Liberals turn to Fed in populist push
Left-leaning groups and lawmakers are taking their populist economic fight to the Federal Reserve, as they seek to...
Left-leaning groups and lawmakers are taking their populist economic fight to the Federal Reserve, as they seek to exert new influence over key monetary decisions and a pair of vacancies at the central bank.
The Fed has faced heavy criticism from the right for years, but the other side of the aisle is now beginning to publicly push the institution for preferred policies. With Congress and the White House seemingly set to butt heads for the next two years, left-leaning community and labor groups are turning to the Fed in an attempt to get an economic policy boost for middle- and working-class Americans.
“In the face of the fiscal side not being really a realistic option to promote an economic recovery, the most important economic policymaker in the United States is the Federal Reserve,” said Shawn Sebastian, policy advocate for the Center for Popular Democracy.
And after successfully driving President Obama to nominate Janet Yellen to lead the Fed, some Senate Democrats are again pressing the administration about openings at the central bank. Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) are vocally calling on Obama to nominate tough-nosed Wall Street watchdogs to fill out two board spots that often are filled by academics or economists.
The resurgence of left-leaning interest in the Fed’s operations further complicates the bank’s efforts to remain above the political fray. The Fed has weathered years of criticism from the right, which argues its unprecedented foray into monetary stimulus after the recession was a recipe for disaster.But now, with the Fed preparing to finally dial back years’ worth of quantitative easing, it’s the other side that is airing concerns. This time, the worry is that the Fed could tighten policy too quickly, even as millions of Americans still are looking for work or grappling with stagnant paychecks.
“I have been concerned for some time that when the Federal Reserve began to tighten policy that they would be subject to considerable pressure from people who don’t want them to do that,” said Donald Kohn, a former Fed vice chairman now with the Brookings Institution.
A host of left-leaning groups, including the AFL-CIO and the Economic Policy Institute, have joined forces to take a populist message directly to the Fed. The groups have protested a central bank powwow in Jackson Hole, Wyo., and have held public protests outside the institution’s headquarters in Washington.
The leftward push on the Fed follows those groups notching a major victory at the central bank in 2013. With Obama reportedly favoring economic adviser Lawrence Summers to replace the outgoing Ben Bernanke as head of the Fed, Democrats on and off Capitol Hill embarked on a concerted campaign to get Yellen nominated for the top job instead.
Democratic lawmakers took the rare step of publicly advocating for Yellen, then the Fed’s vice chairwoman, before a nomination was made, effectively announcing opposition to Summers in the process. Though Obama defended Summers in public, he ultimately deferred to that pressure and nominated Yellen for the job.
Now, Warren and Manchin are hoping to exert more influence, calling on Obama to fill two openings at the seven-member board with tough supervisors who “have a demonstrated commitment to not backing down when they find problems.”
Fed governors are given a 14-year term, so if those two find success on that front, the end result could be a considerable shift in how the central bank operates as a financial regulator. And any new voices would likely receive an open hearing from Yellen, whose background is as an economist, not a regulator.
“My impression is that Chair Yellen is running the system by consensus in a considerable way, she consults widely,” said Kohn.
Since taking the job, Yellen has made a concerted effort to place the Fed’s deliberations within the context of the working class. One of her first acts as the Fed’s new leader was to address at a Chicago event how the central bank hoped to boost jobs, and she has agreed to meet with left-leaning protestors to hear their concerns.
But Yellen’s openness to those new voices is leaving some unsettled.
“There’s a trend here that’s pretty clear and pretty concerning,” said Steven Lonegan, director of monetary policy at American Principles in Action, which advocates for tighter Fed policy, including a return to the gold standard.
“You can’t start manipulating the value of our money because you have a specific political agenda,” he added.
But these new advocates argue the Fed has always been subject to politics. Sebastian argued that Fed officials and those that track Fed policy skew heavily from corporate and banking interests, leaving a “Main Street” voice out of the picture.
“Every person carries political baggage,” he said. “All we’re trying to do is have that conversation reflect reality.”
But even the people behind the new leftward push on the Fed acknowledge advocacy of the publicly mysterious institution is somewhat novel. Conservative criticism of the Fed has been around for years, first helmed by former Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), but a more liberal effort for influence has not been seen in decades.
“This is a new space for us,” said Sebastian. “We don’t know what the effect of this type of engagement will be.”
Source: The Hill
As debate heats up over interest rates, progressive movement mobilizes behind a pro-wages, racial equity agenda
Following the call, participants released the following statements: Dawn O’Neal, teaching assistant and member of Rise...
Following the call, participants released the following statements:
Dawn O’Neal, teaching assistant and member of Rise Up Georgia: Atlanta, Ga.
"When the Fed meets in Jackson Hole to discuss inflation, they will be almost 2,000 miles away from South DeKalb County. Here, the lines of people desperate for even a temporary job at the local work pool stretches around the block – those people include my husband. Together, despite our hard work and best efforts, we still struggle at the end of the month with health and household bills. That’s not just our story, but that of our neighbors and our community. For members of the Fed looking to slow down the economy, I’d invite them to come here to East Atlanta. It’s not easy to live here; for some people the economy means our very survival.”
Keesha Moore, intern, job seeker, and member of Action United: Philadelphia, Penn.
“I have been searching for employment for 7 months now. I am 36 years old and I have a family to provide for and a house to maintain. I know I’m not alone when saying that the way the economy is today my household needs dual income in order to maintain and stay afloat. In Philadelphia, mine is a story all too common: We need more jobs available and fair wages. I don’t think that people who do not live here or pay taxes here should be able to take our jobs away from us with the stroke of a pen. At Jackson Hole, we will remind them that our communities also deserve a say in this debate.”
Josh Bivens, Economic Policy Institute
“The recovery will never reach workers’ wages if the Federal Reserve prematurely slows the recovery. The Fed should at least keep short term rates low until we reach a genuine full recovery from the Great Recession. At a minimum, this means waiting until wage growth is consistent with the Fed’s overall inflation targets and the labor market is back to pre–Great Recession health. And since the pre-Great Recession labor market was likely not at genuine full-employment, we can probably be even more aggressive in that in letting unemployment decline.”
Ady Barkan, campaign director for the Fed Up at the Center for Popular Democracy
“Members of the Fed Up coalition across the country have rallied for a more inclusive Federal Reserve that prioritizes wages and promotes a recovery in all of our communities. Our members have shared their stories with regional Fed Presidents and informed them why raising the rates prematurely would be disastrous in our communities, where many are still mired in a Great Recession. In Jackson Hole, we will put a faces and stories within reach of the Federal Reserve. Before they can have a real discussion of raising interest rates and slowing the economy, they should understand first-hand who it would affect.”
The Fed Up campaign, anchored at the Center for Popular Democracy, will hold a number of teach-ins in Jackson Hole, Wyo. during the Federal Reserve’s symposium from August 27 to 29 to convey why it does not make sense to stop the recovery for America’s families. The teach-ins will be led by workers, economists, and Fed Up allies and will cover an array of topics like the Fed’s role in full employment, the intersection of Black Lives Matter and the Fed, the selection process for regional bank presidents, a historical look at inflation, and more.
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The Center for Popular Democracy promotes equity, opportunity, and a dynamic democracy in partnership with innovative base-building organizations, organizing networks and alliances, and progressive unions across the country. CPD builds the strength and capacity of democratic organizations to envision and advance a pro-worker, pro-immigrant, racial justice agenda.
The Fed's lack of diversity is hurting its judgment
The Fed's lack of diversity is hurting its judgment
Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen found herself in the hot seat at the recent bi-annual Humphrey Hawkins testimony as...
Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen found herself in the hot seat at the recent bi-annual Humphrey Hawkins testimony as members of Congress challenged her over the lack of diversity among the Fed's ranks.
Asked by Senator Elizabeth Warren whether she was concerned that 10 of the 12 Fed's regional presidents are men, Yellen answered that she did believe it was "important to have a diverse group of policymakers who can bring different perspectives to bear."
The nation's central bank has recently come under intense scrutiny for appointing predominantly white men from the banking and corporate sectors to leadership positions. Last month, 127 members of Congress sent a widely publicized letter to Yellen calling for her to commit to leadership that better reflects the diversity of the United States.
For the last two years, the Fed Up coalition – comprised of community organizations and labor groups in each of the 12 Federal Reserve districts – has sat down with Yellen and other Fed policymakers to ask that more diverse candidates are considered for directorships at the Federal Reserve Banks, and that the process for selecting Federal Reserve Bank presidents be opened up to greater transparency and public input.
The call for a Fed membership that reflects America's diversity was enshrined in a law passed by Congress 40 years ago, an important thing to keep in mind when considering the modest recent progress touted by Yellen. The law requires the Federal Reserve to "represent the public, without discrimination on the basis of race, creed, color, sex, or national origin, and with due but not exclusive consideration to the interests of agriculture, commerce, industry, services, labor and consumers."
While we are encouraged that Yellen became the first woman ever to hold the position of Fed Chair in 2014, the reality of the Federal Reserve is far from representative of the public. Currently, 11 of the 12 regional Reserve Bank presidents are white and 10 of the 12 are men. Not a single Reserve Bank president is Black or Latino, which means there is no representation from the communities hardest hit by the 2008 financial crisis. In fact, there has never been an African American president of a Reserve Bank in the history of the Federal Reserve System.
Moreover, all voting members of the Fed's powerful interest rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) are white.
This is a problem. The power for ensuring the country reaches full employment rests solely with people who do not share the lived experiences of those most affected by their policies. The voices of women, African-Americans, Latinos, and representatives of consumers and labor are being shut out of key discussions over our economic future.
The impact of the economic crisis was not experienced uniformly across different communities, with the vaunted recovery never reaching some segments. The unemployment rate for African-Americans currently stands at 9 percent, more than double the unemployment rate for white Americans of 4.3 percent. The Latino unemployment rate of 5.6 percent is also worse than what it is for white Americans.
In a marked shift from her stance a year ago, Yellen noted racial disparities in economic outcomes in her opening remarks to Congress and stressed the importance of monitoring "different groups in the labor market to see if what we perceived as broad-based labor market improvement is being widely shared."
"Elizabeth Warren told Janet Yellen that the current process for appointing regional bank presidents 'is broken.'"
Compare this with her testimony last year, when Yellen dismissed the impact full employment can have on reducing racial disparities in unemployment and wages, claiming the Fed's tools were limited.
Yellen separately acknowledged racial disparities and the need for greater diversity among Fed leadership, but stopped short of linking the two. We believe the two are inextricably linked – a Fed filled with white male bankers will never be able to fully relate to impoverished communities of color.
That is why we have offered Yellen a slate of 39 candidates from which she can appoint directors to sit on the boards of the regional Banks. Drawn from all 12 Fed regions, the candidates are racially diverse, gender balanced and come from a range of backgrounds in labor, academia, and community-based organizations.
Elizabeth Warren told Janet Yellen that the current process for appointing regional Bank presidents "is broken." Yellen can demonstrate her commitment to diversity by appointing any of these 39 candidates to open board director positions.
Warren and other members of Congress in both houses are standing with low-wage workers to shine a light on our nation's opaque but vitally important economic policymaking institution. It's time for the Fed to heed the call on behalf of the millions of Americans around the country who are still suffering from the devastating impact of the 2008 crisis. It's time for the Fed to truly represent the public.
By Dushaw Hockett
Source
N.J. company named among worst for wage theft fined $3.2 million
N.J. company named among worst for wage theft fined $3.2 million
NEW YORK-- The New York City Comptroller levied a huge fine on a Parsippany company that cheated dozens of workers,...
NEW YORK-- The New York City Comptroller levied a huge fine on a Parsippany company that cheated dozens of workers, mostly immigrant laborers, out of millions of dollars in wages for work on city projects.
K.S. Contracting, owned by Paresh Shah, was ordered to pay $3.2 million and will also be barred from receiving state contracts for five years.
In its statement the comptroller's office did not identify the headquarters of Shah's company, but an Internet search turned up multiple Parsippany addresses for the business. State records tie Shah to at least one of those addresses, The Daily Record reported.
The company, named in 2015 as one of the worst wage theft violators in the city by the Center for Popular Democracy, was awarded more than $21 million in contracts between 2007 and 2010.
K.S. Contracting came under investigation in May 2010, when an employee filed a complaint. An investigation over the next several years uncovered a kickback scheme targeting immigrant employees, Comptroller Scott M. Stringer said.
Following a four-day administrative trial in May 2016, Stringer's office learned that checks were regularly issued to just half the workforce, which was ordered to cash them and return the money to supervisors. The cash was then given to all the workers at a rate significantly below the prevailing wage.
At least 36 workers were cheated out of $1.7 million in wages between 2008 and 2011, with some workers who were to be paid a combined wage and benefits package of $50 an hour receiving just $90 a day in cash. Most of the victims were workers of Latino, West Indian or South Asian descent, Stringer said.
"With President Trump taking clear aim at immigrants across the country, we need to stand up and protect the foreign-born New Yorkers who keep our City running. Every New Yorker has rights, and my office won't back down in defending them," New York Stringer said in a statement.
"Contractors might think they can take advantage of immigrants, but today we're sending a strong message: my office will fight for every worker in New York City. This is about basic fairness and accountability."
By Paul Milo
Source
What the Campaign’s Focus on Inequality Means for New York
City Limits – September 4, 2013, by Gail Robinson - On July 21, five candidates for mayor of New York left their...
City Limits – September 4, 2013, by Gail Robinson -
On July 21, five candidates for mayor of New York left their usual beds to spend the night in a public housing project in Harlem. The sleepover made for good photo opportunities and sound bites––Council Speaker Christine Quinn likened the mold she saw in a bathroom to a horror movie––but it also helped signal that the two New Yorks of Fernando Ferrer’s failed mayoral campaigns have returned to center stage in New York politics.
Public Advocate Bill de Blasio’s recent emergence as leader in the polls has confirmed that. “Bill de Blasio’s Surge is All About Inequality,” blared a recent headline in the New Republic.
While de Blasio has made New York’s “tale of two cities” a centerpiece of his campaign, other candidates also have targeted income inequality, and even many moderates and conservatives see the issue as an important one. “It’s a barbell economy. That’s definitely true,” says Nicole Gelinas, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
Sharp differences exist, however, about how New York should confront this problem and whether anything a New York City mayor can do will make a difference.
Why now
During his first term, it’s said, the word poverty passed through Michael Bloomberg’s lips once or twice. It didn’t seem to hurt him.
Now the problem has emerged as the elephant in the room. Figures released last year found the percentage of New Yorkers living in poverty had increased for three consecutive years, reaching 20.9 percent in 2011. The Economist recently noted that in New York City in 2012 “the richest 1 percent took home close to 39 percent of the income earned in the city, more than double the national figure of 19 percent.” While some of this is due to New York’s status as the home to a lot of really rich people, it also points to a decline in the middle class, as jobs paying less than $35,000 replaced the jobs the recession stripped away.
Given this, income inequality not being an issue in this year’s election “would be like terrorism not being an issue on Sept.12, 2001,” says Joel Berg, executive director of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger. Areport by the Community Service Society (which owns City Limits) found that 70 percent of all New Yorkers––and 74 percent of those with moderate or high incomes––are somewhat worried or very worried about widening inequality in the city.
Organizing around issues such as the living wage and paid sick leave and the message of Occupy Wall Street also helped push the issue forward, as has Bloomberg’s fading presence. “People are reckoning with what New York has become on his watch, and he’s not spending $100 million to pump out an alternative message,” says Andrew Freidman, executive director of the Center for Popular Democracy.
De Blasio and City Comptroller John Liu have been most vocal on the issue. “Addressing the crisis of income inequality isn’t a small task. But if we are to thrive as a city, it must be at the very center of our vision for the next four years,” de Blasio said in the introduction to his position book.
“Economic inequality is ruining our chance for economic recovery,” Liu said in an Aug. 21 debate.
But all the Democratic candidates have acknowledged the problem. “As New York gets more expensive and incomes fail to keep up, millions of New Yorkers are at risk of being pushed out of the city. That’s horrible for them––and it’s bad for all of New York,” former City Comptroller Bill Thompson said in April. While keeping to his 2005 theme of fighting for those in the middle class or “struggling to make it there,” former Rep. Anthony Weiner, now calls for “an oligarch tax.”
Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who has tried to address the concerns of liberal Democrats concerned about the income gap without forfeiting support from the man many blame for it, in February issued a plan aimed at addressing inequality. “We will keep New York City what it has always been, a place where opportunity is given, not just to those who can afford to buy it, but to those willing to work for it,” she has said.
The discussion has given rise to a cautious optimism among some who would like to see the city government shift direction. “There are a lot of good ideas out there, and I hope some of them make it into the playbook of the eventual winner,” says James Parrott, deputy director and chief economist for the Fiscal Policy Institute.
“There’s very little that the Democratic candidates have proposed … that I don’t agree with,” says Berg. But, he added, the question is what their priorities turns out to be and whether they can “mobilize the base without scaring off the middle.”
The limits of power
What, though, can the mayor, any mayor, do? Many of the conditions that have contributed to a rising wealth gap in New York––loss of manufacturing jobs, reduced clout for unions, increasing globalization, the rise of technology––affect the entire nation.
“We’ve seen statistics that show that New York is not any different or any worse in equality than what’s happening in the United States of America,” Republican candidate Joe Lhota said in March. In light of that, he said he did not see any short-term, New York City solutions to the problem.
After largely ignoring poverty in his first term, Bloomberg in his second term began shifting gears a bit. In 2006, he established the Center for Economic Opportunity to look at how poverty is measured and to launch programs to fight it. He followed up with an initiative aimed at young black and Latino men in his third term. While some of these efforts have won praise, overall they have not made any real dent in the percentage of New Yorkers at or near poverty.
The mayor––who undoubtedly would take credit if income inequality abated on his watch––has blamed larger forces for the fact that it hasn’t. After the release of income figures in 2012, a spokesperson for him said the “numbers reflect a national challenge: the U.S. economy has shifted and too many people are getting left behind without the skills they need to compete and succeed … That’s why the mayor believes we need a new national approach to job creation and education.”
But many see that as an easy way out. For one thing, they say, Bloomberg could have done less harm. “Some of the Bloomberg policies have been so wrongheaded,” says Parrott, citing the administration’s opposition to living wage measures and its undermining of contracts for school bus drivers and day care workers. “It’s taking what should be good working class jobs and making them poverty jobs.”
Beyond doing no harm, a mayor can advocate for policies to help the poor, much as Bloomberg has done for gun control. And some say that the mayor of New York is so powerful that many specific policy changes fall well with his or her grasp. The mayor controls a $70 billion budget, Friedman points out and so, he says, “I can think of 100 things the mayor could do.”
In Gelinas’ view, the city can help its low income resident by doing what we expect municipal government to do––enforce laws, protect the streets. “No matter how much you make, you have the right to live in a safe, quiet neighborhood,” she says. “That’s more the city’s job than to make sure everyone earns $80,000 a year.”
Tax breaks for some, hikes for others
No plan for dealing with income inequality has attracted as much attention as de Blasio’s proposal to increase taxes on those earning $500,000 or more to fund early childhood and after-school programs. Most of the Democrats, though, have embraced some changes in the tax system. Liu also calls for a tax on high-earning New Yorkers, saying the money would fund a variety of services, including early childhood education, police and housing for the homeless. Weiner has advocated making the transfer tax on home sales more progressive and upping the tax on homes that are not primary residences. Quinn would try to end the tax on low-income New Yorkers getting the earned income tax credit and, has had said that, if she had to raise taxes, she would do so “progressively.”
Certainly taking money from affluent New Yorkers ––a kind of Robin Hood approach––would reduce income equality in an immediate sense. Many of the proposed changes would require state approval, which could prove dicey. Beyond that, experts disagree over the longer-term impact of any tax hikes.
John Tepper Marlin, who served as chief economist with the city comptroller’s office for 14 years, says he believes the tax system is stacked against those in the lower middle class, the people most experts see at risk of slipping into poverty. Yet he thinks the problem would be best addressed on a national level.
“An attempt to tax the rich will fail because they’ll get away. … You can make a lot of mistakes in New York City and not kill the city, but other cities have been killed,” Marlin says. While he does not think the de Blasio tax hike is high enough to scare people away, he fears some will view it as “an opening wedge for a confiscatory tax.”
Others doubt that, noting that federal income tax rates on high earnersinched over 80 percent in 1941 and stayed over 90 percent until the early 1960s. “The national conversation around taxes has become incredibly one-sided,” says Angela Fernandez, executive director of the Northern Manhattan Coalition for Immigrant Rights. “If we can have a leader that shows some courage and raises taxes, I highly doubt it will affect the flow” of creative energetic people to New York.
Rather than raising taxes, Gelinas says, the city could get money for programs to address the income gap by confronting its long-standing budget problem, particularly the high cost of pensions for many city workers. The Republican candidates have indicated a willingness to do this, she says, and even the Democrats appear to recognize the current system is “not sustainable.”
Where the money goes
The question, though, is not only how to raise money but how to spend it. In targeting the money for early childhood education, de Blasio puts himself squarely alongside education experts who believe early childhood education can have a huge effect on outcomes farther down the road. “For our kids to compete and become the workforce we need, our mantra has to be learning earlier and learning longer,” he said in a speech before the Association for a Better New York.
Berg says the plan would not only provide education but also give poor children two free meals a day under the federal WIC program and help parents with child care. But while Parrot says early childhood education helps “make sure there’s starting gate equality,” he cautions it “is not going to show results right away in terms of reversing income inequality.”
Candidates have proposed other investments in education that they say also will better prepare students for better jobs and incomes. Thompson, who has the endorsement of the teachers union, has called for increased funding of schools and establishing additional pathways for students to graduate from high school prepared for college or careers. He also supports expansion of pre-K.
Quinn envisions “cradle to career” technical education, as well as increased computer training–notably, a technical school for girls in every borough. She would provide more time for high-needs students to learn by extending the school day and launching summer programs, and create so-called community schools that provide an array of social and health services as well as classroom teaching.
Lhota sees education as one of the few areas where the city can make a difference. “The city’s responsibility toward educating its children is the first and foremost thing that we need to do to make sure that inequality goes in a different direction,” he has said. “Our children need to be properly trained so they can work in a global economy.”
Lhota’s Republican rival, John Catsimatidis, has proposed a plan that would create stronger links between vocational education programs and corporations. It would include tax credits and incentives for those companies that invest in career training programs.
But while no one disputes the need for quality education, some question whether increased investment in schools will affect the income gap. After all, they note, Bloomberg already has dramatically hiked spending on schools.
Berg says that Bloomberg has put forth a contradictory narrative, saying on the one hand that education is the best cure for poverty and, on the other hand, that his many education changes have been a success. “Either he’s wrong about education being the only answer” or he’s wrong in saying his education programs worked, Berg adds.
The key, others say, would be in the type of investment in education and the quality of the programs. Fernandez says training often has been too rudimentary, preparing students for low-level jobs. “There’s been a lack of vision and an underestimation of the young people of our city,” she says. Fernandez would like the city to take money from a small increase in taxes and invest it in education to prepare people for high-end jobs: not home health aide, perhaps, but registered nurse.
Freidman believes investing in immigrants, particularly in English classes for them, would have a big payback.
Raising the floor
After peaking before the recession the average annual wage in New York’s private sector, fell sharply and, at the end of 2011, remained below where its 2007 level. In the state as a whole, low-wage jobs—those paying less than $45,000—accounted for 35.6 percent of all jobs in New York State; by June 2013, lower paying jobs accounted for 38.4 percent of the state total. Meanwhile, living in New York City has gotten more expensive, making it difficult for working families to pay the rent and put food on the table. “People see a job as the road out of poverty into the middle class, and it’s not getting them up there now,” says Nancy Rankin, vice president for policy, research and advocacy at the Community Service Society.
With this in mind, the Democratic candidates have all supported hikes in the minimum wage, including the increase to $9 an hour over three years approved by the state this year. Liu has called for the wage to go up to $11.65.
As to whether such policies might cost cities jobs in the long run, that, says policy consultant John Petro will “be an eternal debate.” Gelinas says higher wages prompt employers to replace workers with technology.
On economic development
The decline of manufacturing has left government across the country looking for other sources of good jobs. Bloomberg has joined the search, trying to diversify the city beyond Wall Street. To some extent he has succeeded, boosting tourism, for one, and working to make New York more of a tech center.
Some think he has not gone far enough. “Everybody is excited about high tech, but we have to remember UPS creates jobs too,” Petro says. He would like the city to invest in the kinds of blue-collar jobs currently at Willets Points but threatened by development there as well as white-collar jobs destined for Hudson Yards.
Billionaire businessman Catsimatidis has said his experience crating jobs would transfer to generating more jobs for the city as mayor, though specifics of his plan are scarce. Quinn offers a particularly detailed plan for branching out, calling for 2,000 new manufacturing jobs in Sunset Park, developing “world-class food markets” to spur food manufacturing in the city, building a green mechanics industry in the South Bronx and so on. In some cases, this effort would involve government subsidies and other incentives.
Some question the idea of subsidies to business. Others say that if the city is to hand out money to businesses and rich institutions, it should get a better return on its investment. “We have had an economic development policy that has really amounted to making the rich filthy rich,” Liu has said.
In particular, Liu and other critics fault the Bloomberg administration for not requiring recipients of city subsidies to pay a so-called living wage. The mayor vetoed and, after the Council overrode him, went to court to block a watered-down living wage bill that passed last year; the measure requires the developers receiving certain kinds of subsidies above a high-dollar threshold pay their own employees a living wage—but does not address the larger workforces of the tenant companies who occupy, say, a city-subsidized mall. Quinn, who brokered the compromise for that legislation, has said she would “work to ensure that more of those publicly funded developments are required to provide workers with a living wage and benefits, so working New Yorkers can pull themselves up to the middle class.” De Blasio says any business receiving a city subsidy would have to have “a clear plan” for providing health care to its workers.
Parrott, for one, says such policies are vital: “They can make a real difference right away.”
Friedman would link economic subsidies to “job quality,” giving preference to businesses that don’t oppose unionizing efforts, for example, or that hire workers on a full-time basis.
Some say the city also needs to get more in return for the aid it and the state provides developers, including tax breaks and favorable zoning. This could help solve one of the major problems facing low-income New Yorkers: the lack of affordable housing.
Quinn has pledged to build 40,000 units of middle-income––though not low-income––housing units over the next 10 years. Thompson has called for 70,000 new units and the preservation of 50,000 new ones. De Blasio is promising an even more ambitious plan.
Beyond housing, the candidates have addressed other issues that impact income inequality, such as transportation, making the city more energy efficient, improving access to broadband and making the city better able to withstand another storm like Sandy. Such projects would both make the city a better place and provide jobs.
Mending the safety net
While much of the discussion in this campaign has involved how to help low-income New Yorkers, the candidates and media couch the discussion as being about income inequality, rather than about poverty. Meanwhile, by all accounts, the systems aimed at helping the poor are weaker than they once were. Parrott has written that, even though the number of unemployed people in New York City essentially doubled from 2008 to 2012, the number receiving Temporary Assistance remained relatively constant.
Despite this, there has been little discussion of welfare and other assistance programs. “People are afraid they’ll be seen as encouraging the public assistance roles to rise for its own sake,” Parrott says.
In the spring, Thompson offered a plan to help reduce poverty that included improved job training and improved access to affordable health care and childcare, as well as effort to fight childhood hunger. De Blasio would improve outreach for various assistance programs and streamline the application process. Friedman thinks such efforts could make a difference. “Having a strong social safety net is a crucial first step” in preventing more people from sliding deeper into poverty,” he says.
Right now, with politicians and media focused on the candidates in the Democratic primary–and the largely liberal voters who will choose between them––New York City seems to have evolved away from prevailing attitudes of the Bloomberg years.
“New Yorkers are not buying the argument that the way to help small business and create jobs is to cut regulation and give tax breaks,” Rankin says. Instead, she continues, they have come to realize that “if you want businesses to thrive, you want people who have money to spend.”
Others think the political winds may shift by November or when a new mayor comes to office. “At the end of the day,” says Petro, “most voters are probably still going to care about taxes, picking up the trash and crime.”
Source
De Blasio and Mayors of Chicago, Los Angeles Launch Initiative to Help Immigrants Become U.S. Citizens
SILive - September 18, 2014, by Anna Sanders - Mayor Bill de Blasio on Wednesday announced the launch of a new...
SILive - September 18, 2014, by Anna Sanders - Mayor Bill de Blasio on Wednesday announced the launch of a new initiative to push for eligible immigrants to become U.S. citizens in the nation's three largest cities.
"Cities for Citizenship" aims to increase naturalization programs and other efforts to help immigrants in New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles.
"This win-win effort will help us create more inclusive cities that lift up everyone," de Blasio said in a statement announcing the initiative. "From increased economic activity to larger voting and tax bases, the advantages of citizenship will not only expand opportunity to our immigrant families, but to all New Yorkers and residents nationwide."
The de Blasio administration said increasing immigrant access to citizenship will help fight poverty and estimated that naturalizing 684,000 legal permanent residents will add up to $4.1 billion to the city's economy over a decade.
In a report released Wednesday, the Center for Popular Democracy estimated that there are about 750,000 legal permanent residents eligible for naturalization.
Citigroup, a corporate partner of the initiative, will contribute $1.15 million for the new initiative.
New York City will use funds for NYCitizenship, a coordinated effort to connect low- and moderate-income New Yorkers to free legal assistance during the naturalization process. NYCitizenship works with city agencies to connect those in the city eligible to become U.S. citizens with assistance, such as legal advice, help on applications and financial counseling.
The NYCitizenship program has already helped more than 1,800 New Yorkers complete naturalization applications since 2012, according to the Center for Popular Democracy report.
In addition to the initiative, the city's Office of Immigrant Affairs will also commission a study on the economic impact of citizenship programs nationwide.
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The First Time Maria Gallagher Talked About Her Sexual Assault, It Was to Senator Flake
The First Time Maria Gallagher Talked About Her Sexual Assault, It Was to Senator Flake
The Senate Judiciary Committee has officially voted to move Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination forward. However...
The Senate Judiciary Committee has officially voted to move Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination forward. However, Sen. Jeff Flake has requested an FBI investigation take place before the full Senate votes on Kavanaugh's confirmation, something Republican leaders have now agreed to, per The Hill.
Read the article and watch the video here.
BERNANKE’S FORMER ADVISOR: “PEOPLE WOULD BE STUNNED TO KNOW THE EXTENT TO WHICH THE FED IS PRIVATELY OWNED”
BERNANKE’S FORMER ADVISOR: “PEOPLE WOULD BE STUNNED TO KNOW THE EXTENT TO WHICH THE FED IS PRIVATELY OWNED”
With every passing day, the Fed is slowly but surely losing the game. Only it is not just former (and in some cases...
With every passing day, the Fed is slowly but surely losing the game.
Only it is not just former (and in some cases current) Fed presidents admitting central banks are increasingly powerless to boost the global economy, even if they still have sway over capital markets. What is far more insidious to the Fed’s waning credibility is when former economists affiliated with the Fed start repeating mantras that until recently were only a prominent feature in the so-called fringe media.
This is precisely what happened today when former central bank staffer and Dartmouth College economics professor Andrew Levin, special adviser to then Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke between 2010 to 2012, joined with an activist group to argue for overhauls at the central bank that they say would distance it from Wall Street and make its activities more transparent and accountable to the public.
Levin is pressing for the overhaul with Fed Up coalition activists. Many of the proposed changes target the 12 regional Federal Reserve Banks, which are quasi-private and technically owned by commercial banks in their respective districts.
All of that is not surprising. What he said to justify his new found cause, however, is.
“A lot of people would be stunned to know” the extent to which the Federal Reserve is privately owned, Mr. Levin said. The Fed “should be a fully public institution just like every other central bank” in the developed world, he said in a conference call announcing the plan. He described his proposals as “sensible, pragmatic and nonpartisan.”
Why is that stunning? Because it has long been a bone of contention if only among the fringe media, that at its core the Fed is merely a private institution, beholden only to its de facto owners: not the people of the U.S. but to a small cabal of banks. Worse, the actual org chart of who owns what is not disclosed, even as the vast majority of the U.S. population remains deluded that the Fed is a publicly owned institution.
As the WSJ goes on to note, the former central bank staffer said he sees his ideas as designed to maintain the virtues the central bank already brings to the table. They aren’t targeted at changing how policy is conducted today. “What’s important here is that reform to the Federal Reserve can last for 100 years, not just the near term,” he said.
And this is coming from a former Fed employee and Ben Bernanke’s personal advisor! That in itself is a most striking development, because now that the insiders are finally speaking up, it will be a race among both current and prior Fed workers to reveal as much dirty laundry as possible ahead of what is increasingly being perceived by many as the Fed’s demise.
To be sure, Levin’s personal campaign for Fed transformation will not be easy, and as the WSJ writes, what is being sought by Mr. Levin and the activists is significant and would require congressional action. Ady Barkan, who leads the Fed Up campaign, said the Fed’s current structure “is an embarrassment to America” and Fed leaders haven’t been “willing or able” to make changes.
Specifically, Levin wants the 12 regional Fed banks to be brought fully into the government. He also wants the process of selecting new bank presidents—they are key regulators and contributors in setting interest-rate policy—opened up more fully to public input, as well as term limits for Fed officials.
This would represent a revolution to the internal staffing of the Fed, which will no longer be at the mercy of its now-defunct shareholders, America’s commercial banks; it would also mean that Goldman Sachs would lose all its leverage as the world’s biggest central bank incubator, a revolving door relationship which has allowed the Manhattan firm to dominate the world of finance for the decades.
Levin’s proposal was made in conjunction with the Center for Popular Democracy’s Fed Up coalition, a group that has been pressuring the central bank for more accountability for some time. The left-leaning group has been critical of the structure of the regional banks, and has been pressing the Fed to hold off on raising rates in a bid to make sure the recovery is enjoyed not just by the wealthy, in their view.
The proposal was revealed on a conference call that also included a representative from Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign, although all campaigns were invited to participate.
The WSJ adds that according to Levin, who knows the Fed’s operating structure intimately, says the members of the regional Fed bank boards of directors, the majority of whom are selected by the private banks with the approval of the Washington-based governors, should be chosen differently. The professor says director slots now reserved for financial professionals regulated by the Fed should be eliminated, and that directors who oversee and advise the regional banks should be selected in a public process involving the Washington governors and local elected officials. These directors also should better represent the diversity of the U.S.
Levin also wants formal public input into the selection of new bank presidents, with candidates’ names known publicly and a process that allows for public comment in a way that doesn’t now exist. The professor also wants all Fed officials to serve for single seven-year terms, which would give them the needed distance from the political process while eliminating situations where some policy makers stay at the bank for decades. Alan Greenspan, for example, was Fed chairman from 1987 to 2006.
As the WSJ conveniently adds, the selection of regional bank presidents has become a hot-button issue. Currently, the leaders of the New York, Philadelphia, Dallas and Minneapolis Fed banks are helmed by men who formerly worked for or had close connections to investment bank Goldman Sachs.
Levin called for watchdog agency the Government Accountability Office to annually review and report on Fed operations, including the regional Fed banks. He also wants the regional Fed banks to be covered under the Freedom of Information Act. A regular annual review hopefully would insulate the effort from perceptions of political interference, Mr. Levin said.
* * *
While ending the Fed may still seem like a pipe dream, at least until the market’s next major crash at which point the population may finally turn on the culprit behind America’s serial boom-bust culture, the U.S. central bank, Levin’s proposal would get to the heart of the most insidious conflict of interest in the US: the fact that the Federal Reserve works not for the people of America, but for its owners – the banks.
Which is also why, sadly, this proposal will be dead on arrival, as its passage would represent the biggest loss for Wall Street in the past 103 years, far more significant than anything Dodd-Frank could hope to accomplish.
By Zero Hedge
Source
Letter: No point putting faith in GOP lawmakers
Letter: No point putting faith in GOP lawmakers
Anyone who buys the GOP story that they are going to give us better health care is a sucker. We will get hosed by the...
Anyone who buys the GOP story that they are going to give us better health care is a sucker. We will get hosed by the lying GOP. Anyone who votes for this garbage of a health care proposal should be voted out of office. If this becomes law, every working man and woman should change their dependents, then let us see how these leeches get by with no salary. We do that and the federal government has no income.
Read the full letter here.
Divest From Prisons, Invest in People—What Justice for Black Lives Really Looks Like
Divest From Prisons, Invest in People—What Justice for Black Lives Really Looks Like
This article is the second part of a series of conversations with contributors to the demands of the Movement for Black...
This article is the second part of a series of conversations with contributors to the demands of the Movement for Black Lives. Part One was on reparations.
In July 2015, more than 2,000 members of The Movement for Black Lives—a group composed of more than 50 racial justice organizations—convened in Cleveland to recognize the violence committed against Black people in this country and around the world. At the assembly, participants decided the Movement needed to form a coalition that articulated concrete ways to build a more equitable society. Six legislative platforms emerged that covered issues like economic justice, reparations, political empowerment, and divestment from policing and incarceration. In their Invest-Divest platform, the authors called instead for investment in programming, like restorative justice initiatives, that would decrease incarceration and strengthen communities.
We’ve come to accept policing and incarceration as catch-all solutions.
According to the Brookings Institution, White Americans are equally likely to use and more likely to deal drugs, while African Americans are more likely to be arrested, convicted, and sentenced harshly. For U.S. residents born in 2001, the Bureau of Justice Statistics predicts that 1 in 111 White women will go to prison in her lifetime, while 1 in 18 Black women will. For White men, the likelihood is 1 in 17; for Black men, 1 in 3.
“At the heart of the Invest-Divest demand is the recognition that our city, state, and federal budgets reflect the dehumanization, and the degradation of Black life through lack of investment in anything besides Black incarceration or surveillance,” says Marbre Stahly-Butts, co-author of demands from the Invest-Divest platform that call for reallocating government funds from law enforcement to long-term safety, and decriminalizing drug and prostitution crimes.
Stahly-Butts, a facilitator of the Cleveland convening and deputy director of racial justice at the Center for Popular Democracy, explains that our current criminal justice system is based on a premise of comfort, rather than of safety: Instead of addressing the roots of uncomfortable issues such as drug addiction, mental illness, and poverty, we’ve come to accept policing and incarceration as catch-all solutions. This disproportionally affects African Americans.
Here she discusses why divestment from the prison and military industries is as critical to a just future as investment in public institutions.
The following interview has been lightly edited.
Liza Bayless: How does the Invest-Divest platform play into the Movement for Black Lives?
Marbre Stahly-Butts: The call for Invest-Divest has been at the center of organizing and activism work for at least the last decade, if not more. Since slavery, but especially in the age of mass incarceration in the last 30 or so years, [there has been an] incredible increase in the amount of spending that goes to police departments—to cages, prisons and jails, corrections offices, military equipment, and surveillance equipment. At the same time, [there has been] divestment from the social safety net, from social services and education to affordable housing.
What makes our communities safe is not more guns, more police, or more cages.
What makes our communities safe is not more guns, more police, or more cages, but employment opportunities, safe housing, jobs, education, restorative justice. To live in the world we’re envisioning requires a real investment—both by private parties, but also by public dollars.
Bayless: In August, the Department of Justice announced it would end use of private prisons. How significant is this step?
Stahly-Butts: It’s an important step and in many ways a symbolic step, but I think it’s essential that states follow suit. The caging of our people actually happens on a local level, and so the same week that the Department of Justice made that announcement, I believe in Florida they decided to continue contracts with local prisons and, in fact, expand them.
Most of our people are kept in public facilities, so there’s a real need to decarcerate and not just de-profitize. It would matter a lot if U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement did it, because that’s, in fact, where most of the [prison] beds are.
A month [after the announcement], the Department of Justice released guidelines around its increased funding of police officers and officers in schools. So it’s important to realize that the criminalization—and the incarceration—of our people really is something that the government has not divested from, and in some ways has actively continued.
There’s a lot of work to be done, but I was pleased about implications of ending those contracts.
Bayless: Usually we hear from organizations about investment more than divestment. What makes the concept of divestment so important to this platform?
Stahly-Butts: I think that we see a general narrative on the left around the need to increase infrastructure and investment. Obama, Clinton, and other progressives constantly affirm their commitment to investment strategies, whether it’s health care, job programs, or educational funding. But the divestment piece is essential to a conversation around the livelihood, wealth, health, and survival of Black, brown, and poor communities.
There has to be a conversation about real solutions to incarceration.
If we continue to lock up and put one of every three Black men under police control; if we continue to incarcerate Black women at the highest-growing rates; and continue surveillance and denying people [driver’s] licenses and housing opportunities when they are out of incarceration, [then] we’re undermining our investments if we’re not also divesting from these systems that have led to this mass criminalization of folks for behaviors that often have nothing to do with public safety.
Bayless: The topic of mass incarceration has been at the forefront of the country’s conversations about racial injustice. Is there something missing from that discussion?
Stahly-Butts: It’s essential that we talk about the entire purview of things that don’t belong under the criminal code, from the way poverty is criminalized to the ways homelessness is criminalized. Even in Florida, wearing saggy pants [has been criminalized].
There has to be a conversation about real solutions to incarceration, and not just changing the practices of putting people in cages, but also changing the entire orientation for communities that criminalize them en masse, that have police in schools, that believe that the only answer to mental health and other issues is cages and handcuffs. There’s a real need for cultural change and a social conversation about the roots of the system, and other ways to deal with these issues that is not state violence.
Bayless: By focusing on decriminalization of certain crimes—in this case, nonviolent ones such as drug and prostitution crimes—as fundamentally different from “violent” crimes, is there a risk people convicted of the latter could end up with harsher sentences?
Stahly-Butts: There’s a false dichotomy between violent and nonviolent crimes. We often talk about it as if there’s some fine line, but in fact every state, every city defines that differently. Whether we’re talking about crimes that hurt people or impact property, or crimes that are about mental health or drug addiction, the idea of investment is key to all of them.
Folks are working locally to realize what it means to build alternative structures to criminal justice.
If we use the money that we’re currently using to cage people, and take the literally trillions of dollars to invest in the well-being of our people—in jobs, education, trauma-informed services, restorative justice—we would see a real addressing of all sorts of social issues, including the ones that make people less safe.
Bayless: Anything else you’d like to add about this platform?
Stahly-Butts: Folks are working locally to realize what it means to build alternative structures to criminal justice, to divest from policing and invest in communities. Despite the past two years—where we’ve seen literally dozens of Black folks be killed on video, and uprisings in communities from Baltimore to Ferguson—we’ve seen incredible movement and energy.
By Liza Bayless
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