Milwaukee's Democratic legislators have written a letter asking the legislature's majority leaders to call a special session to enact legalisation enabling Wisconsin to secure $89 million in federal extended unemployment benefits.
10,000 unemployed workers in the state have run out of unemployment insurance benefits because of the legislature's failure to act.
Two weeks ago the New York Times wrote that Wisconsin and Arizona were among a handful of states that were refusing to accept federal aid for "ideological reasons." A Wisconsin Manufacturer's and Commerce (WMC) spokesman claimed that the extended benefits were unnecessary and discouraged the unemployed from seeking work.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel followed up the Times' expose with a front page article that reported that Governor Walker supported extending the benefits, but did think they would create jobs, an unsubstantiated declaration that contradicts economic research that concludes extending unemployment benefits is among the strongest job creating policies governments can implement.
Following a demonstration in front of her legislative office earlier this week, State Senator Alberta Darling, co-chair of the powerful joint finance committee, claimed that she supported taking the money and assisting the unemployed.
Yet neither Darling, the Fitzgerald brothers nor Governor Walker have taken any steps to secure the $89 million that would not cost the state a single penny.
Their lack of urgency stands in sharp contrast to their actions immediately after Walker assumed office when they convened a special session to enact approximately $140 million in tax breaks for corporations and investors..
The failure of Darling, Walker and the Fitzgeralds to act is an outrage and immoral.
More than 10,000 hard-working, tax-paying Wisconsinites who lost their jobs through no fault of their own have run out of benefits. Many have lost their homes or are at risk of losing them. Others have been forced to drop out of school diminishing their hope for reemployment through retraining.
Wisconsin has a jobs shortage. Nationally there are 4.6 job seekers for every job.
It is time for Darling, Walker and the GOP to put up or shut up.
Call a special session immediately or justify your refusal to accept the federal money to the public and the state's unemployed.
Showing posts with label extend unemployment benefits. Show all posts
Showing posts with label extend unemployment benefits. Show all posts
Friday, July 1, 2011
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Walker & Darling cruelly betray Wisconsin's hard working people
It is outrageous that 10,000 unemployed Wisconsinites have lost their unemployment compensation benefits because Governor Scott Walker and Joint Finance Committee co-chair Alberta Darling have done nothing to collect $89 million in federally funded jobless benefits.
All that is required to secure these federal dollars and provide extended benefits to the unemployed is a small change in state law. The change would have absolutely no impact on the state's struggling unemployment insurance trust fund or the state's deficit. But it would provide 13 more weeks of benefits to workers who have been without employment for roughly a year and a half and promote economic growth and job creation in the state.
While refusing the $89 million in federal extended unemployment benefits, Walker and Darling have led the legislature in passing legislation forcing the unemployed to wait a week before becoming eligible for unemployment which will take $50 million out of their pockets and the Wisconsin economy.
Why haven’t Walker and Darling who campaigned on a platform of jobs, jobs, and more jobs and orchestrated almost $600 million in corporate and investor tax breaks in this budget acted?
The New York Times suggested they were refusing the money because of ideological reasons. And that certainly is one factor. But another is that both of these career politicians are the agents of the Wisconsin corporate community that wants to use the jobless recover to drive down wages of Wisconsin
Despite skilled labor shortages in certain sectors, Wisconsin Wisconsin
Yet some Wisconsin business leaders think that Wisconsin
They are dead wrong.
Over the past year, the Wisconsin unemployment rate has inched downwards by 1.4 percentage points. But this decline can be explained in part by some workers dropping out of the labor force as they have become discouraged by prolonged unemployment. As a result they are no longer considered unemployed. Just last month professional services, financial firms, restaurants, hotels, and city and county governments cut jobs. More job cuts are on the way as a result of the cuts in state aid for public schools and local government.
Extending unemployment benefits is good economic policy. It is also the decent thing to do.
Literally thousands of hard-working, tax- paying Wisconsin workers and their families have lost their jobs through no fault of their own. They want to work and cannot find work. Many have lost their homes or are in danger of losing their homes. It is not only bad for the economy to deny the unemployed these benefits it is also a cruel betrayal of Wisconsin
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Republicans want tax cuts for the rich, but nothing for the unemployed
Yesterday, the United States Senate finally mustered the 60 votes required to extend unemployment (UC) benefits to the 2.1 million Americans who had run out them.
This vote tells you all you need to know about the priorities of the Republicans who almost unanimously opposed providing the extension.
Fifteen million Americans are officially unemployed. If you include those who have dropped out of the labor market and involuntary part-time workers, the number soars to 23 million. Almost half, a record number, are considered long-term unemployed, having been out of work for six months or more. There are currently more than five people looking for work for every job opening.
But the Republican Senate leadership and all but two Republican Senators voted against extending unemployment benefits to the nation’s 2.1 million unemployed workers who had exhausted their benefits. Many, like Wisconsin Republican Senate candidate Ron Johnson, outrageously claim that providing the unemployed with benefits they have paid for and earned while working encourages them to remain unemployed.
The Republican hypocrisy is breathtaking.
While opposing the unemployment benefits extension as too expensive, they continue to push for legislation that would make the Bush era tax cuts, 50% of which went to the richest 1% of taxpayers, permanent.
The cost of extending unemployment benefits is $34 billion dollars. The cost of extending the tax cuts, $3 trillion over the next ten years!
The Bush tax cuts were originally sold as affordable because of a projected $5.4 trillion surplus. By the time they were passed in the spring of 2001, the rational had change. The $1.3 trillion tax cut was justified as the way to jump-start the economy that had plunged into recession in March 2001.
The tax cuts proved a very ineffective form of stimulus since the main beneficiaries of the cuts, those averaging $900,000 a year, were reluctant to spend their windfall. Unemployment benefits, on the other hand, are one of the most effective forms of stimulus because the unemployed immediately spend the money they receive. That’s why unemployment benefits are called an automatic stabilizer.
So the proposal to extend UC benefits is a twofer. It will help more than two million folks who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own and it will stimulate the struggling economy.
But that’s not good enough for the Republicans. Claiming to be concerned about the deficit, they say we need to curtail spending that assists working and middle class Americans. Extending unemployment benefits, funding mine, food, toy inspections and Social Security are too just expensive they claim.
In their world the nation simply cannot afford to regulate oil companies like BP, mining companies like Massey Energy and private banks like Goldman Sachs. But it is not to expensive to bail out banks, make upper income tax cuts permanent or maintain tax loopholes that allow hedge fund and private equity operators to pay tax rates at less than half the rate that working Americans pay and cost the nation $20 billion annually.
Let’s be honest. The Republicans aren’t concerned about you, your job or your paycheck. Nor are they concerned about the deficit. Their real interest is ensuring that unemployment remains high, depressing wages and enriching their cronies. That explains why they oppose extending unemployment benefits, proposals to prevent the layoffs of police, firemen and teachers and efforts to create public sector jobs. \
All of us should remember this come November.
This vote tells you all you need to know about the priorities of the Republicans who almost unanimously opposed providing the extension.
Fifteen million Americans are officially unemployed. If you include those who have dropped out of the labor market and involuntary part-time workers, the number soars to 23 million. Almost half, a record number, are considered long-term unemployed, having been out of work for six months or more. There are currently more than five people looking for work for every job opening.
But the Republican Senate leadership and all but two Republican Senators voted against extending unemployment benefits to the nation’s 2.1 million unemployed workers who had exhausted their benefits. Many, like Wisconsin Republican Senate candidate Ron Johnson, outrageously claim that providing the unemployed with benefits they have paid for and earned while working encourages them to remain unemployed.
The Republican hypocrisy is breathtaking.
While opposing the unemployment benefits extension as too expensive, they continue to push for legislation that would make the Bush era tax cuts, 50% of which went to the richest 1% of taxpayers, permanent.
The cost of extending unemployment benefits is $34 billion dollars. The cost of extending the tax cuts, $3 trillion over the next ten years!
The Bush tax cuts were originally sold as affordable because of a projected $5.4 trillion surplus. By the time they were passed in the spring of 2001, the rational had change. The $1.3 trillion tax cut was justified as the way to jump-start the economy that had plunged into recession in March 2001.
The tax cuts proved a very ineffective form of stimulus since the main beneficiaries of the cuts, those averaging $900,000 a year, were reluctant to spend their windfall. Unemployment benefits, on the other hand, are one of the most effective forms of stimulus because the unemployed immediately spend the money they receive. That’s why unemployment benefits are called an automatic stabilizer.
So the proposal to extend UC benefits is a twofer. It will help more than two million folks who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own and it will stimulate the struggling economy.
But that’s not good enough for the Republicans. Claiming to be concerned about the deficit, they say we need to curtail spending that assists working and middle class Americans. Extending unemployment benefits, funding mine, food, toy inspections and Social Security are too just expensive they claim.
In their world the nation simply cannot afford to regulate oil companies like BP, mining companies like Massey Energy and private banks like Goldman Sachs. But it is not to expensive to bail out banks, make upper income tax cuts permanent or maintain tax loopholes that allow hedge fund and private equity operators to pay tax rates at less than half the rate that working Americans pay and cost the nation $20 billion annually.
Let’s be honest. The Republicans aren’t concerned about you, your job or your paycheck. Nor are they concerned about the deficit. Their real interest is ensuring that unemployment remains high, depressing wages and enriching their cronies. That explains why they oppose extending unemployment benefits, proposals to prevent the layoffs of police, firemen and teachers and efforts to create public sector jobs. \
All of us should remember this come November.
Friday, June 4, 2010
Weak job growth in May. Threat of double dip recession grows
431,000 net new jobs were created in May. But almost all of them, a whopping 411,000, were temporary U.S. Census jobs.
Private employers added only 41,000 new jobs in May, the lowest total since the start of the year.
Overall, the unemployment rate dropped to 9.7 percent, down from 9.9 in April., according to a report released this morning by the U.S. Department of Labor.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said the low number of private-sector jobs is further evidence the recovery is still fragile.
"The Economic Recovery Act saved us from a second Great Depression, but it was not sufficient to power strong and sustained job growth, and its effects are expected to wane in coming months."
He called on Congress to do more to create jobs and sustain the recovery.
Most immediately, Congress must move quickly to extend unemployment benefits, restore health care benefits for the unemployed and provide aid to states to maintain jobs and vital services.
State and local governments shedded, 22,000 jobs in May. Without further action to offset state budget shortfalls, these job losses will undermine temporary gains from federal spending.
The underemployment figure, which includes those who are too discouraged to look for work or are working part-time out of economic necessity, dropped to 16.6 percent in May, from 17.1 percent in April-some 27 million U.S. workers without jobs or full-time work.
Wile temporary federal government jobs are rising because of the Census, permanent local government jobs are going away. State budget cuts could lead to as many as 900,000 jobs lost in 2010. And Congress decided last week to do nothing about that, cutting money in a jobs bill for the states to balance their Medicaid budgets.
Economists say monthly job creation must be 350,000 or more just to begin to make a dent in the unemployment rate.
The number of long-term unemployed workers continues to grow. In May, some 6.8 million U.S. workers were out of a job for 27 weeks or longer, up from 4 million a year ago. In May, 46 percent of unemployed workers had been without a job for 27 weeks or more.
The long-term jobless figures clearly show how important it is that Congress extend unemployment insurance (UI). Late last week, the House voted to extend unemployment benefits to millions of long-term unemployed workers who have been jobless longer than 26 weeks. But the Senate failed to vote on the measure before going on recess, meaning up to 1.2 million workers will have lost their unemployment insurance by the time the Senate returns from vacation.
Speaking earlier this week at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pa., President Obama said it is critical lawmakers extend unemployment insurance for several more months so that Americans who’ve been laid off through no fault of their own get the support they need to provide for their families and can maintain their health insurance until they’re rehired.
Extending unemployment benefits will not only support individual workers who have been unable to find jobs, but it will also stimulate the economy and help create more jobs. The money sent out in the form of unemployment insurance is quickly returned to the community, effectively supporting local economies. The median unemployed person has almost no cushion-only about $250 in liquid savings-at the time of job loss, resulting in a sharp drop in spending on essentials including food. Jesse Rothstein, chief economist for the U.S. Department of Labor summed up the nation’s jobless situation:
If you give money to someone who is unemployed, they are going to spend it the next day.
In his statement, Trumka adds:
America’s workers have paid far more than their fare share for the economic crisis - they’ve paid with their jobs, with their homes and with billions of dollars to Wall Street.
Today’s challenge is jobs. Unless Congress addresses this challenge with the focus and energy they brought to rescuing our banks, not only will a generation of workers be doomed to unemployment and the recovery itself put at risk, but dealing with our long-term fiscal problem will be all the more difficult.
Private employers added only 41,000 new jobs in May, the lowest total since the start of the year.
Overall, the unemployment rate dropped to 9.7 percent, down from 9.9 in April., according to a report released this morning by the U.S. Department of Labor.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said the low number of private-sector jobs is further evidence the recovery is still fragile.
"The Economic Recovery Act saved us from a second Great Depression, but it was not sufficient to power strong and sustained job growth, and its effects are expected to wane in coming months."
He called on Congress to do more to create jobs and sustain the recovery.
Most immediately, Congress must move quickly to extend unemployment benefits, restore health care benefits for the unemployed and provide aid to states to maintain jobs and vital services.
State and local governments shedded, 22,000 jobs in May. Without further action to offset state budget shortfalls, these job losses will undermine temporary gains from federal spending.
The underemployment figure, which includes those who are too discouraged to look for work or are working part-time out of economic necessity, dropped to 16.6 percent in May, from 17.1 percent in April-some 27 million U.S. workers without jobs or full-time work.
Wile temporary federal government jobs are rising because of the Census, permanent local government jobs are going away. State budget cuts could lead to as many as 900,000 jobs lost in 2010. And Congress decided last week to do nothing about that, cutting money in a jobs bill for the states to balance their Medicaid budgets.
Economists say monthly job creation must be 350,000 or more just to begin to make a dent in the unemployment rate.
The number of long-term unemployed workers continues to grow. In May, some 6.8 million U.S. workers were out of a job for 27 weeks or longer, up from 4 million a year ago. In May, 46 percent of unemployed workers had been without a job for 27 weeks or more.
The long-term jobless figures clearly show how important it is that Congress extend unemployment insurance (UI). Late last week, the House voted to extend unemployment benefits to millions of long-term unemployed workers who have been jobless longer than 26 weeks. But the Senate failed to vote on the measure before going on recess, meaning up to 1.2 million workers will have lost their unemployment insurance by the time the Senate returns from vacation.
Speaking earlier this week at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pa., President Obama said it is critical lawmakers extend unemployment insurance for several more months so that Americans who’ve been laid off through no fault of their own get the support they need to provide for their families and can maintain their health insurance until they’re rehired.
Extending unemployment benefits will not only support individual workers who have been unable to find jobs, but it will also stimulate the economy and help create more jobs. The money sent out in the form of unemployment insurance is quickly returned to the community, effectively supporting local economies. The median unemployed person has almost no cushion-only about $250 in liquid savings-at the time of job loss, resulting in a sharp drop in spending on essentials including food. Jesse Rothstein, chief economist for the U.S. Department of Labor summed up the nation’s jobless situation:
If you give money to someone who is unemployed, they are going to spend it the next day.
In his statement, Trumka adds:
America’s workers have paid far more than their fare share for the economic crisis - they’ve paid with their jobs, with their homes and with billions of dollars to Wall Street.
Today’s challenge is jobs. Unless Congress addresses this challenge with the focus and energy they brought to rescuing our banks, not only will a generation of workers be doomed to unemployment and the recovery itself put at risk, but dealing with our long-term fiscal problem will be all the more difficult.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Wisconsin's unemployed need jobs!
The nation lost another 36,000 jobs last month bringing the total job loss to 8.4 million jobs since the recession began. More than 15 million Americans are officially unemployed!
Forty percent of the unemployed have been without work for more than six months. If we include those working part-time because they cannot find full-time employment and those who have given up looking for work (discouraged workers) 29 million (16.8%) are either unemployed or unemployed. And that's only part of the story.
We are short another 2.7 million jobs, positions that are needed to absorb the 100,000 workers entering the labor market every month.
Last week Republican Senator Jim Bunning, who lost his fastball years ago, held up 100,000 Americans' unemployment checks because he claimed to be concerned about the growing federal deficit.
And Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, the second-ranking Republican in the Senate, defended Bunning arguing unemployment relief “doesn’t create new jobs. In fact, if anything, continuing to pay people unemployment compensation is a disincentive for them to seek new work.”
There are more than six unemployed workers for every job opening and the number of long- term unemployed is greater than at any time since the Great Depression. Yet Kyl feigns concern that extending unemployment benefits discourages people from working. This is truly amazing!
Republicans like Bunning and Wisconsin's own Paul Ryan, and moderate Democrats helped create the nation's river of red ink by supporting President Bush's $1.8 trillion high income tax cuts and the trillion dollar invasion of Iraq. Now they in the name of fiscal responsibility they want to ignore the more pressing 11.1 million jobs deficit. To fill that hole, while keeping up with a growing work force, requires the creation of more than 400,000 new jobs a month for three years — wildly in excess of even the most optimistic projections.
America's working people and their families are hurting and no one in Washington DC or Madison seem to be listening.
Congress is working on a very modest bill that will provide tax credits, at best an ineffective form of stimulus, to businesses that hire new workers. But as Milwaukee's Congresswoman Gwen Moore said when she voted against the bill:
I’ve talked with employers and small business owners in Milwaukee, and they resoundingly told me that the tax credits in this bill will not help them hire new people. What they need are customers – customers with money to spend. And customers need jobs.
Job creating legislation needs to be targeted to areas with persistent unemployment like we have in Milwaukee, and I’ve been advocating to make sure that we focus on the areas that need it most. This bill does exactly the opposite.
I am working with my colleagues to make sure that no one forgets about the folks in communities where unemployment is more than double the national average.
A jobs bill needs to actually create jobs.
The nation needs a real jobs bill that includes an extension of unemployment benefits which account for only 0.07% of the GDP and direct aid to state and local governments. Extending unemployment benefits is not only the right thing to do for people who are unemployed through not fault of their own, but it is one of the best forms of economic stimulus because the money will be immediately spent. Without increased federal aid to the states and local governments, they will be forced to slash their spending and lay-off even more workers, including firefighters, police officers, other first responders and teachers, further depressing consumption and private sector growth driven by government purchases.
The Wisconsin Legislature has also done very little to address the state's job gap. At a minimum it ought to help low-wage and part-time workers by passing an increase in the state's minimum wage which it has been sitting on for over a year.
A jobs bill should, as Moore said, create jobs. There is important work that needs to be done in this country, rebuilding the deteriorating infrastructure of roads, bridges, levees, parks, urban water system, and schools, and there are unemployed workers who want to work! Public investments like these would not only put people back to work, but lay the basis for long term economic growth. What are our elected officials waiting for?
When politicians say they are focused on jobs, jobs, jobs they should mean more than their own.
Forty percent of the unemployed have been without work for more than six months. If we include those working part-time because they cannot find full-time employment and those who have given up looking for work (discouraged workers) 29 million (16.8%) are either unemployed or unemployed. And that's only part of the story.
We are short another 2.7 million jobs, positions that are needed to absorb the 100,000 workers entering the labor market every month.
Last week Republican Senator Jim Bunning, who lost his fastball years ago, held up 100,000 Americans' unemployment checks because he claimed to be concerned about the growing federal deficit.
And Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, the second-ranking Republican in the Senate, defended Bunning arguing unemployment relief “doesn’t create new jobs. In fact, if anything, continuing to pay people unemployment compensation is a disincentive for them to seek new work.”
There are more than six unemployed workers for every job opening and the number of long- term unemployed is greater than at any time since the Great Depression. Yet Kyl feigns concern that extending unemployment benefits discourages people from working. This is truly amazing!
Republicans like Bunning and Wisconsin's own Paul Ryan, and moderate Democrats helped create the nation's river of red ink by supporting President Bush's $1.8 trillion high income tax cuts and the trillion dollar invasion of Iraq. Now they in the name of fiscal responsibility they want to ignore the more pressing 11.1 million jobs deficit. To fill that hole, while keeping up with a growing work force, requires the creation of more than 400,000 new jobs a month for three years — wildly in excess of even the most optimistic projections.
America's working people and their families are hurting and no one in Washington DC or Madison seem to be listening.
Congress is working on a very modest bill that will provide tax credits, at best an ineffective form of stimulus, to businesses that hire new workers. But as Milwaukee's Congresswoman Gwen Moore said when she voted against the bill:
I’ve talked with employers and small business owners in Milwaukee, and they resoundingly told me that the tax credits in this bill will not help them hire new people. What they need are customers – customers with money to spend. And customers need jobs.
Job creating legislation needs to be targeted to areas with persistent unemployment like we have in Milwaukee, and I’ve been advocating to make sure that we focus on the areas that need it most. This bill does exactly the opposite.
I am working with my colleagues to make sure that no one forgets about the folks in communities where unemployment is more than double the national average.
A jobs bill needs to actually create jobs.
The nation needs a real jobs bill that includes an extension of unemployment benefits which account for only 0.07% of the GDP and direct aid to state and local governments. Extending unemployment benefits is not only the right thing to do for people who are unemployed through not fault of their own, but it is one of the best forms of economic stimulus because the money will be immediately spent. Without increased federal aid to the states and local governments, they will be forced to slash their spending and lay-off even more workers, including firefighters, police officers, other first responders and teachers, further depressing consumption and private sector growth driven by government purchases.
The Wisconsin Legislature has also done very little to address the state's job gap. At a minimum it ought to help low-wage and part-time workers by passing an increase in the state's minimum wage which it has been sitting on for over a year.
A jobs bill should, as Moore said, create jobs. There is important work that needs to be done in this country, rebuilding the deteriorating infrastructure of roads, bridges, levees, parks, urban water system, and schools, and there are unemployed workers who want to work! Public investments like these would not only put people back to work, but lay the basis for long term economic growth. What are our elected officials waiting for?
When politicians say they are focused on jobs, jobs, jobs they should mean more than their own.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Republicans block help for unemployed
The New York Times reports:
There are now more than five million Americans — roughly one-third of the unemployed — who have been out of work for six months or longer, ... a record since data was first recorded in 1948.
Congress has extended benefits several times, most recently in February, but for many workers they are again running out.
The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid (D Nevada), and other Democrats have introduced a bill that would extend unemployment insurance by up to an additional 14 weeks in all 50 states, with another six weeks for states with a jobless rate above 8.5 percent. It is an improvement on a bill passed by the House, which would extend benefits only in states with unemployment above 8.5 percent.
February’s extension, which included a $25-a-week increase in benefits, kept 800,000 people out of poverty...Putting more money in the pockets of the unemployed provided much-needed stimulus for the entire economy.
Every day that the Republicans continue to block an extension...means thousands more Americans pushed closer to the edge of despair.
There are now more than five million Americans — roughly one-third of the unemployed — who have been out of work for six months or longer, ... a record since data was first recorded in 1948.
Congress has extended benefits several times, most recently in February, but for many workers they are again running out.
The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid (D Nevada), and other Democrats have introduced a bill that would extend unemployment insurance by up to an additional 14 weeks in all 50 states, with another six weeks for states with a jobless rate above 8.5 percent. It is an improvement on a bill passed by the House, which would extend benefits only in states with unemployment above 8.5 percent.
February’s extension, which included a $25-a-week increase in benefits, kept 800,000 people out of poverty...Putting more money in the pockets of the unemployed provided much-needed stimulus for the entire economy.
Every day that the Republicans continue to block an extension...means thousands more Americans pushed closer to the edge of despair.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Ryan ignors the unemployed to fight phantom foe
When the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics issues its February unemployment report on Friday expect more bad news.
My back of the envelope analysis projects that employers eliminated almost 700,000 jobs in February which will cause the unemployment rate to rise to 8%, the highest rate since the recession of 1981.
In January 2009 employers slashed 598,000 jobs. It was the worst monthly job loss since December 1974, and brought job losses to 1.8 million in just the last three months, or half of the 3.6 million jobs that have been lost since the beginning of 2008.
The job loss since November is the biggest 3-month drop since immediately after the end of World War II, when defense contractors were shutting down for conversion to civilian production.
January's job loss caused the unemployment rate to rise to 7.6%, its highest level since September, 1992.
As bad as the unemployment rate is, it only tells part of the story for people struggling to find jobs. The January report also showed that 2.6 million people had been out of work for more than six months, the most long-term unemployed since 1983.
And that number only counts those still looking for work. The so-called underemployment rate, which includes those who have stopped looking for work (discouraged workers) and people working only part-time that want full-time positions, climbed to 13.9% from 13.5% in December. That is the highest rate for this measure since the Labor Department first started tracking it in 1994.
Despite these gloomy number Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan (R) continues to oppose efforts to jump start the economy.
Ryan voted in lock step with his Party in opposing the stimulus package that provides help to the unemployed and their families by increasing unemployment benefits and food stamps and expanding eligibility, increasing Pell Grants, and investing in job creating infrastructure projects and education. Ryan's fiscal conservatism, incidentally, is new. When his Party was in power he voted for the 2001 and 2003 high income tax cuts which caused more than 50% of the Bush era record deficits.
Instead of voting for legislation that helps unemployed workers and their families, Ryan has waging war against an imaginary boogie man, stagflation that even he admits does not currently exist.
Nouriel Roubini, the NYU economics professor know as Dr. Gloom because he correctly predicted the current recession more than a year before it began, argues, contrary to Ryan' imaginary stagflation, that without even more aggressive federal action "this ugly U-shaped recession may turn into a more virulent L-shaped near-depression or stag-deflation (a deadly combination of economic stagnation and price deflation like the one Japan experienced in the 1990s after its real estate and equity bubbles burst."
Ryan has also criticized the President's proposed budget. "If there's anything that economists on the left and the right agree on, that supply-siders, classic economists and Keynesians agree on, you don't raise taxes in a recession," said Rep. Ryan. "This budget is raising taxes in a recession." Ryan was joined in his opposition by among others the American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry's most powerful trade group.
Ryan is either badly misinformed or deliberating misleading the public.
The economic stimulus package signed into law by Obama last week enacted one of the largest tax cuts ever, which made good on Obama's campaign promise to cut taxes for 95 percent of Americans. The first benefits from these cuts should be seen no later than April 1, 2009.
Obama has proposed increasing marginal tax rates on the richest 5%, people earning over $250,000 annually, and on hedge fund executives who have used tax loopholes to pay lower rates than middle income Americans. As Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag said, "Folks need to actually look at the budget document." To avoid raising taxes during the recession, these increases will not take effect until 2011.
The ranks of the unemployed are growing. People in Wisconsin are losing their jobs, their healthcare and their homes. It's time for Congressman Ryan to worry less about imaginary problems and phantom tax increases and devote his attention to the real problems facing Wisconsin's increasingly beleaguered working families.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
MMAC's lawsuit will not create family supporting jobs or shared properity
In November Milwaukee voters overwhelmingly passed an ordinance that guarantees workers the right to earn paid sick days. Milwaukee joined San Francisco and Washington DC as the third city to require these benefits. The referendum passed by a margin of almost 70% to 30%.
Despite the overwhelming margin of victory, the Milwaukee Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce (MMAC) has aggressively opposed the measure.
Two weeks ago the organization filed a lawsuit against the city seeking to strike down the law. The MMAC is also asking for a temporary injunction to block the city from enforcing the legislation that is scheduled to go into effect on February 10, 2009.
The MMAC's opposition, while short-sighted, is not unexpected. Business organizations have consistently opposed social legislation like laws outlawing child labor and discrimination or regulating business behavior like the Clean Air Act. For the past three decades they have aggressively opposed any effort to raise the minimum wage even as its real real value has fallen to historic lows. Their consistent opposition makes some sense since such legislature imposes costs or at least prevents businesses from externalizing their costs, thus reducing rates of profit. The long-term benefits of increased employee loyalty and productivity and reduced hiring and retraining costs are seldom acknowledged.
But Tim Sheehy and other MMAC spokesman have stooped to new a new low in their desperate attempt to discredit Milwaukee's new ordinance.
The MMAC's Steve Bass, a former Republican assembly operative , labeled the new law "a sort of terrorism."
It is perverse to equate providing employees with time off when they or a child is ill with suicide bombings. The former provides workers with a humane benefit so that they no longer need to choose between their job and caring for their family, while the latter uses murder to terrorize the general population. Additionally, Bass's rhetoric belittles the lives and sacrifice of the victims of terrorist attacks and those who have died trying to bring the perpetrators of political violence to justice.
Not to be outdone, the MMAC's President Tim Sheehy claims the ordinance is affecting job growth in Milwaukee and predicts "dire economic consequences."
But Milwaukee's labor market had collapsed and the city's workers were experiencing what the UWM Center for Economic Development has characterized as "a stealth depression" long before this ordinance was passed.
Exactly what job growth is Mr. Sheehy claiming the City has lost?
The country is experiencing the worst recession since the Great Depression. We lost half a million jobs last month and 2 million in the last year. Business investment has collapsed, a victim of the housing bubble's collapse and the resulting financial sector's meltdown.
Last year, Wisconsin lost 32,4000 jobs. The Department of Revenue is projecting that Wisconsin will lose another 37,700 manufacturing jobs (7.7% of the state's total) and 121,000 construction jobs( 5% of all construction jobs) next year.
Milwaukee is hemorrhaging jobs. Two thousand two-hundred and sixty-six (2,266) more Milwaukeans were unemployed in September 2008 than a year ago, long before the sick day ordinance was passed. Milwaukee ranks a dismal 34th among 50 cities in the annual rate of employment growth, has the 2nd worst rate of black male unemployment and the worst black-white unemployment ratio in the nation.
The simple fact is that long before the sick day referendum passed, business investment in new plant and equipment had collapsed and companies were laying off workers at an alarming rate. In addition, many of the firms like Crazy Water, Outpost Natural Foods, and Lackey and Joys, whose spokesmen have opposed the ordinance, won't abandon their Milwaukee location in response to a marginal cost increase because they require access to the city's market. As realtors always tell us: "location, location, location!"
Mr. Sheehy's concern over Milwaukee job loss is also hard to take seriously since the MMAC has consistently promoted policies that have destroy local jobs and drive down wages.
The MMAC was a vocal proponent of NAFTA and other free trade agreements that have contributed to a reduction of employment in high-wage traded-goods industries, growing wage inequality, and a steady decline in demand for workers without a college education.
NAFTA alone cost Wisconsin 25,403 (-0.9%) jobs between 1994 and 2006.
The MMAC has also aggressively promoted trade with China. The organization's China Business Council has even sponsored tours of China. Yet, between 2001 and 2006 Wisconsin lost 38,000 jobs because of the growing trade deficit with China.
And Mr. Sheehy actively opposed the County's advisory sales tax referendum aimed at providing a dedicated source of revenue to the County's beleaguered transit system. Sheehy actually authored a letter to Milwaukee's County Board members urging them to uphold County Executive Walker's veto of the referendum.
Mr. Sheehy surely knows that one of the major impediments to economic development in Southeastern Wisconsin is the spacial mismatch between large numbers of unemployed workers, disproportionately African-American, living in Milwaukee's central city, and employers located in suburban and ex-urban locations who have had difficulty finding qualified workers. Key to addressing this problem is a mass transit system that links people to jobs. Yet Sheehy and the MMAC opposed the County's advisory referendum designed to address this mismatch. Republican partisan politics trumped investing in the regional economy. The economic consequences of the MCTS's deterioration is nothing short of "dire."
The "stealth depression" in the city of Milwaukee's labor market calls for bold, new departures in public policy. Yet the MMAC has opposed initiatives in public investment, regional cooperation, reducing metro-wide racial segregation, industrial policy, and community benefits agreements that should be part of an aggressive anti-unemployment strategy in the city.
The MMAC's use of scare tactics to oppose the sick pay legislation is consistent with this dismal record. Rather than waste the city's scarce tax dollars in a lengthy court case, the MMAC and the firms it represents should obey the law. They might just discover that when businesses treat their workers humanely, their employees will be more loyal and productive and replacement and training costs will decline.
Despite the overwhelming margin of victory, the Milwaukee Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce (MMAC) has aggressively opposed the measure.
Two weeks ago the organization filed a lawsuit against the city seeking to strike down the law. The MMAC is also asking for a temporary injunction to block the city from enforcing the legislation that is scheduled to go into effect on February 10, 2009.
The MMAC's opposition, while short-sighted, is not unexpected. Business organizations have consistently opposed social legislation like laws outlawing child labor and discrimination or regulating business behavior like the Clean Air Act. For the past three decades they have aggressively opposed any effort to raise the minimum wage even as its real real value has fallen to historic lows. Their consistent opposition makes some sense since such legislature imposes costs or at least prevents businesses from externalizing their costs, thus reducing rates of profit. The long-term benefits of increased employee loyalty and productivity and reduced hiring and retraining costs are seldom acknowledged.
But Tim Sheehy and other MMAC spokesman have stooped to new a new low in their desperate attempt to discredit Milwaukee's new ordinance.
The MMAC's Steve Bass, a former Republican assembly operative , labeled the new law "a sort of terrorism."
It is perverse to equate providing employees with time off when they or a child is ill with suicide bombings. The former provides workers with a humane benefit so that they no longer need to choose between their job and caring for their family, while the latter uses murder to terrorize the general population. Additionally, Bass's rhetoric belittles the lives and sacrifice of the victims of terrorist attacks and those who have died trying to bring the perpetrators of political violence to justice.
Not to be outdone, the MMAC's President Tim Sheehy claims the ordinance is affecting job growth in Milwaukee and predicts "dire economic consequences."
But Milwaukee's labor market had collapsed and the city's workers were experiencing what the UWM Center for Economic Development has characterized as "a stealth depression" long before this ordinance was passed.
Exactly what job growth is Mr. Sheehy claiming the City has lost?
The country is experiencing the worst recession since the Great Depression. We lost half a million jobs last month and 2 million in the last year. Business investment has collapsed, a victim of the housing bubble's collapse and the resulting financial sector's meltdown.
Last year, Wisconsin lost 32,4000 jobs. The Department of Revenue is projecting that Wisconsin will lose another 37,700 manufacturing jobs (7.7% of the state's total) and 121,000 construction jobs( 5% of all construction jobs) next year.
Milwaukee is hemorrhaging jobs. Two thousand two-hundred and sixty-six (2,266) more Milwaukeans were unemployed in September 2008 than a year ago, long before the sick day ordinance was passed. Milwaukee ranks a dismal 34th among 50 cities in the annual rate of employment growth, has the 2nd worst rate of black male unemployment and the worst black-white unemployment ratio in the nation.
The simple fact is that long before the sick day referendum passed, business investment in new plant and equipment had collapsed and companies were laying off workers at an alarming rate. In addition, many of the firms like Crazy Water, Outpost Natural Foods, and Lackey and Joys, whose spokesmen have opposed the ordinance, won't abandon their Milwaukee location in response to a marginal cost increase because they require access to the city's market. As realtors always tell us: "location, location, location!"
Mr. Sheehy's concern over Milwaukee job loss is also hard to take seriously since the MMAC has consistently promoted policies that have destroy local jobs and drive down wages.
The MMAC was a vocal proponent of NAFTA and other free trade agreements that have contributed to a reduction of employment in high-wage traded-goods industries, growing wage inequality, and a steady decline in demand for workers without a college education.
NAFTA alone cost Wisconsin 25,403 (-0.9%) jobs between 1994 and 2006.
The MMAC has also aggressively promoted trade with China. The organization's China Business Council has even sponsored tours of China. Yet, between 2001 and 2006 Wisconsin lost 38,000 jobs because of the growing trade deficit with China.
And Mr. Sheehy actively opposed the County's advisory sales tax referendum aimed at providing a dedicated source of revenue to the County's beleaguered transit system. Sheehy actually authored a letter to Milwaukee's County Board members urging them to uphold County Executive Walker's veto of the referendum.
Mr. Sheehy surely knows that one of the major impediments to economic development in Southeastern Wisconsin is the spacial mismatch between large numbers of unemployed workers, disproportionately African-American, living in Milwaukee's central city, and employers located in suburban and ex-urban locations who have had difficulty finding qualified workers. Key to addressing this problem is a mass transit system that links people to jobs. Yet Sheehy and the MMAC opposed the County's advisory referendum designed to address this mismatch. Republican partisan politics trumped investing in the regional economy. The economic consequences of the MCTS's deterioration is nothing short of "dire."
The "stealth depression" in the city of Milwaukee's labor market calls for bold, new departures in public policy. Yet the MMAC has opposed initiatives in public investment, regional cooperation, reducing metro-wide racial segregation, industrial policy, and community benefits agreements that should be part of an aggressive anti-unemployment strategy in the city.
The MMAC's use of scare tactics to oppose the sick pay legislation is consistent with this dismal record. Rather than waste the city's scarce tax dollars in a lengthy court case, the MMAC and the firms it represents should obey the law. They might just discover that when businesses treat their workers humanely, their employees will be more loyal and productive and replacement and training costs will decline.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Wisconsin needs economic stimulus that assists workers and the economy
Since January, the economy has shed 1.3 million private sector jobs, over half a million in the last two months. More than ten million Americans are now out of work including tens of thousands in Wisconsin.
Not only are workers losing they jobs, they are having a harder time finding new ones. The number of people who are involuntarily working part-time has dramatically increased, by 544,000 in October, bringing the two-month rise to a record 844,000. The U-6 index, the broadest measure of labor market slack, rose to 11.8 percent, tying the rate for January 1994 (when the measure was first established) as the highest on record.
The percentage of long-term unemployed (more than 26 weeks) rose by 1.2 percentage points to 22.3 percent. It had been 17.9 percent just a year ago. And the average duration of unemployment increased by 1.3 weeks to 19.7 weeks. The two-month rise of 2.3 weeks in average duration is the sharpest increase ever.
For those remaining on the job, wages and hours of work have declined. As a result, consumer spending, the economy's engine for almost three decades, has fallen (by a 3.1% annual rate) for the first time since 1974.
The recession is causing a precipitous decline in state and local government revenues. Wisconsin is facing a record $5 billion budget deficit; New York $12.5 billion. California recently cut its spending by $7 billion.
Nationally states and local government will be forced to slash spending by $100 billion because they are required to balance their budgets. The consequent reduction in demand will make what is already a very nasty recession even worse.
Congress needs to enact a stimulus plan immediately. It should be based on three principals:
1) minimizing the human suffering that is caused by widespread unemployment and underemployment;
2) generating the biggest and quickest bang for the buck;
3) increasing investments in strategic areas that strengthen the economy in the long run.
Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan's proposal to cut investment taxes misses the boat on all counts. Ryan and his Republican brethren, including President Bush, remain ideologically committed to the notion that the only acceptable federal response is to cut investment taxes. This approach is wrong on three counts.
- First, cutting capital gains and dividend taxes which are already taxed at lower rates than earned income won't help the 10 million people who have lost their jobs or those who can't find full time work.
- Second, tax cuts on non-existent profits and dividends won't stimulate the economy because unearned (investment) income has plummeted with the real economy's decline. Ryan's proposal amounts to little more than a brazen attempt to use the crisis to enact tax breaks for very wealthy people.
- Third, cutting investment taxes is ineffective because in an economy where credit markets remain tight, interests rates high and consumer demand is declining, business tax cuts won't stimulate increased investment. Businesses don't invest in research and development or new plant and equipment unless there is a demand for what they produce. Yet, consumer spending fell last quarter for the first time since the early 1970's. And that didn't include the impact of the credit crunch which hit in October. We need to stimulate demand (public and private) which will jump start the economy and allow investors to respond to the market.
Most of the money from the original tax rebate stimulus was saved rather than spent thus blunting its stimulative benefit. By comparison, other options—such as infrastructure spending on deteriorating roads, bridges, mass transit and sewer systems, aid to states, increased food stamps, and unemployment insurance (UI) benefits—are much more cost-effective because they are more likely to channel money directly into the economy.
Mark Zandi from Moody’s Economy.com estimates that each dollar of refundable tax rebates only boosts GDP by about $1.26, while each dollar of infrastructure spending could provide a $1.59 boost.
Not only are many of these stimulus options more effective than tax rebates, but they also have the added benefit of assisting those hardest hit by the downturn, ensuring necessary public services are provided and tackling long-standing infrastructure needs that would lower transportation costs, decrease traffic, and increase future business productivity.
Zandi’s analysis also shows what doesn’t work as stimulus: a variety of tax breaks for corporations and wealthy individuals which cost over twice as much as they return to the economy. Yet, these are the very breaks that Congressman Ryan and President Bush support.
The Congress needs to shift its focus from Wall Street to Main Street and craft a stimulus package that grows the economy from the bottom up, provides emergency aid to states and local government and invests in the nation's infrastructure. Such an approach will not only create jobs and help those who need it the most, but prevent state and local spending cuts that would make the recession worse and have the added benefit of rebuilding the nation's deteriorating infrastructure creating the basis for long term economic growth and a shared prosperity.
The time to act is now!
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel calls for extending unemployment benefits
Only a few months ago, the Journal Sentinel editorialized that the Fed might need to raise interest rates.
It's good to see the Board has now recognized that the economy is in trouble and that the unemployed need additional assistance.
Extending unemployment benefits will help the long term unemployed and stimulate the economy.
Now the board should turn its attention to the twenty five states, including Wisconsin, that are facing budget deficits. These states also need federal assistance. Otherwise they will be forced to cut spending to balance their budgets which will only deepen the nation's economic malaise.
It's good to see the Board has now recognized that the economy is in trouble and that the unemployed need additional assistance.
Extending unemployment benefits will help the long term unemployed and stimulate the economy.
Now the board should turn its attention to the twenty five states, including Wisconsin, that are facing budget deficits. These states also need federal assistance. Otherwise they will be forced to cut spending to balance their budgets which will only deepen the nation's economic malaise.
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