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Economic inequality

December 14, 2012
In Mich. Labor Setback, Politics as Usual
by E. Sebastian Arduengo

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder (R) despite a massive outcry of protestors at the state capitol in Lansing signed a so-called “right-to-work” bill into law. And just like in neighboring Indiana, right to work passed despite a massive outcry, and Michigan joined 23 other states that have passed such legislation in a seeming race to the bottom for the benefit of corporations that have made massive political donations to the Republican proponents of these bills.

So what is “right to work,” and why are so many Republican officials making it a legislative priority? Put simply, right-to-work legislation prohibits agreements that require employees of a firm to maintain union membership as a condition of employment, allowing workers who choose to do so the right to “work through a strike.” The problem with this is that federal law requires unions to bargain for a contract that benefits all workers, regardless of whether they become members of the union. And, unions are founded on the premise of collective action, when individuals can take advantage of the benefits that unions win in contracts without having to pay their fair share in dues; it creates a massive free-rider problem that undermines the purposes, and ultimately the benefits that a union provides. For that reason, the AFL-CIO calls this kind of legislation a “right to work for less [pay/benefits]” law.

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Economic inequality, Labor law, Economic, Workplace and Environment Regulation, AFL-CIO, Economic Policy Institute, Governor Rick Snyder, Labor, Michigan, right-to-work laws
November 16, 2012
Ending Emergency Unemployment Compensation -- a Real Fiscal Cliff for Millions
Guest Post
By Christine L. Owens, Executive Director, National Employment Law Project

With the election behind us, the looming fiscal cliff has now moved front and center in our national debate. The stakes are enormous, though as many note, the “cliff” is really a “slope,” with the effects of going over it more gradual than immediate and remediable by future action. But for one group of Americans -- the long-term unemployed -- Congress’s failure to meet an end-of-year deadline means a catastrophic plunge. Here’s why.

The Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) program enacted in mid-2008 and since renewed ten times, provides between 14 and 47 weeks of federal unemployment benefits, depending on states’ unemployment rates, for jobless workers who reach the end of their state benefits (typically, 26 weeks) without finding work. Since Congress last reauthorized and shrank the EUC program in February 2012, the total number of weeks of federally-funded benefits for long-term unemployed workers has declined significantly, by an average of 31 percent across the states.

The EUC program is now set to expire at the end of the year -- a demise that is premature. Though the unemployment rate is falling, at 7.9 percent it is still 40 percent higher than when EUC was first implemented. More significant, long-term unemployment -- joblessness longer than six months -- has grown substantially in recent years: At five million individuals, long-term unemployment accounts for 40.6 of overall unemployment, a share more than double that in mid-2008 (18 percent) and one that has declined only marginally from the 42.6 percent rate last February, when the program was renewed. With more than three unemployed workers for every job opening, the average duration of unemployment is 40 weeks. These jarringly long spells and sustained high rates of long-term unemployment are record-setting, underscoring the continued need for the EUC program.

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Economic inequality, Economic, Workplace and Environment Regulation, Christine L. Owens, Emergency Unemployment Compensation, EUC, fiscal cliff, fiscal slope, Guest Post, long-term unemployed, National Employment Law Project
October 23, 2012
Remembering George McGovern’s Invaluable Work to End Poverty, Hunger
Guest Post
By Peter B. Edelman. Edelman is a law professor at Georgetown Law and Chair of the ACS Board. Edelman is also author of the recent book, So Rich, So Poor.

George McGovern leaves legacies of principle and courage across the board. Robert Kennedy once said McGovern was the most decent man he had ever known. I admired McGovern for many reasons, but the one that counts most for me in particular is that he picked up the mantle on American hunger after RFK was murdered and led the way to the food stamp program we have today – eradicating the near-starvation of children that we discovered in our country in the 1960s and achieving an enormous success in our public policy.

McGovern is no doubt known more for his unsuccessful run for the presidency and his steadfast opposition to the war in Vietnam, but he had a lifelong concern for food and nutrition and especially about feeding the hungry across the world. After Robert Kennedy died, McGovern got the Senate to establish a special committee on hunger and nutrition and stayed with it through the better part of the 1970s until food stamps had become a fully mature and successful national program.

I will remember George McGovern on many counts, but personally more than anything else I will hold closest to my heart his enormous contribution to bringing an end to severe malnutrition for millions of children in our nation.

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Economic inequality, Economic, Workplace and Environment Regulation, children, George McGovern, Guest Post, malnutrition, Peter B. Edelman, poverty, Robert Kennedy
October 22, 2012
George McGovern: ‘Patriot and Truth-Teller’
posted by Jeremy Leaming

The nation lost a passionate liberal, proud populist and decorated war hero on Sunday when U.S. Senator and presidential nominee George McGovern died at 90.

As Salon’s Joan Walsh wrote, after McGovern accepted the Democratic presidential nomination in 1972, Richard Nixon and the Republican Party unleashed a notorious smear campaign that not only attempted to besmirch McGovern’s integrity, but led to a landslide victory for Nixon.

Walsh wrote:

It worked. Of course Nixon’s aggressiveness was ultimately his downfall; he resigned over the scandal around his henchmen breaking into the Democratic National Committee offices in the Watergate building. A year after the ’72 election, polls showed Americans would choose McGovern if they had it to do over again.

Read more tributes to McGovern’s life:

Ignore McGovern’s Message at Your Peril, Stanley Kutler, Salon

George McGovern Dead at 90, David Browne, Rolling Stone

Remembering George McGovern, Gary Hart, The Huffington Post

A Prairie Liberal, Trounced but Never Silenced, David E. Rosenbaum, The New York Times

George McGovern: Touchstone of Liberalism, John Nichols, The Nation

George McGovern: American Patriot and Truth-Teller, Katrina vanden Heuvel, The Nation

George McGovern, the man who never gave up, former U.S. Sen. Bob Dole, The Washington Post

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Economic inequality, Democracy and Voting, Economic, Workplace and Environment Regulation, 1972, George McGovern, Joan Walsh, Richard Nixon
October 4, 2012
Policy Promoting the Needs of the 1 Percent, Leaving Many More Mired in Poverty
by Jeremy Leaming

It’s difficult to fathom how large swaths of the populace still embrace rightwing rhetoric proclaiming that in America almost anyone can significantly better their stations in life. It is the annoying yank yourself up by the bootstraps mentality that fogs the minds of far too many Americans, leaving them unable to appreciate just how detrimental the wealth gap is to sustaining a resilient economy.

But leading economists and think tanks, and to a lesser extent the Occupy Wall Street movement, caught on long ago and have strived to amplify the hard truth that in American if you are born into poverty your chances of experiencing the “American Dream” of upward mobility are almost nil – one is more likely to be struck by an asteroid. Yes that’s hyperbolic. But as Professor Peter Edelman details in his recent book So Rich, So Poor, our country’s safety net is so tattered that it has made it vastly more difficult to move from poverty to the middle class. The tired argument that less regulations of corporations and more tax breaks for the nation’s superrich will spur job creation and help move large numbers of people out of poverty continues to resonate with far too many people.

As noted on this blog recently, Nobel-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz dubbed the American dream a “myth.” The Columbia business school professor and author told a German publication that one’s chance of upward mobility in the country is really dependent on the income and education of your parents.”

The New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof recently offered a powerful piece about a nation that has become “unequal for all.”

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Economic inequality, Economic, Workplace and Environment Regulation, inequality, Nicholas Kristof, Paul Krugman, Peter Edelman, redistribution, So Rich, So Poor,, wealth gap