NYC debe apoyar a la numerosa población inmigrante para asegurar una fuerza laboral exitosa
NYC debe apoyar a la numerosa población inmigrante para asegurar una fuerza laboral exitosa
Marta tiene dificultad para encontrar trabajo últimamente. Con frecuencia, cuando va a solicitar empleo haciendo comida...
Marta tiene dificultad para encontrar trabajo últimamente. Con frecuencia, cuando va a solicitar empleo haciendo comida o labores domésticas, lo primero que le preguntan es, “¿Habla inglés?” Marta siempre responde la verdad, que solo sabe un poco.
Con frecuencia, los empleadores la rechazan porque quieren personas que dominen el inglés. “Estos días, la verdad que es muy difícil conseguir trabajo”, dijo Marta.
La ciudad de Nueva York tiene la población inmigrante más diversa entre todas las grandes metrópolis del mundo. Los inmigrantes constituyen más de 40% de la población y casi la mitad de la fuerza laboral de la ciudad.
Pero la ciudad enfrenta una paradoja: si bien la tasa de empleo entre los inmigrantes es más alta que la de los oriundos de Nueva York, un porcentaje desproporcionado de aquellos tienen empleos con poca paga, sus ingresos promedio son más bajos que los de las personas nacidas allí y, con frecuencia, se ven más afectados por la pobreza. Muchos de ellos, al igual que Marta, tienen conocimientos limitados de inglés, lo que puede dificultar que encuentren un trabajo bien remunerado.
Desde que el alcalde de Nueva York Bill de Blasio asumió el mando hace poco más de dos años, la ciudad ha comenzado a reestructurar el sistema de desarrollo de la fuerza laboral, lo que crea una oportunidad importante de eliminar las injusticias que enfrentan los neoyorquinos inmigrantes.
El nuevo marco de la ciudad para su sistema de desarrollo de la fuerza laboral, llamado Career Pathways, promete invertir un nivel sin precedente de fondos en capacitación laboral y educación orientado a los trabajadores más vulnerables de la ciudad, para asegurar que la inversión de la ciudad en la fuerza laboral sea uniforme en las diversas agencias municipales y colaborar con los empleadores y otras partes interesadas a fin de mejorar la calidad de los empleos con salarios más bajos en la ciudad.
Ahora que se está implementando el nuevo marco para el desarrollo de la fuerza laboral, se debe aprovechar la oportunidad para asegurar que se atiendan las necesidades de la numerosa fuerza laboral inmigrante de Nueva York. La gran mayoría de los trabajadores en las ocupaciones de mayor crecimiento en la ciudad, desde auxiliares de servicios de salud a domicilio hasta obreros de construcción, enfermeros diplomados y programadores de computadoras, son inmigrantes. Como tal, los trabajadores inmigrantes son fundamentales para la vitalidad económica de la ciudad, y su éxito debe ser primordial en la reforma del sistema laboral de la ciudad.
Los trabajadores inmigrantes y postulantes a empleo enfrentan muchas barreras singulares que limitan su superación en la fuerza laboral. Por ejemplo, un número considerable de inmigrantes no hablan inglés bien y tienen, en promedio, un nivel más bajo de educación formal.
Al mismo tiempo, hay miles de inmigrantes con grados universitarios u otras credenciales educativas que no se reconocen en Estados Unidos y, por lo tanto, no tienen otra opción que realizar trabajos en los que no se aprovechan del todo sus aptitudes y talento. Además, entre los trabajadores con salarios bajos, que son mayormente inmigrantes, la explotación es algo común. Esto es particularmente cierto en el caso de los trabajadores indocumentados y quienes trabajan en la economía informal.
El éxito del plan de Career Pathways depende de su capacidad de eliminar las principales barreras que enfrentan los neoyorquinos inmigrantes. Un informe preparado conjuntamente por el Center for Popular Democracy y Center for an Urban Future identifica estas barreras y describe una estrategia coordinada para enfrentar los obstáculos que impiden que los trabajadores inmigrantes alcancen plenamente su potencial.
Específicamente, la ciudad y las entidades privadas que financian la fuerza laboral deben invertir en clases de inglés, educación de adultos y programas de capacitación y titulación para trabajadores con diversos niveles educativos y de dominio de inglés. Esto les permitiría aprender las destrezas que necesitan para ser competitivos en la fuerza laboral y evitaría que se estanquen en empleos con poca paga.
En segundo lugar, la ciudad debe asegurar que los trabajadores inmigrantes estén enterados de estos servicios al asegurarse de que se ofrezcan en los vecindarios donde los inmigrantes viven o trabajan. Una gran manera de hacerlo es asociarse con organizaciones sin fines de lucro en las comunidades inmigrantes y asegurar que los fondos disponibles estén llegando a los programas laborales en las comunidades inmigrantes.
Finalmente, una estrategia de desarrollo de la fuerza laboral que es eficaz para los inmigrantes debe mejorar la calidad de los empleos con salarios bajos que ocupan a tantos de ellos. Esto incluye mejorar las leyes de protección laboral y velar por su cumplimiento, algo que con frecuencia no se hace, además de lograr un sueldo mínimo más alto y acceso a licencia pagada por enfermedad. Los mismos empleadores son una parte importante de esta conversación, y la ciudad debe usar su influencia para ayudarlos a mejorar la calidad de sus empleos peor pagados.
Sin un enfoque coordinado para asegurar que los servicios de desarrollo laboral estén atendiendo a los inmigrantes, el plan de la ciudad corre el riesgo de pasar por alto a un grupo enorme de trabajadores y personas que buscan empleo. En este momento tenemos la oportunidad de asegurar que se incluyan a los inmigrantes como parte esencial de este plan.
By Kate Hamaji & Christian González-Rivera
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A Democratic Contender For Florida Governor Appears To Own Millions In Puerto Rican Debt
A Democratic Contender For Florida Governor Appears To Own Millions In Puerto Rican Debt
“If you are running to represent Puerto Ricans, and potentially harming Puerto Ricans through investments, then Puerto...
“If you are running to represent Puerto Ricans, and potentially harming Puerto Ricans through investments, then Puerto Ricans will hold you accountable,” said Julio López Varona of the Center for Popular Democracy, one of the leading activist groups on the Puerto Rican debt crisis. “There’s a question about what are those investments, and if that question is not answered that is extremely concerning.”
Read the full article here.
Undocumented immigrants in New York could become 'state citizens' under new bill
NY Daily News - June 15, 2014, by Erin Durkin - Undocumented immigrants in New York could become “state citizens” with...
NY Daily News - June 15, 2014, by Erin Durkin - Undocumented immigrants in New York could become “state citizens” with a slew of benefits from driver’s licenses to voting rights under a bill to be introduced Monday.
Advocates are set to announce the measure that would allow immigrants who aren’t U.S. citizens to become New York State citizens if they can prove they’ve lived and paid taxes in the state for three years and pledge to uphold New York laws — regardless of whether they’re in the country legally.
The state bill, which would apply to about 2.7 million New Yorkers, will face long odds in Albany, where even more modest immigration reforms have failed to pass.
People who secured state citizenship would be able to vote in state and local elections and run for state office. They could get a driver’s license, a professional license, Medicaid and other benefits controlled by the state. Immigrants would also be eligible for in-state tuition and financial aid.
The legislation would not grant legal authorization to work or change any other regulations governed by federal law.
“Obviously this is not something that’s going to pass immediately, but nothing as broad as this or as bold as this passes immediately,” said Sen. Gustavo Rivera (D-Bronx), the sponsor in the state Senate.
Big Demand for NYC Municipal ID Cards
Aljazeera America - January 14, 2015, by Wilson Dizard - New York City’s municipal identification card, launched...
Aljazeera America - January 14, 2015, by Wilson Dizard - New York City’s municipal identification card, launched Monday, quickly became a hot ticket, with thousands of residents eager to receive one lining up at distribution centers across the city — a volume that prompted city officials on Wednesday to start processing card applications by appointment only.
The nation’s largest city joins a handful of other municipalities — from San Francisco to Mercer County, New Jersey — that in recent years have issued their own ID cards to make life easier and safer for large populations of undocumented immigrants and anyone else in need of identification. Available free of charge to anyone 14 years or older in New York City, the cards also provide discounts at businesses and free access to some of the city's museums.
“It’s something good they should have done a long time ago," Alice King, 46, originally from Trinidad but a Brooklyn resident for the last 15 years, told local news site DNAInfo.
Based on its size alone, New York City’s program could become a model for municipal IDs in other U.S. cities, civil liberties advocates say. There are about 500,000 undocumented immigrants in New York City.
“It remains to be seen, but I think the intended effect is that New Yorkers will have a lot easier time accessing city services and being part of the economic life of the city,” said Emily Tucker, senior staff attorney with the Center for Popular Democracy, an advocacy group that published a report in 2013 hailing the use of municipal ID cards across the nation.
So far, nine U.S. municipalities issue ID cards, with most in the San Francisco or New York City metropolitan areas. Washington, D.C., has a version as well. Other cities — including Chicago and Phoenix — are looking into launching similar programs.
Supporters of municipal IDs, which were piloted in 2007 in New Haven, Connecticut, say that issuing the cards to undocumented residents fills a gap left by a lack of immigration reform in Congress.
They also say the IDs make everyone safer by allowing such residents to no longer be afraid to report crimes against them or others to police. Without identification, many undocumented immigrants fear risking deportation by speaking to authorities.
In New York City, police say they will accept the cards as an adequate form of identification, which Tucker said will “make interactions with police smoother.”
“Now police can issue a summons instead of arresting a person without ID for something like an open container violation, instead of taking them to the precinct to spend a night in jail,” she added.
The cards can help undocumented residents do simple things like open bank accounts, rent apartments, board flights and access medical help — tasks made far more difficult or even impossible without identification.
“We’ve heard of school districts where parents without ID are not able to pick up their kids from extracurricular activities,” said Layla Razvani, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union. “These parents are part of the community.”
Still, not everyone supports municipal ID programs. Their most vocal opponents argue that by issuing cards, municipalities are flagrantly disobeying federal laws that prohibit illegal immigration, aiding the undocumented by providing IDs to people who can’t prove they’re citizens.
“We don’t know who these people really are. We have to take their word for it. It makes it more difficult to enforce federal immigration law,” said Ira Mehlmann, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a group that opposes the continued presence of undocumented immigrants in the U.S.
“They say it’s to stop them [undocumented immigrants] from being treated like second-class citizens. It’s an oxymoron. They aren’t citizens. They don’t have a legal right to be in the country,” he added.
Mehlmann particularly fears that undocumented residents could exploit municipal ID card programs to carry out acts of violence. Although he could not point to a single instance of a city ID being used in the commission of a crime, he said, “the fact that nobody with one of these IDs has committed a terrorist act yet doesn’t mean it doesn’t pose a threat.”
The New York Civil Liberties Union has also expressed skepticism about the city’s municipal ID program, wary that authorities might misuse the information provided by undocumented residents who are some of society’s most vulnerable.
NYCLU spokeswoman Jen Carnig said that the cards could make life easier for people but that police don’t have to provide the same level of probable cause to access the municipal IDs as they do for regular driver’s licenses. She credited the city with saying it would inform people whose information police have accessed, but she argued that the protections should be as strong as they are for citizens.
“No one should be subject to having their personal documents accessed by law enforcement or become subject to an investigation based on a hunch, and it’s possible that could be the case for some people,” she said.
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Oakland spends far too much on policing
Oakland spends far too much on policing
The numerous police killings of black citizens around the country in recent years have made us take a hard look at...
The numerous police killings of black citizens around the country in recent years have made us take a hard look at police brutality against black communities but law enforcement in Oakland has a particularly alarming history.
Between 2000 and 2016, police officers in Oakland have killed 90 people, three quarters of whom were black. Victims include 23-year-old Richard Linyard, who was killed after fleeing police at a traffic stop and 30-year-old Demouria Hogg, who was shot and killed by police after they found him unconscious in a car with a pistol.
Read the full article here.
Puerto Rico: Shelter After the Storm
Puerto Rico: Shelter After the Storm
"The members of Congress do not think of Puerto Rico as a part of their constituency and responsibility, and that is...
"The members of Congress do not think of Puerto Rico as a part of their constituency and responsibility, and that is what is underneath this crisis," says Ana Maria Archila from the Center for Popular Democracy. "It is a crisis of democracy as much as it's a climate crisis, as much as it's an economic crisis."
Read the full article here.
2013 Race for Mayor: Low-Income New Yorkers
WNYC - March 1, 2013 - Brian Lehrer hosted a forum with seven mayoral hopefuls "2013 Race for Mayor: What's in it for...
WNYC - March 1, 2013 - Brian Lehrer hosted a forum with seven mayoral hopefuls "2013 Race for Mayor: What's in it for Low-Income New Yorkers?" sponsored by The Community Service Society (CSS) sponsored the event in partnership with Local 32BJ of the Service Employees International Union, the Center for Popular Democracy, and United New York.
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Advocacy Groups Call for Closer Scrutiny of Charter Schools
Trib Total Media - October 1, 2014, by Megan Harris - Three groups with union affiliations on Wednesday pointed to the...
Trib Total Media - October 1, 2014, by Megan Harris - Three groups with union affiliations on Wednesday pointed to the criminal case against ousted PA Cyber Charter School founder Nick Trombetta as an example why the state's nearly 180 charter schools need better oversight and stronger accountability.
The Center for Popular Democracy, Integrity in Education, and Action United of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh issued a report that alleges Pennsylvania charter schools defrauded taxpayers out of more than $30 million. That figure is an aggregate of cases brought by whistleblowers and media exposés, according to the authors.
Pennsylvania Coalition of Public Charter Schools executive director Robert Fayfich said in a prepared statement that “the report draws sweeping conclusions about the entire charter sector based on only 11 cited incidents in the course of almost 20 years, while ignoring numerous alleged and actual fraud and fiscal mismanagement in (traditional) districts over that same time period.”
Trombetta, who investigators allege illegally funneled $1 million from school coffers and deferred taxes on an additional $8 million in personal income, pleaded not guilty to 11 counts of mail fraud, bribery, tax conspiracy and filing false tax returns last year. Hearings are ongoing.
Fayfich said, “Fraud and fiscal mismanagement are wrong and cannot be tolerated, but to highlight them in one sector and ignore them in another indicates a motivation to target one type of public school for a political agenda.”
The groups' report urges state officials to temporarily suspend the approval process for new charter schools, investigate existing ones, and shift from standard audits to forensic audits.
School districts paid more than $853 million in tax dollars to charters serving 128,712 students in 2013-14. Almost 4,000 Pittsburgh students attended 33 charter schools the same year.
SourceProgressive Groups Go On The Offensive Against A Fed Interest Rate Hike
Progressive groups are launching a national campaign this week to pressure the Federal Reserve not to raise interest...
Progressive groups are launching a national campaign this week to pressure the Federal Reserve not to raise interest rates until wages begin growing more significantly. And they are getting some help from popular liberal economist Robert Reich.
The groups, led by the Center for Popular Democracy’s Fed Up campaign -- a foundation-funded nonprofit committed to a more "pro-worker" Federal Reserve -- inaugurated the effort in earnest over the weekend with mass email blasts and solicitation on other digital platforms of a petition, “Tell the Fed: Don’t Raise Interest Rates!”
Participating organizations, which include online progressive heavyweights CREDO Action, Daily Kos and the Working Families Party, will send the petition to an increasing number of activists over the course of the week. The groups, a complete list of which you can find in the petition, have a combined email list and website visitor reach in the millions.
Activists will deliver the petition signatures they amass in the coming weeks to Fed officials at the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank’s annual symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, onAug. 27-29. Fed Up is sending a delegation of low-income workers and representatives from communities of color to the symposium with the goal of raising awareness of working families’ concerns about Fed monetary policy. The Fed Up campaign formally began with a similar visit to Jackson Hole last year.
Some of the emails to activists will include a video from Robert Reich, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley and former secretary of labor, that is likely to give the effort a high-profile boost. Reich posted the video, along with a link to the petition, on his Facebook page on Friday. As of Monday afternoon it already had been viewed over 142,000 times -- and shared by more than 3,600 people. Reich relies on a production team to make his videos, but does the illustrations featured in them himself.
The new online campaign aims to influence the Fed at a pivotal moment: The central bank is indicating that it will raise interest rates as soon as September. Atlanta Fed President Dennis Lockhart, who sits on the FOMC, confirmed on Monday that the Fed would soon raise rates, saying the "the point of 'liftoff' is close." Lockhart's remarks come after July jobs numbers Friday showed relatively steady job gains.
Robert Reich’s Federal Reserve 101
The progressive groups pushing back against a rate hike are betting that if the public knew how much they stood to lose if rates go up, they would be willing to speak out against a hike. They could then generate pressure to change the Fed’s calculus.
For that to happen, though, people need to understand what the Federal Reserve is -- which activists acknowledge is rare.
So Reich’s five-minute video starts at square one, explaining how the Federal Reserve works and why it affects Americans’ lives -- before articulating the case against a rate hike. The Fed cuts interest rates, or keeps them low, he explains, in order to stimulate the economy. “The lower the [Fed’s] rates, the easier it is to borrow,” Reich says in the video. “The easier it is to borrow, the more active the economy becomes.”
Reich then elaborates on the virtuous cycle that takes hold when low rates leave people with more disposable income, as graphics illustrating his points whiz by onscreen. Consumers spend more, Reich explains, growing businesses and increasing demand for labor. And if there is enough demand for workers, he continues, employers raise wages to compete for those workers.
Why Do Progressives Think A September Rate Hike Is Premature?
Reich, like the campaign he is backing, makes the case that the Fed should wait until demand for workers is high enough to increase wages substantially before raising interest rates. Although the official unemployment rate of 5.3 percent is low by historical standards, it has yet to translate into substantial wage growth. Average wages have risen 2.1 percent in the past 12 months -- not much higher than the rate of price inflation, which, as of June, was 1.8 percent (not including energy and food).
Economists like Jared Bernstein of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities argue that wage growth has yet to take off because there are still too many job seekers for the number of jobs available. The official unemployment rate does not account for the 6.3 million underemployed workers, who have part-time work but want to work full time, or the 668,000 jobless workers, who have given up seeking work altogether.
Although the progressive groups’ petition does not explicitly demand that the Fed wait for a specific wage growth figure before raising interest rates, the Fed Up campaign and its partners have largely coalesced around a wage growth target of 3.5 to 4 percent. The liberal-leaningEconomic Policy Institute, which is participating in the new petition campaign, estimates that with that type of wage growth, price inflation will not “significantly exceed” the Fed’s 2 percent inflation target.
These progressives warn that a Fed interest rate hike that occurs before significant wage growth takes hold would disproportionately hurt people of color and women. Both groups face routine discrimination in the job market that they are more likely to overcome in a high-demand economy buttressed by low rates. And people of color are much more likely to be workers on the lower side of the earnings spectrum, who have the least leverage vis-à-vis employers. That means they are often the last people to get hired or get a raise when the job market heats up, and the first to lose their jobs when it cools down. For evidence of this, they say, look no further than the shockingly high African-American unemployment rate of 9.1 percent.
What About Inflation?
The Fed balances its mandate to maximize employment with an obligation to prevent excessive inflation. That is why it raises interest rates when it believes prices are at or near its target inflation rate of 2 percent. Some economists also believe that even when consumer prices are below the target rate, the Fed should raise rates if housing and stock prices are getting unreasonably high.
Reich -- and the many economists and activists with whom he finds common cause -- appreciate the Fed’s obligation to prevent runaway inflation. But they note that inflation has remained consistently below the Fed’s target rate of 2 percent. And they believe that for the sake of job creation and wage growth, the economy can tolerate slightly higher inflation than the current Fed target.
“More jobs and better wages are more important than theoretical worries about accelerating inflation,” Reich concludes.
Reich and allies point to the late 1990s as a model for Fed monetary policy. They credit then-Fed Chair Alan Greenspan for refusing to raise interest rates even as the official unemployment rate dipped, against the wishes of other Fed officials concerned about inflation. As a result, wage growth was widespread enough to produce significant gains for workers at the bottom of the earnings spectrum.
A New Progressive Priority?
The petition campaign against a Fed rate hike is something of a coup for advocates who, asHuffPost reported at length in June, have long argued that Fed monetary policy should be a higher priority for the political left. Although the foundation-funded Fed Up campaign has been agitating for a more “pro-worker” Fed for nearly a year now, this is the first time it is collaborating with major progressive players like CREDO Action, Daily Kos and the Working Families Party. The Economic Policy Institute, which is a member of the Fed Up campaign’s founding coalition, is also activating its email list for a Fed Up petition effort for the first time.
A broad array of liberal-leaning organizations joined forces in the summer and fall of 2013 to torpedo President Barack Obama’s nomination of Lawrence Summers as chair of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. Summers united economic progressives concerned about his Wall Street ties and women’s advocates angered by his remarks about women. Their efforts succeeded in winning the appointment of Janet Yellen as chair instead of Summers.
But since that time, the Fed has largely faded from the progressive foreground. Higher-profile fights like the movements for the $15 minimum wage and against the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal have taken up the lion’s share of progressive energy and attention, dwarfing more esoteric causes. To the extent progressives have publicly pressured the Fed, it has been to police Wall Street more carefully, not maintain a dovish monetary policy.
“In general it’s clear that the Federal Reserve gets far less attention from progressives than it should in light of the tremendous influence it has over the economy and Americans’ quality of life,” said Josh Nelson, communications director for CREDO Action.
This relative inattention is evident in how little Federal Reserve monetary policy has come up in the 2016 Democratic presidential primary. The topic has not been discussed widely on the campaign trail. Of the major Democratic presidential candidates, only former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley responded to a request for comment last week on a possible Fed rate hike. O’Malley agreed with progressive activists that the Fed should wait for more robust wage growth before raising rates.
By contrast, the right wing has relentlessly trained its fire on the Fed for “debasing” the dollar with its quantitative easing program -- its now-defunct multitrillion-dollar asset purchasing program -- and low interest rates. Republican members of Congress regularly grill Yellen for printing too much money.
To the extent that Republican presidential candidates have broached the subject, they have weighed in in support of raising rates. Donald Trump, a real estate mogul and ersatz Republican presidential candidate, warned last week that the Fed’s low interest rates are causing an asset bubble. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has also slammed the Fed’s “easy money” policies for endangering the economy.
But the petition effort raises advocates’ hopes that a progressive movement with the power to match the right's Fed lobby is finally taking shape.
Haedtler said that CREDO Action, Daily Kos and the Working Families Party were eager to get involved.
“They were very enthusiastic about targeting a new institution that was not accustomed to outside pressure by working families,” Haedtler said, adding that he thought soliciting these groups’ involvement “would be more challenging than it was.”
They were receptive to the argument, Haedtler said, that the Federal Reserve can “wipe out a lot of progress” on more visible issues like the minimum wage, if the Fed “does not recognize that the economic recovery has not benefitted everybody.”
CREDO Action did not specify how many activists it would target, but said that the petition would reach “many of the economic justice activists” on the group’s 3.8 million-person email list.
“The traditional obscurity [of the Fed] is why we must organize around it,” CREDO Action’s Nelson said. “People assume they can't influence the Fed. But that's wrong. These are people and they are open to both pressure and input. Pointing out that many communities still suffer is an essential role for advocates.” Nelson added that progressive input is a “necessary counterweight” to Wall Street influence on the central bank.
Chris Bowers, the Daily Kos’ executive campaign director, is confident that the Fed rate hike is not too esoteric for Daily Kos members. “One thing we've learned over the years is that Daily Kos readers tend to be very sophisticated, highly engaged activists who know a great deal about all manner of political issues,” Bowers said in an email. “In fact, some of our best-performing campaigns have focused on topics that might seem surprisingly obscure, such as net neutrality and filibuster reform. So we expect that our readers will readily grasp what's at stake here.”
Daily Kos is soliciting signatures for the petition through a splash screen some people see when they visit the site. Bowers estimates that 20,000 people a day will see the splash over the course of a campaign that will last at least two weeks. He said Daily Kos is gauging the “intensity” of their members’ interest in the Fed based on their engagement with the petition. If enthusiasm is high, it will send the petition to its much larger email activism list.
Beyond Stopping A Rate Hike
Ultimately, the Fed Up campaign and its allies are on a larger mission to make the Federal Reserve more accountable to working people. That means not only preventing an interest rate hike before greater wage growth takes hold, but also pushing the Fed to rebalance its dual mandate toward genuine full employment and higher wages, and away from what they believe is excessive concern about inflation. The theme of this year’s Jackson Hole symposium is“Inflation Dynamics and Monetary Policy,” which Fed Up points to as a typical sign of the Fed’s inflation bias.
“We want to reframe the narrative” at the symposium, Haedtler said. Inflation, he explains, “is not what is on the minds of low-wage workers who have been suffering through a very slow economic recovery.”
“We think of our campaign less as a left/right divide, and more as an effort to bring the voices of working families to the Federal Reserve for the first time,” Haedtler noted. “Ultimately our members are fighting for a broader recovery, better wages and better working conditions.”
Fed Up can point to concrete progress toward this goal since its inaugural action at the Jackson Hole symposium last August. Their protests there led to a meeting between Fed Up activists and Kansas City Fed President Esther George. That in turn opened the door to meetings with four other regional Federal Reserve bank presidents. Fed Up has also met with Yellen and several members of the Fed Board of Governors in their Washington offices.
The meetings have enabled working people organized by Fed Up to share their economic experiences with Fed officials, who make decisions that will affect these people’s lives.
Haedtler believes these meetings are already bearing fruit. The Fed created a Community Advisory Council in January to solicit more diverse views on the state of the economy.
“Even very hawkish regional presidents -- like James Bullard, the St. Louis Fed president -- really seem to take to heart some of the stories we convey to them,” he said.
The Fed Up campaign also wants to reform the selection process for regional Federal Reserve bank presidents, which it says reflects the narrow interests of the bankers that dominate their boards of directors. They are asking regional Fed presidents that they meet with for a timeline of their selection process and a list of candidates being considered.
Fed Up claims credit for the Minneapolis regional Federal Reserve Bank’s decision to disclose the process through which it would select its next president.
“We know something about congressionally confirmed Fed board governors, but very little about regional fed presidents, other than that they are overwhelmingly white, male and have close ties to the financial sector,” Haedtler said.
Source: Huffington Post
The public compact
The public compact
It is always amusing to be the subject of a John McClaughry jeremiad. While I don’t mind being labeled as the “foremost...
It is always amusing to be the subject of a John McClaughry jeremiad. While I don’t mind being labeled as the “foremost defender” of public education, he insists on giving me full personal credit for what is a state school board position.
In the instant case, John appears to be affronted by the suggestion that private (independent) schools that take public money must actually be held accountable for that money. This principle is at the core of the state board’s review of the independent school rules. Now this seems like a straightforward and fundamentally democratic concept that is generally accepted, but it has been a long-standing problem for some.
The law (16 VSA 166) provides a list of reporting requirements for independent schools if they want to chow down at the public trough. Unfortunately, as far back as the 1914 Carnegie Commission, we find evidence of the refusal of some independent schools to provide private school data even though it was the law of the land. (At that time, the Cubs were still basking in the glory of their World Series victory.)
The second paramount principle is that we have to educate all the children — regardless of needs and handicaps. That’s a necessity in a democracy. Denying a child admission on the basis of a handicap is, in most cases, illegal. Furthermore, it’s wrong. Public schools serve every child. The false fear John peddles is that the private school can’t afford to serve these children. That’s incorrect. It’s really quite simple. While great eruptions of umbrage are displayed, this problem has been solved for years. The private school contracts with (or hires) a specialist who bills the costs back to the public school. Approval in a given area requires that one sheet of paper be filed with the state. As simple as the solution actually is, some independent schools refuse to adopt an equal opportunity policy.
Instead, John proposes that Vermont “clone” Florida’s McKay Scholarship program where parents can choose the school for their handicapped child. That hasn’t worked out too well. If you think a “business management class” that sends students onto the street to panhandle is an acceptable education, then the McKay program may be just your thing. The Florida Department of Education has uncovered “substantial fraud,” including schools that don’t exist, non-existent students, and classes held in condemned buildings and public parks. And the state of Florida does not have the staff to adequately monitor the program. This is a recipe for abuse. Last May, the Center for Popular Democracy estimated that $216 million in charter school money went out the back door.
Finally, John raises the cost question and says private school scholarships would be “less expensive.” Yet he also criticizes the cost of the state’s excess public school capacity. Now let’s look at Vermont’s private independent school numbers. In 1998, there were 68 independent schools, and by 2016, the number had exploded to 93. In the decade 2004-14, independent school enrollments went down from 4,361 to 3,392. A 37 percent increase in schools with a 29 percent drop in students suggests somebody needs to revisit their business plan.
Taking it all together, (1) all who profit from the public treasury must be accountable for that money, (2) children have the right to be admitted to private schools, free of discrimination, on an equal opportunity basis, (3) private schools are a part of our system, (4) the public purse must be protected from fraud and abuse, and (5) directly or indirectly building and operating a parallel school system would be inordinately expensive and wasteful. Do these principles sound reasonable?
William J. Mathis is managing director of the National Education Policy Center and a member of the Vermont state Board of Education. The views expressed here are his own and do not represent the views of any group with which he is associated.
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