Black Community Seeks the Power of the Ballot
Source: Vox
For black communities in the United States, presidential election participation rates are strong and momentum is building.
In 2012, black voters showed up at the polls in the largest numbers (66.2 percent) and voted at a higher rate than non-Hispanic whites (64.1 percent) for the first time since rates were published by the U.S. Census Bureau in 1996.
Black Americans tend to vote Democratic in presidential elections. This was true by historic margins in President Barack Obama's 2008 and 2012 victories— 95 and 93 percent, respectively. And their turnout rate in 2016 could be an important factor in deciding the next president of the United States, especially in a tight race.
That's good news for black community leaders who want to ensure their voices are heard and hold future leaders accountable.
Civil rights leadership
The 2014 and 2015 cases of deadly police force against unarmed African-Americans have galvanized a tech-savvy generation of activists to inject new life in an age-old push for racial, economic and social equality.
More and more, movements such as Black Lives Matter are becoming international household names and are holding candidates accountable to specifically address and push for legislation on these issues.
One such organization, Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI), engages and advocates on behalf of African-American and black immigrant communities on issues of racial justice and immigrant rights.
BAJI's policy and legal manager, Carl Lipscombe, says part of the greater push nationwide to organize and bring to light instances of police brutality results from what he describes as a community-wide fear of "being killed when walking to the corner." He says these police cases are enhanced by the advent of social media and by the ability to capture events on camera that wasn't possible in the 1980s.
Lipscombe says candidates must do more than "throw a bone" if they expect communities of color to go to the polls in droves.
"It's not enough to just say we want free education for everyone," Lipscombe said. "We want to know how this is going to impact black people."
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate among blacks in the United States, at 9.4 percent, remains significantly higher — nearly double — than the overall rate of 5 percent nationwide.
Black wealth also has declined. The non-partisan Economic Policy Institute, in coordination with the liberal research institution Center for Popular Democracy, reports that black workers' wages have fallen by 44 cents on the hour in the past 15 years, while wages of both Hispanic and white workers have increased by approximately the same amount.
African immigrant concerns
The Migration Policy Institute reports that black immigrants from Africa are better educated than the overall U.S. population, age 25 and older.
In 2007, 38 percent held a four-year degree or more, compared to 27 percent of the U.S. population. Yet, black immigrants earn lower wages and hold the highest unemployment rate in comparison to other immigrant groups, according to the Center for American Progress.
Bakary Tandia, case manager and policy advocate at African Services Committee, a Harlem-based agency dedicated to assisting African immigrants, refugees and asylees, says progress is necessary across all levels of government.
"Even if you take the case of [New York City Mayor Bill] de Blasio,” Tandia said, “he is a progressive mayor, but in his administration, I have not seen any African immigrant appointed or in a meaningful position, and the same thing goes at the state level, at the federal level."
New leadership
Grass-roots coordinators say anti-immigration rhetoric among some presidential candidates has fueled electoral participation, as well as greater community leadership.
Steve McFarland, whose organizing efforts include get-out-the-vote campaigns among disenfranchised communities in New York, says the immigration reform movement, combined with the work of Black Lives Matter, has produced a new generation of civil rights leaders.
"It doesn't look the way that it used to look," McFarland said. "It's not big organizations, but they can mobilize people, they have a clear voice, and they are winning changes across the country."
Ahead of the 2016 presidential primaries, there is good news for Democratic frontrunner and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton. She currently enjoys an 80 percent favorability rating among adult blacks, the highest positive net rating of all candidates, according to a recent Gallup poll.
Clinton, who has met privately with Black Lives Matters activists, specifically addressed racial profiling in an October speech at Clark Atlanta University.
"Race still plays a significant role in determining who gets ahead in America and who gets left behind," Clinton said. "Racial profiling is wrong, demanding, doesn't keep us safe or help solve crimes. It's time to put that practice behind us."
Oakland spends far too much on policing
Oakland spends far too much on policing
The numerous police killings of black citizens around the country in recent years
have made us take a hard look at police brutality against black communities but law enforcement in Oakland...
The numerous police killings of black citizens around the country in recent years have made us take a hard look at police brutality against black communities but law enforcement in Oakland has a particularly alarming history.
Between 2000 and 2016, police officers in Oakland have killed 90 people, three quarters of whom were black. Victims include 23-year-old Richard Linyard, who was killed after fleeing police at a traffic stop and 30-year-old Demouria Hogg, who was shot and killed by police after they found him unconscious in a car with a pistol.
Read the full article here.
Jackson Hole Summit To Provide Forum For Policymakers Amid Market Turmoil
Also getting under way at the lodge is a protest conference organized by the Center for Popular Democracy, a liberal group that has been cajoling the Fed to hold off on raising...
Also getting under way at the lodge is a protest conference organized by the Center for Popular Democracy, a liberal group that has been cajoling the Fed to hold off on raising interest rates. Some researchers, for example, argue that “core inflation” – which strips out food and energy prices and is often used by bankers as their preferred gauge – may be less relevant in a world where futures contracts, global shipping and worldwide trade help even out retail level price swings for some of those goods.
Some analysts have also said that globalization has been a factor in holding down U.S. wages and prices even at times of solid growth.
When the Fed met in June, US oil prices had recovered to over $60 a barrel, and there had been a belief that we’d seen the lows.
Inflation has been a concern for the Fed, as it has been running well below its 2 percent goal and some signs have indicated that it may fall further. London Business School professor Lucrezia Reichlin is the discussant. Yet the theory is still a useful framework to think about monetary policy. This year central bankers, finance ministers, academics and financial market participants will chewing over why inflation is so low, whether this is unsafe and what they can do about it. Investors have cut the probability of a move at that gathering to 28 percent Tuesday from 48 percent on August 18 based on trading in fed funds futures.
They confront a big disparity between the world’s two largest economies, the U.S. and China.
China’s stock market is swooning and its economy slowing.
Goldman Sachs economists wrote Wednesday that they “expect liftoff in December, and see the recent market sell-off as another argument against a hike in September“.
U.S. counterparts will experience both advantages and disadvantages if their currencies behave according to textbooks and their currencies weaken against the dollar if the Fed raises rates.
Dudley said a final decision would reflect how the market acts over the next few weeks, as well as the end-of-montheconomic data.
The absence of Yellen and Draghi has lowered expectations for a major policy announcements at Jackson Hole.
The official roster of attendees at the invitation-only event included Fed Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer and Fed governors Lael Brainard and Jerome Powell, and presidents from eight of the 12 regional Fed banks. “So you look around the world and ask who can take up the slack, and really the answer is nobody”, said Kevin Logan, chief U.S. economist at HSBC Securities, in New York.
The opening session at 10 a.m. Eastern will examine a paper on “Inflation dynamics though firms’ pricing behavior” by Simon Gilchrist, a professor at Boston University and Egon Zakrajsek, an associate director for monetary affairs at the Fed Board of governors.
The vice chairman is considered extra inclined than Yellen to boost charges prior to later, so his statements might make clear how the talk contained in the central financial institution might transpire when officers meet September 16 and 17.
Source: Rapid News Network
Grupos cívicos en EE.UU. piden investigar los incidentes del 1 de mayo
Grupos cívicos en EE.UU. piden investigar los incidentes del 1 de mayo
Los grupos, encabezados por el "Center for Popular Democracy", pidieron al gobierno y a grupos pro derechos civiles que investiguen de forma transparente el comportamiento de agentes de la Policía...
Los grupos, encabezados por el "Center for Popular Democracy", pidieron al gobierno y a grupos pro derechos civiles que investiguen de forma transparente el comportamiento de agentes de la Policía.
Lea el artículo completo aquí.
After A Wave Of Bad Press, This Controversial Software Company Is Making Changes
In April, the New York attorney general’s office launched an investigation...
In April, the New York attorney general’s office launched an investigation into the scheduling practices of 13 national retail chains, distributing a letter to the Gap, Target, J.C. Penney, and 10 other companies. The letter asked, among other things, whether these companies’ store managers use software manufactured by a company called Kronos to algorithmically generate schedules.
A few months later, Kronos was also featured prominently in an article published by the New York Times about the ill effects of erratic scheduling on Starbucks employees, especially one particular family. In a follow-up piece, the author, Jodi Kantor, points directly to Kronos’ scheduling software as the root of the problem. “I saw that her life was coming apart and that the Starbucks software had contributed to the crisis,” Kantor wrote of one of the story’s subjects.
The piece’s argument centered around the financial and scheduling unpredictability engendered by platforms like Kronos. When you don’t know if your shift might be canceled, if or when you’ll be called in, or what your hours will look like next week or the week after, it becomes very difficult to make even the most basic plans for your future. This can have devastating long-term financial and emotional impacts on workers. According to a recent study by the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank in Washington, D.C., 17 percent of the American workforce is negatively affected by unstable schedules.
For their part, Kronos representatives argue that the algorithm is far from the root of the problem. “The populist view is that scheduling is evil, in that it’s causing erratic schedules for employees, and so forth,” Charlie DeWitt, vice president of business development for Kronos, told BuzzFeed News. “The fact of the matter is it’s an algorithm. It does whatever you want it to do.”
And you don’t necessarily need to work for Kronos to believe that in a competitive retail climate, the problem is more complicated than technology alone. Lonnie Golden, a Penn State economist who has extensively studied the impact of erratic scheduling, acknowledges that Kronos’ product itself is less to blame than the managers who make staffing decisions based on the data it provides. “It’s not necessarily the technology that’s responsible for minimum to no advance notice,” he said. “It’s the way in which it’s applied.”
But, he added, “where there’s a technology problem, there’s usually a technology solution.” And while Kronos maintains that managers, and not the software, are responsible for early dismissals and last-minute shift cancellations, the company is nonetheless pursuing some technological solutions.
Kronos wants to help managers better understand how scheduling adjustments affect workers and, ultimately, the bottom line. Though the company maintains that its software doesn’t produce the kind of erratic schedules that hurt wage workers, DeWitt said there was nonetheless an interest in figuring out why that perception existed — and, if possible, fixing it.
To that end, earlier this month at a retail conference in Philadelphia, the company announced that it’s working on a new plug-in that will give managers better insight into workers’ schedule stability, equity of hours worked among employees, and the consistency of schedules from week to week. In addition, Kronos is improving a feature meant to help give employees more control over their schedules: Though the software already incorporates employee availability and preferences into its scheduling calculations, improvements to a shift-swapping feature on its employee-facing web and mobile apps will theoretically allow employees to work around conflicts among themselves.
Golden said increased employee input and control would be a good thing. But some retailers, DeWitt pointed out, are uncomfortable making workers use an app outside of work hours; indeed, the practice could be seen as a shift of management responsibilities onto lower-paid individuals.
Part of the idea behind the new Kronos plug-in is to help companies tie fairer scheduling practices to reduction in absenteeism and turnover, which can be enormously costly. In other words, if Kronos can help executives see the connection between treating workers fairly and a store’s ability to increase revenue, DeWitt said, managers will have an impetus to create more predictable, stable schedules.
And just because companies are looking at this kind of data doesn’t mean they have to use it. “Companies like Kronos and Workplace Systems are starting to integrate some of these principles into their software,” said Carrie Gleason, director of the Fair Workweek Initiative at the Center for Popular Democracy, “but it’s all optional, so companies can decide not to do it.” While 12 states are currently considering legislation that would create new labor standards around the workweek, Gleason said the technology alone lacks a mechanism for enforcement.
Given market pressures and standard management practices, it’s unlikely that any change to Kronos’ technology would give workers more power — especially because, given the competitive retail climate at the moment, the bottom line tends to be the priority. “It’s not just bad managers. They have extreme pressure to increase productivity on an ever-shrinking labor budget,” Gleason said.
With these changes, Kronos has taken logical steps toward both repairing its reputation and making sure its software creates sustainable work environments. But while the company cannot control exactly how the algorithm that forecasts schedules and optimizes workforces is deployed inside different workplaces, the Kronos engineers who designed the product are nonetheless the partial architects of work environments that have been proven to be untenable for low-wage workers. The Kronos scheduling algorithm isn’t designed to serve those people; it’s designed to be sold to their bosses, and as such, will ultimately be shaped to serve the needs of management — until regulations exist that compel them to change how it’s used.
Source: Buzzfeed
Under Trump, local governments become activists
Under Trump, local governments become activists
Christine Knapp had been on maternity leave for nearly three months, but on Wednesday the director of the mayor’s Office of Sustainability hoisted a diaper bag on her shoulder, packed her 11-week-...
Christine Knapp had been on maternity leave for nearly three months, but on Wednesday the director of the mayor’s Office of Sustainability hoisted a diaper bag on her shoulder, packed her 11-week-old daughter, Sabine, into a stroller, maneuvered into a creaky elevator in City Hall, and rode up to the mayor’s reception room. This was just too important to miss.
Read the full article here.
Extras
Extras
The city of Saratoga Springs is considering a ban on the sale of guns and ammunition at the City Center, Mayor Meg Kelly announced this weekend in a welcoming speech to Local Progress New York....
The city of Saratoga Springs is considering a ban on the sale of guns and ammunition at the City Center, Mayor Meg Kelly announced this weekend in a welcoming speech to Local Progress New York.
Read the full article here.
Protest Calls for Fed to Focus on Employment
St. Louis Public Radio - March 5, 2015, by Maria Altman - What recovery? That was the question being asked Thursday by a small group of activists outside the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis....
St. Louis Public Radio - March 5, 2015, by Maria Altman - What recovery? That was the question being asked Thursday by a small group of activists outside the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
About a dozen protesters called on the Fed to focus on unemployment, especially among minorities, rather than on keeping inflation rates low. They said if the Federal Open Market Committee raises the interest rate this year, as anticipated, it would likely mean fewer jobs.
"We’re calling on the Fed to do the right thing by most people, because the people they’re helping by changing the policy is a very small minority people and a very influential and affluent group of people," said Derek Laney of Missourians for Reform and Empowerment.
The protest was one of several held at Federal Reserve Banks around the country to highlight a new report by the Center for Popular Democracy and the Economic Policy Institute. The report calls on the Fed to focus on “full unemployment,” and highlights disparities between white and minority unemployment levels.
In Missouri last year the unemployment rate for African-Americans was 14.4 percent, while the rate for whites was just 5.1 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Several of the protesters, who represented a variety of local groups, including MORE, the Organization for Black Struggle, Veterans for Peace, Pro-Vote and Young activists United STL, had personal stories of being out of work and struggling.
Reginald Rounds with MORE said he had recently gotten a bachelor’s degree but still couldn’t find work.
"There is no recovery in the community in which I live," said Rounds. "I talked to many people in different organizations and churches throughout the city as we worked on the Don’t Shoot Coalition. It’s my personal belief that a lot of things that happened in Ferguson just boiled over from all the tensions of unemployment, job creation, housing and our educational system."
The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis said in an emailed statement that officials reached out to protesters on Wednesday and asked them to meet to discuss the report.
"The Fed has a dual mandate to keep inflation low and stable and to foster maximum sustainable employment. It takes these responsibilities very seriously," said Karen Branding, senior vice president of public affairs, in the statement.
Washington University economist Jennifer Dlugosz said the Fed has good reason not to focus too tightly on lowering unemployment levels.
"We know from macroeconomics that if the Fed tries to push the rate of unemployment below the natural rate, which people think is 5.5 percent, that it wouldn’t work and that it would just accelerate inflation," she said.
Dlugosz, who previously worked for the Fed’s Board of Governors in Washington, D.C., said monetary policy is not the right tool to address unemployment disparity. Instead, she said, targeting labor market and education policies to create more equality would likely have better results.
The report also took aim at the Fed’s transparency, especially in choosing the board of directors for each of the 12 Federal Reserve Banks. The protesters argued too many corporate and bank executives take those positions, including in the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis’ board of directors.
"It’s basically bankers, and that’s in the charter, and there’s whole bunch of other folks who could be from labor and working people, but are instead from big corporations," said Jeff Ordower of MORE.
The board of directors in each of the Federal Reserve districts is responsible for choosing the president of the Reserve Banks. Those presidents rotate onto the Federal Open Market Committee, which meets eight times a year and decides the nation’s monetary policy. (Learn more about how it all works here on the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis' website.)
In her statement, Branding said the Fed was designed by Congress to “represent the voice of Main St."
"At the St. Louis Fed we have significant dialogue with business leaders, community development organizations, educators and the public,” she wrote. “We have a diverse board of directors who are familiar with economic and credit conditions in the district.”
Professor Dlugosz said the make-up of the boards is somewhat limited by statute. Each district’s community bank members choose three bankers to sit on the board and three non-bankers. The other three directors are chosen by the Fed’s Board of Governors in Washington, D.C, and are supposed to represent a mix of labor, agriculture, industry, and consumers.
Dlugosz said the last group, known as “Class C,” is the most likely group to represent the interests of the public, since they’re appointed by the Board of Governors.
"That’s really, I’m guessing, the main place where you’re going to see heads of labor unions or consumer advocates. If they’re getting on there, I imagine it’s the Board that’s electing them," she said. "I don’t know if that’s changed over time, but one would hope that they’re keeping an eye on it."
Source
The Week Ahead in New York Politics, May 1
The Week Ahead in New York Politics, May 1
What to watch for this week in New York politics:
President Donald Trump is due back in New York City for the first time since taking office this week -- see below for details and expect...
What to watch for this week in New York politics:
President Donald Trump is due back in New York City for the first time since taking office this week -- see below for details and expect protests, traffic gridlock, and political statements from all corners.
Read full article here.
Commentary: I need the economy to give me a fair chance
Commentary: I need the economy to give me a fair chance
I'VE ALWAYS enjoyed talking with people, and, as long as I can remember, I wanted to work in the hotel industry. It's been my dream to work with guests at the front desk to make sure they have the...
I'VE ALWAYS enjoyed talking with people, and, as long as I can remember, I wanted to work in the hotel industry. It's been my dream to work with guests at the front desk to make sure they have the best experience possible.
As an African-American woman, I knew that lucky breaks weren't going to be handed to me, so I did everything I could to achieve my dreams. I went to school and got my bachelor's degree in hospitality and hotel management in 2000 from the Indiana University of Pennsylvania.
However, apart from a brief internship after college at the Best Western and a year at the Hilton working at the switchboard, which was almost a decade ago, I haven't been able to find work in my chosen field - a field in which I have a degree.
I've heard people say the recession is over because the unemployment rate is about 5 percent. But I can tell you that things are still really bad in the black community. Currently, unemployment for blacks is about 9 percent.
I've always been politically active and serve as the judge of elections in my voting district. So when I heard about a campaign that calls on the Federal Reserve to ensure that everybody gets decent paying work, including black folks, I was eager to join.
When I got my degree 16 years ago, the economy was in decent shape. Armed with my degree, the internship experience and good recommendations, I didn't expect to have any problems getting a job in a hotel. I applied to two dozen jobs and, after being turned down at all of them, I had to take other kinds of jobs in food service or customer service.
Finally, after many years, I got my switchboard job at the Hilton. Even though I was getting only $10 an hour, I was excited to finally be working at a hotel and thought I would just stay there and work my way up. But the recession hit in 2008, and I was laid off a year later.
That's when things became really tough. The recession hit African-American women, even college-educated ones like me, particularly hard. I've worked on and off since 2008, but finding good work has become almost impossible. At one point, I was traveling two hours each way to get to my job at a state-run liquor store.
I eventually had to quit when I suffered severe medical issues. I was diagnosed with a neurological condition and uterine fibroids, all within a matter of months. A couple of years ago, I was able to work again and joined a job skills program. The program placed me at a job where I work part-time - only 20 hours a week - as a cashier and food server at a university dining hall.
The unemployment rate apparently counts people like me as employed, even though I don't work enough hours to pay my bills. I'm overqualified and underpaid (I earn $11.25 an hour), but since I'm working - even though I'm still on Medicaid and food stamps - I'm used as evidence to say the recession is over.
Involuntary part-time unemployment is a more accurate figure to look at. It's over 15 percent for blacks! That's a whole lot of people who aren't making ends meet, but are still being counted as working.
People need to know that the Federal Reserve has incredible power over the economy and people's lives. It might seem very abstract, but it's not. If the Federal Reserve keeps interest rates low, the economy will continue to grow and people like me will be able to find full-time jobs or better paying work. If it raises rates because it claims the economy is doing well, it will be tougher for everyone to find jobs.
I'm going to Jackson Hole, Wyo., next week to join a protest against the Federal Reserve, which holds a symposium there every year. We want the president of the Philadelphia Fed, Patrick Harker, and the rest of the Fed, to see what regular folks go through beyond the numbers in the headlines.
Every week, I still go online to look for jobs at large hotel chains. I know that one of these days I will work at a hotel again. I just need the economy to give me a fair chance.
Salwa Shabazz lives in Philadelphia and is a member of the Fed Up campaign, an initiative of the Center for Popular Democracy.
By Salwa Shabazz
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