New Report Cites $100 Million-plus in Waste, Fraud in Charter School Industry
A new report by two groups that oppose reforms that are privatizing public education finds fraud and waste totaling more than $100 million of taxpayer funds in 15 of the 42 states that operate...
A new report by two groups that oppose reforms that are privatizing public education finds fraud and waste totaling more than $100 million of taxpayer funds in 15 of the 42 states that operate charter schools.
The report, titled “Charter School Vulnerabilities to Waste, Fraud, & Abuse,” and released by the nonprofit organizationsIntegrity in Education and the Center for Popular Democracy, cites news reports and criminal complaints from around the country that detail how some charter school operators have illegally used public money. It also makes policy recommendations, including a call for stopping charter expansion until oversight of charter operators is improved. Released during National Charter School Week, it notes that despite rapid growth in the charter industry, there is no agency at the federal or state level that has the resources to provide sufficient oversight.
The Obama administration has supported the spread of charter schools but has also called for better oversight. Proponents of charter schools say they provide choices for parents and competition for traditional public schools, but critics note that most don’t perform any better — and some of them worse — than traditional public schools and take resources away from school districts. Some critics see the expansion of charter schools as part of an effort by some school reformers to privatize public education.
The report details cases from state after state, among them:
*In Washington D.C.:
In the fall of 2008, the U.S. attorney’s office issued a subpoena for school financial records related to L. Lawrence Riccio’s “alleged criminal activities” at the School for Arts in Learning (SAIL). Known internationally for his work in the education of youth with disabilities, Riccio founded the Washington, DC charter school in 1998, but by 2007, a memo by a financial consultant to SAIL’s former chief financial officer describes complete disarray of financial matters. Though grant money had been flowing in, staff members were not allowed to purchase supplies, rent went unpaid, and funds from one Riccio-led organization paid expenses for another. Financial statements showed that SAIL and sister organizations paid a $4,854 credit card bill to cover Mr. Riccio’s travel -related expenses in Scotland, as well as membership dues and dinner tabs at the University Club, a premier private club. SAIL covered expenses for travel to Boston, Denver, Houston and New Orleans; grocery stores, drugstores, wine and liquor stores and flower shops, cafes and restaurants, a salon and spa, Victoria’s Secret and at a glass, paint and wallpaper shop in France, where Mr. Riccio and his wife maintain a private residence.
and
Former leaders of Options Public Charter School are under Federal investigation for possible Medicaid fraud and other abuses. They are accused of exaggerating the needs of the disabled students, bilking the federal government for Medicaid funds to support their care, and creating a contracting scheme to divert more than $3 million from the schools for their own companies, including a transportation company that billed the Federal government for transporting students to the school, but apparently offered gift cards to students to increase ridership on the buses. Additionally, a senior official at the D.C. Public Charter School Board allegedly received $150,000 to help them evade oversight.
*In Ohio:
Ohio Auditor of State Dave Yost, speaking about nearly $3 million in unsubstantiated expenses amassed by the Weems Charter School, said: “This is a heck of a mess…Closed or not, the leadership of this school must be held responsible, and the money must be returned to the people of Ohio.”
* In Wisconsin:
In 2008, Rosella Tucker, founder and director of the now-closed New Hope Institute of Science and Technology charter school in Milwaukee, was convicted in federal court of embezzling $300,000 in public money and sentenced to two years in prison. Tucker acknowledged taking U.S. Department of Education money intended for the school, which she started through a charter agreement with Milwaukee Public Schools. She spent about $200,000 on personal expenses, including cars, funeral arrangements and home improvement, according to court documents. Tucker has argued that the remainder of the money she received was legitimate reimbursement for school-related expenses. Tucker embezzled the $300,000 from 2003 to 2005. The Milwaukee School Board voted to close New Hope Institute of Science and Technology in February 2006, amid problems that included unpaid bills and lack of appropriate teacher licensure.
* In California:
Steven A. Bolden pleaded guilty on January 2, 2014 to stealing more than $7.2 million worth of computers from a government program. Between 2007 and 2012, Bolden invented more than a dozen education non-profits, including fake charter schools, to benefit from a General Services Administration program that gives surplus computer equipment to public schools and non-profits. In July 2012, a GSA undercover investigator was contacted by Palmdale Educational Development Schools, one of Bolden’s organizations, and sent Bolden 9 laptop computers, which Bolden sold via Craigslist.
Here’s the report:
Charter School Vulnerabilities to Waste, Fraud, & Abuse
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Puerto Rican Activists Reject Debt Restructuring Agreement
02.10.2020
San Juan,...
02.10.2020
San Juan, Puerto Rico -- In response to the new debt adjustment deal announced by the Financial Management and Oversight Board (FOMB) on February 9th, the co-director of community dignity campaigns at Center for Popular Democracy, Julio Lopez Varona, shared the following statement:
“The FOMB’s latest proposal should be seen as an insult to the people of Puerto Rico. This agreement ensures lofty payments to hedge funds and corporations who paid cents on the dollar on bonds that were in some cases emitted illegally. These payments will be funded by cutting pensions and imposing even more taxes, despite the struggle to recover from ongoing earthquakes and the impact of Hurricane Maria. No payments to Wall Street should be made while Puerto Rico struggles to recover. It is imperative that we reject this agreement and demand the cancellation of the debt as the only way to a fair recovery.”
Despite Puerto Rico’s unsustainable debt undergoing renegotiating deals for the last few years, the FOMB’s proposal has barely reached a consensus on a plan that does more than benefit Wall Street and bondholders. The proposal would give bondholders more than a 70% rate of recovery, retrieving that by raising local taxes and sustaining an 8.5% cut to pensions.
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Six retailers agree to end on-call scheduling: AG Schneiderman
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Six retailers agree to end on-call scheduling: AG Schneiderman
Six national retailers will cease to use on-call scheduling methods for employees nationwide following a multistate investigation, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced in a press...
Six national retailers will cease to use on-call scheduling methods for employees nationwide following a multistate investigation, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced in a press release Tuesday.
Aeropostale, Carter’s, David’s Tea, Disney, PacSun, and Zumiez were approached by attorney generals in eight states and the District of Columbia regarding the scheduling practice, which requires employees to contact the employer to know if they are to work a scheduled shift. Companies using this scheduling method often ask employees to call only one to two hours before a shift would begin, creating an unpredictable work schedule, according to a written statement from Schneiderman’s office.
The inquiry, which was sent to 15 retailers in April 2016, said the nature of on-call scheduling negatively impacts workers. Employees at these retailers may have difficulty making arrangements for childcare and elder-care and pursuing higher education, according to the letter. The letter also states employees subjected to on-call scheduling “in general experience higher incidences of adverse health effects, overall stress, and strain on family life” than workers who know their schedule in advance.
“People should not have to keep the day open, arrange for child care, and give up other opportunities without being compensated for their time,” Schneiderman said in a written statement.
Nearly 50,000 employees of the six retailers nationwide will be affected by the agreement.
“We are especially glad that employers like Disney and Carter’s, whose brands promote putting families first, will stop using on-call shifts that are notorious for wreaking havoc on families’ balance and puts undue stress on children,” Carrie Gleason, director of the Fair Workweek Initiative at the Center for Popular Democracy, said in a written statement.
Of the 15 retailers that received the inquiry letter regarding on-call shift scheduling, nine said they did not use on-call scheduling or had recently ceased doing so.
Employers in New York State are required to pay any employee who is either called into work or requests to work same-day to be scheduled “for at least four hours, or the amount of hours in a regularly scheduled shift, whichever is less, at the basic minimum hourly wage.”
Schneiderman sent a similar letter of inquiry in 2015 requesting retailers to end on-call scheduling. Of those, Abercrombie & Fitch, Gap, J. Crew, Urban Outfitters, Pier 1 Imports, and L Brands – the parent company of Bath & Body Works and Victoria’s Secret – were among the companies who agreed to end on-call scheduling.
By Jenna Macri
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Grupos cívicos piden a Harvard desvincularse de la deuda de Puerto Rico
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Grupos cívicos piden a Harvard desvincularse de la deuda de Puerto Rico
Los grupos que participan de la convocatoria están comandadas por el “Center for Popular Democracy”, e incluyen a organizaciones de estudiantes de esas universidades, así como “Make the Road New...
Los grupos que participan de la convocatoria están comandadas por el “Center for Popular Democracy”, e incluyen a organizaciones de estudiantes de esas universidades, así como “Make the Road New York”, “Make the Road Pennsylvania”, “Make the Road Connecticut”, “New York Communities for Change”, and “Organize Florida.”
Lea el artículo completo aquí.
Demonstrators Take Over Manhattan Amazon Store in Protest of Queens HQ
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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 reason to give them $3 billion when we have so many problems, homelessness."...
"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.
Economic Recovery? Not for Ferguson or Black America
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...
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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Tenants March to Stop Giveaways to Wall Street Landlords
“When I moved into our manufactured housing community in North Fort Myers, it was a beautiful, peaceful place,” Mathers told the crowd of around 1,000 activists who’d converged on the city for a...
“When I moved into our manufactured housing community in North Fort Myers, it was a beautiful, peaceful place,” Mathers told the crowd of around 1,000 activists who’d converged on the city for a July 13 Tenant March on Washington.
“Now I have neighbors who are really struggling. They’re taking their medications every other day instead of every day and not eating the food they need to be healthy.”
Read the full article here.
What does it mean to be an American?
The climate in the U.S. hasn't changed much since that incident four years ago. Fulbright still fights for the same causes, helping people in marginalized communities, but she has taken a more...
The climate in the U.S. hasn't changed much since that incident four years ago. Fulbright still fights for the same causes, helping people in marginalized communities, but she has taken a more policy-based approach. Fulbright is the Texas state coordinator for Local Progress, a project under the New York-based nonprofit Center for Popular Democracy.
Read the full article here.
Lawsuit: Arizona Minimum-Wage Initiative Stiffed Petition Firm for $65,000
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Lawsuit: Arizona Minimum-Wage Initiative Stiffed Petition Firm for $65,000
An Arizona employer is stiffing a small-business owner on a completed job, affecting dozens of low-income employees.
Sounds like the kind of greedhead Arizonans for Fair Wages and Healthy...
An Arizona employer is stiffing a small-business owner on a completed job, affecting dozens of low-income employees.
Sounds like the kind of greedhead Arizonans for Fair Wages and Healthy Families is targeting with its campaign to raise the minimum wage, right?
Wrong — the employer is Arizonans for Fair Wages and Healthy Families. The campaign refuses to pay the last $65,000 of a $965,000 bill to Sign Here Petitions, the company that hired the people who gathered the signatures that put the measure on this November's general-election ballot.
Sign Here owner Bonita Burks sued the campaign on September 21 to recover the balance due. In the meantime, Burks says, she has been unable to distribute final paychecks to the 45 to 50 petition gatherers she hired to get Prop 206 onto the ballot.
It's not as if the minimum-wage campaign can't afford to pay Burks, a Maricopa resident who has owned her own business for 12 years. Though the campaign ran short of money over the summer, its spokesman, Bill Scheel, confirms that Arizonans for Fair Wages expects to receive an influx of $1.5 million in donations any day now.
Scheel says the campaign intentionally shorted Burks' company because it didn't do its job well enough, resulting in tens of thousands in unexpected expenses.
If Arizona voters approve the minimum-wage measure in November, the state's minimum wage would go up to $10 an hour next year and rise to $12 in 2020. Waitresses and others who expect tips would see their wages increase from $5.05 to $7 by 2017, and to $9 by 2020. The ballot initiative also mandates that workers can take between three and five days of earned sick leave annually.
Much of the money for the campaign has come from out-of-state donors as part of a national effort by activists and labor unions. Living United for Change in Arizona (LUCHA), the largest donor, is itself being funded by the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Popular Democracy. The Commercial Workers union Region 8 States Council and California-based Fairness Project are also major contributors.
As New Times reported in August, a member of the political-strategy firm hired by the campaign, Javelina, loaned the campaign $100,000 after it ran short of cash while defending itself from a legal challenge that could have kicked the measure off the ballot.
Scheel, a cofounder of Javelina and spokesman for the campaign, said in August that he gave the campaign the loan on August 4 to cover unexpected expenses from a legal challenge by the Arizona Restaurant Association.
The restaurant owners behind the ARA, an influential organization led by Steve Chucri, one of five Maricopa County supervisors, doesn't want to see minimum wage go up and sued the campaign in an attempt to deny voters the right to decide the question. The ARA's lawyers argued that many of the campaign's signature gatherers were felons or had filled out their forms incorrectly, meaning tens of thousands of signatures should have been tossed. The workers are typically paid $3 to $5 for each signature they collect.
The ARA identified up to 85,000 signatures they claimed were no good, and expected to find even more invalid ones. At least 150,642 valid signatures were needed out of the 271,883 turned in by the campaign.
Yet before a deeper probe of the campaign's signature-gathering process occurred, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Joshua Rogers dismissed the ARA's complaint because it hadn't been filed on time. The Arizona Supreme Court upheld the ruling on appeal.
The campaign had apparently run out money before the lawsuit was filed, though. On July 19, about two weeks after the July 7 deadline to turn in signatures to the state, Sign Here and the campaign — represented by Scheel — drew up a one-page amendment to their original contract. In the amendment, Burks made clear that the campaign owed $186,884.60 and would assess a late fee of $1,000 per day starting on July 18.
The campaign "understands and agrees that the final invoice amount is requires for [Burks] to pay individuals already-earned monies," the contract states, adding that if Burks is sued by the signature gatherers, the campaign will cover the costs.
Scheel signed the amended contract.
About a month later, Burks says, Scheel promised falsely that the money was on the way.
Burks provided New Times with a screenshot that shows a text exchange with Scheel on Friday, August 19:
"Bill, Please send me a text once the wire has been. Thank you," Burks texted.
"The wire has been initiated," Scheel texted back.
But the following Monday, the money had not materialized in Sign Here's account.
"Sorry," Scheel informed Burks in another text. "We have been on conference calls with the national funders all morning. We've been instructed to hold off any further wires till after the Supreme Court rules on the appeal, which we hope will be Friday."
The state Supreme Court upheld Rogers' ruling on August 30, clearing its final hurdle to make the ballot.
Scheel says Sign Here invoiced the campaign a total of $965,000, of which the campaign paid $900,000.
"We paid 93 percent of everything that was due," he says.
The campaign contracted with Sign Here for more than just making the ballot, he argues: "It was about making sure circulators were qualified. She promised 80 percent validity — it came in at barely 50 percent. That's not acceptable."
The lawsuit cost the campaign $70,000 in legal fees, and Burks' company "nearly put the campaign in jeopardy," he says.
Scheel admits that he doesn't know whether Judge Rogers would have thrown out enough signatures to void the measure, had the ARA's challenge been filed on time.
"No one ever did the math on our side," he says.
But that isn't the issue, Scheel maintains. Burks didn't properly vet the signature gatherers, which cost the campaign $70,000 by leaving a potential vulnerability for the ARA to exploit.
The campaign recouped $33,500 of the legal fees via a settlement with the ARA, Scheel says. Arizonans for Fair Wages could have asked for up to $55,000 in legal fees, but decide to settle rather than prolong the fight, he says.
Scheel also confirms, as he told New Times in August, that the campaign is about to receive $1.5 million in donations from its national backers to pay for marketing and promotion of the measure in the final weeks before the election. Some of that money has already trickled in, he says, and the campaign has used it to pay 15 of the signature gatherers who haven't received checks from Sign Here.
Burks did such a poor job, Scheel says, that according to the campaign's calculations, she owes the campaign $35,000.
Gathering signatures for a ballot initiative can be a good way to make extra money, typically paying between $3 and $5 per signature.
Gathering signatures for a ballot initiative can be a good way to make extra money, typically paying between $3 and $5 per signature.
"She's a small-businessperson who unfortunately and sadly dropped the ball," he says.
Burks says she's upset and frustrated by the situation. Signature gatherers keep contacting her, asking when they'll get their last checks.
"They're hurting bad," she says. "My phone's blowing up every day."
By her account, adding in the $1,000-a-day late fee, Arizonans for Fair Wages now owes her company $143,000.
"I'm standing firm: You owe the money, you need to pay it," she says.
Burks says she doesn't have the money to pay the petition gatherers the remainder of what they're owed and says she made "no profit" on the project. Campaign officials took advantage of Sign Here to make a strong final push to collect more signatures before the July 7 deadline, even though they were broke at the time, she adds.
"They told me in the last week: Get as many as you can because our volunteer efforts suck," she says. The workers came up with an additional 35,000 signatures.
"My team and I, we worked so hard in the 120-degree heat," she says. "I was paying bonuses. I haven't made one damned dime on it. I really wanted to see it happen, for the people."
At least one signature gatherer is suing Burks in Maricopa County Justice Court.
Donna Fox worked for Sign Here before returning home to Kingsport, Tennessee. She has been staying in Scottsdale for the past couple of weeks, making the nearly 2,000-mile trip to resolve the issue.
Fox says her work for Sign Here was impeccable, and that Burks' company owes her $1,320 for her last week's work. She is suing for three times that amount, as allowed under state law.
She could probably make a deal to get her money from Arizonans for Fair Wages, Fox says. "But I don't trust them."
Even if she wins her suit, Fox says she's not sure whether she'll ever see her money. But she's hoping Burks wins her suit against the campaign, which Fox believes treated Sign Here badly.
"This is like Donald Trump strategy," Fox says of Arizonans for Fair Wages. "You can do the work, but we're not paying you. They don't walk the walk they're talking. This is nothing more than business for them."
As for Burks, with whom Fox says she shares a friendly, albeit contentious, relationship: "I chew her out all the time. I tell her she's a complete shithead because she led people to believe the check was in the mail."
The campaign offered to settle the suit for $32,500, Burks says, but she turned them down because it wouldn't cover the money she owes to the petition gatherers.
"My circulators really need their money to pay rent and put food on the table," Burks says. "I believe Arizona Fair Wages just don't care about the people who worked so hard to get their issue on the ballot."
By BY RAY STERN
Source
Fed Activists To Highlight Racial Justice At Jackson Hole Conference
The Fed Up campaign, a coalition of groups led by the nonprofit Center for Popular Democracy, will converge on Jackson Hole, Wyoming, later this week to urge the Federal Reserve to be more...
The Fed Up campaign, a coalition of groups led by the nonprofit Center for Popular Democracy, will converge on Jackson Hole, Wyoming, later this week to urge the Federal Reserve to be more responsive to the needs of American workers. In doing so, it will focus on both “economic and racial inequality,” campaign director Ady Barkan told reporters on a Monday press call previewing the campaign’s plans.
The gathering is aimed at influencing Fed officials attending the Kansas City Fed’s annual Jackson Hole symposium.
A major theme of Fed Up's parallel conference on Thursday and Friday will be “Whose Recovery,” based on the premise that the economic recovery has yet to reach many workers, particularly those of color. They note that the official African-American unemployment rate -- 9.1 percent -- is much higher than the 5.3 percent rate for the overall population.
“Although there has been a strong recovery for Wall Street, that recovery has not reached Main Street,” Barkan said. At Jackson Hole, Barkan said, “We will be asking not only, ‘Whose recovery is this?’ but also, ‘Whose Federal Reserve is this?’”
The Fed Up campaign’s immediate goal is to stop an interest rate hike that would slow economic growth, which it says would disproportionately hurt people of color. The Federal Reserve has indicated it will raise interest rates in September, though some economic analysts are speculating that Monday’s stock market slide and turmoil in emerging-market economies will give the central bank pause. Over the longer term, Fed Up hopes to reform the selection process for regional Federal Reserve bank presidents, which it believes currently reflects the interests of financial elites more than the broader public.
(For more on the Fed Up campaign's efforts and the broader debate over monetary policy, head over here.)
Fed Up will bring an estimated 50 low-income workers and representatives of communities of color from across the country to the Jackson Hole gathering -- an increase from the 10 activists it brought last year.
“We see racial justice and racial economic equality as part of the same agenda," Barkan added, referencing the persistent racial disparity in employment.
The campaign has reserved conference rooms where activists will hold “teach-ins” making the case for monetary policy that prioritizes full employment and wage growth, and plan to share their views in informal conversations with Fed officials and members of the media.
The activists will also deliver to Fed officials an as-yet-undetermined number of petition signatures opposing an interest rate hike absent greater wage growth. Last year, Fed Up amassed 10,000 signatures for a similar petition, but this year it hopes to submit a much larger number thanks to the campaign’s collaboration with progressive online heavyweights CREDO Action, Daily Kos and Working Families Party, and a promotional video from popular liberal economist Robert Reich that has already been viewed over 150,000 times.
Asked whether Fed Up planned any public and potentially disruptive protests at the Jackson Hole gathering, Barkan refused to disclose any specific plans, but did not rule them out either.
While Fed Up since its inception has focused on the disproportionate impact of Federal Reserve interest rates on people of color, its events at Jackson Hole this year explicitly appeal to the themes of the Black Lives Matter movement, which has gained steam since last year’s conference. The campaign will host back-to-back teach-ins entitled “Do Black Lives Matter To The Federal Reserve?” on Thursday and Friday that Barkan said will explain how a “weak economy causes racial discrimination and disparities.” The sessions will be organized by activists from the St. Louis and Wichita, Kansas, metropolitan areas, many of whom have also been active in protests against police mistreatment of, and use of force against, black people.
Barkan said that because Black Lives Matter is not a centralized movement, however, it has no formal affiliation with Fed Up.
Dawn O’Neal and Keesha Moore, two African-American rank-and-file Fed Up activists who are attending the Jackson Hole gathering, shared their reasons for lobbying the Fed.
O’Neal described the challenges of earning just $8.50 an hour as a teaching assistant for 3-year-old children in Dekalb County, Georgia, just outside Atlanta. Her husband is unemployed and stands in line at 5 a.m. every day for odd construction jobs at a local gathering point for day laborers. If her husband is lucky, he is one of 30 or 40 men among a group of 300 predominantly black men to be chosen for work that pays roughly the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. They lack health insurance and must choose which bills to pay at the end of every month.
“When the Fed says the economy is recovering, I do not see recovery in my community. I see the struggle of my neighbors, lines of people looking for work, people trying to make ends meet on McDonald’s salaries,” O’Neill said Monday on the press call. “I do not think those at the Fed know how life is here in South Dekalb county when they say the economy is recovering.”
Moore, a 36-year-old single mother of four in Philadelphia, described her dogged and disheartening search for work after being laid off as a data entry specialist seven months ago. She lamented a Catch-22 of job hunting: Getting a good job often requires a car, and she will only be able to afford a car when she has a job.
Moore suspects that being African American has impeded her job search. “They always ask me when I apply what my race is,” Moore said. “I am not quite sure what that has to do with getting a job.”
Moore, like O’Neal, wants to tell the Fed about her community’s urgent need for more jobs and “fair” wages.
Fed Up and its allies say even a modest interest rate hike will slow down a job market that is already inadequate for the size of the population and has yet to produce significant wage growth. That would disproportionately hurt people of color, who are already more likely to be out of work, and often experience discrimination in hiring that they are more likely to overcome in a high-demand economy supported by low interest rates.
Proponents of a Federal Reserve interest rate increase, which include many Fed officials, center-right economists and politicians, argue that rates must rise to prevent excessive price and asset inflation. And some economists are also expressing concerns that prolonged low interest rates will limit the Fed’s ability to stimulate the economy by cutting rates if and when a significant slowdown occurs, The Wall Street Journal reported on August 17.
The Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank, which is hosting the Jackson Hole symposium that Fed Up is targeting, is aware of the planned counter-conference, Barkan said, but has not expressed opinions about it. Fed Up’s actions last year led to a meeting between activists and Kansas City Fed president Esther George.
Barkan said that Atlanta Fed president Dennis Lockhart had expressed interest in attending Fed Up’s sessions.
"President Lockhart’s first obligation is to the Kansas City Fed’s conference that he is in Jackson Hole to attend," Jean Tate, a spokeswoman for the Atlanta Fed, told HuffPost. "He has some other commitments on his schedule as well. If time permits, he may be able to briefly listen to some of the conversation at the Fed-Up event, but it is not something that we can confirm."
This post has been updated with a response from the Atlanta Fed about whether President Dennis Lockhart plans to attend Fed Up events.
Source: Huffington Post
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