Tag: economic policy institute
The Failure To Raise The Federal Minimum Wage Is A Moral Outrage

The Failure To Raise The Federal Minimum Wage Is A Moral Outrage

Reprinted with permission from DCReport

Very few of the poorest paid workers in America have unions to advocate for them, but many have a proxy for unions: government.

The minimum wage rose in 21 states this month thanks to a combination of ballot measures passed by voters, state laws raising the minimum and automatic inflation adjusters authorized by nine legislatures. These laws set a floor, a minimum standard, of pay.

That’s not as good as it could be. Indeed, it’s a glass-less-than-half-full scenario for the lowest paid American workers in 29 states. For them, the New Year meant continuing to labor for the same old inadequate wages.

Voting out those officeholders who use their power to keep the poor impoverished, especially those who do so while claiming to be Christians, would solve this problem of favoring capital at the expense of labor. It would also save money because people with inadequate incomes use a host of social services that cost taxpayers.

The federal minimum wage increased last in 2009 thanks to legislation signed by President George W. Bush. That law authorized three consecutive annual increases. Since then, Republicans have blocked every effort to raise the minimum wage even as inflation erodes its value.

The $7.25 that took effect in 2009 is worth less than $5.50 in today’s money, the government’s official inflation calculator shows. That calculator tends to understate the effects of rising prices on the poor because they spend so much of their money on food, energy and rent.

Economy Up, Minimum Wage Down

Compare this with1969, when the nominal minimum wage was $1.60. That’s the equivalent of $12.50 today. Our country today is a vastly wealthier country with a Gross Domestic Product per person of $66,144, about three-quarters larger than in 1969. Yet the minimum wage has shrunk dramatically rather than grown in tandem with inflation, the economy or overall worker productivity as lawmakers have bit-by-bit tilted the economic playing field in favor of investors and against workers.

You can check the minimum wage in your state and what effect state law will have on future pay in a report from the Economic Policy Institute, which focuses on the poor and poorly paid workers.


Minimum Wage Workers In 21 States Got A Raise On New Year's Day

States with minimum wage increases effective January 1, 2022 by type of increase

Notes: The New York State increase took effect on December 21, 2021. Source: Economic Policy Institute

Republicans in Congress block every proposal to raise the federal minimum wage. They claim, falsely, that paying higher wages would ruin many small businesses and would mostly benefit teenagers, neither of which is even close to being true.

Studies of counties that share a border at a state line in which one side raised the minimum wage and the other didn’t find strong earnings effects and no employment effects of minimum wage increases.

Bible Belt States

Sixty percent of minimum wage workers are age 25 or older, the Bureau of Labor Statistics says. The highest levels of workers being paid the minimum wage or less are found in so-called Bible Belt states, which are also among the poorest states. About 5% of workers in Louisiana and South Carolina earn the minimum wage or less as do about four percent in Mississippi.

Raising the minimum wage, numerous studies have shown, may eliminate one in 200 low-wage jobs. The increased pay to the other 199 workers would be vastly greater than the loss of that one job, increasing overall capacity to buy goods and services. That is, raising the minimum wage is a win for workers, for businesses with products and services to sell. Customers have more to spend; tax more revenue flows in and less is spent on subsidies for the poorest workers among us.

The resistance to raising the minimum wage among politicians who shout that they are Christians is especially appalling given the many teachings in testaments Old and New about paying workers what their labor is worth and the Christian obligation to sacrifice for the poor.

The Baylor University Center for Christian Ethics shows simply and eloquently why actual Christians should support a living wage to protect workers against bad employers:

Since the 13th century, Christians have urged employers to pay a just wage—not the low payment that desperate workers will accept, but the amount they would take for their labor if they were neither coerced nor deceived nor bargaining from a vastly unequal position.

Indeed, “remuneration for labor is to be such that man may be furnished the means to cultivate worthily his own material, social, cultural, and spiritual life and that of his dependents,” wrote Pope Paul VI in Gaudium et Spes [the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World] (1965).

By itself, this appeal is impractical, says [Prof.] Jerold Waltman. “Unless all employers are equally convinced of the rightness of paying a just wage, and all do so in fact, the unscrupulous employer wins a competitive advantage. Therefore, only a law compelling all employers to pay the just wage will level the playing field.”

Moral Duty

Consider this moral duty to pay a living wage in the context of the law on minimum wages for restaurant and bar workers. President Bill Clinton and Congress fixed the minimum wage in 1993 at $2.13. Adjusted for inflation that’s just $1.10 an hour today.

Waitstaff, busboys and the like must apply their tips to fill the gap between $2.13 and $7.25. That means that the first $5.12 in tips they collect each hour is just a subsidy to the restaurant or bar owner who pays only the federal minimum.

To get an idea of just how hard congressional Republicans are making life for the lowest-paid workers consider this: The average cost of a municipal bus to get to work and back was $3.20 – and that was in 2019. That’s an hour and a half of minimum wage restaurant work just for bus fare.

Wage Gap Between Black And White Americans Is At 40-Year High

Wage Gap Between Black And White Americans Is At 40-Year High

A new report from the Economic Policy Institute reveals a stark disparity between the hourly pay of blacks and whites; on average, whites make 26.7 percent more than blacks, earning $25.22 an hour compared with $18.49 for blacks. Amazingly, blacks today earn less relative to their white counterparts than they did in 1979.

“The finding that stands out the most, our major result, is that the racial wage gaps were larger in 2015 than they were in 1979. That’s huge because the impression people have, in general, is we know there’s still racism in this country, but we think or at least believe that it’s getting better,” Valerie Wilson, director of EPI’s program on race, ethnicity and the economy, told the Guardian.

According to EPI, the driving force behind the pay gap is “discrimination… and growing earnings inequality in general.”

“Race is not a skill or characteristic that should have any market value as it relates to your wages, but it does,” Wilson said.

According to the report, wage inequalities build up over time, which explains why black male college graduates “started the 1980s with less than 10 percent disadvantage relative to white male college graduates, but by 2014 similarly educated new entrants were at a roughly 18 percent disadvantage.”

Wilson also noted factors like the mass incarceration rates for black men and women in the 1980s and ’90s and barriers to hiring for black individuals in general also contribute to the pay disparity. Studies show people with black-sounding names are less likely to be hired than those with white-sounding names.

No doubt the group facing the most discrimination in the workforce is black women. While the gender wage gap for white women shrunk in the 1990s, the pay gap for black women remained largely the same.

“Black women are faced with both kinds of discrimination,” Wilson said. “And that racial disadvantage has basically limited their achievements in narrowing the gender gap.”

Elizabeth Preza is an AlterNet staff writer focusing on politics, media and cultural criticism. Follow her on Twitter @lizacisms.

Photo: Cars travel north towards Los Angeles on interstate highway 5 in San Diego, California February 10, 2016. REUTERS/Mike Blake 

Trump’s 5 Biggest Lies

Trump’s 5 Biggest Lies

It’s true. Donald Trump probably should be winning this election.

That’s not just the assessment of Trump himself — who has reached the stage of mourning where all he does is complain about how powerless he is to the mean old press and warn his supporters that their votes probably won’t even count. That’s the verdict of the “Time for a Change” model developed by political scientist Alan I. Abramowitz, which has correctly predicted every presidential election since 1988.

But Abramowitz doesn’t see a Trump victory coming any more than Trump does.

“Based on the results of other recent presidential elections, however, as well as Trump’s extraordinary unpopularity, it appears very likely that the Republican vote share will fall several points below what would be expected if the GOP had nominated a mainstream candidate and that candidate had run a reasonably competent campaign,” he wrote last week. “Therefore, despite the prediction of the Time for Change model, Clinton should probably be considered a strong favorite to win the 2016 presidential election as suggested by the results of recent national and state polls.”

Americans want a change. Maybe it’s the eight years of a Democrat. Maybe it’s the 36 years of conservative economics spewing money up while trickling nothing down.

Whatever the cause, it’s increasingly clear the change they’re seeking won’t be coming from Donald Trump.

Screen Shot 2016-08-14 at 9.23.47 AM

In a recent YouGov poll, 50 percent of voters found that Trump’s version of change feels more like regression, which makes sense since that’s the promise of his campaign — to return American to a time when minorities, the LGBTQ community, women and people with pre-existing conditions had fewer rights.

If Trump ends up winning, it will be because Hillary Clinton presents a too rosy view of the possibilities America faces. But Trump’s defeat will come from his assertion that he “alone” can deliver a change that America doesn’t want.

It isn’t just Trump’s policies that are extraordinarily unpopular. It’s the man, personally.

While about 30 percent of the population loves him and would believe him if he started quoting passages from The Hobbit and insisting they were from the Gospel of Luke, much of America senses that he’s trying to sucker them with a constant stream of lies and propaganda more suited for convincing cult members to drink Kool-Aid than sustaining a democracy.

Here are the five biggest lies Trump keeps trying to sell a nation that  doesn’t seem to be in the market for his nonsense.

  1. His supporters are the only “real Americans.”
    In several recent polls, Trump has no — zero — support from African Americans. Trump’s support among Latinos is lingering around 20 percent, much worse than Romney’s 27 percent, which was worse than John McCain’s support in the low thirties, which was worse than George W. Bush, the last Republican nominee to get near 40 percent. To win, Republicans either need to increase to Romney level of support among minority voters or attract more white votes than any candidate since 1988. Instead, Trump is doing worse with white voters, suffering unprecedented losses with college-educated Republicans and Republican women. Still, somehow, Trump has convinced America’s loudest, angriest, and most ungrateful minority that they’re silent and a majority. “Most Americans are white, most are Christian, most don’t have college degrees, and most live in the South or Midwest Census Bureau regions,” FiveThirtyEight‘s Nate Silver wrote. “And yet, only about 1 in 5 voters meets all of these descriptions.” America’s working class is increasingly diverse. While Trump has endeavored to do something Republicans have failed to do for generations — empathize with the pain of American workers who’ve been displaced by globalization — he’s speaking to a stereotype of blue-collar hard hats who won Richard Nixon the 1968 election, while ignoring the millions of service and retail workers who increasingly represent the real working class of America. That working class is sick of blaming minorities for their suffering and is ready to take on the real problem — a system that’s tilted entirely to the rich.
  2. He was against the Iraq War.
    Trump’s one foreign policy credential is a lie. Unlike Barack Obama, Trump was for the war when it was hardest to be against it. And he was for the withdrawal that he now blames for the creation of ISIS. In a sane world what Trump feels about Iraq would be irrelevant, but since he’s using this to bolster his credentials to seek a job where he has promised to use torture, intentionally kill civilians, and shut down basic freedoms of the press and religion that we take for granted, he needs to be confronted on this lie every time he trots it out.
  3. He would help workers.
    In his big economic speech in Detroit last week Trump completed his evolution to full Romneyism/ Bushism/ Rubioism while maintaining his trademark racism. It’s the same old tax breaks that mostly or only help the rich, matched with… nothing to help workers. “If such policies were effective, we would remember George W. Bush’s presidency as one of great prosperity, instead of a period of stagnant wages for blue- and white-collar workers,” said Larry Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute. Trump would uninsure 20 million Americans from working families while pushing policies that would drive wages lower and lower, eliminating one of the biggest raises workers have gotten in decades.
  4. The press is killing his campaign. 
    When he’s focused enough to care, Trump is now running against the press. As if the press were to blame for a disastrous campaign that has Republicans abandoning him like he was the Iraq War in 2007. Trump’s act used to feature him bragging about polls and acting awed over his success. Now that the stench of failure follows him like a dazed Mike Pence, he’s stuck ranting against the institution that made his rise possible — free media. The Washington Post‘s Greg Sargent points out that while Trump’s “dominate all media” strategy worked in the GOP primary, he was completely unprepared for how “the coverage and scrutiny are inevitably getting a lot harsher, at precisely the moment when Trump is devolving into his worst bouts of depravity and unhinged behavior yet.”
  5. Society is rigged against a fortunate son who’s relied on government help his entire career.
    Trump’s rich daddy gave him every advantage known to man, which helped Trump avoid the draft and launch his business. The courts protected him from creditors — over and over again. City government and tax breaks fueled his first development projects. Powerful lobbyists keep him from paying taxes. Conservative media gave him a platform. Cable news desperate for relevance let him exploit their airwaves to perform informercials of hate. And a Republican Party eager to win an election that could decide the Supreme Court for generations begged him not to leave it. Yes, the system is rigged — for Donald Trump and his kids. And his escalating wrath comes from knowing that as rigged as his success has been, he’s facing the greatest failure of his life, perhaps the most resounding defeat suffered by any candidate in a generation. And he’s losing fair and square. Sad!
Even This Conservative Columnist Thinks Trump’s Plan On Trade Is ‘A Scam’

Even This Conservative Columnist Thinks Trump’s Plan On Trade Is ‘A Scam’

Published with permission from Media Matters for America

Conservative Chicago Tribune columnist Steve Chapman joined a chorus of media and policy experts from across the political spectrum in criticizing Donald Trump’s promise to bring back American manufacturing jobs by curbing free trade.

Chapman slammed Trump on June 29 in the Chicago Tribune for the policies Trump outlined in a speech on trade one day earlier. Trump advocated against globalization and the lowering of trade barriers brought about by free trade deals like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and World Trade Organization (WTO). Trump referred to his trade policy ideas as a path toward “Declaring America’s Economic Independence,” which he claimed would lead to increased economic activity that would “Make America Wealthy Again.”

Chapman chided Trump’s simplistic look at global commerce, saying, “It’s a scam, skillfully pitched to fool the gullible,” and echoed criticism of Trump from economist and Economic Policy Institute (EPI) president Lawrence Mishel. While Mishel criticized Trump for whitewashing the Republican Party’s free trade legacy and ignoring progressive initiatives that would benefit American workers, Chapman pointed out that manufacturing output in the United States is actually “54 percent higher today” that it was when NAFTA went into effect in 1994 and “27 percent higher” than it was before China joined the WTO in 2001. Progressive organizations like EPI have highlighted the negative consequences that free trade arrangements have had on the American labor market — specifically with regard to NAFTA and China — but as Chapman notes, part of the decline in manufacturing employment is the result of greater efficiencies in production stemming for automation and technological advances; “companies have learned to produce more goods with fewer people.” From the Chicago Tribune (emphasis added):

The vision Trump conjures is one of alluring simplicity. He promises to achieve “economic independence” by abandoning globalization, instead using American workers to produce American goods. This change, he said, would “create massive numbers of jobs” and “make America wealthy again.”

It’s a scam, skillfully pitched to fool the gullible. His framework is a house of cards built on sand in a wind tunnel. Its most noticeable feature is a total divorce from basic economic realities.

[…]

In the first place, the expansion of manufacturing jobs is not synonymous with prosperity. As countries grow richer, manufacturing’s share of employment declines. South Korea, singled out by Trump for killing American jobs, has seen it shrink by nearly half since 1991. Japan and Germany have followed a similar path.

But U.S. manufacturing output is 54 percent higher today than in 1994 and 27 percent higher than in 2001. Those years are pertinent because 1994 was the year NAFTA took effect and 2001 is the year China gained entry to the World Trade Organization — events Trump portrays as catastrophic for American industry.

Manufacturing jobs have vanished not because we don’t manufacture anything but because companies have learned to produce more goods with fewer people. Higher productivity is what eliminated most of the jobs Trump mourns. He’s no more capable of restoring them than he is of bringing back the dodo.

[…]

Blaming Mexico and China for the fate of our steel industry is like blaming email for the decline of telegrams. The biggest reduction in steel jobs came before the globalization of the past two decades. The number fell from 450,000 to 210,000 in the 1980s.

The total today is about 150,000. Even if Trump could manage the impossible feat of doubling the number of steelmaking jobs, it would be a blip in the overall economy — which adds more jobs than that every month.

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