Statement: It’s Time to Repeal Trump’s Corrupt Opportunity Zones
11.22.2019
WASHINGTON -- Today, Representative Rashida Tlaib introduced legislation...
11.22.2019
WASHINGTON -- Today, Representative Rashida Tlaib introduced legislation to repeal President Donald Trump’s controversial “Opportunity Zone” tax incentive provision. With Tlaib’s legislation, firms would no longer be able to collect capital gains tax breaks for projects in areas the Treasury Department designates as “opportunity zones.” The program has come under scrutiny for corruption. Though initially intended to be an economic development tool in low-income areas, news has broken about its application in wealthy communities as favors to developers and wealthy individuals. Estimates suggest that Tlaib’s legislation would save the federal government $1 billion in tax revenue over the next decade.
In response to the legislation, members of Data for Progress and the Center for Popular Democracy network released the following statements:
Dianne Enriquez, Co-Director of Community Dignity Campaigns, Center for Popular Democracy
“The farce is up: Trump’s ‘Opportunity Zones’ only create opportunity for luxury developers. While these firms receive millions of dollars in tax incentives, millions of people in this country are homeless or housing insecure. Representative Rashida Tlaib’s legislation is an important first step in unrigging the system so that we can work toward a future where we all have a home to thrive.”
Branden Snyder, Executive Director, Detroit Action
“The people who benefit most from President Trump’s Opportunity Zones provision are billionaires real estate developers.. Instead of building the affordable housing that our city -- and our country -- desperately need, the provision is worsening displacement and padding the pockets of billionaires. I applaud Representative Rashida Tlaib for introducing a repeal to the Opportunity Zone tax break so that we can get to work actually addressing the housing crisis in Detroit and nationwide.”
Maxwell Cabello, Senior Land Use and Policy Analyst, Churches United for Fair Housing
"Churches United for Fair Housing supports the necessary repeal of the federal Opportunity Zone legislation. The mechanics of this legislation allow for wealthy developers, investment funds, and other private parties to generate enormous profits from the exploitation of largely low-income communities of color while also being provided shelter from their existing tax obligations. The Opportunity Zone legislation provides no regulatory controls to guarantee investments benefit low-income residents who live or work in designated opportunity zones, and any future legislation must include strict parameters and strong enforcement to ensure investment benefits those truly in need rather than simply create yet another tax shelter for the wealthy."
Daniel Aldana Cohen, Fellow, Data for Progress
"Trump's so-called "Opportunity Zones" tax credit does nothing to help low-income communities, and especially communities of color, that have suffered decades of disinvestment. It does, however, help private investors with generous tax cuts. We endorse Rep. Tlaib's legislation to repeal this bad policy, and to instead invest directly in genuine affordable housing programs, and building wealth in the communities that need it most."
The following organizations from the Center for Popular Democracy network have endorsed the legislation: Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, Arkansas Community Organization, Churches United for Fair Housing, Detroit Action, Make the Road Nevada, Maryland Communities United, New York Communities for Change, and Organize Florida.
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Media Contact: Lia Weintraub, lweintraub@populardemocracy.org, 202-618-2482
Statement: Solving our Affordable Housing Crisis will take Significant Investment
11.20.2019
WASHINGTON -- Today, Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN) introduced...
11.20.2019
WASHINGTON -- Today, Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN) introduced legislation in the United States House of Representatives that would supply 12 million units of affordable housing, including 8.5 million units of public housing, over the next 10 years. The $1 trillion investment would create public housing and private, permanently affordable rental units, virtually ending our current affordable housing crisis. Representative Omar’s legislation also prohibits discrimination against residents based on sexual orientation, gender, criminal history or immigration status, and invests in services for those experiencing homelessness, like employment or education assistance, childcare and financial literacy classes. Lastly, the legislation would create a Community Control and Anti-Displacement Fund within the Department of Housing and Urban Development to protect families from the worst effects of gentrification and displacement.
The Center for Popular Democracy and members of our network endorsed the legislation and released the following statements:
Dianne Enriquez, co-director of community dignity campaigns, Center for Popular Democracy
“Representative Omar’s bill proves that it is possible for every person in the United States to have a stable, affordable place to call home. Not only does the legislation create 12 million units of affordable housing, it also makes sure that all future funding needs are fully met so that public units do not fall into disrepair. This provision, plus wrap-around services for people experiencing homelessness, would help to end our housing crisis. We are already paying the costs for the affordable housing crisis through skyrocketing rents and a growing homeless population. Instead of allowing our crisis to worsen, let’s invest in the affordable housing we need. I am proud to endorse the Homes for All Act because we need a broad reimagining of our affordable housing system.”
Elianne Farhat, Executive Director, Take Action Minnesota
"Every person has dignity and deserves a place to call home. The Homes for All Act that Rep. Omar introduced today and is an important step forward in providing enough housing for everyone to thrive. Homelessness and affordable housing shortages affect every urban and rural area in our country. It requires large scale investments and bold action from Congress. We are proud to endorse this bill.”
Other organizations within the Center for Popular Democracy network who endorsed the legislation include: Centro de Trabajadores Unidos en Lucha, Take Action Minnesota.
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Media Contact: Lia Weintraub, lweintraub@populardemocracy.org, 202-618-2482
Center for Popular Democracy Celebrates Green New Deal for Public Housing Act
11.14.2019
WASHINGTON -- Today, Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria...
11.14.2019
WASHINGTON -- Today, Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez introduced the Green New Deal for Public Housing Act, the first legislation related to the Green New Deal, in their respective chambers. The move is significant in bringing public housing to the center of the conversation about sustainability, quality jobs and community development.
The Center for Popular Democracy endorses the legislation as a meaningful step toward a future of economic, climate and housing justice. Dianne Enriquez, co-director of community dignity campaigns at the Center for Popular Democracy, released the following reaction to the legislation.
"Our homes are the foundations for our lives. With the Public Housing Green New Deal, they will become the foundation for our country's future economic security and environmental sustainability. This landmark legislation will at once offer job training for public housing residents, create family-sustaining jobs, and revitalize public housing units with green technology. Not only does it provide a pathway toward financial independence for public housing residents, but it also generates opportunities for meaningful participation in the oversight of their housing community. The Public Housing Green New Deal sets our country on a path of compassionate governance and will help to build a future for our country that includes us all."
Organizations within the Center for Popular Democracy network also endorsed the bill, including: Action NC, Action Now!, Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, Arkansas Community Organization, CASA, Detroit Action, Kenwood-Oakland Community Organization, Make the Road Nevada, Make the Road New York, New Florida Majority, New York Communities for Change, One Pennsylvania, Rights and Democracy Vermont, Rights and Democracy New Hampshire, River Valley Organizing, UnHarm Ohio and West Virginia Healthy Kids and Families Coalition.
Pat McCoy, executive director of Action NC, said: “For far too long public housing residents have been ignored when decisions are made that impact their communities. By requiring input from the community and local residents as well as any grant proposal requiring the approval of the resident council ensures that resident voices are heard and matter. Furthermore, the Family Self-Sufficiency Program allows for greater support for residents working towards financial independence. Action NC's mission is to confront and reduce the root causes of poverty and economic inequality. This bill hits at the heart of these issues for residents of public housing and is why we support the Green New Deal for Public Housing.”
Roslyn M. Ogburn, housing organizer at Detroit Action, said: “Detroit Action endorses the Green New Deal for Public Housing Act, which promotes a way to empower low and very low-income housing residents with the essential benefits needed to ensure jobs, economic growth, better quality of life, energy-efficient options and access to stable and long term housing.”
Andrea Mercado, executive director of The New Florida Majority, said: “The Green New Deal is a big step in the right direction to address equity as it relates to climate change. We support this legislation and will continue to fight for a just transition that is rooted in dignified work and clean energy for black and brown communities.”
Jonathan Westin, executive director of New York Communities for Change, said: “We are proud to stand with Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Sanders to introduce a Green New Deal for Public Housing. For decades the federal government has neglected public housing residents, cut services and forced funding shortages from city to city. Families are in desperate need of relief and protection from devastating climate disasters. We need to ensure quality public housing for all families across the country.”
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Media Contact: Lia Weintraub, lweintraub@populardemocracy.org, 202-618-2482
Center For Popular Democracy Supports New Deal for New Americans Act
October.30.2019
WASHINGTON, DC -- In response to the introduction of the New Deal for New Americans Act by U.S. Reps....
October.30.2019
WASHINGTON, DC -- In response to the introduction of the New Deal for New Americans Act by U.S. Reps. Grace Meng (D-NY), Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), and Jesús “Chuy” García (D-IL), the Center for Popular Democracy released the following statement from Natalia Aristizabal, Director of Immigrant Justice:
“We’re excited for legislation that would make it easier for residents to secure citizenship. This is a step forward to ensure we are moving past the inhumane and cruel policies implemented by the Trump administration. Our fight is for a country that protects and nurtures every immigrant’s right to move, to stay, to create a future where our loved ones are free to thrive.”
The bill aims to implement a federal office to lead inclusion and integration strategies for refugees and immigrants, cut down financial barriers for citizenship application, expand economic prosperity programs centered on workforce development and English language programs, and increase access to due process and legal services.
Read more on the New Deal for New Americans act here.
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Media Contact: Inarú Meléndez, 413-331-9530, imelendez@populardemocracy.org
Addressing an image problem?: American Investment Council highlights positives of private equity in Ohio and the rest of the U.S.
Addressing an image problem?: American Investment Council highlights positives of private equity in Ohio and the rest of the U.S.
According to a ...
According to a new report from the American Investment Council (AIC) that clearly addresses private equity's image problem, the PE industry supports more than 958,000 Ohio jobs and provides state and local taxes of nearly $2.2 billion.
Ohio ranks seventh in the country in terms the number of PE-supported jobs, according to the report. (The top three, in order, are California, Texas and New York.) The job numbers represent direct employment at PE firms and PE-backed companies, as well as related supplier jobs. By the same metrics, PE supports more than 26.3 million jobs nationwide.
Read the full article here.
Following New Findings on the Effects of Unstable Schedules, Congress to Pursue Fair Scheduling Legislation
10.17.2019
WASHINGTON -- In a roundtable discussion today with retail workers,...
10.17.2019
WASHINGTON -- In a roundtable discussion today with retail workers, sociologists and policy advocates, Representative Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) announced her intention to introduce the Schedules that Work Act to provide predictable work hours for hourly employees in low-wage industries. Representative DeLauro and Senator Elizabeth Warren will jointly reintroduce the bill in the coming weeks.
"The biggest economic challenge of our time is that people are working in jobs that do not pay them enough to keep up with the rising costs of healthcare, child care, housing, and education,” said Congresswoman DeLauro. “That problem is compounded when working people do not have a voice in their schedules, which not only impacts them, but also their families. That is why I will be reintroducing the Schedules That Work Act with Senator Warren. Working people deserve to have dignity in their work and the ability to plan their lives, and our legislation will ensure that they do."
The discussion, hosted by the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, the Center for Popular Democracy, United for Respect and the National Women’s Law Center, addressed a new report from University of California researchers Daniel Schneider and Kristen Harknett documenting how widespread unstable work hours are in the service sector, and the severe impact of this instability on U.S. workers and their families. In their survey, of 30,000 retail and food service workers at 120 of the largest U.S. retail and food service companies, they found significant negative impacts of unpredictable schedules across a worker’s life and family. The survey was first reported in The New York Times.
According to the report, having an unpredictable work schedule:
Raises the likelihood that workers will experience material hardship, including food and housing insecurity;
Destabilizes children’s routines and care arrangements, heightening children’s anxiety and behavioral challenges and forcing parents to rely on inconsistent and low-quality child care;
Increases the likelihood a worker will quit their job; and
Perpetuates racial inequality: workers of color, particularly women of color, experience more unstable work hours than their white coworkers at the same employer.
In the course of the roundtable conversation, workers shared how their experiences with unstable schedules impacted their families and other areas of their lives.
“At Big Lots, my work schedule wasn’t made available to me until the day before our workweek began. It made it so stressful and difficult to plan ahead for the week, because I’m the sole provider for my children and my mom,” said Brandy Powell, United for Respect leader and mother who works retail in California. “I deserve a say in when I work, and I deserve advance notice when I’m expected to work. When I told Big Lots I wouldn’t be available because my kids had doctor’s visits, they ignored my shift requests and called me into work. I was forced to quit my job after 11 months because it was too much stress for me and my family.”
The workers were joined by representatives from the National Women’s Law Center, the Washington Center for Equitable Growth and One Pennsylvania.
“When so many women don’t have enough notice of their schedules to plan their lives and care for their kids, when they don’t have enough hours to pay for rent and groceries and child care, it’s no wonder that we’re still seeing gender wage gaps—gaps that are especially wide for women of color and women who are moms, and for moms who are women of color most of all,” said Fatima Goss Graves, President and CEO of the National Women’s Law Center. “That’s why we need the Schedules That Work Act and the Part-Time Worker Bill of Rights.”
The Schedules that Work Act would require employers in the retail, food service, cleaning, hospitality and warehouse sectors to provide two weeks’ advance notice of work schedules and compensate workers for employer-initiated shift changes. The bill would also protect workers’ right to input into work schedules and at least eleven hours of nightly rest between work shifts. The forthcoming Part-Time Worker Bill of Rights, to be introduced by Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL-09), will allow part-time hourly workers to pick up additional hours before the employer can hire new staff, along with other protections for part-time workers--who typically experience lower pay and access to benefits, as well as greater scheduling instability, than their full-time counterparts.
States and cities are also moving forward with introducing legislation to guarantee a fair workweek. Last year, Philadelphia and Chicago became the latest cities to pass fair scheduling legislation. Similar measures are already law in Oregon, Seattle, WA; Emeryville, CA; San Francisco, CA; and New York, NY.
Los Angeles, Washington state, and New Jersey are considering similar bills during their upcoming legislative sessions.
“Workers from New York to Oregon and Los Angeles to Chicago have been standing up to demand a Fair Workweek so that they and their families can thrive,” said Rachel Deutsch with the Center for Popular Democracy’s Fair Workweek Initiative. “We hope members of Congress will pass the Schedules That Work Act and Part-Time Worker Bill of Rights to ensure that millions of workers can rely on predictable and stable hours.”
In June, the Los Angeles City Council directed the City Attorney to draft a fair workweek ordinance, and workers with UFCW local 770, Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, and other community groups urged the council to act quickly during a hearing on October 15. In Washington, a coalition led by UFCW Local 21 and Working Washington is backing policy championed by state senator Rebecca Saldaña and representative Nicole Macri. On October 16, New Jersey Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg announced her intention to introduce fair workweek legislation at a press conference with Make the Road New Jersey, United for Respect, Unite Here, SEIU, NJ Citizen Action, and other allies.
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Media Contact: Lia Weintraub, lweintraub@populardemocracy.org, 202-618-2482How Unpredictable Work Hours Turn Families Upside Down
How Unpredictable Work Hours Turn Families Upside Down
Unpredictable schedules can be brutal for hourly workers, upending their lives. New research shows that African-Americans, Hispanics and other minorities — particularly women — are much more...
Unpredictable schedules can be brutal for hourly workers, upending their lives. New research shows that African-Americans, Hispanics and other minorities — particularly women — are much more likely to be assigned irregular schedules, and that the harmful repercussions are felt not just by the workers but also their families.
The findings come from continuing surveys of 30,000 hourly workers by the Shift Project at the University of California. The researchers compared workers who earned the same wages, including at the same employers, but had different degrees of predictability in their schedules. Those with irregular hours fared worse — and so did their children.
Black and Hispanic women had the worst schedules, and white men had the best, the researchers found. The children of workers with precarious schedules had worse behavior and more inconsistent child care than those whose parents had stable schedules.
Read the full article here.
The movement to make workers’ schedules more humane
Alicia Fleming had worked as a server at restaurants in Massachusetts for a decade and a half. She enjoyed the work, but after she had her son at the age of 32, she found it impossible...
Alicia Fleming had worked as a server at restaurants in Massachusetts for a decade and a half. She enjoyed the work, but after she had her son at the age of 32, she found it impossible to stay in the job.
“The restaurant is looking at their bottom dollar,” Fleming said, “and won’t schedule you unless they absolutely need you. And then you don’t know until a few days before whether or not you’re even going to be asked to work.”
The result was that — as a single parent without close family nearby — Fleming was often scrambling to find childcare. When she wasn’t able to do so on short notice, she’d have to miss a shift. Her income fluctuated from week to week, and even though she was still employed at the restaurant, she was struggling to make ends meet.
Read the full article here.
Target raised wages. But some workers say their hours were cut, leaving them struggling
Target raised wages. But some workers say their hours were cut, leaving them struggling
Two years ago, Target (TGT) said it would raise its minimum wage to ...
Two years ago, Target (TGT) said it would raise its minimum wage to $15 an hour by the end of 2020. The move won praise from labor advocates and put pressure on other companies to also move to $15.
But some store workers say the wage increases are not helping because their hours are falling, making it difficult to keep their health insurance and in some cases to pay their bills. Read the full article here.How Working Families Can Impact Private Equity
How Working Families Can Impact Private Equity
Looking at economies around the world, it’s easy to think that reconciling markets with justice, or profit with basic fairness and human decency, is simply impossible. With the looming risks that...
Looking at economies around the world, it’s easy to think that reconciling markets with justice, or profit with basic fairness and human decency, is simply impossible. With the looming risks that come with automation and other technology-related shifts in the nature of work, the tension between what’s good for investors and what’s good for workers has seemed increasingly difficult to resolve.
There is great uncertainty about the future of work—and for many reasons, not least the lack of focused political will and policy attention to the future of work and workers. One reminder of that inattention is the sharp growth of economic insecurity over recent decades, even as the income and wealth of the affluent soared. As Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz persuasively argues, based on decades of economic trends across the globe, “inequality is a choice,” not the inevitable consequence of technological progress, the laws of physics, or the iron law of the market.
Read the full article here.
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