Campaign News

Williams Promises Transparency After Meeting with Fed Up Coalition

Fed Up Met with President of San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank, Made Case for Prioritizing Wages and Transparency

Coalition Deliver New EPI and CPD Report on Fed and Wages – Read Here; /news/mind-gap-how-federal-reserve-can-help-raise-wages-america-s-women-and-men

On Monday, the Fed Up coalition met with John Williams, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, as part of the push for Fed decision-makers to target full employment and higher wages and to make Fed governance more transparent. Following the meeting, Williams committed to more transparency in how the Fed selects its presidents. In addition, Fed Up members made the case for prioritizing wages in the Fed’s interest rate decision and presented Williams with Mind the Gap: How the Federal Reserve Can Help Raise Wages for America’s Women and Men, a report published today by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) and the Center for Popular Democracy (CPD).

“President Williams deserves credit for agreeing with us and the broad swath of Americans who want a more transparent Federal Reserve,” said Ady Barkan, director of the Fed Up campaign at the Center for Popular Democracy. “A more accessible and accountable Fed is essential, given its enormous impact on everyday Americans’ wages, employment opportunities, and overall wellbeing. Presidents Williams and Kocherlakota should be commended for beginning to open up the Fed’s decision-making process about whether to reappoint regional presidents and, if not, whom to replace them with. We expect all regional Fed banks to do the same this year, as they select presidents for the upcoming five year terms.

“President Williams was also receptive to our perspectives on wages, acknowledging that wage growth is too low and unemployment too high. This week he showed openness to the simple premise we present: The decision about whether to raise interest rates should be guided by the principle that wage growth is good. With inflation still below the Fed’s already low two percent target, the Fed should be in no rush to slow down the economy. The only humane option for a truly inclusive recovery is for Fed officials to prioritize wage growth in their decision-making – they should not raise the rates any time soon.”

For interview opportunities with workers, policy experts, or Fed Up campaign leaders, members of the press should write an email to press@populardemocracy.org.

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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.

MSNBC - March 13, 2015, by Jane Timm - “America is coming back,” President Obama declared late last month, touting strong job creation and rising wages. “We’ve risen from recession.” But for Ferguson, Missouri – and black America as a whole – the recovery still hasn’t come.  

“Black unemployment rates are still at the height of the national unemployment rates during the Great Recession,” the Center for Popular Democracy’s Connie Razza told msnbc. “We’re still in a recession in black America.” 

Indeed, while American unemployment is down to 5.5%, black unemployment is at 10.4%. While wages have risen over the last 15 years by 45 and 48 cents for Latino and white workers, respectively, they’ve fallen 44 cents for black workers, according to a study produced by Razza at the left-leaning organization. The net wealth of African-American families, too, is hurting. “As the wealth of the other groups is stabilizing in the wake of the recession, the wealth of the African-American community is declining,” Razza added.

Blacks have long faced unemployment rates that are double those of white workers – according to Pew, it’s been that way since 1954 – but sources say the recession has hurt black America, and the St. Louis region, particularly hard. “It’s not just a recession of jobs, it’s a recession of income; it’s a recession of wealth in the sense that a whole lot of homes in Ferguson are still under water. It’s a three-way disaster for people in that part of St. Louis county,” Dave Robertson, a political science professor at the University of Missouri at St. Louis, told msnbc. “In places like Ferguson, it’s not coming back quickly. 

The most recent racial employment breakdown indicates that Missouri’s problems may be worse than the rest of the country’s, too. In Missouri, black unemployment was 15.7% in the fall of 2014 – triple the state’s 4.5% white unemployment at the time.

“It’s not just unemployment,” Robertson added. “It’s the poor wages, it’s the under-employment, it’s the part-time work.”

And economic inequality is fueling the protests and activist movement, sources said. “There’s a real sense of despair especially for those young folks. You just don’t have the economic opportunities for young people. Especially young people coming out of sub-standard school districts … not having the tools prepared for the economy,” Ferguson activist Umar Lee told msnbc. “And then there’s a shortage of jobs, leaving young people at a disadvantage, and so they just drop out.”

“That’s the driving force, we believe,” former state Sen. Maida Coleman told msnbc. She’s heading up Gov. Jay Nixon’s Office of Community Engagement, a state office formed in the wake of August’s protests to focus on low-income and minority communities. “What’s happening now is that we see a real need to address these high levels of unemployment, just as we are addressing education,” Coleman said. “The hopelessness needs to be addressed.”

But the problem extends beyond Ferguson; when there are jobs to be had, black Americans struggle to get hired.

A 2013 study found that black college grads had twice the unemployment rate of white college grads and that racial inequality actually grew during the recovery. A 2014 study by nonpartisan education and economic advocacy group the Young Invincibles found that black workers need college credit to compete with white high school drop-outs thanks to racial discrimination.

Getting an interview may be half the battle, too. A 2003 study found that very white-sounding names received 50% more callbacks for interviews than a very black-sounding name.

For these reasons, Razza and the Center for Popular Democracy are urging the Federal Reserve to keep interest rates low. The Fed had vowed to keep rates low until employment dipped below 6.5% and the recovery came in earnest, but Razza argued that the country needs to be closer to “full employment”—that is there are close to the same number of jobs as people who want to work—before the Fed can really stop intervening. “The fact that black Americas are still experiencing a recession is really … the canary in the coal mine of the recovery,” she said.

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"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.

Utica Observer-Dispatch - December 13, 2014, by Alissa Scott - Charter schools have been accused of posing a $54 million fraud risk to taxpayers, according to a new report.

The Alliance for Quality Education said vulnerabilities in the state’s charter system potentially could cause millions of dollars in fraud this year alone.

“There’s two parts of operating a charter,” said Kyle Serrette, director of the Education Center for Popular Democracy. “You need good educators — you have to provide academics — and you also need to know how to run a business. … What we’re seeing is folks that don’t know how to do either.”

Jessica Mokhiber, communications director of the Northeast Charter Schools Network, doesn’t agree with the report.

“Charter schools in New York are the most accountable public schools there are,” she said. “If they don’t perform, they close. Each year they are subject to outside audits. If they mismanage their finances, they close.”

The Utica Academy of Science, the city’s sole charter school, declined to comment on the report. Kelly Gaggin, chief communications officer of Science Academies of New York Charter Schools, said the school wants to wait until the comptroller report — the first audit it’s had since its founding two years ago — is released.

She said this will allow the school to “provide current examples and direct correlations that illustrate the checks and balances that are implemented to eliminate opportunities for malfeasance and provide exceptional stewardship of funds.”

They expect the report to be released early next year.

The AQE report found that 24 percent of charter schools in New York have been audited. The Comptroller’s Office audits about 2 percent every year, it said.

Part of what the agency is recommending is to have schools audited regularly with an external system to catch any internal flaws.

“A school could have not committed fraud in 2010, but they did in 2014,” Serrette said. “We’re spending $1.5 billion on charter schools. We need a system in place that makes sure those dollars are reported in some correct way.”

The most alarming part, Serrette said, is that 95 percent of the time the comptroller checked into a charter school’s finances, he found issues — some really bad, some just sloppiness.

Mokhiber said to “consider the source of the report.”

“These are groups who are trying every trick in the book to deny school choice to parents who have no other option,” Mohkiber said.

“The Utica Academy of Science charter school was started by the founders of the Syracuse Academy of Science charter school, which is a highly successful school with a track record of academic achievement,” Mohkiber said. “The Utica school is providing families with another public school option. The school emphasizes a science and technology education in a college prep setting, which sets students up for success in college or career.”

Either way, Serrette said this is something taxpayers should be paying attention to. And while it would cost them more money to hire extra auditors to check on all of the state’s charter schools, it will save money in the long run.

“You could hire more auditors to look at charter schools for $5 million, but if you end up catching $10 million of mismanagement, you’re $5 million ahead,” Serrette said.

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