New York Must Take Action Against Corporate Backers of Hate
New York Must Take Action Against Corporate Backers of Hate
Make the Road New York and the Center for Popular Democracy recently exposed President Trump’s corporate “backers of hate,” companies that stand to profit off an agenda so steeped in hate,...
Make the Road New York and the Center for Popular Democracy recently exposed President Trump’s corporate “backers of hate,” companies that stand to profit off an agenda so steeped in hate, prejudice, and greed, you would have to be willfully blind not to see it.
Nothing is more dangerous than business as usual when it is conducted in a moral vacuum, and these companies have been more than happy to go along for the ride: Goldman Sachs, Blackstone, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Blackrock, Boeing, IBM, Uber, and Disney all seem eager to cash in on the Trump agenda.
Read the full article here.
'I was demanding a connection': Ana Maria Archila reflects on confronting Jeff Flake
'I was demanding a connection': Ana Maria Archila reflects on confronting Jeff Flake
Ana Maria Archila had never told her father that she was sexually abused as a child.
But after she confronted a U.S. senator about President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee and the video...
Ana Maria Archila had never told her father that she was sexually abused as a child.
But after she confronted a U.S. senator about President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee and the video started going viral, she thought it was time to share her story.
“I always carried the fear that my parents would feel that they had failed in taking care of me if I told them,” Archila said Friday night in a phone interview with The Washington Post.
Read the full article here.
Dallas Fed Struggles to Fill Fisher’s Big Shoes
The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas is taking its time picking a new president, leaving the position vacant for more than four months and leaving the institution without a strong public voice at a...
The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas is taking its time picking a new president, leaving the position vacant for more than four months and leaving the institution without a strong public voice at a time of intense debate over when the central bank should start raising interest rates.
Former president Richard Fisher stepped down March 19, leaving the bank’s first vice president Helen Holcomb to serve as interim president. His exit was long anticipated: he faced mandatory retirement due to his age. The bank formally announced Mr. Fisher’s impending exit in November. Executive search firm Heidrick & Struggles was tapped to find a successor.
Other regional Fed banks, in contrast, have filled their top vacancies more briskly in recent years. For instance, Philadelphia Fed President Charles Plosser retired March 1 and his replacement, Patrick Harker, was announced the next day.
The duration of the Dallas vacancy has surprised many central bank watchers. Some of them say the bank’s board of directors appears to want a clone of Mr. Fisher—a strong voice on major issues with deep ties to the Lone Star state.
“It’s beyond bizarre” a new president hasn’t been named yet, said Danielle DiMartino Booth, who served as a close adviser to Mr. Fisher when they were both at the bank. Ms. Booth, who left the Dallas Fed in June and is now a strategist with the Liscio Report, said what the bank appears to want is a rare commodity.
“Richard Fisher rose to the status of being a deity in Texas,” Ms. Booth said. “People associate the success of the state” with him, and it is “very difficult” to find a new leader who can maintain that sort of profile, she said.
The Dallas Fed responded to questions about the search process by producing a description of what the bank seeks in a new leader. It said candidates should have “recognized stature” in economics and finance and preferably hold a Ph.D. The “ideal candidate will exhibit a strong combination of economic/market/policy expertise, integrity (and willingness to satisfy financial interest and disclosure requirements), leadership, communication skills, interpersonal skills, and community involvement,” it said.
Before joining the Dallas Fed, Mr. Fisher was a wealthy hedge-fund operator and diplomat. He was known for a brash public style as president. He made his case against the Fed’s easy money policies in speeches invoking high and pop culture, warning repeatedly about frothy financial markets and arguing in vain for higher interest rates.
His predecessor Robert McTeer, operating under the nickname of the “Lonesome Dove,” was known for opposing rate rises—sometimes via haiku.
The Dallas Fed has “a tradition of having an outspoken leader,” said Ethan Harris, chief economist at Bank of American Merrill Lynch.
Those with knowledge of the process say the Dallas Fed is seeking a replacement who will carry on that tradition.
Heidrick & Struggles didn’t respond to questions about the search process.
The Dallas Fed president is chosen by the bank’s board of directors, subject to approval by the Federal Reserve’s Washington-based board of governors. The Dallas board members drawn from the financial industry are prohibited by law from participating in the search. The other Dallas board members who are involved declined to comment.
In recent years, regional Fed bank presidents have tended to be insiders. For example, San Francisco Fed President John Williams was previously the bank’s research director. Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester was previously research director at the Philadelphia Fed. Mr. Harker served on the Philadelphia Fed’s board before taking the top job. Now, only current Atlanta Fed chief Dennis Lockhart had no formal connection to the central bank before joining. Mr. Fisher was the rare bird who came in cold.
“Recent history has shown that the regional banks conduct a thorough and broad review of candidates that almost exclusively ends with the insider being selected,” said Aaron Klein, director of the financial regulatory reform initiative with the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington.
Mr. Harris said central bank insiders, shaped by a Fed culture that often rewards a gray public persona, tend to lack the dramatic flair of the past two Dallas Fed chiefs.
Some critics from labor unions and local community groups say they are disappointed by the lack of openness surrounding the selection process given that the regional Fed bank presidents are government officials who participate in important central bank policy decisions.
“We are very disappointed in what we’ve run into” trying to have a voice in the process, said Mark York, secretary-treasurer of the Dallas AFL-CIO. He said a letter from the union and other local groups asked for names under consideration to be made public in a bid to allow the public to weigh in, among other requests.
That said, not all think the bright light of transparency is a cure all. Lou Crandall, chief economist for Wrightson ICAP, said wanting to know more about the process is a “fair point.” But he warned “you don’t want a lot of public jockeying over this.”
Source: The Wall Street Journal
The Fed needs a revolution: Why America’s central bank is failing — and how we can make it work for us
The Fed needs a revolution: Why America’s central bank is failing — and how we can make it work for us
One reality hanging over the presidential election and our politics in general is this: No matter what terrific plan a politician has for creating jobs and boosting wages, it must contend with the...
One reality hanging over the presidential election and our politics in general is this: No matter what terrific plan a politician has for creating jobs and boosting wages, it must contend with the Federal Reserve’s ability to unilaterally counteract it. If the Fed decides higher wages risk inflation, they can raise interest rates and deliberately strangle economic growth, reversing the wage effect. Why come up with ways to grow the economy, then, if the Fed will react by intentionally slowing it?
The reason the Fed operates as a wet blanket on the economy has to do with who really controls the institution. If the desires of bankers and the rich outweigh the desires of laborers, then their fear of inflation (which cuts into their profits) will always take precedence over full employment. Former Fed Chair Ben Bernanke unwittingly gave a perfect example of that yesterday. Talking about how the Fed could institute “helicopter drops” of money to supplement federal spending and jump-start the economy, he stated from the outset, “no responsible government would ever literally drop money from the sky.” Who sets the boundaries of what’s “responsible” matters a great deal here.
To make the central bank work in the public interest rather than the interests of a select few, you must reform the very structure of the Federal Reserve. That’s the purpose of a new proposal from Andrew Levin, an economics professor at Dartmouth College and former advisor to Fed Chairs Ben Bernanke and Janet Yellen. In conjunction with the activist group Fed Up, which advocates for pro-worker policies at the Fed, Levin has devised a framework to make the central bank a fully public institution, with all the transparency and accountability demanded of other government entities.
It’s such an important idea that Warren Gunnels, policy director for Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign, talked it up yesterday on a conference call with Levin. While stopping short of endorsing taking the Fed public, Gunnels did say, “Senator Sanders believes we need to made the Fed a more democratic institution, responsive to the concerns of all Americans, not a few billionaires on Wall Street.”
Right now, the Fed is a quasi-public, quasi-private hybrid, taking advantage of that status to maintain high levels of secrecy. Members of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors are nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate, like other federal agencies. But the twelve regional Federal Reserve banks are legally owned by commercial banks in each of those regions. Banks like JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo hold stock in these regional banks, which happen to be one of their primary regulators.
This was how central banks worldwide operated at the time of the Fed’s founding, but that has changed. “Every other central bank around the world is fully public,” Professor Levin said, citing the Bank of Canada’s shift in the 1930s and the Bank of England in the 1940s.
Not only does having private banks own a chunk of the Fed raise questions about regulatory supervision, it implicitly privileges banker concerns over the public at large. This is particularly important because the Fed has failed as an institution consistently over the past decade.
First it failed to identify an $8 trillion housing bubble, along with increases in leverage and derivatives exposure that magnified the housing collapse into a larger crisis. Then, it failed to deploy all its policy tools and allowed a slow recovery to take hold that left millions of workers behind, as growth never caught up to its expectations. British economist Simon Wren-Lewis believes the third big mistake is happening now, through premature interest rate hikes to return to “normal” operations. “Central banks are wasting a huge amount of potential resources” by tightening too quickly, Wren-Lewis says. For everyday Americans, that translates into millions more people out of work than necessary.
So Levin’s plan would cash out the banks’ stock, and begin to remove their influence over the Fed. The board of directors of the regional Fed banks, which currently includes commercial bank executives, would be chosen through a representative process with mandates for diversity (no African-American has ever served as a regional Fed president) and a variety of viewpoints. Nobody affiliated with a financial institution overseen by the Fed could serve on any regional board.
These newly elected boards of directors would choose the regional presidents, which have a say on monetary policy decisions. That selection process would include public hearings and feedback. Under the current system, Fed presidents are re-elected through a pro forma process, with no opportunity for public engagement. Four of the 12 regional presidents were formerly executives at Goldman Sachs, and it’s hard to call that a coincidence.
In addition to breaking the conflict of interest inherent in current Fed governance, making the institution public would subject it to disclosure requirements, Freedom of Information Act requests, and external reviews that all other public agencies must submit to. Levin’s proposal calls for an annual Government Accountability Office review of Fed policies and procedures, and would allow the Fed’s inspector general new authority to investigate the regional banks.
The Levin proposal too often makes concessions to preserving central bank “independence,” like preserving the regional structure and giving Fed officials nonrenewable seven-year terms, which seems a little arbitrary. This impulse also led Democrats to reject Sen. Rand Paul’s legislation to audit the Fed earlier this year. The rhetoric of Federal Reserve “independence” conceals an institutional capture that allows it to ignore workers’ needs in favor of the wealthy. And its persistent failures and banker influence weaken the case for that independence.
Nevertheless, the heart of the proposal is to return democracy to the Fed, so the institution will edge away from its commitment to capital over labor. “The fundamental piece is that the Fed must be a public institution,” said Ady Barkan of the Fed Up Coalition.
Liberals too often ignore the Fed and the role it plays in the economy, but that’s starting to change. An obscure piece of the Federal Reserve Act statute identified by then-House staffer Matt Stoller led to a remarkable cut of billions of dollars in subsidies to big banks last year, under a Republican-majority Congress. Now the Fed Up coalition is not only rolling out this reform plan, but pushing the presidential candidates to answer whether the Fed should deliberately slow down the economy, make sure their institution looks like the general public, and reduce the power of private banks on its operations. (Bernie Sanders laid out his views on Fed reform in the New York Times last December, some of which intersect with the Fed Up proposal. Warren Gunnels, Sanders’ Policy Director, would only say that the Fed Up plan “deserves serious consideration.”)
A public, inclusive debate over Fed transparency and accountability is critical, given the importance of this institution to the economy. “These reforms would put the Fed on a path to serving the public for the next 100 years,” said Professor Levin. And that has to mean all the public, through democratic principles, not just the executives at our biggest banks.
By David Dayen
Source
Fed Up Says It Unjustly Lost Rooms at Jackson Hole Meeting
A coalition of community and labor groups known as “Fed Up” said 39 members planning to stay at the hotel hosting the Federal Reserve’s prestigious annual retreat in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, were...
A coalition of community and labor groups known as “Fed Up” said 39 members planning to stay at the hotel hosting the Federal Reserve’s prestigious annual retreat in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, were unfairly singled out when their 13 room reservations were canceled.
The group, which is pressing the U.S. central bank to appoint more minorities and women to its leadership, said most of its attendees would have been black and Latino. It has filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice and other government officials. The group believes it lost the rooms because of “specific targeting of the Fed Up coalition.”
Fed Chair Janet Yellen is the first woman to lead the U.S. central bank and it remains under pressure to become more diverse. Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton joined calls for reform in May and the central bank has taken fire from Republicans, who warn its low interest rate policies risk inflating another asset bubble.
The Fed Up coalition, which wants rates to stay low to boost hiring and lift wages, has discussed its concerns with Fed officials, including Esther George, president of the Kansas City Fed, which hosts the annual Jackson Hole monetary-policy conference in late August.
Faced with criticism that it doesn’t look out for the interests of poorer Americans, the Fed has been making efforts to change. The Kansas City Fed said on Thursday that it will hold a conference on the challenges low- to moderate-income communities face on Sept. 7-8 at its headquarters.
Booking Error
Alex Klein, vice president and general manager of Grand Teton Lodge Company and Flagg Ranch, said the reservations were canceled because “an error in the booking system” resulted in the Jackson Lake Lodge being oversold by 18 rooms. “We worked proactively and diligently with guests to relocate them to our nearby Flagg Ranch property,” he said in a statement.
The Kansas City Fed has a contract to provide rooms for guests at the symposium and “has no input regarding any decisions that the Lodge makes outside of its contract with us,” said bank spokesman Bill Medley.
The symposium, which gathers policy makers and economic-thought leaders for a three-day retreat in the heart of the Grand Teton mountains, is probably the most important event of its kind on the central-banking calendar. Yellen will attend and plans to address the conference on Aug. 26. This year’s meeting, which is invitation only, is focused on the topic “Designing Resilient Monetary Policy Frameworks for the Future.”
The hotel, while remote, is open to the public and Fed Up representatives have made the trip for the past two years. In 2015, Fed Up held an alternative conference at the Lodge which was addressed by Nobel-prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz.
By Steve Matthews & Jeanna Smialek
Source
Poll Finds Voters Rank Lack Of Parental Involvement, Over-Testing As Top Education Problems
iSchoolGuide - April 8, 2015, by Sara Guaglione - According to...
iSchoolGuide - April 8, 2015, by Sara Guaglione - According to a new poll of registered voters, voters ranked lack of parental involvement and over-testing as top issues in U.S. education today.
Other education issues voters ranked included: cuts to funding for programs like art, music, and PE; too many students per class; recruiting first-rate teachers; and poverty and hunger's effect on student learning, according to the poll conducted by In the Public Interest and the Center for Popular Democracy. Interestingly, lack of choice was ranked last, despite the national attention surrounding charter schools.
Studies have shown over the years that parental involvement is crucial to a student's educational achievement. A report from Southwest Educational Development Laboratory titled A New Wave of Evidence concluded back in 2002 that "when schools, families, and community groups work together to support learning, children tend to do better in school, stay in school longer, and like school more."
Over-testing is an issue that has also taken the forefront in the nation's education debates, both in the classroom and in congressional buildings. As we previously reported, nearly every state in the country has an "opt out" movement from new Common Core standardized exams, according to Elizabeth Harris of The New York Times. Concerned parents taking to social media and school board meetings to protest have captured the attention of school officials.
According to the National Education Association's blog, the poll also found that 63 percent of voters rate the quality of education at public schools in their neighborhood as excellent or good and 68 percent hold a favorable view of public school teachers. Only 11 percent had an unfavorable view.
Voters are also more likely to say public schools in their neighborhood are getting better (31 percent) than getting worse (16 percent).
Overall, voters were supportive of charter schools but voted for proposals to make charters more effective, accountable, and transparent to taxpayers. Respondents wanted teacher training and qualifications, anti-fraud provisions, and measures to ensure high-need students are served.
More than 80 percent of voters supported regular audits of charter finances, public disclosure of how taxpayer money is spent, and requirements that charter operators open up their board meetings to parents and the public.
Source
High Road Workweek Partnership Invites Employers to Adopt a Fair Workweek
High Road Workweek Partnership Invites Employers to Adopt a Fair Workweek
As more retailers declare nationwide reforms to their scheduling practices – from ending on-call scheduling to providing greater advance notice – there is increased industry interest in...
As more retailers declare nationwide reforms to their scheduling practices – from ending on-call scheduling to providing greater advance notice – there is increased industry interest in understanding the impact of difficult work schedules on employees. Leading-edge employers are also starting to quantify the down-stream effects of ever-changing work schedules and excessive reliance on part-time staff, including higher turnover, chronic absenteeism, lower productivity, and unsatisfactory customer service. Many industry leaders now recognize that predictable, stable and flexible work schedules are not just good for employees, but are essential to meeting operational, sales and growth objectives.
At the Next:Economy summit, the Center for Popular Democracy’s Fair Workweek Initiative will unveil the High Road Workweek Partnership, a groundbreaking approach to the future of work, which meaningfully incorporates employee voice and scheduling equity values into scheduling technologies and management practices.
Achieving a High Road Workweek involves three key components:
A Partnership of Core Stakeholders: With a 360 degree view from engaging diverse stakeholders, employers can assess the impact of their current scheduling practices and envision a sustainable workweek;
The High Road Workweek Pledge: Translates core business principles into specific scheduling practices that encompass: Predictability and Stability, Adequate Hours, and Employee Input and Flexibility, and Equal Opportunity and Mobility; and
Measurable Implementation and Assessment: Innovative scheduling technologies, guidance for managers, and clear metrics will facilitate implementation of the pledge, while ongoing feedback from employees and a research-based assessment will ensure that new policies deliver the intended outcomes.
The High Road Workweek Partnership delivers lasting scheduling solutions and provides a framework for employers who want to be strongly positioned in the global economy, leveraging the latest technologies and integrating corporate social responsibility into workforce management to create meaningful employment.
“Employers of our country’s hourly workforce are at a crossroads. The worrisome scheduling trends that have come to public attention are persistent and challenging issues that affect both workers and the longevity of a company’s success. Through a meaningful collaboration with employees, a commitment to core scheduling principles, and an innovative use of workforce management metrics, any business is capable of implementing a high road workweek,” says Carrie Gleason, Director of the Fair Workweek Initiative at the Center for Popular Democracy.
Professor Susan Lambert of the University of Chicago, a key architect in developing the framework for scheduling stability, says, “While this year marks tremendous progress in employers recognizing the costs that lean staffing and unpredictable scheduling has for both workers and business, employers will need to implement new metrics for their managers and find ways to incorporate more employee input to ensure these commitments to reform become consistent scheduling improvements. The High Road Workweek Partnership presents an innovative approach to helping employers implement measurable standards for fair work schedules across their operations.”
# # #
www.populardemocracy.org The Center for Popular Democracy promotes equity, opportunity, and a dynamic democracy in partnership with innovative base-building organizations, organizing networks and alliances, and progressive unions across the country. CPD builds the strength and capacity of democratic organizations to envision and advance a pro-worker, pro-immigrant, racial justice agenda.
www.fairworkweek.org The Fair Workweek Initiative, anchored by the Center for Popular Democracy and CPD Action, is driving the growing momentum to restore a workweek that enables working families to thrive. We are committed to elevating the voices of working people to ensure they can shape the solutions that work for their families – whether through improved industry practices or new workplace protections.
Por qué la ciudad de Nueva York es una ciudad santuario modelo
Tras meses esperanza de que Donald Trump daría marcha atrás respecto a sus promesas de campaña contra los inmigrantes, lo opuesto ha sucedido. En las primeras semanas después de asumir el mando,...
Tras meses esperanza de que Donald Trump daría marcha atrás respecto a sus promesas de campaña contra los inmigrantes, lo opuesto ha sucedido. En las primeras semanas después de asumir el mando, Trump les ha declarado la guerra a los inmigrantes y ha prometido construir un muro en la frontera, aumentar las deportaciones y no dejar entrar a refugiados.
Su programa de gobierno va en contra de todo lo que este país valora y todo lo que la ciudad de New York siempre ha defendido. El compromiso de nuestra ciudad con los inmigrantes es el núcleo de nuestra identidad. Respetamos a los inmigrantes, apoyamos sus aspiraciones y trabajamos arduamente para que sean parte de la esencia de esta ciudad.
Como tal, la ciudad de Nueva York se considera desde hace mucho tiempo una “ciudad santuario”, donde las agencias locales de la ley se rehúsan a ser forzadas a cumplir políticas de inmigración del gobierno federal que perjudican a sus comunidades. Dichas políticas están en vigor desde hace varias décadas. Incluso Rudy Giuliani, cuando fue alcalde, defendió ardientemente las leyes que prohibían que los empleadores de la ciudad de Nueva York reportaran la situación inmigratoria de los neoyorquinos inmigrantes.
Cientos de ciudades, estados y condados siguen políticas similares. Entre ellos se encuentran algunas de las más grandes ciudades del país, como también pueblitos al interior de los estados donde ganó Trump. Las razones son las mismas: las políticas de santuario mantienen a las ciudades más seguras y prósperas al no forzar a los inmigrantes a la clandestinidad y permitirles aportar y llevar vidas plenas.
En años recientes, la ciudad de Nueva York ha ido incluso más lejos. Por medio del trabajo de muchas organizaciones de defensa, incluidas Make the Road New York y el Center for Popular Democracy, los líderes municipales han puesto en vigor una serie de programas que ayudan a los inmigrantes a tener una vida más segura y próspera, y que benefician a la ciudad de muchas maneras.
Por ejemplo, en el año 2014, el alcalde De Blasio dio inicio a IDNYC, el más extenso programa municipal de identificación en el país. Permite que los inmigrantes indocumentados abran cuentas de banco y tengan acceso a servicios sociales necesarios. Tiene un alcance de más de 850,000 personas y se ha hecho popular con una gran variedad de neoyorquinos, entre ellos muchos que no son inmigrantes (como yo).
La ciudad también ofrece excelente acceso lingüístico a los neoyorquinos que aún se encuentran en el proceso de aprender inglés, lo que incluye vitales servicios de interpretación y traducción en todas las agencias de la ciudad para los residentes que necesitan acceso a valiosos servicios municipales.
Para los residentes que enfrentan la traumática posibilidad de deportación y separación de sus familiares, la ciudad también ha creado un innovador programa a fin de proporcionar a los neoyorquinos en procesos migratorios acceso a abogados que tienen mucha experiencia en la defensa contra la deportación. Los clientes del programa tienen probabilidades aproximadamente 1,000 por ciento más altas de ganar sus casos de inmigración que quienes no tienen representación legal.
Con estas medidas, a la ciudad de Nueva York realmente ha elevado el estándar para otras ciudades en todo el país. Y ha sido beneficioso para toda la ciudad. Hoy en día, nuestra economía se encuentra en auge, la tasa de criminalidad es la más baja de la historia, y un nivel récord de turistas de todo el mundo vienen en masa. La protección de nuestros inmigrantes solo ha tenido consecuencias positivas para la ciudad de New York.
Seguiremos esforzándonos por lograr medidas de política que faciliten que los inmigrantes trabajen y vivan en la ciudad de Nueva York, y haremos todo lo posible para alentar a otras ciudades a que sigan nuestro ejemplo. A juzgar por el número de ciudades que se están pronunciando y declarándose santuarios tras los crueles e insensatos decretos ejecutivos de Trump, parece que el ejemplo de Nueva York ya está surtiendo efecto.
By Andrew Friedman
Source
The Federal Reserve Leaves Key Interest Rate Unchanged Amid Slower Job Growth
The Federal Reserve Leaves Key Interest Rate Unchanged Amid Slower Job Growth
The Federal Reserve announced on Wednesday that it will keep its benchmark interest rate at current levels in response to lackluster job creation in recent months and other discouraging economic...
The Federal Reserve announced on Wednesday that it will keep its benchmark interest rate at current levels in response to lackluster job creation in recent months and other discouraging economic data.
The decision will shield American consumers from higher borrowing costs, but it also reflects the fragility and unpredictability of the current economic recovery, some seven years after the Great Recession officially ended.
The central bank’s Federal Open Market Committee is keeping the influential target federal funds rate — the Fed-set interest rate banks charge one another for overnight lending — at a range of 0.25 to 0.5 percent. Since the rate is a benchmark for lending throughout the economy, leaving it unchanged will likely prevent higher interest rates on mortgages, car loans and other household debts.
The Fed has a dual mandate to craft monetary policy that both maximizes employment and keeps inflation in check. The FOMC lowers the federal funds rate to accelerate job growth by reducing borrowing costs. It raises the rate to limit price inflation by slowing the pace of job growth.
The FOMC’s decision not to do the latter in June was widely expected. Fed officials signaled earlier this month that disappointing job creation had undermined the case for a rate hike. The economy created just 38,000 jobs in May, and new data show that the preceding two months produced fewer jobs than previously believed, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The central bank is also responding to tepid inflation. The price of consumer goods, excluding food and energy, rose 1.6 percent in the 12 months ending in April, according to the price index favored by the Fed — well below the Fed’s 2-percent target. And a University of Michigan survey revealed on Friday that U.S. households’ expectations of long-term inflation are lower than they have been at any point since the survey began collecting data in 1979.
In a press conference following the announcement, Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen acknowledged the role that those developments played in the central bank’s decision, noting that “recent economic indicators have been mixed.”
Yellen also said that the prospect of a “Brexit,” or British exit from the European Union, was “one of the factors” that led the central bank to hold off on an interest rate hike. The United Kingdom will vote on the country’s membership in the EU on June 23.
If the U.K. chooses to leave the EU, which functions as a single market, it could ultimately have adverse effects on the U.S. economic outlook, Yellen suggested. A higher percentage of British voters supported Brexit than opposed it in a poll released on Monday.
The Fed last raised the federal funds rate by one-quarter of a percentage point in December, the first increase since the financial crisis. The rate had been at or near zero — 0 to 0.25 percent — since December 2008.
With the December interest rate increase, the Fed seemed to express confidence that the economic recovery had entered a new phase, indicating it was time to pivot to the work of preventing inflation. Yellen predicted that the move would be the first in a series of small interest rate hikes that would gradually raise rates to levels that are more historically normal.
Since then, however, disappointing economic data have repeatedly delayed the pace of those increases. Slower global demand reduced the availability of credit, and wage growth remained sluggish, prompting the Fed not to raise the federal funds rate in March.
Fed officials suggested in May that economic conditions would finally permit them to raise the rate again in June. But the May job creation data, released on June 3, rapidly dashed those plans.
The central bank’s next opportunity to announce a rate hike will be July 27, after a meeting of the FOMC.
Wednesday’s announcement will come as welcome news to many progressive economists and activists who have long argued that the job market has much more room to grow before inflation becomes a serious problem.
While the official unemployment rate is 4.7 percent, much of its recent decline is due to people dropping out of the workforce altogether. The labor force participation rate, which measures the percentage of people actively seeking work in addition to those who are working, is significantly lower than it was in 2000.
In fact, when you exclude workers 55 or older who may have retired voluntarily, labor force participation is lower now than it was at its worst point during the past two business cycles, according to an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute.
A job market where people continue to give up on finding work is part of the reason wage growth has failed to meet expectations, since employers still have little reason to compete for workers, progressive economists argue. Average hourly pay rose 2.5 percent in the 12-month period ending in May, not enough for a significant boost in most Americans’ paychecks.
The Fed Up campaign, a coalition of progressive groups that advocates for Fed policy that is favorable to workers and communities of color, cites figures like those when pleading with the Fed to hold off on raising rates. Fed Up has called on the Fed not to raise the benchmark interest rate until “the economic recovery reaches all communities,” said Jordan Haedtler, Fed Up campaign manager.
Progressives were overjoyed when presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton expressed her sympathy with these concerns last month. The campaign said in a statement that as president, Clinton would appoint Fed officials who take seriously the central bank’s mandate to maximize employment, in addition to its duty to tamp down inflation.
Clinton stands to benefit politically from Wednesday’s announcement, since voters typically judge the candidate of the incumbent party for the economy’s performance. A rate increase would have squeezed economic demand, risking even slower job growth in the months ahead of the general election.
Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has expressed a wide variety of views about the Fed. He most recently suggested that he supports low interest rates, but that he plans to replace Yellen as Fed chair.
Yellen said Wednesday that the central bank will act based on economic data in the coming months, even if its actions are perceived as affecting the general election in November. “We are very focused on assessing the economic outlook and making changes that are appropriate without taking politics into account,” she said.
This piece has been updated with Yellen’s comments.
By Daniel Marans
Source
Newark Student Sit-in Lasted Through the Night at District Headquarters
NJ.com - February 18, 2015, by Naomi Nix - New Jersey Communities United organizer and NSU co-founder Thais Marques said the school district is preventing food from coming up to the students...
NJ.com - February 18, 2015, by Naomi Nix - New Jersey Communities United organizer and NSU co-founder Thais Marques said the school district is preventing food from coming up to the students during their sit-in; The students have not eaten for 12 hours, Marques said.
But Newark Public Schools spokeswoman Brittany Chord Parmley said the district is not withholding food and that it will be available for them when they come downstairs where there is a bus waiting to take them to school.
"We encourage the kids to go to school," she said.
The youths who staged a sit-in at Newark Public Schools' headquarters Tuesday night in protest of superintendent Cami Anderson's leadership stayed the night.
"We are staying until Cami comes in to her office and faces us or until her resignation," New Jersey Communities United organizer and NSU co-founder Thais Marques said in a phone interview this morning.
The sit-in, organized by the Newark Student Union, started around 8:30 p.m. on Tuesday during a Newark Public Schools Advisory Board business meeting when the students ascended to the 8th floor where Anderson's and other administrators' offices are located, said activists and board members.
The students received pizza for dinner and are awaiting donations of breakfast from area organizations, Marques said.
The students plan to hold a press conference later in the day.
Meanwhile, Newark Public Schools spokeswoman Brittany Chord Parmley said the district is trying to work with their parent to get them to attend school.
"We appreciate the passion shown by these students, but the district strongly believes that this passion would be better served in the classroom," she said in a statement.
"NPS has reached out to their parents in an effort to get this group of students to school this morning, and we remain open to engaging in a constructive dialogue that does not compromise valuable learning time."
But Marques said the students' parents support their sit- in, and even attended Tuesday's business meeting in a show of support.
"It's kind of like a futile effort on their part because they have parent support," she said.
The activists contend that Anderson has not engaged with students and parents about the district's controversial reforms.
The union is also opposed to the district's One Newark plan, which they argue is untested and hurts neighborhood schools.
"The One Newark plan is not what we want," Marques said in an interview Tuesday evening.
Source
13 hours ago
13 hours ago