crack, and if $1.7 trillion in automatic sequestration cuts are allowed to go into effect on March 1, that gap could grow even wider.

Dozens of education programs would face reduced funding, but three crucial programs — No Child Left Behind, Head Start initiatives, and the Individuals with Disabilities Act — provide the most assistance to low-income students and also face the sharpest cuts if the sequester is allowed to go into effect, as the Center for American Progress’ Juliana Herman and Kaitlin Pennington detailed in a new report:

Altogether, the sequester would cut approximately $725 million from Title I funding, potentially affecting 2,700 schools, impacting 1.2 million students, and placing 9,880 education staff at risk of losing their jobs. […]

Head Start and Early Head Start—a similar program for infants—both work to ensure that parental income does not determine whether a child will be able to learn during these influential years. But should sequestration happen next week, approximately 70,000 children will be kicked out of Head Start due to inadequate funding. […]

If sequestration goes through, funding under the Individuals with Disabilities Act could be reduced by as much as $579 million.

In all, the report estimates, the cuts would impact as many as 1.2 million children, 30,000 teachers and 2,700 schools, the overwhelming majority of which will be from low-income communities.

Recent studies have shown the devastating correlation between income and student achievement. Since the late 1980s, the gap in metrics like college completion between students from high-income and low-income households grew by more than 50 percent.

---

This material [the article above] was created by the Center for American Progress Action Fund. It was created for the Progress Report, the daily e-mail publication of the Center for American Progress Action Fund. Click here to subscribe.