CPD IN THE NEWS

JACKSON HOLE, Wyo.—The liberal Center for Popular Democracy’s Fed Up campaign has criticized Janet Yellen’s Federal Reserve in recent years for raising interest rates, lacking diversity in its senior ranks and retaining a quasi-private legal structure for its regional reserve banks.

Green-shirted Fed Up activists again have set up shop outside the central bank’s annual retreat in Grand Teton National Park. But this year, their critique of the Fed is paired with praise for Ms. Yellen and a demand that she remain the central bank’s chairwoman for another four-year term.

Read the full article here.

Update 3 PM EDT:

In a decision that aligns with progressive demands, the Federal Reserve announced on Thursday that it would keep interest rates near zero in light of "recent global economic and financial developments" and in order to "support continued progress toward maximum employment and price stability."

Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders issued the following statement today after the Federal Reserve announced that it would hold off on raising interest rates:

“It is good news that the Federal Reserve did not raise interest rates today. At a time when real unemployment is over 10 percent, we need to do everything possible to create millions of good-paying jobs and raise the wages of the American people. It is now time for the Fed to act with the same sense of urgency to rebuild the disappearing middle class as it did to bail out Wall Street banks seven years ago.”

 The New York Times reports that the Fed’s decision, "widely expected by investors, showed that officials still lacked confidence in the strength of the domestic economy even as the central bank has entered its eighth year of overwhelming efforts to stimulate growth."

Progressives cheered the news, with Josh Bivens of the Economic Policy Institute saying, "Today’s decision by the Federal Reserve to keep short-term rates unchanged is welcome. [...] We hope they continue their pragmatic, data-based approach and allow unemployment to keep moving lower, and only tighten after there is a significant and durable increase in inflation."

He continued: "Tightening before the economy has reached genuine full-employment is not just a mistake, it’s a regressive mistake that would hurt the most vulnerable workers—low-wage earners and workers from communities of color—the most."

However, Reuters reports that "the central bank maintained its bias toward a rate hike sometime this year, while lowering its long-term outlook for the economy."

Which means that pro-worker organizations, which have largely opposed a rate increase that they say would slow the economy and stifle wage growth, will have to keep up the fight.

"We applaud Chair Yellen and the Federal Reserve for resisting the pressure being put on them to intentionally slow down the economy," said Ady Barkan, campaign director for the Fed Up coalition, which rallied outside the Federal Reserve on Thursday. 

"Weak wage growth proves that the labor market is still very far from full employment," Barkan continued. "And with inflation still below the Fed’s already low target, there is simply no reason to raise interest rates anytime soon. Across America, working families know that the economy still has not recovered. We hope that the Fed continues to look at the data and refrain from any rate hikes until we reach genuine full employment for all, particularly for the Black and Latino communities who are being left behind in this so-called recovery."

Earlier...

Progressives are cautioning the U.S. Federal Reserve against slowing the economy by raising interest rates "prematurely"—a decision the Fed will announce Thursday. 

The U.S. central bank will issue its highly anticipated short-term interest rate decision following a two-day policy meeting, with a 2 pm news conference led by Fed Chair Janet Yellen.

As CBS Moneywatch notes, "[t]he decision affects everything from the returns people get on their bank deposits to how much consumers and employers pay for credit cards, mortgages, small business loans, and student debt." That's because a higher rate makes it more expensive for individuals and businesses to borrow, with rising bank lending rates shrinking the nation's money supply and pushing up rates for mortgages, credit cards, and other loans.

Just before the announcement, the advocates, economists, and workers of the Fed Up coalition will be joined by Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) at a rally outside the Fed, calling on the central bank to keep interest rates low to allow for more jobs and higher wages.

"The point of raising rates is to rein in an overheating economy that is threatening to push inflation outside the Fed’s comfort zone," explained Josh Bivens of the Economic Policy Institute in the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday. "But inflation has been running below the Fed’s target for years—and its recent moves have been down, not up."

Furthermore, wrote economist Joseph Stiglitz at the Guardian earlier this month: "If the Fed focuses excessively on inflation, it worsens inequality, which in turn worsens overall economic performance. Wages falter during recessions; if the Fed then raises interest rates every time there is a sign of wage growth, workers’ share will be ratcheted down—never recovering what was lost in the downturn."

Progressive activists opposed to an interest rate hike overwhelmed the Fed's public comment system on Monday in a last-minute effort to sway the central bank. Raising the rate, they said, would be catastrophic for working families, particularly in communities of color that are still struggling. The Fed Up campaign, which includes groups like the Center for Popular Democracy, Economic Policy Institute, and CREDO Action, say the central bank "privileges the voices and needs of corporate elites rather than those of America's working families."

"A higher interest rate means that fewer jobs will be created, and that the wages of workers at the bottom will remain too low to live on," wrote Rod Adams, a member of Neighborhoods Organizing for Change in Minneapolis, in an op-ed published Wednesdayat Common Dreams. "That’s because when the Fed raises rates, they are deliberately trying to slow down the economy. They’re saying that there are too many jobs and wages are too high. They’re saying that the economy is exactly where it should be, that people like me are exactly where we should be."

However, at this point, "many observers believe the Fed will not raise rates this week," analyst Richard Eskow wrote on Wednesday.

"The Fed is really the central bank of the world. If the Fed raise rates a little bit, it will have an impact all over the world, particularly in emerging markets," billionaire private equity professional David Rubenstein told CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Thursday.

"I think the Fed is sensitive to that," Rubenstein said, "and I think therefore the Fed is likely to wait for another month or two to get additional data and probably telegraph a little bit better than it has now that it's about ready to do it at a particular time."

Meanwhile, global markets are fluctuating wildly in anticipation of Yellen's announcement and subsequent news conference.

But as Eskow noted, Thursday's real surprise "is that there’s any question at all what [the Fed] will do. That suggests that our economic debate is not yet grounded in economic reality, at least as most Americans experience it."

While the Guardian is providing live updates on the Fed's decision, others are making comment under hashtags that reflect the unbalanced economic recovery:

Source: CommonDreams

The Hill - 05-06-2015  -  The strain from Modesta Toribio’s retail job weighed down her life. Despite working full-time as a cashier in Brooklyn, Modesta struggled to pay for rent, food, or transportation. The bills added up quickly. Taking the day off to care for a sick child meant risking losing her job. Going to school at night was not an option, and she could not arrange for steady childcare because her schedule changed every week.

Modesta’s story is not unique. It is the story of countless strivers who work to sustain their families, but collide against structural barriers that keep them from making ends meet.

In this case, Modesta and her co-workers took action, organized and won concessions from their boss. It was not easy – their boss initially retaliated by cutting their hours. But, the workers gained momentum, and eventually they won better pay and better treatment.

For millions of others, though, they still do not have the dignity of a good job.

That is why the Center for Popular Democracy is proud to have launched an ambitious campaign to win good wages, benefits and opportunity for all workers with the Center for Community Change, Jobs with Justice and Working Families Organization. Named Putting Families First, the campaign will advance the audacious idea that every American should and can have access to a good job.

It’s an effort undertaken with a sense of urgency. We know that good jobs and access to them for all cannot be achieved without confronting the deep history and continuing reality of racism and sexism in America, particularly as they play out in the labor market.

As such, we propose five straightforward and commonsense tenets:

Guaranteeing good wages and benefits. Investing resources on a large scale to restart the economy in places of concentrated poverty. Taxing concentrated wealth. Valuing our families and the work of women who care for children and elders Building a green economy.

What stands between us and an economy that works for everyone are rules that unfairly favor the greedy few because they are written by politicians beholden to wealthy special interests. But workers and families who are working together for change know well that rules written by the few can be re-written by the many.

Workers around the country are launching over 100 campaigns that embody an ambitious jobs agenda that includes everyone, elevating demands that speak to the reality of people throughout our country.

One example: making high quality child care available to all working parents, raising wages and benefits for the millions of women who work in early childhood education and care fields, changing the state and federal revenue models to make childcare more accessible, and providing financial support to unpaid caregivers.

Ensuring that all working families have access to quality, affordable childcare – and that the jobs in that industry provide living wages and good benefits – is crucial to women’s economic stability, especially women of color who are the vast majority of workers in this sector.

Winning these campaigns will make a huge difference for Modesta and her family, and for millions of families in this country who are struggling to make ends meet.

The reality is that there is bold action happening in every corner of this country. Whether we are talking about fast food workers striking across the country, or immigrant workers winning policies against wage theft, or entire communities organizing to win ballot initiatives to enact paid sick days and better wages.         

The American public is thirsty for a visible effort to create real, good, dignified jobs for everyone.

We are supporting important local fights that will produce very real change in the lives of workers. And we are changing the broader frame in which those fights are waged. We are not tinkering at the margins. We have our eyes set on transforming the country through campaigns in 41 states – campaigns that grow every day.

We are setting out to challenge the orthodoxies of both parties to focus on the real problem: the need to create jobs and improve wages.

Like Modesta and her co-workers, we are coming together to stand up for ourselves, for our families, for our communities and for America. We have a vision of honoring the dignity of work, and the dignity of the people who work. We believe that we can do better, but that we will have to challenge those who are stealing our wages, limiting our ability to sustain our families and destroying our planet in order to do so.

Putting Families First will change the national conversation about work and about greed, starting where it matters most: in our states.  It will enable us to live up to our collective responsibility to create the country that we want our children to live in.

Archila is co-executive director of the Center for Popular Democracy.

Source: The Hill

Politico - November 4, 2013, by Edward-Isaac Dovere -

Even New York liberals weren’t expecting things to go this well.

Tuesday, voters in America’s most prominent city are poised to elect Bill de Blasio mayor and turn over every major lever of municipal government to a new breed of politics that’s been on the rise but never close to this level of power: a mix of young progressives, reconstituted ’60s- and ’70s-era lefties, newly active minority voters and deep-pocketed unions that have transformed themselves into expert campaign organizers.

What that will mean as they try to translate that ideology into a governing philosophy is a question that even people who’ve been leading the charge are still asking. And in New York, where there are more than 8 million residents (plus close to a million more who come in daily for work), 300,000 city employees and a $70 billion-plus budget, there’s a lot riding on the answer.

These are the people who formed the labor-funded, liberal-favorite Working Families Party and sparked Occupy Wall Street. They say government shouldn’t just allow for change — it should force new change on the city and private sector. That means universal pre-K; closed tax loopholes; pensions divested from fossil fuel companies; family-friendlier work policies, including financial support for single parents; and paid sick leave requirements. And on the housing front: more market regulation, leveraging of privately owned real estate that’s in trouble and greater community power over developers’ plans.

The reaction of the city’s business, real estate, finance and high-tech industry leaders to its new governing class-in-waiting has ranged from panic to scoffing at the stuff they say pipe dreams are made of. The political establishment in the city is skeptical any of it can work, especially without igniting a budget disaster. And the progressives in charge are superstitious enough that, despite their candidates’ long and overwhelming lead in the polls, they’ve avoided doing too much planning before election night.

One thing all sides agree on: A new era has arrived. Barring major upsets, former political-labor strategist de Blasio will be the mayor, longtime Upper West Side official and political maven Scott Stringer will be the city comptroller, and Tish James, a product of Brooklyn African-American activism and politics, will be the public advocate, roughly the equivalent of the city council president.

The city council speaker most likely won’t be picked until January, but even the conservative choices are liberal Democrats. And whoever gets the job will face a newly empowered City Council, in which the rapidly multiplying Progressive Caucus members include many unconnected to the traditions of go-along legislators, and have made clear they’re going to push for their own changes.

That array of progressive victories is “a dream,” de Blasio said on his way out of a late September fundraiser for Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), the godfather of this strain of progressivism in the city, that seconded as an advance celebration for the impending takeover.

“For a lot of progressives who’ve spent a whole lot of time on the steps of City Hall, this is the chance to get inside City Hall,” Stringer told POLITICO. “The challenge for all of us is to come together and govern and build our city for every New Yorker.”

Expectations are high, and made higher by the spirit of achieving what seemed impossible with unexpected election wins including de Blasio’s late surge and Stringer’s fending off Eliot Spitzer.

So what happens next, when these are the people confronted with a complicated and tight city budget, multiple costly labor contracts that are coming due for renewal, a crime rate that seems like it will statistically have to edge up at some point? How do they manage when they’re in charge, and not the outside instigators? And what happens when they’re heading into office promising major changes in rent costs and education, realignment of investments in city services and a detailed agenda of “broadly shared prosperity” — along with other liberal priorities like confronting climate change and improving senior care? When many competing interests are all going to be demanding attention from people who’ve never before been in positions of major power?

“There’s a lot you can do with really good leadership throughout the city that shares this agenda,” said Brad Lander, a city councilman who leads the progressive bloc and helped organize “Toward a 21st Century for All,” a collection of policy essays that’s become one of the main touchstones of progressive planning. “New York City is going to be an exciting laboratory.”

“What a pleasure it will be to have a city administration united with people who believe that you can increase the minimum wage, who believe that you can have paid sick leave, who believe that it doesn’t harm the city to treat workers and low-income people right, who believe that the purpose of an economy is not just to get the numbers on television but to help people live their lives, and who believe that the purpose of city government is to help all people — not just the 1 percent or the 5 percent or the 10 percent,” Nadler said, riling the crowd at an Upper West Side rally over the weekend.

At the rally, the talk was of how subway tokens cost only $1.25 and that Miley Cyrus wasn’t yet born the last time a Democrat was elected mayor. But that was a very different type of Democrat than what’s coming now — much more rooted in traditions of government spending and programs than the current strain’s emphasis on activist intervention, rethinking budget priorities and reeling in what they see as runaway wealthy interests.

“‘Liberal’s’ too soft,” actor-singer-activist Harry Belafonte declared at the rally to describe what he said was the most exciting political moment in his life in New York. “’Radicals.’ It’s time for radicals.”

There are limitations. Taxes — including the one on high-income earners that would pay for de Blasio’s signature expanded pre-kindergarten proposal — have to be approved by the state government, which also has the authority to take over city finances at any point if they begin to veer off track.

“It should be a comfort to people who are worried about the city going off the rails in a crazy far-left direction that Albany is not going to let that happen,” said Kathy Wylde, president and CEO of the Partnership for New York City, which represents business and financial interests across the city.

“I don’t think the primary concern is whether the mayor’s a lefty,” she said, reflecting the private-sector leaders she’s talked to. “It’s whether we’re going to have a mayor who can effectively manage 300,000 city workers and an $80 billion budget and not allow the city to run off the rails.”

“We have to govern,” Stringer said. “We have to do things through the lens of what we can afford and also what we can’t afford.”

At a meeting of municipally elected progressives in Washington state in late October, the same “tale of two cities” line that’s dominated de Blasio’s campaign kept coming up as people talked about how they could build support for many of the ideas that de Blasio’s about to have the power to do.

“It’s happening all over the country,” de Blasio said in a taped message to the Local Progress conference. “This is a tremendous moment for progressive activism.”

The mayors of Richmond, Calif., and Fitchburg, Mass., both attended, but as people there acknowledged, the importance and size of New York make de Blasio and the incoming officials a much bigger deal for the movement, in both spotlight and potential.

“It’s easy to talk on the outside than to be on the inside, actually preparing the meal, so that means they’re going to be judged on what kind of meal they prepare,” said Nick Licata, a former Seattle City Council president who’s the chairman of Local Progress. “It’s going to be a challenge — it’s always a challenge for any advocate group, left or right, when you go from proposing something to actually implementing it.”

John Del Cecato, a political consultant who was one of the main architects of de Blasio’s campaign, said there’s a clear reason why the revolution started in New York.

“There aren’t just pockets of extreme wealth and pockets of poverty anymore. We’ve got close to 400,000 millionaires, while half the city lives at or near the poverty line,” Del Cecato said. De Blasio’s appeal, he said, is the fact that the current state of affairs “is deeply troubling not just to those who are living the struggle every day, but to those who’ve done quite well who fear that New York is losing what’s made it such a special place for generations.”

Recalibrating the enormous city government to focus on pre-K, after-school programs, community hospitals, better wages and affordable housing is going to be difficult, and certainly won’t be fast, Del Cecato said.

But this year’s elections, he argued, are an important start to “move New York in a direction that acknowledges where we’re slipping behind, puts us on a new path and establishes a mind-set that we’re a city that leaves nobody behind.”

Source: