Trump’s Replacement for Janet Yellen as Fed Chair Should Follow Her Lead, Economists Say
Trump’s Replacement for Janet Yellen as Fed Chair Should Follow Her Lead, Economists Say
Not everyone was so optimistic in Powell. Sam Bell—a research adviser at Fed Up, a campaign to encourage the central bank to keep interest rates low, as Yellen did—also criticized the Powell pick...
Not everyone was so optimistic in Powell. Sam Bell—a research adviser at Fed Up, a campaign to encourage the central bank to keep interest rates low, as Yellen did—also criticized the Powell pick.
Read the full article here.
AFT’S $2.6 Million Bayou State Pay
Tuesday’s Dropout Nation analysis of American Federation of Teachers’ 2014-2015 financial disclosure to the U.S. Department...
Tuesday’s Dropout Nation analysis of American Federation of Teachers’ 2014-2015 financial disclosure to the U.S. Department of Labor certainly offered plenty of insight on how it is buying influence on the national level. But the nation’s second-largest teachers’ union’s applies its influence-buying most-fervently on behalf of its locals, especially in big cities that are the battlegrounds in the battle over the reform of American public education. This is especially clear in Louisiana, where the union has spent $2.6 million to oppose the reforms in New Orleans and the rest of the state that run counter to the union’s very mission.
Since the damage from Hurricane Katrina (and the longstanding failures of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to ensure that levies surrounding the city could stand up to potential disaster) a decade ago, the Crescent City has become the epicenter of one of the nation’s most-important systemic reform efforts. Thanks to the Louisiana state government’s takeover of failing schools run by the Orleans Parish district, and the move to transform them into charter schools (as well as open new ones), New Orleans has now become the model of sorts for expanding school choice. Charter schools serve 79 percent of the city’s children (as of 2012-2013), according to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools.
The transformation hasn’t been perfect by any means. There is still lingering anger among residents over how the state essentially implemented the reforms without their input. The quality of public education, though improved, is still nowhere near it should be, especially in Orleans Parish-run schools. As the Center for Reinventing Public Education also points out, the need for building out the infrastructure for families to exercise choice in informed ways also remains; this includes addressing transportation issues that result in kids traveling for as long as two hours from one part of town to another just to go to school.
All that said, the results for kids have been amazing. As Tulane University Professor Doug Harris determined in his assessment of public school performance in New Orleans, the improvements in student achievement were greater than those made by traditional districts in other cities and even better than those that could be achieved by tactics traditionalists tend to tout such as class-size reduction schemes. This is good for kids in the Crescent City and for their families, who have been subjected to the abuse of both the educational and criminal justice systems of the Bayou State for far too long.
None of this is good news to the ears of AFT, its Crescent City local, United Teachers New Orleans, or the Louisiana Federation of Teachers, the union’s state affiliate. After all, if children in New Orleans are getting higher-quality education through a Hollywood Model style of delivering teaching and curricula, than there is no need to keep the obsolete traditional district model upon which AFT (along with National Education Association) derive its influence and ideology. As it is, charters have become the dominant players in cities such as Detroit, and Washington, D.C., in which AFT operates. Given that unlike NEA, AFT has little penetration in suburbia, propagandizing against growth of charters in New Orleans — along with stopping the expansion of choice — is critical to the union’s long-term survival.
It also about the cold hard cash and power of its local. Before Katrina, UTNO had a stranglehold over education policies and practices within Orleans Parish, and had the ability to forcibly collect dues from 7,500 teachers and other employees working for the district. But with all but a smattering of schools still operated by Orleans Parish — and charter schools having the ability to not bargain with the union if they so choose — UTNO no longer has the bodies or the money necessary to oppose systemic reform. Some 1,000 teachers and others now likely make up the union’s rank-and-file, 87 percent less than the numbers on the rolls a year before Katrina reached landfall. This, in turn, isn’t helpful to AFT, whose own revenue is derived from the per-capita tax collected from every teacher and school employee compelled to pay into its units.
But AFT isn’t just concerned about New Orleans alone. After all, the Bayou State has been among the foremost states in expanding school choice and advancing systemic reform. This includes outgoing Gov. Bobby Jindal’s successful expansion four years ago of the state’s school voucher program, which now serves 7,400 children attending 141 private and parochial schools. Eight seats on the Bayou State’s Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, which oversees the department run by Supt. John White, are also up for grabs. There’s also the possibility that the Recovery School District, which oversees systemic reform in New Orleans, could also end up taking over failure mills in Baton Rouge and other cities. Particularly in Louisiana’s capital city, just 50 percent of kids attending traditional public schools there met proficiency targets in 2013-2014.
Another hotbed, until recently, was Jefferson Parish, whose board was under the control of a reform-minded majority. Back in 2012, the board decided to ditch its contract with AFT’s Jefferson Federation of Teachers and negotiate for a deal that would give the district more flexibility in operation. This didn’t sit too well with the unit, which then sought national’s help in putting the district back under its thumb.
So AFT has put a lot of energy and money into demonizing Crescent City reform efforts — and stopping reform in the rest of the state.
The union subsidized UTNO to the tune of $134,593 in 2014-2015, four times levels given to the unit during the previous year. At the same time, the union kicked another $59,294 into the organizing project it controls along with the local; the union also paid teachers’ union-oriented law firm Rittenberg, Samuel & Phillips $57,654 to handle a variety of lawsuits, including one filed against Orleans Parish over the layoff of black teachers working in the district before Katrina reached shore. Over the past two years alone, AFT poured $754,878 into propping up UTNO and helping it rebuild its membership.
AFT’s work in New Orleans goes beyond subsidizing UTNO. The union has spent big on events and meetings. This includes dropping $80,490 on meeting space and “reimbursable expenses” at the swanky Loews New Orleans Hotel, $9,840 at the more-humble Homewood Suites, and $7,700 at one of the several Marriott hotels in town. Expect AFT to have dropped even more money this fiscal year for this week’s “Advancing Racial Justice” gathering, which will feature several of the union’s prime vassals, including the Schott Foundation for Public Education, Center for Popular Democracy and the Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools, all of whom are making the trip as condition of being beneficiaries of the largesse the union gets forcibly out of the pockets of teachers. AFT also spent $10,843 on materials printed by Simmons Press, a local outfit, for print materials, paid $7,500 to Lamar Media for billboards, and dropped $17,921 on ads in the Times-Picayune.
But never forget that AFT will play all the political angles. This includes going so far as to attempt to unionize the very Crescent City charters it opposes. The union subsidized its New Orleans Charter Organizing Project to the tune of $244,070 in 2014-2015. As with a similar effort in Los Angeles, AFT hopes that it can get teachers working in charters to forget all the bad things the union says about them and let it collect dues out of their precious paychecks. Lovely.
Meanwhile AFT put plenty of dough into efforts in the rest of the Bayou State. It subsidized Louisiana Federation of Teachers and its various political action funds to the tune of $462,965. While 13 percent less than in 2013-2014, it still means that AFT has sunk $995,790 into the state affiliate over the past two years. The union also paid $20,000 to lobbyist Haynie & Associates for its work at the statehouse. AFT also backed the East Baton Rouge Federation of Teachers and its organizing project to the tune of $222,420, while spending another $10,501 on so-called “Member-related costs” at a Doubletree hotel in the city. In the state’s northeast sector, AFT subsidized an organizing project focused on helping an affiliate in Monroe at a cost of $104,363. In Caddo Parish, where the AFT got involved in stopping an effort to create a new school district, the union put $224,002 into an organizing project there.
AFT’s biggest spend –and best bang for the buck — came in Jefferson Parish, where its local had lined up a slate of candidates to take out the reform-minded majority. The union put down $669,135 to fund a so-called “Committee for School Board Accountability”, which ran adds backing the local’s favored candidates. It also subsidized an organizing project there (which, as you would expect, was partially tied to rallying members to vote on Election Day) to the tune of $186,837. The union also sent paid $23,911 for hotel and meeting space at a Sheraton Hotel in Metairie, where the district’s offices are located, as well as $5,553 for room-and-board at an Extended Stay hotel.
It was money well-spent. By last December, three of the four candidates AFT and Jefferson Federation of Teachers backed won seats, giving the union a five-to-six-seat majority on the nine-member board. AFT President Rhonda (Randi) Weingarten celebrated the victory with a press release as well as two tweets on Twitter. Eight months later, the district struck a new contract with the AFT local, albeit one that is a mere seven pages long (versus 100 pages for the previous deal), and requires teachers to resolve differences with school leaders before going to the union for help. At the end of the day, a contract with the district means dollars that continue to flow into AFT’s coffers. And for the union and its 229 staffers earning six-figure salaries, that’s always a good thing.
You can check out the data yourself by checking out the HTML and PDF versions of the AFT’s latest financial report, or by visiting the Department of Labor’s Web site. Also check outDropout Nation‘s new collection, Teachers Union Money Report, as well as for the collection,How Teachers’ Unions Preserve Influence, for this and previous reports on AFT and NEA spending.
Source: Dropout Nation
Fed Officials Push Back Against Calls to Overhaul Central Bank’s Structure
Fed Officials Push Back Against Calls to Overhaul Central Bank’s Structure
Federal Reserve bank presidents are pushing back against a rising chorus of voices saying the central bank’s century-old structure needs to be overhauled to reduce bankers’ influence over its...
Federal Reserve bank presidents are pushing back against a rising chorus of voices saying the central bank’s century-old structure needs to be overhauled to reduce bankers’ influence over its operations and policies.
Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and the party’s draft platform have echoed calls for change by left-leaning activists, a drive that could gain new attention this week during the party’s convention in Philadelphia.
At issue is the role played by private banks in the Fed’s 12 regional reserve banks, which supervise financial institutions, provide financial services and participate in the central bank’s monetary policy-making.
By law, private banks elect six of the nine members of each Fed bank’s board of directors, choosing three to represent the banks and three to represent the public. The other three are appointed by the Washington-based Fed Board of Governors to represent the public.
Critics say the setup creates an inherent conflict of interest, akin to the proverbial fox guarding the henhouse, and has resulted in too little diversity among the leadership of the Fed system.
“Common sense reforms—like getting bankers off the boards of regional Federal Reserve Banks—are long overdue,” Mrs. Clinton’s campaign said in May.
Fed leaders in recent public comments and interviews have defended the status quo as effective, though Chairwoman Janet Yellen said during congressional testimony in February “it is of course up to Congress to consider what the appropriate structure is of the Fed.”
Meanwhile, regional Fed bank officials have played down the potential for conflict of interest, noting that the directors aren't involved in bank supervision, and the directors who represent private banks don’t participate in choosing the Fed bank presidents. The officials also see value in having close ties to the banking community. Patrick Harker, president of the Philadelphia Fed, said most of the bankers in his district are from small firms, not the big financial institutions that can worry regulators.
“The banker from a small town in Pennsylvania provides incredibly important insight” about local conditions, and “I worry about losing that insight,” Mr. Harker said. He agreed bankers could provide input through advisory groups, but he said having them on his board, meeting every 15 days, provides a level of instant insight into the economy and financial system that would be hard to replace.
William Dudley, president of the New York Fed, told reporters in May, “The current arrangements are actually working quite well, both in terms of preserving the Federal Reserve’s independence with respect to the conduct of monetary policy and actually leading to pretty, you know, successful outcomes” in terms of hitting the Fed’s goals of maximum employment and low, steady inflation.
Another issue for some advocates of change is the regional Fed banks’ status as quasi-public, quasi-private institutions. The Fed board in Washington is a wholly government entity that ultimately oversees the regional Fed banks. But when private banks become members of the Federal Reserve system, they are required to buy stock, and in turn receive dividends from the Fed. So the private banks in a sense own the regional Fed banks, though they can’t transfer or sell the stock.
“It’s pretty indefensible for the Fed to be the only regulatory institution” in the U.S. “that’s owned by the industry it regulates,” said Ady Barkan, of the Center for Popular Democracy’s Fed Up Campaign.
Fed officials say the critics misunderstand the Fed’s ownership structure. Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester said in an interview the quasi-private status of the regional Fed banks helps ensure the independence that is needed for good policy-making in an economically diverse nation. If the regional banks were made fully part of government, she worried, Washington’s power would grow, raising the risk of politics influencing the policy debate.
Ms. Mester said “yes, the banks have stock” in the Fed. “But that’s not owning the Fed in the sense of a corporation, right? It’s making sure that there’s representation from the district as part of the Fed structure,” she said.
Richmond Fed leader Jeffrey Lacker also worried making the regional Fed banks pure governmental entities might promote short-term thinking that would lead to bad policy outcomes.
Fed Up worked with former senior Fed staffer Andrew Levin, now a professor at Dartmouth College, on a proposal to make the Fed banks wholly government institutions, as are the central banks in all the major economies. His proposal also would eliminate the regional Fed board director slots reserved for bankers and have all the directors selected in a public process involving the Washington governors and local elected officials.
Mr. Levin said he’s somewhat mystified Fed officials appear to be rejecting almost all the major reform ideas now being debated. They “might not have much influence on the outcome if they wait too long to engage in the debate,” he warned.
Mr. Harker, the Philadelphia Fed president, worried “there are always unintended consequences anytime you make a change.”
But Mr. Barkan countered “it’s true the system could be made worse than it is now, but we think it could be made better.”
By MICHAEL S. DERBY
Source
Leaders Begin City’s Left Turn With Sick Pay Proposal
New York Times - January 17, 2014, by Michael Grynbaum and Katie Taylor - New York City’s top elected officials said on Friday that they would greatly...
New York Times - January 17, 2014, by Michael Grynbaum and Katie Taylor - New York City’s top elected officials said on Friday that they would greatly expand the reach of a measure mandating paid time off for sick workers, a cherished cause of the national left that had long been resisted by local business leaders.
The plan, a stark show of force by the city’s new liberal establishment, is the first in a series of labor- and immigrant-friendly laws that Mayor Bill de Blasio is expected to champion, including higher pay for employees on many city-sponsored projects.
For the mayor, who has been in office for two and a half weeks, the sick-leave effort carried a potent symbolic weight, offering a chance to show early action on his campaign promise to close the gap between the city’s working class and its elite.
A bill unveiled on Friday would require businesses with five or more employees to provide up to five compensated days off to full-time workers if they, or their family members, fell ill. The benefits would accrue for 360,000 more New Yorkers, and affect 40,000 more employers, than under a weaker version that passed last year, which included only companies with staffs of 15 or more.
The revised measure, which also requires workers be paid on days spent caring for sick siblings, grandchildren and grandparents, would put New York closer in line to more stringent measures enacted in Portland, Ore.; Seattle; and Washington, D.C. It must be approved by the City Council, a likely outcome since Mr. de Blasio helped elect its new speaker, Melissa Mark-Viverito.
In stagecraft and in substance, the announcement amounted to a direct jab from the city’s ascendant liberal leaders at the business-friendly, centrist politicians they have supplanted, who blocked action on a sick-leave measure for years, arguing its requirements would be financially onerous.
“Politics matter, and elections have consequences,” said Letitia James, the city’s new public advocate, in a pointed declaration that earned a broad smile from Mr. de Blasio and loud cheers on a mobbed sidewalk outside a Brooklyn restaurant, where officials introduced the measure.
The event, organized by the mayor’s office, was more like a raucous political rally than a formal news conference. Mr. de Blasio stood before a campaign-style banner featuring the slogan “One New York,” a play on his ubiquitous “tale of two cities” theme. Through loudspeakers, union officials and liberal activists chanted “Si, se puede!” as the mayor, at the lectern, conducted with a wave of his index finger.
“It may have taken awhile, brothers and sisters, but you never gave up the fight,” Mr. de Blasio said as he took the stage, acknowledging grass-roots advocates and council members gathered in the crowd.
“This City Hall is going to be on the side of working families all over this city,” the mayor said.
Liberal groups, led by the Working Families Party, had fought for years to enact sick-leave legislation in New York City, only to be stymied by Mr. de Blasio’s predecessor, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, and the previous Council speaker, Christine C. Quinn, who said businesses were too overburdened to withstand the added requirements.
Mr. de Blasio has long supported sick-leave laws, but he became more outspoken as the issue came to the forefront in the mayoral race, when he started hammering Ms. Quinn, a chief rival for the Democratic nomination, over her refusal to allow a vote on the measure. Under pressure, she eventually allowed a compromise bill to pass the Council. At the time, the city’s leading business groups, who had a sympathetic ear with Mr. Bloomberg, virulently protested the passage of the bill.
Signaling New York’s political turn, those same groups on Friday issued only tepid statements, saying they hoped to work with legislators in shaping the final form of the measure.
In interviews, small-business owners offered mixed reviews when told of Mr. de Blasio’s plans.
Sunny Singh, the manager of Market Deli in Midtown Manhattan, said he employed six workers and was fearful that the requirements would be financially harmful.
“Small businesses, they cannot afford it,” said Mr. Singh, who was overseeing a busy lunch hour, adding that he did not have enough money to pay employees who were unable to come to work. “When they are sick, they don’t get paid. It’s usually like this.”
At a Manhattan branch of the nutrition retailer GNC, Sandra Cesar, the manager, said she believed her six employees deserved the benefits included in the measure. “Everybody is entitled to get sick and get paid for it,” she said.
But Ms. Cesar said she also worried that workers eager to avoid shifts could exploit the measure. “They might take advantage of it,” she said.
In other cities, including San Francisco, where sick-leave laws are already in effect, there have been few reports of businesses forced to close or lay off workers because of the requirement.
In Washington, which passed a law in 2008 requiring even the smallest businesses to provide three paid sick days a year, an audit last year found that the law had not discouraged new businesses from opening, although some local employers reported cutting back on workers’ hours.
Despite the celebratory atmosphere of the event on Friday, Mayor de Blasio and Speaker Mark-Viverito said they would hear out the concerns of business leaders who remain anxious about the measure.
“There is going to be a deliberative process,” the mayor said. “There is going to be an opportunity to hear the voices of small business.”
But Mr. de Blasio added that advocates had already spent several years debating the measure with business groups.
And Ms. James, who as public advocate presides over Council meetings, began her remarks on Friday by pantomiming a roll-call vote on the measure, joking that she would immediately move the bill, and declaring it passed when the council members gathered at the event shouted, “Aye.”
The expanded sick-leave bill would take full effect in April, unlike the measure passed last year, which was set up to be phased in over a period of 18 months beginning in April. And Mr. de Blasio’s plan would remove several provisions included to placate corporate leaders, including a clause that would eliminate the sick-day requirements if the local economy were to erode.
Nancy Alzokari, who works at Danice, a clothing store in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, said the new measure sounded like “a great step.”
A single mother, Ms. Alzokari said she was not compensated for sick days and often looked for a friend to take care of her three children if one of them was ill.
Even if someone becomes sick, she said, “the bills still got to be paid.”
Source
Report Calling for More Oversight to Prevent Charter School Fraud Draws Rebuke
LA Times - March 23, 2015, by Zahira Torres - California lawmakers must strengthen financial oversight of charter schools to stem cases of fraud and mismanagement that have already cost taxpayers...
LA Times - March 23, 2015, by Zahira Torres - California lawmakers must strengthen financial oversight of charter schools to stem cases of fraud and mismanagement that have already cost taxpayers $81 million, according to a new report from several advocacy groups.
The report by the Center for Popular Democracy, the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment Institute and Public Advocates Inc., said state and local leaders rely too heavily on self-reporting through whistleblowers or audits paid for by charter school operators. Local leaders also lack the staff and training to monitor charter schools and identify fraud, according to the report.
But the California Charter Schools Assn. offered a swift rebuke of the report in a two-page statement that said the authors offered dated examples of fraud and did little to prove that systemic problems exist.
The report pointed to cases that revealed $81 million in misused funds at charter schools over the last two decades, but said those do not reflect the true cost to taxpayers because weak financial controls allow fraud and mismanagement to go undetected.
Last year, the Los Angeles County Board of Education revoked the charter for Wisdom Academy of Young Scientists after auditors found that administrators funneled $2.6 million to the former director, her family and close associates.
“Given the rapid and continuing expansion of the charter school industry and the tremendous investment of public dollars, California must act now to reform its oversight system," the report said. "Without reform, California stands to lose millions of dollars as a result of charter school fraud, waste and mismanagement.”
The report said more focus must be placed on the state's 1,000-plus charter schools which received $3 billion in public funding last year.
Charter schools are publicly-funded but privately managed.
The California Charter Schools Assn. released a two-page statement Tuesday questioning the accuracy of the report and the authors' intentions. The group said it agreed that public dollars should be used appropriately, but argued that the report offered few examples of fraud.
In those cases, charter schools closed or made large-scale changes that helped prevent fraud in the future, according to the association.
"While we don't presume to understand the motives behind this report, we do know that California is a state where the charter school sector, authorizers and legislators have come together to put into place real solutions," the group said in the statement.
Recommendations in the report include mandating audits that would be specifically geared toward preventing fraud; requiring charter schools to set up internal risk management programs that would conduct annual fraud risk assessments; ranking charter audits by level of fraud risk and denying requests for new charter schools that do not commit to fraud controls.
The report did not study oversight policies or make recommendations for traditional public schools.
"To assume that there is greater risk at charter schools than school districts, particularly in light of all the real time oversight on financial reports, is simply unfounded," the charter school association said in its statement.
Kyle Serrette, director of education at the Center for Popular Democracy, said many public school systems employ internal auditors and have developed policies to help prevent fraud. But he said public schools should face the same scrutiny.
“There is no proactive system to monitor for fraud, waste and abuse,” Serrette said about the charter schools studied in the report. “California set up a system that prosecutes fraud rather than prevents it.”
He added, "We want to be able to detect the sheep from the sheep in wolves' clothing.”
Source
I'm Still Recovering From Hurricane Maria — & Here's What I Want You To Know
I'm Still Recovering From Hurricane Maria — & Here's What I Want You To Know
For activists like Xiomara Caro of the Center for Popular Democracy, it's all emblematic of a larger trend: that the struggles of Puerto Rico are its own, borne under the indifferent gaze of the...
For activists like Xiomara Caro of the Center for Popular Democracy, it's all emblematic of a larger trend: that the struggles of Puerto Rico are its own, borne under the indifferent gaze of the United States.
Read the full article here.
FEMA acknowledges poor preparation for 2017 hurricane season that devastated Puerto Rico
FEMA acknowledges poor preparation for 2017 hurricane season that devastated Puerto Rico
Julio López Varona, an organizer at the Center for Popular Democracy, told ThinkProgress on Friday morning via email that FEMA’s acknowledgement of the “inadequacy of their response” was a “...
Julio López Varona, an organizer at the Center for Popular Democracy, told ThinkProgress on Friday morning via email that FEMA’s acknowledgement of the “inadequacy of their response” was a “welcome change” but that for Puerto Ricans, the admission may be cold comfort.
Advocacy Groups Call for Closer Scrutiny of Charter Schools
Trib Total Media - October 1, 2014, by Megan Harris - Three groups with union affiliations on Wednesday pointed to the criminal case against ousted PA Cyber Charter School founder Nick Trombetta...
Trib Total Media - October 1, 2014, by Megan Harris - Three groups with union affiliations on Wednesday pointed to the criminal case against ousted PA Cyber Charter School founder Nick Trombetta as an example why the state's nearly 180 charter schools need better oversight and stronger accountability.
The Center for Popular Democracy, Integrity in Education, and Action United of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh issued a report that alleges Pennsylvania charter schools defrauded taxpayers out of more than $30 million. That figure is an aggregate of cases brought by whistleblowers and media exposés, according to the authors.
Pennsylvania Coalition of Public Charter Schools executive director Robert Fayfich said in a prepared statement that “the report draws sweeping conclusions about the entire charter sector based on only 11 cited incidents in the course of almost 20 years, while ignoring numerous alleged and actual fraud and fiscal mismanagement in (traditional) districts over that same time period.”
Trombetta, who investigators allege illegally funneled $1 million from school coffers and deferred taxes on an additional $8 million in personal income, pleaded not guilty to 11 counts of mail fraud, bribery, tax conspiracy and filing false tax returns last year. Hearings are ongoing.
Fayfich said, “Fraud and fiscal mismanagement are wrong and cannot be tolerated, but to highlight them in one sector and ignore them in another indicates a motivation to target one type of public school for a political agenda.”
The groups' report urges state officials to temporarily suspend the approval process for new charter schools, investigate existing ones, and shift from standard audits to forensic audits.
School districts paid more than $853 million in tax dollars to charters serving 128,712 students in 2013-14. Almost 4,000 Pittsburgh students attended 33 charter schools the same year.
Source
US jobless claims at 40-year low: Is the labor market getting better?
The number of Americans applying for new unemployment benefits last week dropped to its lowest point in more than 40 years, signaling that the labor market may be stronger than many economists had...
The number of Americans applying for new unemployment benefits last week dropped to its lowest point in more than 40 years, signaling that the labor market may be stronger than many economists had predicted. But the positive labor numbers do not mean that wage stagnation for those workers who do have a job is likely to end anytime soon.
Initial jobless claims fell last week to a seasonally adjusted 255,000, which is the lowest level since November 1973, the Labor Department reported on Thursday.
Summer is a volatile time for reliable unemployment numbers because it is generally the season that some large car assembly plants close for annual retooling. Because such stoppages don't affect all companies, it's more difficult for the Labor Department to accurately adjust its numbers.
Even with that caveat, Thursday's report points to a growing downward trend of unemployment that indicates a strengthening labor market.
The four-week moving average, which is less subject to weekly fluctuations and a better measure of labor market trends, fell 4,000 to 278,500 last week. The average level of claims has been near that mark since early April.
The numbers are being released as the movement for raising the minimum wage gains ground nationally. With the federal minimum wage at $7.25 an hour, American cities including Seattle, San Francisco, and Los Angeles in the past year have moved to raise their minimum wages to $15 an hour.
On Wednesday, the District of Columbia authorized a petition drive that could put the $15-an-hour minimum wage on the ballot in November 2016 elections. At the same time, a New York panel recommended that fast-food workers at chain restaurants statewide have their wages raised to $15, a move widely expected to be approved by the state's acting labor commissioner.
But that doesn't mean you should immediately march into your bosses' office and demand a raise.
While job growth has picked up and unemployment is continuing its seven-year downward trend, it has not been matched by corresponding wage increases, indicating that the labor market is still predominantly skewed to employers and not workers. Wages have only risen about 2 percent during the past 12 months.
"As an economist watching the economy, we're somewhat surprised that wages pressures have been so muted to this point," IHS Economics senior director Jim Diffley told Reuters. "We do expect an acceleration and in fact think it necessary to continue the recovery."
According to the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, the majority of Americans have faced wage stagnation for the past 35 years, and it is a major factor the rise of family income stagnation and income inequality. Furthermore, the failure of wages to grow highlights gender and racial wage gaps.
United States Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez said that shifting wages out of its stagnation is still a major part of the “unfinished business” of the nation’s economic recovery from the Great Recession.
“The rising tide of this economic wind at our back has to lift more boats,” he told The New York Times.
Optimistic signs of labor market growth have been tempered with a note of caution from the Federal Reserve, which is monitoring labor market conditions, including wage stagnation, to determine whether to raise short-term interest rates.
”While labor market conditions have improved substantially, they are ... not yet consistent with maximum employment,” Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen told members of Congress last week.
Labor groups are calling on the Fed to hold off on rate hikes and focus on pursuing full employment in order to boost both job and wage growth.
“Raising interest rates too soon will slow an already sluggish economy, stall progress on unemployment, and perpetuate wage stagnation for the vast majority of American workers. This harm will be disproportionately felt by women and people of color, who are concentrated in the most vulnerable strata of the workforce,” said a report released by the Center for Popular Democracy and a coalition of labor groups.
Source: Christian Science Monitor
Progress made on community schools initiative
LAS CRUCES - Las Cruces could get its first community school as early as this fall, if a New Mexico State University grant is approved and all of the pieces fall into place. Pending the approval...
LAS CRUCES - Las Cruces could get its first community school as early as this fall, if a New Mexico State University grant is approved and all of the pieces fall into place. Pending the approval of a U.S. Department of Education 21st Century Community Learning Centers grant, which organizers say would help fund an on-site coordinator, Lynn Middle School could be transformed into the district’s first community school.
The initiative is being spearheaded by the SUCCESS Partnership, a collective of Las Cruces nonprofits, education advocates, health and service providers and representatives from the business community. The SUCCESS Partnership is organized by Ngage New Mexico, a Las Cruces nonprofit committed to improving educational outcomes in Doña Ana County.
Susan Brown, an associate professor at NMSU's STEM Outreach Center in the College of Education, helped the group apply for the grant.
The vision is to bring improved access to health and social services, youth and community development and educational opportunities into neighborhoods around Las Cruces by converting each of the district’s 41 school sites into community schools, open to everyone — all day, every day, including nights and weekends.
The community schools project is not an LCPS initiative, Chief of Staff Tim Hand told members of the school board during a presentation on the project Tuesday. The project will rely on the support of numerous community stakeholders and a variety of funding sources.
“We want this for every single school in Doña Ana County,” said David Greenberg, an organizer with Ngage New Mexico.
Soon, organizers will begin working on outreach initiatives to determine the needs of staff, students and parents at Lynn Middle School.
The SUCCESS Partnership will be bringing Kyle Serrette to Las Cruces next week. Serrette, the director of education justice campaigns for the Center for Popular Democracy in Washington, D.C., will give a presentation on community schools from 4 to 6 p.m. Tuesday at the Hilton Garden Inn, 2550 S. Don Roser Dr. The presentation is free, and open to the community.
By Damien Willis
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