CPD IN THE NEWS

Seemingly overnight, White House senior economic adviser Gary Cohn has emerged from the pack and is widely viewed as the most-likely next chairman of the Federal Reserve, besting all competitors by a country-mile in a recent poll.

The survey, conducted late last month by Bloomberg News, now gives Cohn a ranking of 75 out of 100, well ahead of Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen, a distant second with a ranking of 55. Cohn had a ranking of 21 in the prior survey in early June.

Read the full article here.

The New Crossroads - May 13, 2013, By Gregory N. Heires - Grassroots campaigns for local and state laws requiring employers to provide their workers with paid sick days are gaining steam.

In the latest sign of the growing movement, the New York City Council approved legislation that would make 1 million workers eligible for paid sick days.

The passage of the bill capped a three-year fight for the legislation by unions and health-care advocates.

But the legislation faces a possible veto by billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has said he would not sign the bill into law. However, the City Council approved the legislation by a veto-proof margin.

On the day of the vote, Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, executive director of MomsRising.org, an online and on-the-ground grassroots organization of more than a million people who are working to achieve economic security for all families in the United States, said, “It’s been a long fight, but today the New York City Council heeded the call of New York families and passed a bill that would allow more than a million New Yorkers to earn paid time off to use when they are sick or to take care of a sick child, spouse or parent.”

Rowe-Finkbeiner called upon Bloomberg to “stand up to corporate lobbyists, listen to the people who elected him and sign this important bill.”

The new paid sick leave bill, which the Council passed by a 45-3 vote, would go into effect in April 2014. Initially, the law would require businesses with 20 or more workers to provide five paid sick days to its employees.

In October 2015, it would be expanded to cover firms with 15 or more workers. Furthermore, the law would protect workers who are not entitled to paid sick leave from being fired if they take time off.

“This is a sweet victory,” Bill Lipton, state director of the Working Families Party, told The New York Times. “It provides economic security for New Yorkers, and a shot in the arm for the paid sick days movement across the country.”

The Working Families Party and MomsRising.org were part of a coalition that included the New York City Central Labor Council, the Center for Popular Democracy, the New York City Council’s Progressive Caucus, 32 BJ SEIU, Make the Road New York, A Better Balance and NY Paid Sick Leave Coalition.

New York City joins an increasing number of municipalities and states that are supporting sick pay legislation. San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and Milwaukee have adopted paid sick day laws. Pushes for similar legislation are underway in nearly 20 cities and states, including Denver, Miami, Seattle, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.

In March, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) introduced the Health Families Act. The legislation would allow workers to earn paid sick leave that they could use for personal illnesses, caring for a sick family member, preventive care or treatment for domestic violence.

In the United States, 40 million people work in jobs that don’t offer paid sick leave. One million workers in New York City, primarily low-wage workers, don’t have paid sick days.

In addition to arguing that workers have the right to paid sick leave, supporters of the New York City bill argued that the policy simply makes common sense. Faced with the prospect of losing pay, workers without the right to paid time off often decide to go to work when they have contagious illnesses. Furthermore, workers are less productive when they are ill.

“It’s an incredible feeling to know that I won’t ever again have to choose between my child’s health and my job,” said Juana Sanchez, who has three children and is a member of Make the Road New York, a Brooklyn-based community organization that represents Latino and other low-income workers.

“I believe this law enshrines the principle that American exceptionalism is not just about large profits and small elites, but a workplace that is safe, fair and respectful of the lives of workers,” said City Council member Gale Brewer, who first introduced the bill in 2009.

Source

When Federal Reserve officials gather for the Kansas City Fed’s high-profile policy conference in Jackson Hole, Wyo. this week, some of them will start with an unprecedented event.

On Thursday, eight central bankers, among them Fed governor Lael Brainard and New York Fed President William Dudley, will meet with and answer questions from about 120 activists from the Campaign for Popular Democracy’s Fed Up Campaign, a left-leaning group working to change the way the powerful central bank works.

The meeting marks a turn for the invitation-only Jackson Hole symposium, which draws top central bankers and economists from around the world to discuss monetary policy issues behind closed doors. Though journalists cover the proceedings and Fed officials give press interviews on the sidelines, this is the first time the Kansas City Fed, which hosts the event, has organized a public forum for policy makers to meet with their critics beforehand.

“My sense is that we are starting to see real changes, ”said Ady Barkan, leader of the Fed Up campaign. He said he was prompted to launch the effort after realizing how little public attention was focused on the U.S. central bank, which directly affects the lives of U.S. workers, consumers, home buyers, business owners and investors.

Formally launched in 2014, the coalition of policy activists, labor and community groups has lobbied the Fed to keep interest rates very low to ensure the economic recovery benefits all Americans and not just the well off. The group has called for more diversity among the central bank’s predominantly white, male leadership; more openness about how regional Fed bank presidents are chosen and changes in the Fed’s century-old structure to reduce the influence of the banking industry.

Mr. Barkan, a 32-year-old lawyer, recalled wondering how to get the public to care about “the absurdly opaque issue” of Fed policy. He found more interest that he expected. Speaking with community groups, he found “everybody is fascinated, everybody gets the importance of it.”

The group has gained a notable amount of high-level access. Its members met in November 2014 with Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen and several Fed governors, and later with Fed staff. Fed Up members have met with all 12 regional Fed bank presidents, even conducting public events with some, as it did with the Minneapolis Fed’s Neel Kashkari in early August.

The regional Fed bank leaders have largely welcomed their meetings with Fed Up. “I’ve been at the Fed 22 years. When you’ve been at an institution that long it is hard to know how other people view you” and how your policies play out in the real world, San Francisco Fed President John Williams told reporters in July.

“Understanding the perspectives of people outside of financial markets, outside of our own circles—that’s healthy,” Mr. Williams said. “Hearing what I think is supposed to be constructive criticism is healthy.”

Over the past year, Fed Up also has met regularly with lawmakers and their staff on Capitol Hill, held press briefings in front of the central bank’s Washington, D.C., offices and stacked congressional hearings with activists wearing their trademark green shirts.

Among the results: A large number of congressional Democrats and the campaign of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton have echoed Fed Up’s call for barring bankers from the boards that oversee the regional Fed banks and urged the central bank to focus more on promoting job growth. The Democratic legislators have recently expressed concerns over a lack of diversity among Fed leaders.

In congressional hearings in February, House and Senate Democrats peppered Ms. Yellen with more questions than in the past on issues such as inequality, stagnant wages and jobless rates for low-income Americans.

“For black Americans, we’re still in the midst of a very serious depression or recession,” Rep. Keith Ellison (D., Minn.), a member of the Congressional Black Caucus who had met with Fed Up, told Ms. Yellen in February.

When she returned to Capitol Hill in June, Ms. Yellen came armed with data and talking points addressing the diverging economic circumstances between white and black and Hispanic households.

“It’s important for us to be aware of those differences and to focus on them as we think about monetary policy and work that the Federal Reserve does in the area of community development,” she said.

That contrasted with Ms. Yellen’s previous comments that the Fed’s options for addressing the economic troubles of minority groups were limited. Some Fed watchers said her shift in tone suggests policy makers are paying closer attention to such concerns.

The gestures may not seem like much to outsiders, but to people familiar with the Fed—an institution that is slow to change and resistant to criticism—they are viewed as a significant shift.

“It’s kind of monumental to get the Fed to change,” said Sarah Binder, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, noting the creation last year of an advisory council at the Fed focused on the concerns of low-income communities.

That said, a number of the Fed bank presidents have argued against the structural reforms Fed Up is advocating. In May, Mr. Dudley said “the current arrangements are actually working quite well, both in terms of preserving the Federal Reserve’s independence with respect to the conduct of monetary policy and actually leading to pretty, you know, successful outcomes.”

Atlanta Fed President Dennis Lockhart expressed skepticism about the call for more openness about the selection of regional reserve bank chiefs.

“When it comes to picking new bank presidents, are you going to get that with a completely open process much like an election? I don’t think these are roles that should be filled by public election,” he said.

Fed Up’s funding comes primarily from the Open Philanthropy Project, which provides grants and funds to projects on justice reform, immigration and economics. Open Philanthropy committed $1 million toward Fed Up’s 2016 budget. In 2015 Open Philanthropy donated $750,000 toward Fed Up’s $1.1 million annual budget. Dustin Moskovitz, a Facebook co-founder who left that firm in 2008, is one of the primary sources of Open Philanthropy’s funds.

Some former central bankers worry Fed Up has unreasonable expectations in a world in which central bank policy can’t change economic fundamentals such as long-run growth in productivity, output or wages. They also fret it was the Fed itself, via its response to the financial crisis, that created the perception it has the tools to affect more than short-term fluctuations in inflation and hiring.

Charles Plosser, former president of the Philadelphia Fed, said the Fed officials, through word and deed, “continually raised expectations about what they can do.” And having made the public believe it was more powerful that it actually is, officials “are setting themselves up for exactly this sort of attack” by those who want more out of the Fed.

Former Dallas Fed leader Richard Fisher said he had long warned that ultra-aggressive Fed stimulus policies that he said primarily benefited the rich would end up “stoking the fires of populism.”

The Fed has faced populist critics before. What is different about Fed Up, Ms. Binder said, is it seems to be well-funded and well-organized and have a constructive agenda, as opposed to some groups who have called for abolishing the Fed or limiting its powers.

“They’re kind of working through the system in a way, which is to say, ‘Look, [Congress has told the Fed] to care equally about inflation and jobs—it’s not time to give up on jobs,’” she said.

Corrections & Amplifications:

Rep. Keith Ellison is a Democratic congressman from Minnesota. An earlier version of this article incorrectly said he is a Republican. (Aug. 25)

By Michael S. Derby and Kate Davidson

Source

“The vast majority of funding for Hoosier Action and its initiatives comes from its dues-paying membership,” Greene said. “Although we are a local partner of the Center for Popular Democracy, a national network that offers support.”

Read the full article here.