What de Blasio's ID Cards Could Accomplish
WNYC - February 12, 2014, by Mirela Iverac - A day after Mayor de Blasio announced the city would issue municipal ID cards to immigrants who don’t have legal status, advocates praised the move.
Even though those immigrants already have access to many services in New York City, advocates said the development was meaningful.
Back in 2007, New Haven, Conn., became the first city to issue municipal ID cards to immigrants who didn’t have legal status. Latrina Kelly-James, the deputy director at an immigrant advocacy group Junta for Progressive Action, said the benefits have been huge.
“We were able to really bring immigrants out of the shadows, help them open bank accounts, help them report crimes and become more at ease in building community and police relations,” she said.
In New York City, the impact of the card may not be as dramatic. Already, city police can’t inquire about immigration status, and many financial institutions as well as other organizations have flexible identification requirements, accepting foreign passports and consular IDs.
But Daniel Coates, a lead organizer with Make the Road New York, said problems still occasionally arise when immigrants enter local government buildings or interact with the police. “Having something that’s explicitly valid for New York City will go a really long way in strengthening that relationship and making these communities integrate better into the city,” he said.
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Charter Schools Struggling to Meet Academic Growth
Star Tribune - February 17, 2015, by Kim McGuire - Students in most Minnesota charter schools are failing to hit learning targets and are not achieving adequate academic growth,...
Star Tribune - February 17, 2015, by Kim McGuire - Students in most Minnesota charter schools are failing to hit learning targets and are not achieving adequate academic growth, according to a Star Tribune analysis of school performance data.
The analysis of 128 of the state’s 157 charter schools show that the gulf between the academic success of its white and minority students widened at nearly two-thirds of those schools last year. Slightly more than half of charter schools students were proficient in reading, dramatically worse than traditional public schools, where 72 percent were proficient.
Between 2011 and 2014, 20 charter schools failed every year to meet the state’s expectations for academic growth each year, signaling that some of Minnesota’s most vulnerable students had stagnated academically.
A top official with the Minnesota Department of Education says she is troubled by the data, which runs counter to “the public narrative” that charter schools are generally superior to public schools.
“We hear, as we should, about the highfliers and the schools that are beating the odds, but I think we need to pay even more attention to the schools that are persistently failing to meet expectations,” said Charlene Briner, the Minnesota Department of Education’s chief of staff. Charter school advocates strongly defend their performance. They say the vast majority of schools that aren’t showing enough improvement serve at-risk populations, students who are poor, homeless, with limited English proficiency, or are in danger of dropping out.
“Our students, they’re coming from different environments, both home and school, where they’ve never had the chance to be successful,” said April Harrison, executive director of LoveWorks Academy, a Minneapolis charter school that has the state’s lowest rating. “No one has ever taken the time to say, ‘What’s going on with you? How can I help you?’ That’s what we do.”
Minnesota is the birthplace of the charter school movement and a handful of schools have received national acclaim for their accomplishments, particularly when it comes to making strong academic gains with low-income students of color. But the new information is fueling critics who say the charter school experiment has failed to deliver on teaching innovation.
“Schools promised they were going to help turn around things for these very challenging student populations,” said Kyle Serrette, director of education for the New York City-based Center for Popular Democracy. “Now, here we are 20 years later and they’re realizing that they have the same troubles of public schools systems.”
More than half of schools analyzed from 2011 to 2014 were also failing to meet the department’s expectations for academic growth, the gains made from year to year in reading and math.
Of the 20 schools that failed to meet the state goals for improvement every year, Pillsbury United Communities is the authorizer for six of those schools: Dugsi Academy, LoveWorks Academy for Visual and Performing Arts, Connections Academy, Learning for Leadership Charter School, and the Minnesota Transitions Charter School’s elementary, Connections Academy and Virtual High School. Those schools also missed annual achievement gap targets.
Officials with the Urban Institute for Service and Learning, which oversees Pillsbury’s charters, say most of their schools cater to students at risk of dropping out, those who have been kicked out of other schools, and many who are learning to speak English.
“We intentionally work with students that most other people would really not want to work with,” said Antonio Cardona, director of the institute.
Two years ago, Pillsbury closed Quest Academy, a small St. Louis Park charter school that consistently failed to meet state performance goals.
Cardona said Pillsbury would consider closing more chronically low-performing schools, or more likely, adopt new turnaround strategies. They also want to add some high-performing schools to their portfolio so that some of their low-performing schools might be able to absorb successful teaching strategies.
At LoveWorks Academy in Minneapolis, about 85 percent of the school’s students qualify for free and reduced-price lunches. About 13 percent of its students were proficient in math and 12 percent are proficient in reading.
“What success means for me is our students are reaching the top,” Harrison said. “We are going to work until we get there.”
Some charter schools struggle with stability and finding qualified teachers who are the right fit. In one year, about 65 percent of LoveWorks’ teaching staff turned over. Some left on their own accord while others were not offered their job back.
“I think that’s why we’re seeing success now because we have a staff that’s willing to listen and learn and take the coaching,” said Jamar Smith, the school’s arts coordinator.
Just like traditional public schools, the highest-performing charter schools tend to serve students from more affluent families, the analysis shows.
There are some notable exceptions, many of which are noted annually in the Star Tribune’s “Beating the Odds” list, which is a ranking of high-performing schools that serve a large number of poor students. For years, that list has been dominated by charter schools.
“These are schools that have fully utilized the charter school model to do what needs to be done,” Sweeney said. “If a program isn’t working, if a schedule needs to be changed, they have the flexibility to turn on a dime.”
New Millennium Academy, a Minneapolis charter school that serves mostly Hmong students, has hit the state’s benchmarks for improvement every year from 2011 to 2014. In 2013, it was designated a Celebration school, one of the state’s top school designations.
Amy Erickson, the school’s director of teaching and learning, said the school’s improvement is due to a focused effort to help its students who are learning to speak English — about 85 percent of New Millennium’s enrollment.
Among the ways the school has done that is through data-driven instruction. New Millennium tests its students about every six weeks to see how they’re doing. Those who need extra help receive it in small groups.
“Many of our parents don’t read or write English,” said Yee Yang, the school’s executive director. “So we have meetings where we just talk about the importance of education. We want to make sure they’re focused on that, too.”
In recent years, Minnesota has increased its scrutiny of charter schools, particularly organizations that authorize them. Starting in 2015, the state will begin evaluating authorizers. An unsatisfactory rating means an authorizer would lose the ability to create new schools.
The legislative effort has revealed a rift between differing charter groups.
Charter School Partners is supporting legislation that would make it easier for authorizers to close schools that perform poorly.
“We think it’s an inoculation for our charter community,” said Brian Sweeney, Charter School Partners’ director of public affairs.
The Minnesota Association of Charter Schools, which represents about half the state’s charter schools, will oppose any legislative efforts that give authorizers more authority to close low-performing schools.
“It’s the teachers and principals who have a much more direct impact on student achievement,” said Eugene Piccolo, the association’s director. “Not the authorizers.”
Instead, the association is throwing its efforts behind legislative proposals it believes might help level the financial playing field between charters and traditional public schools.
A recent report commissioned by Charter School Partners shows that Minneapolis Public Schools receives about 31 percent more in funding per pupil than the average Minneapolis charter school. St. Paul Public Schools receives about 24 percent more per pupil.
Charter school supporters say the model continues to evolve.
“Twenty years ago when charters began in Minnesota, it was 1,000 flowers blooming. Let’s experiment. Let’s innovate. Let’s see what works” Sweeney said. “Nobody ever thought it was to have schools last forever that are failing. So there’s a national move to improve the sector and I think we need to do that here in Minnesota.”
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How Can We Combat Wage Theft And Protect Immigrant Workers?
How Can We Combat Wage Theft And Protect Immigrant Workers?
Every year, millions of workers suffer from wage theft when employers or companies do not pay them what they are owed. Wage theft, which costs America’s low-wage workers an estimated $50 billion...
Every year, millions of workers suffer from wage theft when employers or companies do not pay them what they are owed. Wage theft, which costs America’s low-wage workers an estimated $50 billion each year, comes in different forms. An employer could keep customer tips instead of paying them out to workers, force employees to work off the clock without compensation, or illegally deduct the cost of uniforms or work tools from employees’ paycheck.
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Immigration reform advocates rally in Lehigh Valley before heading to Washington, D.C.
Lehigh Valley Live - April 10, 2013 - Waving American flags and carrying handmade signs, Lehigh Valley residents and workers rallied for immigration reform this morning in...
Lehigh Valley Live - April 10, 2013 - Waving American flags and carrying handmade signs, Lehigh Valley residents and workers rallied for immigration reform this morning in Salisbury Township. Speaking in Spanish, about 40 people chanted "What do we want? Justice! When? Now!" and shared stories of their experiences as undocumented immigrants living and working in the region.
The Lehigh Valley Campaign for Citizenship demonstration outside U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey's office included representatives from local labor unions and kicked off the group's bus trip to Washington, D.C. There, they'll meet with Pennsylvania's Congressional legislators -- Sens. Toomey, R-Pa., and Bob Casey, D-Pa., plus U.S. Rep. Charlie Dent, a Republican whose district includes parts of Northampton and Lehigh counties. They'll join thousands of other immigration reform advocates in a march on the Capitol.
A clear, short path to citizenship, the preservation of families, the protection of workers' rights and the rejection of measures that would increase deportation are all key components of comprehensive immigration reform, according to Max Cohen, a Center for Popular Democracy spokesman who helped organize today's event.
When Jasmine Leonor's father, Reyes Leonor, was arrested on unspecified charges, jailed and targeted for deportation to Mexico, she, her mother and siblings were left in limbo, the 16-year-old Liberty High School student said.
They didn't know when or if Reyes Leonor would be allowed to return home to run his business, El Mariachi Mini Market in Bethlehem, she said. The teen fought back tears as she described her family's fears during that time and their continued frustration with the system that led to his detainment.
Reyes Leonor avoided deportation and is back home, but said the experience motivated him to join the fight for immigration reform. He spoke passionately about how important it is for immigrants and others to step up and join this cause.
"I was able to do it. Everyone needs to fight for their rights. Everyone needs to fight to stay here," Reyes Leonor said. "We have to fight to get what we get. We have to fight like warriors."
The nation's current immigration policy puts an unnecessary strain on families and wastes money on the deportation of people who are hardworking, law-abiding and looking for their slice of the American dream, demonstrators said. The messages on some of their signs -- "Keep Families Together: Immigration Reform Now" and "Stop Deportation, Stop Separation" -- highlighted that point.
Tatiana Tooley, a U.S.-born Allentown resident whose parents emigrated from Panama, said, "I cry for the families that don't have family unity" because of deportation.
Dennis Hower, president of Teamsters Local 773, said immigration reform would protect all laborers from exploitation by unscrupulous employers. When undocumented immigrants are underpaid, paid off the books or forced to work excessive hours, it undermines the rights of everyone in the workplace, he said.
"For us, it's a matter of fairness and doing what's right for all workers," said Hower, who is a Whitehall Township commissioner.
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Fed Officials to Meet With Activists Ahead of Jackson Hole Conference
Fed Officials to Meet With Activists Ahead of Jackson Hole Conference
When Federal Reserve officials gather for the Kansas City Fed’s high-profile policy conference in Jackson Hole, Wyo. this week, some of them will start with an unprecedented event.
On...
When Federal Reserve officials gather for the Kansas City Fed’s high-profile policy conference in Jackson Hole, Wyo. this week, some of them will start with an unprecedented event.
On Thursday, eight central bankers, among them Fed governor Lael Brainard and New York Fed President William Dudley, will meet with and answer questions from about 120 activists from the Campaign for Popular Democracy’s Fed Up Campaign, a left-leaning group working to change the way the powerful central bank works.
The meeting marks a turn for the invitation-only Jackson Hole symposium, which draws top central bankers and economists from around the world to discuss monetary policy issues behind closed doors. Though journalists cover the proceedings and Fed officials give press interviews on the sidelines, this is the first time the Kansas City Fed, which hosts the event, has organized a public forum for policy makers to meet with their critics beforehand.
“My sense is that we are starting to see real changes, ”said Ady Barkan, leader of the Fed Up campaign. He said he was prompted to launch the effort after realizing how little public attention was focused on the U.S. central bank, which directly affects the lives of U.S. workers, consumers, home buyers, business owners and investors.
Formally launched in 2014, the coalition of policy activists, labor and community groups has lobbied the Fed to keep interest rates very low to ensure the economic recovery benefits all Americans and not just the well off. The group has called for more diversity among the central bank’s predominantly white, male leadership; more openness about how regional Fed bank presidents are chosen and changes in the Fed’s century-old structure to reduce the influence of the banking industry.
Mr. Barkan, a 32-year-old lawyer, recalled wondering how to get the public to care about “the absurdly opaque issue” of Fed policy. He found more interest that he expected. Speaking with community groups, he found “everybody is fascinated, everybody gets the importance of it.”
The group has gained a notable amount of high-level access. Its members met in November 2014 with Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen and several Fed governors, and later with Fed staff. Fed Up members have met with all 12 regional Fed bank presidents, even conducting public events with some, as it did with the Minneapolis Fed’s Neel Kashkari in early August.
The regional Fed bank leaders have largely welcomed their meetings with Fed Up. “I’ve been at the Fed 22 years. When you’ve been at an institution that long it is hard to know how other people view you” and how your policies play out in the real world, San Francisco Fed President John Williams told reporters in July.
“Understanding the perspectives of people outside of financial markets, outside of our own circles—that’s healthy,” Mr. Williams said. “Hearing what I think is supposed to be constructive criticism is healthy.”
Over the past year, Fed Up also has met regularly with lawmakers and their staff on Capitol Hill, held press briefings in front of the central bank’s Washington, D.C., offices and stacked congressional hearings with activists wearing their trademark green shirts.
Among the results: A large number of congressional Democrats and the campaign of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton have echoed Fed Up’s call for barring bankers from the boards that oversee the regional Fed banks and urged the central bank to focus more on promoting job growth. The Democratic legislators have recently expressed concerns over a lack of diversity among Fed leaders.
In congressional hearings in February, House and Senate Democrats peppered Ms. Yellen with more questions than in the past on issues such as inequality, stagnant wages and jobless rates for low-income Americans.
“For black Americans, we’re still in the midst of a very serious depression or recession,” Rep. Keith Ellison (D., Minn.), a member of the Congressional Black Caucus who had met with Fed Up, told Ms. Yellen in February.
When she returned to Capitol Hill in June, Ms. Yellen came armed with data and talking points addressing the diverging economic circumstances between white and black and Hispanic households.
“It’s important for us to be aware of those differences and to focus on them as we think about monetary policy and work that the Federal Reserve does in the area of community development,” she said.
That contrasted with Ms. Yellen’s previous comments that the Fed’s options for addressing the economic troubles of minority groups were limited. Some Fed watchers said her shift in tone suggests policy makers are paying closer attention to such concerns.
The gestures may not seem like much to outsiders, but to people familiar with the Fed—an institution that is slow to change and resistant to criticism—they are viewed as a significant shift.
“It’s kind of monumental to get the Fed to change,” said Sarah Binder, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, noting the creation last year of an advisory council at the Fed focused on the concerns of low-income communities.
That said, a number of the Fed bank presidents have argued against the structural reforms Fed Up is advocating. In May, Mr. Dudley said “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.”
Atlanta Fed President Dennis Lockhart expressed skepticism about the call for more openness about the selection of regional reserve bank chiefs.
“When it comes to picking new bank presidents, are you going to get that with a completely open process much like an election? I don’t think these are roles that should be filled by public election,” he said.
Fed Up’s funding comes primarily from the Open Philanthropy Project, which provides grants and funds to projects on justice reform, immigration and economics. Open Philanthropy committed $1 million toward Fed Up’s 2016 budget. In 2015 Open Philanthropy donated $750,000 toward Fed Up’s $1.1 million annual budget. Dustin Moskovitz, a Facebook co-founder who left that firm in 2008, is one of the primary sources of Open Philanthropy’s funds.
Some former central bankers worry Fed Up has unreasonable expectations in a world in which central bank policy can’t change economic fundamentals such as long-run growth in productivity, output or wages. They also fret it was the Fed itself, via its response to the financial crisis, that created the perception it has the tools to affect more than short-term fluctuations in inflation and hiring.
Charles Plosser, former president of the Philadelphia Fed, said the Fed officials, through word and deed, “continually raised expectations about what they can do.” And having made the public believe it was more powerful that it actually is, officials “are setting themselves up for exactly this sort of attack” by those who want more out of the Fed.
Former Dallas Fed leader Richard Fisher said he had long warned that ultra-aggressive Fed stimulus policies that he said primarily benefited the rich would end up “stoking the fires of populism.”
The Fed has faced populist critics before. What is different about Fed Up, Ms. Binder said, is it seems to be well-funded and well-organized and have a constructive agenda, as opposed to some groups who have called for abolishing the Fed or limiting its powers.
“They’re kind of working through the system in a way, which is to say, ‘Look, [Congress has told the Fed] to care equally about inflation and jobs—it’s not time to give up on jobs,’” she said.
Corrections & Amplifications:
Rep. Keith Ellison is a Democratic congressman from Minnesota. An earlier version of this article incorrectly said he is a Republican. (Aug. 25)
By Michael S. Derby and Kate Davidson
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Why the Federal Reserve is due for a radical reinvention
Why the Federal Reserve is due for a radical reinvention
The Federal Reserve is a hot topic in the news these days. Usually, the stories revolve around the merits of its decisions: Was quantitative easing a good idea? Should it raise interest rates...
The Federal Reserve is a hot topic in the news these days. Usually, the stories revolve around the merits of its decisions: Was quantitative easing a good idea? Should it raise interest rates again in April? But Andrew Levin, a Dartmouth economist and former aide to Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, thinks our questions need to go much deeper.
On Monday, Levin and the activist campaign Fed Up proposed four major reforms that would radically alter the structure of the Federal Reserve. The reason they cite is compellingly simple: How the Fed works is basically out of whack with what it does today.
The Federal Reserve began around a century ago as a decentralized and private institution aimed at avoiding financial panics and making sure the interactions between the nation's for-profit banks remained stable. Since then, it's basically become a kind of government agency, with a fundamental role in shaping the American economy and the supply of wages and jobs for everyday workers. But the design and governance of the Fed has not kept up with that shift in responsibilities.
To understand why, let's start at the very beginning. Western economies began creating central banks several centuries ago as modern capitalism was first coming into focus, to serve as a "lender of last resort." Private banks could go and borrow from the central bank when times were tight — even if was just for a few days — and that would quell potential financial panics and bank runs. As a result, central banks were generally created by government charters, but as private corporations whose shares were owned by the banks that borrowed from them. "When the Bank of England and some other major central banks were founded, they were viewed as mostly providing services to commercial banks," as Levin explained to The Week.
America's Federal Reserve was created in 1913 under very similar circumstances. A potential financial crisis in 1907 was averted only when J.P. Morgan stepped in to backstop the country's private banks with his own personal fortune. No one wanted a repeat of that, so the Fed was created. It's actually a system of 12 regions, each overseen by a Fed branch bank — there's one in Dallas, in Richmond, in New York City, and so forth — with the private banks owning the shares of whatever Fed bank oversees their region.
More importantly, each regional Fed bank is run by a board of nine directors, six of whom are appointed by the private banking industry. The other three are appointed by the Federal Reserve system's national Board of Governors — a seven-member group appointed by the U.S. president and confirmed by the Senate. Together, the directors appoint a president to run their particular regional bank, rather like a CEO and a corporate board: They set the president's salary, review his or her performance, etc. All nine used to do that, but Dodd-Frank reformed the system in 2010 so that three of the six governors appointed by the private banks no longer play a role in selecting the president.
Over the course of the 20th Century, various developments like the end of the gold standard and the creation of federal deposit insurance diluted the importance of the regional banks as lenders of last resort. At the same time, however, the regional banks found themselves owning large amounts of financial instruments as a result of serving that role. So they created a joint national group to manage all those holdings called the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), and over time it grew in importance. Its decisions are determined by 12 votes: the seven members of the Board of Governors, plus five of the 12 regional presidents. (The 12 presidents rotate through the voting positions, while the other seven sit in on the FOMC but don't vote.)
Today, when we talk about the Fed setting interest rates or meeting to decide monetary policy — which in turn decides the rate of wage growth and the supply of jobs throughout the entire national economy — we're talking about the FOMC. "For all practical purposes, the Federal Reserve today is a public enterprise," Levin said. "It's serving the public. It's making nationally critical decisions."
The problem is the Federal Reserve system was originally conceived of and designed as an add-on to the private banking industry, and that design has remained even as the nature and responsibilities of the Fed have change enormously: "This whole rationale that made perfect sense in 1913 doesn't make sense anymore," Levin said. The result is an institution that, while of enormous import to the public good, is incredibly complex, opaque, and governed with comparatively little input from everyday Americans.
"The Fed, in order to be effective, has to have the confidence of the public," Levin said. But allowing the banks to hold such enormous sway over the decision-making of the institution tasked with both setting national interest rates and regulating the financial system undermines that confidence. Economist Dean Baker analogized it to "reserving seats on the Federal Communications Commission’s board for the cable television industry." Levin himself likened it to allowing criminal attorneys or defense lawyers to select the director of the FBI and set his or her salary and performance review.
So Levin has put forward four major reforms. They're broad, and the details for how they could play out are negotiable, but they're aimed at starting a conversation around the topic.
One is to eliminate private ownership of shares in the Federal Reserve system and make it fully public, but more importantly to completely reform how the nine directors of each regional bank are appointed. This could involve reducing the number of directors, but mostly it would involve selecting them all via the same process, one that brings in all aspects of the community — small businesses, community groups, unions, non-profits, etc. In particular, directors should not come from institutions — i.e. private banks and financial entities — that the Fed system is tasked with overseeing.
The next step would be to make the process by which the nine directors for each region select their president public and transparent. As Ady Barkan, the campaign director for Fed Up, pointed out in a press call, when all 12 regional president slots were up for replacement in February, all 12 were quietly and opaquely re-appointed — even after the Fed Up campaign pressed Fed officials to lay out a system by which the public could participate. The ones for Dallas, Minneapolis, and Philadelphia were all previously associated with Goldman Sachs. St. Louis Federal Reserve President James Bullard once told Barkan that, "To call the reappointment process pro forma would be an understatement."
Third would be to set term limits for Fed officials. Make them long enough to insulate those officials from political pressure. But don't allow them to serve multiple terms one after the other as they can now.
And finally, apply the same transparency standards to the Fed that are applied to other government agencies: Allow the Government Accountability Office to publish an annual review of all the Fed's operations and policies, and make sure both the Fed's Inspector General and the Freedom of Information Act apply to the 12 regional banks as well as the national Board of Governors.
"What I've proposed is something that seems incremental, workable, and helpful," Levin concluded. And despite arguments over whether the Fed is making the right choices in the here and now about things like interest rates, Levin's goal is much bigger: to make the Fed a healthy functioning member of our democracy long after the current economic situation — and whatever particular monetary policy stance it calls for — has passed.
"These reforms are to improve governance, accountability and transparency," Levin said. "We live in a democracy — and the government is supposed to serve the public."
By Jeff Spross
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We, The People, Defeated Republican Attempts To Repeal The Affordable Care Act
We, The People, Defeated Republican Attempts To Repeal The Affordable Care Act
After months of grandstanding and cloak-and-dagger meetings by Republican leaders, we dealt a final blow to the repeal of the Affordable Care Act. Who are we? We are the thousands of people who...
After months of grandstanding and cloak-and-dagger meetings by Republican leaders, we dealt a final blow to the repeal of the Affordable Care Act. Who are we? We are the thousands of people who attended town hall meetings around the country to confront our elected officials, marched on the streets, and occupied the offices of our senators until we got arrested.
Early Friday morning, dozens of us who have been active in the fight against the ACA repeal stood outside the Capitol, bleary-eyed from exhaustion and tears and holding on to each other for moral support. We were stunned and elated when the ‘skinny’ repeal vote failed.
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In A Moving Dialogue, Disabled Activist Confronted Jeff Flake About Tax Bill On His Plane Ride Home
In A Moving Dialogue, Disabled Activist Confronted Jeff Flake About Tax Bill On His Plane Ride Home
IN OCTOBER 2016, Ady Barkan — a California-based activist at the Center for Popular Democracy — was diagnosed with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
Last year, he was going for long...
IN OCTOBER 2016, Ady Barkan — a California-based activist at the Center for Popular Democracy — was diagnosed with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
Last year, he was going for long jogs along the Santa Barbara coast. Today, he doesn’t have the strength to cut a piece of meat at the dinner table or pick up his 30-pound toddler.
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Maria Gallagher, Ana Maria Archila and the amazing power of everyday people raising their voice
Maria Gallagher, Ana Maria Archila and the amazing power of everyday people raising their voice
Maria Gallagher, a 23-year-old woman from New York, had never told anyone about the time she was sexually assaulted before she blurted it out to a United States senator, Republican Jeff Flake of...
Maria Gallagher, a 23-year-old woman from New York, had never told anyone about the time she was sexually assaulted before she blurted it out to a United States senator, Republican Jeff Flake of Arizona, with millions watching on live national television.
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The Fed's lack of diversity is hurting its judgment
The Fed's lack of diversity is hurting its judgment
Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen found herself in the hot seat at the recent bi-annual Humphrey Hawkins testimony as members of Congress challenged her over the lack of diversity among the Fed's...
Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen found herself in the hot seat at the recent bi-annual Humphrey Hawkins testimony as members of Congress challenged her over the lack of diversity among the Fed's ranks.
Asked by Senator Elizabeth Warren whether she was concerned that 10 of the 12 Fed's regional presidents are men, Yellen answered that she did believe it was "important to have a diverse group of policymakers who can bring different perspectives to bear."
The nation's central bank has recently come under intense scrutiny for appointing predominantly white men from the banking and corporate sectors to leadership positions. Last month, 127 members of Congress sent a widely publicized letter to Yellen calling for her to commit to leadership that better reflects the diversity of the United States.
For the last two years, the Fed Up coalition – comprised of community organizations and labor groups in each of the 12 Federal Reserve districts – has sat down with Yellen and other Fed policymakers to ask that more diverse candidates are considered for directorships at the Federal Reserve Banks, and that the process for selecting Federal Reserve Bank presidents be opened up to greater transparency and public input.
The call for a Fed membership that reflects America's diversity was enshrined in a law passed by Congress 40 years ago, an important thing to keep in mind when considering the modest recent progress touted by Yellen. The law requires the Federal Reserve to "represent the public, without discrimination on the basis of race, creed, color, sex, or national origin, and with due but not exclusive consideration to the interests of agriculture, commerce, industry, services, labor and consumers."
While we are encouraged that Yellen became the first woman ever to hold the position of Fed Chair in 2014, the reality of the Federal Reserve is far from representative of the public. Currently, 11 of the 12 regional Reserve Bank presidents are white and 10 of the 12 are men. Not a single Reserve Bank president is Black or Latino, which means there is no representation from the communities hardest hit by the 2008 financial crisis. In fact, there has never been an African American president of a Reserve Bank in the history of the Federal Reserve System.
Moreover, all voting members of the Fed's powerful interest rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) are white.
This is a problem. The power for ensuring the country reaches full employment rests solely with people who do not share the lived experiences of those most affected by their policies. The voices of women, African-Americans, Latinos, and representatives of consumers and labor are being shut out of key discussions over our economic future.
The impact of the economic crisis was not experienced uniformly across different communities, with the vaunted recovery never reaching some segments. The unemployment rate for African-Americans currently stands at 9 percent, more than double the unemployment rate for white Americans of 4.3 percent. The Latino unemployment rate of 5.6 percent is also worse than what it is for white Americans.
In a marked shift from her stance a year ago, Yellen noted racial disparities in economic outcomes in her opening remarks to Congress and stressed the importance of monitoring "different groups in the labor market to see if what we perceived as broad-based labor market improvement is being widely shared."
"Elizabeth Warren told Janet Yellen that the current process for appointing regional bank presidents 'is broken.'"
Compare this with her testimony last year, when Yellen dismissed the impact full employment can have on reducing racial disparities in unemployment and wages, claiming the Fed's tools were limited.
Yellen separately acknowledged racial disparities and the need for greater diversity among Fed leadership, but stopped short of linking the two. We believe the two are inextricably linked – a Fed filled with white male bankers will never be able to fully relate to impoverished communities of color.
That is why we have offered Yellen a slate of 39 candidates from which she can appoint directors to sit on the boards of the regional Banks. Drawn from all 12 Fed regions, the candidates are racially diverse, gender balanced and come from a range of backgrounds in labor, academia, and community-based organizations.
Elizabeth Warren told Janet Yellen that the current process for appointing regional Bank presidents "is broken." Yellen can demonstrate her commitment to diversity by appointing any of these 39 candidates to open board director positions.
Warren and other members of Congress in both houses are standing with low-wage workers to shine a light on our nation's opaque but vitally important economic policymaking institution. It's time for the Fed to heed the call on behalf of the millions of Americans around the country who are still suffering from the devastating impact of the 2008 crisis. It's time for the Fed to truly represent the public.
By Dushaw Hockett
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4 days ago
4 days ago