Demonstrators bring Dreamers, TPS cause to Trump’s doorstep
Demonstrators bring Dreamers, TPS cause to Trump’s doorstep
Several dozen demonstrators, organized by progressive groups and chanting in Spanish, brought the cause of the Dreamers...
Several dozen demonstrators, organized by progressive groups and chanting in Spanish, brought the cause of the Dreamers and Temporary Protected Status refugees—both groups targeted for eviction from the U.S. by Donald Trump—to the doorstep of the GOP president and his Republican backers on the evening of Feb. 1.
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Yellen Says Improving Economy Still Faces Challenges
The Washington Post - August 22, 2014, by Ylan Q. Mui - Federal Reserve Chair Janet L. Yellen on Friday expressed...
The Washington Post - August 22, 2014, by Ylan Q. Mui - Federal Reserve Chair Janet L. Yellen on Friday expressed growing confidence that America’s market is improving but uncertainty over how much further it has to go.
Yellen began her remarks before a select group of elite economists and central bankers here by enumerating the unequivocal progress made since the Great Recession ended: Job growth has averaged 230,000 a month this year, and the unemployment rate has fallen to 6.2 percent after peaking in the double digits during the depths of the crisis.
But she quickly transitioned to the challenges in determining how close the labor market is to being fully healed — and how much the nation’s central bank should do to speed its convalescence. Although Yellen has consistently emphasized that the recovery is incomplete, her speech Friday focused on the difficulty of making a current diagnosis.
“Our understanding of labor market developments and their potential implications for inflation will remain far from perfect,” Yellen said at the annual conference sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. “As a consequence, monetary policy must be conducted in a pragmatic manner.”
The Fed slashed its target for short-term interest rates to zero and pumped trillions of dollars into the economy in the aftermath of the recession. More than five years later, it is finally scaling back that support. The Fed is slated to end its bond-buying program in October and is debating when to raise interest rates.
That decision carries enormous consequences: Move too soon, and the Fed risks undermining the economic progress made so far. Move too late, and it could risk stoking inflation in the future and sowing the seeds of the next financial crisis.
Investors generally expect the Fed to raise rates in the middle of next year, but several central bank officials gathered here cautioned that the moment could come earlier if the recovery improves more rapidly than expected. Yellen gave no clear timeline Friday but called for a “more nuanced” reading of the labor market as the economy returns to normal.
For example, the size of the nation’s workforce unexpectedly declined after the recession, the result of both demographic factors and unemployed workers who gave up hope of finding a job. Yellen reiterated Friday that a stronger economy could help stem that drop and suggested it may already be working. She also said that the run-up in involuntary part-time work and the low level of people choosing to quit their jobs could be reversed as the labor market improves.
But Yellen seemed to shift her stance on the country’s stagnant wage growth. Previously, she has cited it as a sign that the labor market remains weak. But on Friday she called on research that suggests wage growth has been subdued because employers were unable to cut salaries deeply enough during the recession, a phenomenon dubbed “pent-up wage deflation.” She also suggested that globalization and the difficulty that the long-term unemployed face in finding jobs could also be depressing wage growth.
The uncertainty facing the Fed means it will be carefully evaluating economic data over the coming months, Yellen said. And she said the central bank will remain nimble in its response.
“There is no simple recipe for appropriate policy in this context, and the [Fed] is particularly attentive to the need to clearly describe the policy framework we are using to meet these challenges,” she said.
Central bankers were not the only ones gathered in the Grand Tetons this year. Several workers and activists also traveled to Jackson Hole and called on the central bank to be cautious in removing its support for the economy, the first protest at the conference in recent memory.
The grass-roots group, organized by the Center for Popular Democracy, also issued an open letter to the Fed earlier in the week signed by more than 60 activist organizations. Kansas City Fed President Esther L. George — one of the most vocal proponents of raising interest rates soon — met with the protesters in Jackson Hole on Thursday for about two hours to hear their stories. Ady Barkan, senior attorney at the Center for Popular Democracy, said the groups plan to request meetings with other Fed officials as well.
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Woman who confronted Flake 'relieved' he called for delaying Kavanaugh vote
Woman who confronted Flake 'relieved' he called for delaying Kavanaugh vote
Maria Gallagher, who on Friday confronted Sen. Jeff Flake with her story of sexual assault, said she was "relieved"...
Maria Gallagher, who on Friday confronted Sen. Jeff Flake with her story of sexual assault, said she was "relieved" when the Arizona Republican called for an FBI investigation into allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
Gallagher, a resident of New York, stood next to Ana Maria Archila, co-executive director of the Center for Popular Democracy, earlier Friday as the two held open the doors of an elevator Flake was taking on his way to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Soon after, Flake said he would vote to advance Kavanaugh's nomination to the Senate floor, but he said he wanted a vote in the full body delayed for one week while the FBI investigated the allegations.
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Pressures mount on Wells Fargo following fake-accounts scandal
Pressures mount on Wells Fargo following fake-accounts scandal
Pressure mounted on Wells Fargo & Co. Friday following its fake-accounts scandal, as the bank faced new calls to...
Pressure mounted on Wells Fargo & Co. Friday following its fake-accounts scandal, as the bank faced new calls to allow affected customers to file lawsuits and for the board of directors to rescind the pay of a key senior executive.
The demands came just one day after Chief Executive John Stumpf resigned from a Federal Reserve advisory panel.
Senators had pushed for Stumpf not to be reappointed, saying it was inappropriate for someone who presided over improper sales tactics to be giving advice to an agency involved with bank regulation.
Stumpf has been under intense fire since the bank this month agreed to pay $185 million to settle investigations by Los Angeles City Atty. Mike Feuer, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency into an aggressive sales culture that led bank employees to open as many as 2 million accounts that customers didn’t authorize.
The Justice Department is investigating possible criminal charges, and some senators have called for a Labor Department investigation into whether the bank failed to pay employees overtime when they worked late nights and weekend to meet sales quotas.
A group of Senate Democrats continued to attack Wells Fargo on Friday, publicly calling on Stumpf to stop enforcing mandatory arbitration clauses in the agreements for customer accounts that were not authorized.
Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) had pressed Stumpf on the matter at a Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee hearing Tuesday, arguing that it was unfair not to allow those customers the ability to file lawsuits against the bank.
Stumpf said at the time that he would have to “talk to my legal team.”
Brown said Friday that he and his colleagues want relief for bank customers and more answers from Wells Fargo.
“If Wells Fargo really does want to look out for the customers, if they really are in fact sorry, as the CEO said, for these unauthorized accounts, they ought to let the court system work if these people who were wronged want to bring suit,” he said.
Wells Fargo's collateral damage: customers' credit scores
Wells Fargo's collateral damage: customers' credit scores
The Democrats sent a letter to Stumpf on Friday, requesting more information about the arbitration clauses, including how many customer complaints about fake accounts were forced into arbitration proceedings.
Brown was among those writing to Stumpf, along with Patrick Leahy of Vermont, Richard Durbin of Illinois, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Al Franken of Minnesota and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.
A spokeswoman for Wells Fargo did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Also on Friday, an activist investment group that is part of the Change to Win union federation wrote to Wells Fargo’s board, asking it to rescind at least part of the compensation earned by the executive who oversaw the employees who opened unauthorized customer accounts.
The letter from CtW Investment Group, which is a Wells Fargo shareholder, adds to the pressure on the bank to claw back some of the approximately $100 million earned by Carrie Tolstedt, the company’s former head of community banking.
Wells Fargo’s stock has declined by about 8% since the settlement was announced on Sept. 8.
On Thursday, five senators called for Stumpf not to be reappointed to the Federal Advisory Council, a 12-member body that meets four times a year with the Fed’s Board of Governors to discuss banking and economic matters.
Stumpf had represented the Fed’s San Francisco district, where Wells Fargo is based, since 2015.
He “made a personal decision to resign” and notified the Fed on Thursday, Wells Fargo spokeswoman Jennifer Dunn said.
“His top priority is leading Wells Fargo,” she said.
Sen. Angus King, an independent from Maine, organized the letter to the head of the board of directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco asking that Stump not be reappointed to the advisory council when his term expires on Dec. 31.
“It would be ironic if the Federal Reserve, a key federal banking regulator tasked in part with ensuring the fair and equitable treatment of consumers in financial transactions, continued to receive special insights and recommendations from senior management of a financial institution that just paid a record-breaking fine to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for ‘unfair’ and ‘abusive’ practices that placed consumers at financial risk,” they wrote.
The letter also was signed by Warren and Democratic Sens. Maria Cantwell of Washington and Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden, both of Oregon.
Their call was backed by Fed Up, a coalition of labor, community and liberal activist groups that has pushed to reduce the influence of bankers on Federal Reserve policies.
“Commercial banks already have too much influence within the Federal Reserve System,” the coalition said Thursday. The coalition also asked its members to sign a petition calling for Stump’s “immediate dismissal” from the advisory panel.
“Stumpf, as the CEO of a bank accused of ‘unfair’ and ‘abusive’ practices, should have no role advising the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors on policies affecting working families,” Fed Up said.
By Jim Puzzanghera
Source
Mind the Gap: How the Federal Reserve Can Help Raise Wages for America’s Women and Men
The American economy remains too weak. Over the past 35 years, the vast majority of workers have seen their wages...
The American economy remains too weak. Over the past 35 years, the vast majority of workers have seen their wages stagnate. And, racial and gender wage gaps have persisted. The failure to aggressively target and achieve genuine full employment explains a large part of this disappointing performance. And this failure looks poised to continue. Despite these indicators that we are far from full employment and the fact that the inflation rate remains below the Federal Reserve’s target rate, pressure is mounting on the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates to slow the pace of economic expansion and job growth in the name of fighting hypothetical future inflation. It would be a terrible mistake for the Fed to yield to this pressure.This paper makes the case that the Fed should pursue genuine full employment that features robust wage growth, rather than be satisfied with job growth that is consistent but does not boost the pace of wage growth. The paper considers the shifts in gender and racial wage gaps since 1979 and highlights the fact that because the vast majority of American workers have seen near-stagnant wages even as economy-wide productivity growth has consistently risen, there is ample room for wage-gaps to close without any group suffering wage declines.Key findings:
A significant portion of the limited progress towards closing the gender wage gap in recent decades has been due to the outright decline of men’s wages. Although there is greater gender wage equity among the bottom 10 percent of earners than among higher wage-earners, the gap between men and women has closed very little since 1979 Wage disparities between white earners and Latino or Black earners have increased in the past 35 years Productivity growth—which measures the average amount of income generated in each hour of work in the economy—has remained strong. At 64.9 percent over the 35-year period, productivity growth represents the possible increases in every worker’s wage throughout the economy. White women, the group whose median wage growth has been strongest over the period, gained at roughly one-third the rate of productivity.The Federal Reserve plays a powerful role in shaping labor market trends. To be sure, these wage gaps among groups of workers result from a long history of discrimination within the labor market, education, housing, wealth-building, and criminal justice policies, and require a full array of economic, social, and political policies.However, until we reach genuine full employment, a Federal Reserve decision to slow the economy will hamper the ability of workers’ wages to rise.Key recommendations:
The Federal Reserve should set a clear and ambitious target for wage growth, which will provide an important and straightforward guidepost on the path to maximum employment.Wage targeting can be fairly easily tailored to the Fed’s price-inflation target and pegged toincreases in productivity. The Fed should maintain a patient, but watchful posture. The history of the past 35 years shows a generally steady downward trend in price inflation and that prematurely slowing the economy results in higher than desirable unemployment. The Federal Reserve should not consider an interest-rate hike until indicators of full employment—particularly wage growth—have strengthened.Raising interest rates too soon will slow an already sluggish economy, stall progress on unemployment, and perpetuate wage stagnation for the vast majority of American workers. This harm will be disproportionately felt by women and people of color, who are concentrated in the most vulnerable strata of the workforce.
Download the report here
Democrats to introduce bills to challenge arbitration system
By Nick Niedzwiadek ALBANY — Democratic lawmakers are expected to introduce a pair of bills to counter how corporations...
By Nick Niedzwiadek
ALBANY — Democratic lawmakers are expected to introduce a pair of bills to counter how corporations use binding arbitration to limit their financial exposure in legal disputes.
Consumer advocates say corporations are increasingly requiring potential employees and consumers to agree to binding arbitration in the event of a dispute as a precondition for employment or use of a product. They say that such proceedings lack transparency, put people on an uneven playing field against well-heeled corporations and can leave people with little other legal recourse.
Assemblywoman Latoya Joyner of the Bronx and Sen. Brad Hoylman of Manhattan are expected to introduce a bill that would amend state labor law to allow employees or organized labor organizations the power to bring legal proceedings against an employer for potential violations as a stand-in for the Department of Labor — independent of any private employment agreement. The state would recover a portion of the fines assessed as part of such proceedings.
Senator Jose Serrano of the Bronx and Assemblyman Brian Kavanagh of Manhattan would establish a similar process for private citizens to seek civil penalties on behalf of the state for violations of consumer protection statutes if the applicable public agency fails to pursue them due to a lack of resources.
“Too often large companies take advantage of consumers by forcing them into signing 'take-it-or-leave-it' contracts that include hidden clauses requiring forced arbitration that heavily favor businesses,” Serrano said in a statement. “My legislation will create a level playing field and give the power back to the consumers in New York State by allowing them an opportunity to fight back when they are victims of fraud."
Several of the legislators are expected to announce the legislation at a protest in Manhattan on Thursday along with New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer and Public Advocate Tish James, according to organizers. Joining them will be a number of progressive groups, including the Center for Popular Democracy, Citizen Action, Make the Road New York and New York Communities for Change. The event will coincide with the release of a report called: “Justice for Sale: How Corporations Use Forced Arbitration Agreements to Exploit Working Families.”
"Legal rights are worthless if there's no remedy when laws are broken,” Kate Hamaji, a research analyst at the Center for Popular Democracy who authored the report, said in a statement. “Forced arbitration essentially allows corporations to opt out of the justice system by creating a private parallel system that makes it prohibitively expensive to seek justice and creates incentives for arbitrators to rule in favor of companies."
The report can be found here.
Connecting The Dots Between Banks and Immigrant Detention
July 26 was the deadline by which the government was ordered by a judge to reunite all immigrant children separated...
July 26 was the deadline by which the government was ordered by a judge to reunite all immigrant children separated from their parents in Trump's so-called zero-tolerance border policy earlier this year. But of the approximately 2,500 children that were separated 711 still remain without their parents after the deadline, lawyers for the government said. Of those, 431 cases remain where the parents were deported before getting their children back and the rest were "ineligible" to be returned as per the government. Meanwhile protesters across the country have continued confronting ICE offices and other institutions involved in the immigrant crackdown including banks that are financing private prisons for immigrants. JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and BlackRock, have been targeted by activists this week after the Center for Popular Democracy released a report called Bankrolling Oppression. Eight people were arrested while protesting outside the home of JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon.
Watch the video here.
Report Documents $100 Million in Charter School Fraud in 14 States and D.C.
Education Week - May 7, 2014, by Katie Ash - An examination of charter schools in 15 charter markets across the...
The report appears to be one of the first shots fired from Integrity in Education, a newly formed nonprofit that aims to expose corporate interests in public education, and is headed up by Sabrina Stevens, a former teacher and American Federation of Teachers staffer. The organization is decidedly anti-charter, likening school choice to "a euphemism for school closures" on its website.
The report gathered court cases, media investigations, regulatory findings, audits, and other sources from Arizona, California, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania., Texas, and Wisconsin to examine the trends in charter school fraud, waste, and mismanagement.
It found that there were six main categories of fraud, waste, and abuse:
Charter operators using public funds for their personal gain.School revenue being used to support other charter operators' businesses.
Charter school mismanagement that fails to create a safe environment for students, such as not providing background checks on staff or not properly supervising students.
Charters requesting public funds for services they do not provide.
Charters inflating their enrollment numbers to boost revenues.
Charter operators mismanaging funds and schools.
After examination, the report found that the most prevalent form of fraud in charters was the first category—charter operators' using public funds for personal use.
The report provided several recommendations to help prevent fraud, waste, and abuse from occurring. States should establish an adequately funded office solely dedicated to charter school oversight that has the authority to investigate fraud, waste, and misconduct, the report said. All charters should be independently audited each year, and the schools should be held to the same transparency requirements as regular public schools, the report recommended.
In addition, the charter school's application, contract, financial information, board members and affiliations, vendor contracts over $25,000, and board-meeting minutes should be made available publicly online, said the report. In addition, relatives of charter school operators should not be allowed to serve on the board, while parents, teachers, and students (in the case of high schools) should be provided representation there, the report recommended.
The report's appendix includes an extensive list of the different charter fraud, waste, and misconduct cases broken down by state with links to media reports about each one.
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Major donors consider funding Black Lives Matter
Some of the biggest donors on the left plan to meet behind closed doors next week in Washington with leaders of the...
Some of the biggest donors on the left plan to meet behind closed doors next week in Washington with leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement and their allies to discuss funding the burgeoning protest movement, POLITICO has learned.
The meetings are taking place at the annual winter gathering of the Democracy Alliance major liberal donor club, which runs from Tuesday evening through Saturday morning and is expected to draw Democratic financial heavyweights, including Tom Steyer and Paul Egerman.
The DA, as the club is known in Democratic circles, is recommending its donors step up check writing to a handful of endorsed groups that have supported the Black Lives Matter movement. And the club and some of its members also are considering ways to funnel support directly to scrappier local groups that have utilized confrontational tactics to inject their grievances into the political debate.
It’s a potential partnership that could elevate the Black Lives Matter movement and heighten its impact. But it’s also fraught with tension on both sides, sources tell POLITICO.
The various outfits that comprise the diffuse Black Lives Matter movement prize their independence. Some make a point of not asking for donations. They bristle at any suggestion that they’re susceptible to being co-opted by a deep-pocketed national group ― let alone one with such close ties to the Democratic Party establishment like the Democracy Alliance.
And some major liberal donors are leery about funding a movement known for aggressive tactics ― particularly one that has shown a willingness to train its fire on Democrats, including presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.
“Major donors are usually not as radical or confrontational as activists most in touch with the pain of oppression,” said Steve Phillips, a Democracy Alliance member and significant contributor to Democratic candidates and causes. He donated to a St. Louis nonprofit group called the Organization for Black Struggle that helped organize 2014 Black Lives Matter-related protests in Ferguson, Missouri, over the police killing of a black teenager named Michael Brown. And Phillips and his wife, Democracy Alliance board member Susan Sandler, are in discussions about funding other groups involved in the movement.
The movement needs cash to build a self-sustaining infrastructure, Phillips said, arguing “the progressive donor world should be adding zeroes to their contributions that support this transformative movement.” But he also acknowledged there’s a risk for recipient groups. “Tactics such as shutting down freeways and disrupting rallies can alienate major donors, and if that's your primary source of support, then you're at risk of being blocked from doing what you need to do.”
The Democracy Alliance was created in 2005 by a handful of major donors, including billionaire financier George Soros and Taco Bell heir Rob McKay to build a permanent infrastructure to advance liberal ideas and causes. Donors are required to donate at least $200,000 a year to recommended groups, and their combined donations to those groups now total more than $500 million. Endorsed beneficiaries include the Center for American Progress think tank, the liberal attack dog Media Matters and the Democratic data firm Catalist, though members also give heavily to Democratic politicians and super PACs that are not part of the DA’s core portfolio. While the Democracy Alliance last year voted to endorse a handful of groups focused on engaging African-Americans in politics ― some of which have helped facilitate the Black Lives movement ― the invitation to movement leaders is a first for the DA, and seems likely to test some members’ comfort zones.
“Movements that are challenging the status quo and that do so to some extent by using direct action or disruptive tactics are meant to make people uncomfortable, so I’m sure we have partners who would be made uncomfortable by it or think that that’s not a good tactic,” said DA President Gara LaMarche. “But we have a wide range of human beings and different temperaments and approaches in the DA, so it’s quite possible that there are people who are a little concerned, as well as people who are curious or are supportive. This is a chance for them to meet some of the leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement, and understand the movement better, and then we’ll take stock of that and see where it might lead.”
According to a Democracy Alliance draft agenda obtained by POLITICO, movement leaders will be featured guests at a Tuesday dinner with major donors. The dinner, which technically precedes the official conference kickoff, will focus on “what kind of support and resources are needed from the allied funders during this critical moment of immediate struggle and long-term movement building.”
The groups that will be represented include the Black Youth Project 100, The Center for Popular Democracy and the Black Civic Engagement Fund, according to the organizer, a DA member named Leah Hunt-Hendrix. An heir to a Texas oil fortune, Hunt-Hendrix helps lead a coalition of mostly young donors called Solidaire that focuses on movement building. It’s donated more than $200,000 to the Black Lives Matter movement since Brown’s killing. According to its entry on a philanthropy website, more than $61,000 went directly to organizers and organizations on the ground in Ferguson and Baltimore, where the death of Freddie Gray in police custody in April sparked a more recent wave of Black Lives-related protests. An additional $115,000 went to groups that have sprung up to support the movement.
She said her goal at the Democracy Alliance is to persuade donors to “use some of the money that’s going into the presidential races for grass-roots organizing and movement building.” And she brushed aside concerns that the movement could hurt Democratic chances in 2016. “Black Lives Matter has been pushing Bernie, and Bernie has been pushing Hillary. Politics is a field where you almost have to push your allies hardest and hold them accountable,” she said. “That’s exactly the point of democracy,” she said.
That view dovetails with the one that LaMarche has tried to instill in the Democracy Alliance, which had faced internal criticism in 2012 for growing too close to the Democratic Party.
In fact, one group set to participate in Hunt-Hendrix’s dinner ― Black Civic Engagement Fund ― is a Democracy Alliance offshoot. And, according to the DA agenda, two other groups recommended for club funding ― ColorOfChange.org and the Advancement Project ― are set to participate in a Friday panel “on how to connect the Movement for Black Lives with current and needed infrastructure for Black organizing and political power.”
ColorOfChange.org has helped Black Lives Matter protesters organize online, said its Executive Director Rashad Robinson. He dismissed concerns that the movement is compromised in any way by accepting support from major institutional funders. “Throughout our history in this country, there have been allies who have been willing to stand up and support uprisings, and lend their resources to ensure that people have a greater voice in their democracy,” Robinson said.
Nick Rathod, the leader of a DA-endorsed group called the State Innovation Exchange that pushes liberal policies in the states, said his group is looking for opportunities to help the movement, as well. “We can play an important role in facilitating dialogue between elected officials and movement leaders in cities and states,” he said. But Rathod cautioned that it would be a mistake for major liberal donors to only give through established national groups to support the movement. “I think for many of the donors, it might feel safer to invest in groups like ours and others to support the work, but frankly, many of those groups are not led by African-Americans and are removed from what’s happening on the ground. The heart and soul of the movement is at the grass roots, it’s where the organizing has occurred, it’s where decisions should be made and it’s where investments should be placed to grow the movement from the bottom up, rather than the top down.”
Source: Politico
The Minimum Wage Needs An Upgrade
Seventy-eight years ago today, the Fair Labor Standards Act made a groundbreaking promise to Americans: the promise of...
Seventy-eight years ago today, the Fair Labor Standards Act made a groundbreaking promise to Americans: the promise of a fair minimum wage for an honest day’s work.
That promise, however, has eroded badly over time. In recent decades, the federal benchmark has grown increasingly obsolete, guaranteeing a bare minimum that is nowhere near enough to keep up with the growing costs of rent, food, and other essentials.
As calls for higher wages grow louder nationwide, it is imperative that federal officials take action to raise the federal minimum wage and renew the promise to American workers made nearly a century ago.
If the federal rate had merely kept up with inflation since its peak in the late 1960s, it would be nearly $11, one-and-a-half times today’s rate of $7.25. That rate has stayed stagnant since Congress last raised it in 2009. It is a remarkable number of years to go without an increase in wages, and workers have suffered for it.
In the absence of Congressional movement, states and cities have increasingly moved to give workers the raises they need. Yet entrenched forces at the federal level continue to stonewall, putting forth arguments that grow increasingly irrelevant by the day.
Many, for example, raise the specter of job losses. Yet cities that have raised their minimum wage in the past two years, from Los Angeles to Seattle to Chicago, simply have not seen the kinds of cataclysm that many warned about.
In fact, in Seattle, dozens of new restaurants have opened since higher wages kicked in – including many run by one of the fiercest critics of the increase. By the end of 2015, new permits for restaurants, coffee shops, and other food service establishments were on track to keep pace with or even surpass those issued in years past.
Another myth: higher wages would lead to higher prices - a bigger bill for a Big Mac, a pricier trip to Target. Yet here too, the apocalyptic predictions that precede wage increases fail to come true. In Seattle, the costs of groceries, gas, and retail have stayed stable over the past year - even though businesses warned they would need to hike prices if wages were to rise.
In recent weeks, some fast-food chains have made headlines by declaring they would replace employees with automated kiosks. Looking at the bigger picture, though, the overall risks of automation are low. Research just last year found that, while minimum wage increases can reduce some routinized jobs like cashiers, they also swell the number of more complex jobs like food preparation, resulting in an overall zero-sum change.
The fact is, raising the minimum wage gives local economies a boost by putting more money in the pockets of consumers. Higher wages also let businesses hold on to workers and improve customer satisfaction, all of which improve employers’ bottom line.
That’s why the majority of businesses actually support a higher minimum wage, despite the noise coming from groups like the Chamber of Commerce and the National Restaurant Association. A leaked memo earlier this year showed that 80 percent of business executives around the country support higher wages and paid sick days - and that they are coached to oppose those policies in public.
While powerful interests keep trying to muddle the debate, it’s clear that even a growing economy is simply not reaching millions of hardworking Americans. And it’s not just fast-food workers. A variety of workers receive less than $15: teachers, paramedics, home health-care workers, and many others. A recent study showed that even many manufacturing jobs – the foundation of the middle-class – pay less than $15, forcing the government to cover the gap with public assistance programs like food stamps and Medicaid.
As minimum wages affect more and more workers, it is no wonder that more Americans are starting to get on board. This year, dozens of cities and states – including some that lean deeply Republican – are considering increases. Colorado, Maine, Arizona and Washington State are all running ballot measures that would raise wages for close to two million workers in those states alone.
Rather than focusing on a fantasy Armageddon that never comes, lawmakers in Congress would do well to embrace the need for better pay. In the meantime, states and cities will continue the fight to fulfill the pledge that the FLSA made so many years ago.
By JoEllen Chernow
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