Nine Months After Hurricane Maria, Congress Isn't Doing Much to Help
If a commission discovered “any wrongdoing, any corruption, any malice in that corruption,” added Julio Lopez Varona of...
If a commission discovered “any wrongdoing, any corruption, any malice in that corruption,” added Julio Lopez Varona of the Center for Popular Democracy’s Puerto Rico programs, “then people should go to jail.” In his view that includes not just federal officials but local Puerto Rican officials, some of whom have come under fire for mismanaging the disaster and recovery. But Mark-Viverito notes that it is far too early to think about how to enact punishments on individuals.
Democrats Push for More Diversity in Fed Leadership
Democrats Push for More Diversity in Fed Leadership
The first woman to chair the Federal Reserve is being criticized by Democratic legislators demanding more diversity in...
The first woman to chair the Federal Reserve is being criticized by Democratic legislators demanding more diversity in the central bank’s top policymaking positions
The first woman to chair the Federal Reserve is being criticized by Democratic legislators demanding more diversity in the central bank’s top policymaking positions.
According to report from TheHill.com, Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen received a letter from 116 House Democrats and 11 senators that complained about the surplus of white men in leadership roles. The lawmakers pointed out that the central bank’s Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) is entirely White and called for an emphasis on ethnicity and economic and professional backgrounds as part of the factors in choosing future executive officers.
“The importance of ensuring that such positions are filled by persons that reflect and represent the interests of our diverse country cannot be overstated,” the letter stated. “When the voices of women, African-Americans, Latinos, Asian Pacific Americans, and representatives of consumers and labor are excluded from key discussions, their interests are too often neglected.”
The letter was coordinated by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-MI). Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, an Independent who is running for the Democratic presidential nomination, was among those signing the letter, while Hillary Clinton chimed in her support after the letter’s contents were made public.
For its part, the Fed insisted that it was committed to diversity in hiring.
"We have focused considerable attention in recent years on recruiting directors with diverse backgrounds and experiences," said a Fed spokesperson. "By law, we consider the interests of agriculture, commerce, industry, services, labor, and consumers. We also are aiming to increase ethnic and gender diversity."
By Phil Hall
Source
One of Facebook’s founders is taking on the Federal Reserve
Dustin Moskovitz and his wife, Cari Tuna, have become billionaires since he started the behemoth social networking site...
Dustin Moskovitz and his wife, Cari Tuna, have become billionaires since he started the behemoth social networking site with his former Harvard University roommate Mark Zuckerberg. (Moskovitz left the company in 2008 to found Asana, which streamlines task management). The couple is bringing Silicon Valley-style analytics to the world of philanthropy through their fund, Good Ventures.
The goal is to find and incubate projects with the potential to create the most change for every dollar of funding. Many of the fund’s initiatives tread traditional charitable ground. Good Ventures has backed research on the connection between crime, cannabis and incarceration and helped stop the spread of drug-resistant malarial parasites in Myanmar.
But the group is also broadening its reach into public policy issues, including macroeconomics. It has granted $850,000 to the Center for Popular Democracy over the past year to fund a campaign urging the Fed not to raise its target interest rate until the economy is much stronger. Good Ventures is the single largest backer of the campaign -- dubbed Fed Up -- whose budget this year is about $1 million.
“The central reason we believe that marginally more dovish Fed policy relative to the current baseline would carry net benefits is that, at roughly their current rates, we see unemployment as more costly in humanitarian terms than inflation,” Good Ventures wrote explaining its decision to fund the project. “Dovish” policy generally supports lower interest rates, while a “hawkish” stance would raise them.
The funding has helped the group expand its presence at an annual symposium of economic elite that kicked off Thursday here in the foothills of the Grand Tetons and sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. The group arrived at the conference last year with a handful of workersholding up signs and wearing green T-shirts.
This year, Fed Up held “teach-ins” in a meeting room at the same hotel as the Fed’s conference and drew prominent economists such as Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz, University of California-Berkeley professor Brad DeLong and Center for Economic and Policy Research Co-Director Dean Baker.
The campaign also flew in dozens of workers to underscore the disparity in the nation’s economic recovery. Wage growth has remained stagnant for years, and unemployment among black and Hispanic workers is significantly higher than that of whites.
“An economy that doesn’t deliver for most of its citizens is a failed economy,” Stiglitz said in a press conference in Jackson Hole.
Monetary policy has not traditionally been subject to populist activism, and Good Ventures acknowledges that the success of the campaign is uncertain at best. Fed Up is also working to increase public input in the selection of regional Fed presidents, an effort that Good Ventures rates as more unequivocably positive and, at the very least, easier to measure.
But, the funders note, if the campaign works -- and if easy money is indeed the way to go -- the payoff could be massive:
Our best guess is that the campaign is unlikely to have an impact on the Fed's monetary policy, but that if it does, the benefits from a tighter labor market would be very large; we think this small chance of a large positive impact is sufficient to justify the grant.
However, this is an unusually complex policy area, and we could be mistaken.
Source: Washington Post
NYC Agencies Fail to Follow Voter Registration Law
New York Daily News - October 21, 2014, by Erin Durkin - City agencies are failing to do their part to make voter...
New York Daily News - October 21, 2014, by Erin Durkin - City agencies are failing to do their part to make voter registration easier — even though they’re required to by law.
Legislation passed in 2000 mandates that 18 agencies give voter registration forms to visitors. But the Center for Popular Democracy and other non-profits found that 84% of those visitors were never offered a chance to register, according to a report to be released Tuesday.
In fact, 60% of the agencies didn’t even have any forms in the office. And 95% of the clients were never asked if they wanted to register to vote.
“This is an urgent problem which is leading to the disenfranchisement of many thousands of low-income New Yorkers,” said Andrew Friedman, the group’s co-executive director. “The city is failing to live up to its obligation.”
The group found that 30% of people who visited the city offices weren’t registered to vote, higher than the national average.
Mayor de Blasio’s spokesman Phil Walzak said Hizzoner has ordered agencies to step up their compliance with the law. “Mayor de Blasio is deeply committed to reducing barriers to voter participation, and making it simple and easy to register to vote is the first step,” he said.
Only one of the agencies, the Administration for Children’s Services, used a combined form that offers the chance to apply for ACS services, as required by the law, the report found.
Advocates say having city agencies help out with voter registration is especially important because most people nationwide sign up to vote at motor vehicle departments, but many city residents don’t drive.
Source
Demonstrators Take Over Manhattan Amazon Store in Protest of Queens HQ
Demonstrators Take Over Manhattan Amazon Store in Protest of Queens HQ
"I think Amazon is only going to make it worse," said Charles Khan, of the Center for Popular Democracy. "There's no...
"I think Amazon is only going to make it worse," said Charles Khan, of the Center for Popular Democracy. "There's no reason to give them $3 billion when we have so many problems, homelessness."
Read the full article here.
Fed chair Jay Powell faces his first political test
“Some campaigners are critical of the Fed’s handling of the mis-selling scandal at Wells Fargo, which is headquartered...
“Some campaigners are critical of the Fed’s handling of the mis-selling scandal at Wells Fargo, which is headquartered in Mr Williams’s district, while activists with the Fed Up group want the New York Fed to restart its search. “We haven’t seen as big a backlash as this to a regional Fed appointment,” said Sarah Binder, a professor of political science at George Washington University. “The criticism has been coming only from the Democrats, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter. The Fed depends on there being public support, and it can only make tough decisions if it is seen as having legitimacy. The more criticism it faces the harder it is to do its job."
Read the full article here.
Arizona protesters arrested at Flake’s D.C. office in health care rally
Arizona protesters arrested at Flake’s D.C. office in health care rally
WASHINGTON — As calls of “Trumpcare kills” and “health care is a human right” echoed through the halls of Capitol...
WASHINGTON — As calls of “Trumpcare kills” and “health care is a human right” echoed through the halls of Capitol office buildings Monday, Lauren Klinkhamer stood quietly in Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake’s office and told staffers, “I don’t want to die.”
The Tucson resident fears she would be among the 22 million Americans, and as many as 400,000 Arizonans, who would lose health care under a bill the Senate is considering to replace the Affordable Care Act. For Klinkhamer, who said she suffers from 16 chronic conditions, losing her coverage would be a death sentence.
Read the full article here.
Hour by Hour: Women in Today’s Workweek
Nationwide, more than 38 million women work in hourly jobs. Most women, and most Americans, are paid by the hour, yet...
Nationwide, more than 38 million women work in hourly jobs. Most women, and most Americans, are paid by the hour, yet today’s workweek is changing—the 40 hour workweek and the 8-hour day are no longer the norm for a significant part of this workforce.
Our nation’s workplace protections are badly out of sync with the needs of today’s working families and we need policies that provide everyone an opportunity to get ahead. Particularly, labor standards have not kept up with rapid changes to the fastest growing industries like retail, healthcare, and food service. Part-time workers in the service sector—overwhelmingly women—have borne the greatest burden of these new just-intime scheduling practices, which have largely gone unregulated. But what begins in these sectors will soon spread, as the distinctions between part-time and full-time work grow increasingly blurred, and more and more Americans experience work hour instability and economic uncertainty.
Women − over a third of whom work part-time in order to juggle economic survival, family responsibilities, and advancing their careers − are at the greatest risk of being further marginalized in the workforce if unsustainable scheduling practices on the part of employers go unchecked. As we seek to create family-sustaining jobs in the burgeoning service sector, we must also consider scheduling practices in low-wage employment. Without an update to labor standards for these workers, more and more workers across the economy will be subject to this type of extreme economic uncertainty. New policies that ensure predictable schedules, give employees a voice in their schedules, ensure quality part-time employment and access to stable, full-time schedules will improve the lives of working people in general and especially benefit working women and mothers.
Download the full report
Six national retailers agree to stop using on-call shift scheduling tactics
Six national retailers agree to stop using on-call shift scheduling tactics
NEW YORK (Legal Newsline) — New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman announced Dec. 20 that six major retailers...
NEW YORK (Legal Newsline) — New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman announced Dec. 20 that six major retailers have agreed to stop using on-call shift scheduling after an inquiry by a multistate coalition of attorneys general.
On-call shifts involve employees calling their employers, usually a couple hours before they are supposed to attend work, to see if they will be scheduled to work or not. According to Schneiderman’s office, as many as 50,000 workers nationwide will benefit from this policy change.
“On-call shifts are not a business necessity and should be a thing of the past," Schneiderman said. "People should not have to keep the day open, arrange for child care, and give up other opportunities without being compensated for their time. I am pleased that these companies have stepped up to the plate and agreed to stop using this unfair method of scheduling.”
The six companies that agreed to stop the practice are Aeropostale, Carter’s, David’s Tea, Disney, PacSun and Zumiez. These companies were among 15 large retailers that received the coalition’s inquiry.
"This latest announcement shows the sweeping positive impact that Attorney General Schneiderman's actions have had on the lives of people working in retail,” said Carrie Gleason, director of the Fair Workweek Initiative at the Center for Popular Democracy.
By Mark Iandolo
Source
Activists urge Harvard to stop investing in Boston hedge fund that holds Puerto Rico debt
Activists urge Harvard to stop investing in Boston hedge fund that holds Puerto Rico debt
“As one of Baupost’s most significant outside investors, Harvard can exercise some influence on the hedge fund’s...
“As one of Baupost’s most significant outside investors, Harvard can exercise some influence on the hedge fund’s operations," said Julio López Varona, a member of Hedge Clippers. “They have a big endowment; their investment sets a tone.”
Read the full article here.
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