One chart in particular, showing the reserve army itself, captures a great deal (worth a thousand words, as they say):
Thursday, February 16, 2012
More Unemployment Insurance politics
Here is an update to the Congressional debate about extending current Unemployment Insurance benefits that was reported in an earlier blog post. I think it is especially helpful to look at the deal in light of the Shock Doctrine.
The article below is from the New York Times. The same developments are reported with slightly different slants in the SF Chronicle, Yahoo and elsewhere.
www.nytimes.com/2012/02/16/us/politics/panel-completes-last-details-of-tax-cut-extension.html
February 15, 2012
Panel Completes Last Details of Payroll Tax Cut Extension
By JENNIFER STEINHAUER and ROBERT PEAR
WASHINGTON — Members of a House-Senate committee charged with writing a measure to extend a payroll tax reduction said Wednesday that their work was done, just shy of an hour before their deadline to get a bill ready for a Friday vote.
After fighting until the very final hour over how to pay for parts of a $150 billion plan that would also extend unemployment benefits and prevent a pay cut for doctors who accept Medicare, leaders of both parties put together a bill that the majority of the committee could support.
While the substance of most issues had largely been worked out this week, Democrats from Maryland — home to many federal workers — held up an agreement at the last minute debating whether a pay freeze for federal workers or a reduction in scheduled raises would be more acceptable than changes to pensions for some employees as a way to pay for continuing jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed.
Senator Benjamin L. Cardin, a Maryland Democrat who is on the conference committee, and Representative Chris Van Hollen, also a Democrat of Maryland, said they were unhappy with provisions affecting federal employees.
With no support from Senate Republicans — who Senate Democrats said earlier in the week had not been very involved in the drafting of the report — it came down to Mr. Cardin, who was reluctant to give the needed signature to push the report toward the floors for a vote.
Mr. Cardin was called Wednesday by President Obama, who strongly wanted the provisions and leaned heavily on the senator to give his approval, senior administration officials said.
While the committee’s work has the blessing of House Republican leadership, many rank-and-file Republicans, while cheered by a reduction in unemployment benefits and proposed erosion of the health care law, were nonetheless leaning against the deal.
“They are framing it as a middle-class tax cut even though this is a significant change to how Social Security has traditionally been treated,” said Representative Jeff Fortenberry, Republican of Nebraska, who plans to oppose the measure. “The payroll tax keeps Americans attentive to the fact that they put a little bit aside each check for Social Security. That connection is now gone.”
Lawmakers had hoped for a final vote on the measure in at least the House, if not both chambers, by Friday, before Congress is set to recess for a week. But the late hour of the deal combined with the technical issues that remained with the measure suggested that a vote would be delayed until at least Saturday. Under House rules, bills are meant to be posted three days before a vote.
Under the agreement reached by House and Senate negotiators, the current reduction in the employee’s share of the Social Security payroll tax — to 4.2 percent of wages, from 6.2 percent — would be continued to the end of the year. Revenue lost to the Social Security trust fund would be fully replaced with money from the general fund of the Treasury.
For a worker with annual earnings of $50,000, the payroll tax holiday would increase take-home pay by $1,000 over the course of the year.
The bipartisan agreement also revamps unemployment insurance, reducing the maximum duration of benefits in states with high unemployment to 73 weeks, from the current 99. Currently, fewer than half of states are eligible for 93 weeks or more of unemployment insurance, with just 18 states getting the full maximum of 99 weeks.
The roughly $30 billion price will be picked up by the sale of radio spectrum licenses and the federal worker benefit changes.
Under the agreement, states will be allowed to conduct drug testing for anyone who lost a job because the person failed or refused to take an employer’s drug test, and they could test anyone seeking a job that generally requires such a test, a provision similar to existing law.
Federal workers were not pleased with the proposed changes, with Colleen M. Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, calling them “absolutely outrageous.” She said House and Senate negotiators were tentatively planning to save $15 billion over 10 years by reducing the government contribution to pensions for new federal employees and requiring the workers to contribute more.
The agreement extends the nation’s main welfare program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, through the current fiscal year. States will have to prevent welfare recipients from using electronic benefit cards at liquor stores, casinos and strip clubs. In addition, the legislation blocks a 27 percent cut in payments to doctors treating Medicare patients. In effect, this assures that beneficiaries will have access to their doctors after March 1, when the cut was to have taken effect.
Dr. Peter W. Carmel, president of the American Medical Association, said his group was “deeply disappointed” that the agreement, while delaying the cut for 10 months, did not replace the statutory formula that requires such cuts. Republicans boasted that they had cut spending under the new health care law to help pay for Medicare spending under the agreement. For example, the agreement cuts $5 billion from a special account created by the new law to promote public health.
To help offset the cost of paying doctors under Medicare, the agreement will also reduce payments to hospitals.
The article below is from the New York Times. The same developments are reported with slightly different slants in the SF Chronicle, Yahoo and elsewhere.
www.nytimes.com/2012/02/16/us/politics/panel-completes-last-details-of-tax-cut-extension.html
February 15, 2012
Panel Completes Last Details of Payroll Tax Cut Extension
By JENNIFER STEINHAUER and ROBERT PEAR
WASHINGTON — Members of a House-Senate committee charged with writing a measure to extend a payroll tax reduction said Wednesday that their work was done, just shy of an hour before their deadline to get a bill ready for a Friday vote.
After fighting until the very final hour over how to pay for parts of a $150 billion plan that would also extend unemployment benefits and prevent a pay cut for doctors who accept Medicare, leaders of both parties put together a bill that the majority of the committee could support.
While the substance of most issues had largely been worked out this week, Democrats from Maryland — home to many federal workers — held up an agreement at the last minute debating whether a pay freeze for federal workers or a reduction in scheduled raises would be more acceptable than changes to pensions for some employees as a way to pay for continuing jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed.
Senator Benjamin L. Cardin, a Maryland Democrat who is on the conference committee, and Representative Chris Van Hollen, also a Democrat of Maryland, said they were unhappy with provisions affecting federal employees.
With no support from Senate Republicans — who Senate Democrats said earlier in the week had not been very involved in the drafting of the report — it came down to Mr. Cardin, who was reluctant to give the needed signature to push the report toward the floors for a vote.
Mr. Cardin was called Wednesday by President Obama, who strongly wanted the provisions and leaned heavily on the senator to give his approval, senior administration officials said.
While the committee’s work has the blessing of House Republican leadership, many rank-and-file Republicans, while cheered by a reduction in unemployment benefits and proposed erosion of the health care law, were nonetheless leaning against the deal.
“They are framing it as a middle-class tax cut even though this is a significant change to how Social Security has traditionally been treated,” said Representative Jeff Fortenberry, Republican of Nebraska, who plans to oppose the measure. “The payroll tax keeps Americans attentive to the fact that they put a little bit aside each check for Social Security. That connection is now gone.”
Lawmakers had hoped for a final vote on the measure in at least the House, if not both chambers, by Friday, before Congress is set to recess for a week. But the late hour of the deal combined with the technical issues that remained with the measure suggested that a vote would be delayed until at least Saturday. Under House rules, bills are meant to be posted three days before a vote.
Under the agreement reached by House and Senate negotiators, the current reduction in the employee’s share of the Social Security payroll tax — to 4.2 percent of wages, from 6.2 percent — would be continued to the end of the year. Revenue lost to the Social Security trust fund would be fully replaced with money from the general fund of the Treasury.
For a worker with annual earnings of $50,000, the payroll tax holiday would increase take-home pay by $1,000 over the course of the year.
The bipartisan agreement also revamps unemployment insurance, reducing the maximum duration of benefits in states with high unemployment to 73 weeks, from the current 99. Currently, fewer than half of states are eligible for 93 weeks or more of unemployment insurance, with just 18 states getting the full maximum of 99 weeks.
The roughly $30 billion price will be picked up by the sale of radio spectrum licenses and the federal worker benefit changes.
Under the agreement, states will be allowed to conduct drug testing for anyone who lost a job because the person failed or refused to take an employer’s drug test, and they could test anyone seeking a job that generally requires such a test, a provision similar to existing law.
Federal workers were not pleased with the proposed changes, with Colleen M. Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, calling them “absolutely outrageous.” She said House and Senate negotiators were tentatively planning to save $15 billion over 10 years by reducing the government contribution to pensions for new federal employees and requiring the workers to contribute more.
The agreement extends the nation’s main welfare program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, through the current fiscal year. States will have to prevent welfare recipients from using electronic benefit cards at liquor stores, casinos and strip clubs. In addition, the legislation blocks a 27 percent cut in payments to doctors treating Medicare patients. In effect, this assures that beneficiaries will have access to their doctors after March 1, when the cut was to have taken effect.
Dr. Peter W. Carmel, president of the American Medical Association, said his group was “deeply disappointed” that the agreement, while delaying the cut for 10 months, did not replace the statutory formula that requires such cuts. Republicans boasted that they had cut spending under the new health care law to help pay for Medicare spending under the agreement. For example, the agreement cuts $5 billion from a special account created by the new law to promote public health.
To help offset the cost of paying doctors under Medicare, the agreement will also reduce payments to hospitals.
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
On the politics of unemployment insurance
In today's press there are a couple interesting stories about the debate in Congress over unemployment insurance (UI): cutting benefits, drug testing, limiting UI to high school graduates, diverting UI funds to politicians' pet projects. A new frontier for neoliberalism.
In today's San Francisco Chronicle, business columnist Kathleen Pender gives a good brief summary: "Deadline for federal jobless benefits looms" while Colorlines focuses on the racially coded demonization of UI recipients at "House GOP’s Jobless Image: Drugged Out, Lazy and in Need of a GED".
In today's San Francisco Chronicle, business columnist Kathleen Pender gives a good brief summary: "Deadline for federal jobless benefits looms" while Colorlines focuses on the racially coded demonization of UI recipients at "House GOP’s Jobless Image: Drugged Out, Lazy and in Need of a GED".
Monday, February 13, 2012
Unemployment measures and policy
A couple mainstream (but still helpful) ways of looking at unemployment are charted in the graphs linked from the post of First Readings below. Unemployment statistics are important in themselves, and they are also a good example of how to look at all types of economic reports. A typical example of a news report is the Bureau of Labor Statistics' monthly report for January, as reported in the San Francisco Chronicle, "Unemployment Decline Masks U.S. Labor Force Drop: Economy".
For a first critique, look at Paul Craig Roberts' "Do the Job Numbers Really Add Up?" on Counterpunch. Then follow up with a closer look at the gender inequality involved: Laura Flanders' "From 'Man-cession' to 'Man-covery'", also on Counterpunch.
And then check out the policy debate in Congress: "Effort to Dismantle Unemployment Insurance Revived in Congress as Conference Committee Convenes" from the National Employment Law Project.
And of course the point of all this is to consider how these economic trends and structures shape the environment for political organizing?
For a first critique, look at Paul Craig Roberts' "Do the Job Numbers Really Add Up?" on Counterpunch. Then follow up with a closer look at the gender inequality involved: Laura Flanders' "From 'Man-cession' to 'Man-covery'", also on Counterpunch.
And then check out the policy debate in Congress: "Effort to Dismantle Unemployment Insurance Revived in Congress as Conference Committee Convenes" from the National Employment Law Project.
And of course the point of all this is to consider how these economic trends and structures shape the environment for political organizing?
Caste? In the US? Caste and Unemployment
Look at unemployment and racial caste in Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow, the sections "Boxed In" and "The Black Box", pages 145-150 (1st ed.) You can find this on the Scribd web site at www.scribd.com/doc/64858828/The-New-Jim-Crow-Michelle-Alexander; search for "Boxed In".
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Posters You May Have Seen
This study group is meant to focus on the economic issues, environment, and perspectives that impact our lives and activism. To that end I will post some pics of posters, here and in the next couple postings, that seem to me to capture some of the politics in the street.
Posters: Two Biggies
No, these are not giant graphics, it's the issues and perspectives they raise that are the biggies:
Pyramid Posters
Here are three posters of our familiar economic pyramid. These just cry out for a "compare and contrast" exercise, don't they?
First Readings
For our first (of just three) meetings, here are some readings:
Read "Wealth Gaps Rise to Record Highs Between Whites, Blacks, Hispanics" (just the Executive Summary) from the Pew Research Center.
Read Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz' speech at Occupy Oakland on Saturday January 28. You can find the text as a Note on her Facebook page. Also, it is reposted on A Catskill Eagle and on video at Mobile Broadcast News.
Peruse the graphs of economic data at Business Insider. How well do these graphs capture the lived experience of economic stress in your communities? How well do they explain Occupy (or other) politics?
Read "Wealth Gaps Rise to Record Highs Between Whites, Blacks, Hispanics" (just the Executive Summary) from the Pew Research Center.
Read Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz' speech at Occupy Oakland on Saturday January 28. You can find the text as a Note on her Facebook page. Also, it is reposted on A Catskill Eagle and on video at Mobile Broadcast News.
Peruse the graphs of economic data at Business Insider. How well do these graphs capture the lived experience of economic stress in your communities? How well do they explain Occupy (or other) politics?
The econ study group for Catalyzers, Feb 2012
Here is the brief description, taken from the email announcement, of the study group:
On Jan 16, 2012, at 5:02 PM, Julian Marszalek wrote:
The Catalyst Project invites you to a three-part series on the current economic crisis.
The economic situation impacts our communities, our families and our anti-racist organizing. This study group, for volunteers, mentors and interns with Catalyst Project, on the current economic crisis will look at the immediate roots of the financial crash, at the bailouts and the sellouts, and the chances of a repeat. Building on the last discussion group on Race, Class and the 1%, we will look at the international, class, race, and gender impacts of the cutbacks, job losses, foreclosures, dispossessions and land grabs as well as examples of alternatives. And we will frame all of this in terms of the economic environment in which we are organizing, sharing our experiences as political actors. This study group is intended to help us be smarter, stronger, and more visionary in our work for racial and economic justice.
What do we know about the economy beyond the daily ups and downs of the Dow-Jones?
How will this economic crisis evolve?
Are we in a recession, a depression, a mancession, a recovery – or just ordinary neoliberalism?
What does all this mean for anti-racist organizing efforts?
Discuss these questions and more with other anti-racist organizers.
Logistics for those who would like to attend:
Starting in February, this study group will meet for three sessions from 6:00-8:30pm at 522 Valencia Street, San Francisco. [Feb 2, Feb 16, Mar 1] ...
We ask that people commit to coming to a minimum of two of the sessions to help build a learning community and container for this study.
We will draw from mainstream and progressive news sources, analytical articles, and we may watch a video. There will be a couple dozen pages of required reading for each session, with the option to read further from additional recommended sources.
These discussions will be facilitated by Rob McBride, a long-time anti-imperialist, a Catalyst support and mentor in the Anne Braden Program. He is an alum of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and Prairie Fire and studied economics (when not running in the streets) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison 1967-71. He has taught at the San Francisco Liberation School, local colleges, and UCSC's Community Studies program. ...
Julian Marszalek, Catalyst Project Intern
On Jan 16, 2012, at 5:02 PM, Julian Marszalek wrote:
The Catalyst Project invites you to a three-part series on the current economic crisis.
The economic situation impacts our communities, our families and our anti-racist organizing. This study group, for volunteers, mentors and interns with Catalyst Project, on the current economic crisis will look at the immediate roots of the financial crash, at the bailouts and the sellouts, and the chances of a repeat. Building on the last discussion group on Race, Class and the 1%, we will look at the international, class, race, and gender impacts of the cutbacks, job losses, foreclosures, dispossessions and land grabs as well as examples of alternatives. And we will frame all of this in terms of the economic environment in which we are organizing, sharing our experiences as political actors. This study group is intended to help us be smarter, stronger, and more visionary in our work for racial and economic justice.
What do we know about the economy beyond the daily ups and downs of the Dow-Jones?
How will this economic crisis evolve?
Are we in a recession, a depression, a mancession, a recovery – or just ordinary neoliberalism?
What does all this mean for anti-racist organizing efforts?
Discuss these questions and more with other anti-racist organizers.
Logistics for those who would like to attend:
Starting in February, this study group will meet for three sessions from 6:00-8:30pm at 522 Valencia Street, San Francisco. [Feb 2, Feb 16, Mar 1] ...
We ask that people commit to coming to a minimum of two of the sessions to help build a learning community and container for this study.
We will draw from mainstream and progressive news sources, analytical articles, and we may watch a video. There will be a couple dozen pages of required reading for each session, with the option to read further from additional recommended sources.
These discussions will be facilitated by Rob McBride, a long-time anti-imperialist, a Catalyst support and mentor in the Anne Braden Program. He is an alum of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and Prairie Fire and studied economics (when not running in the streets) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison 1967-71. He has taught at the San Francisco Liberation School, local colleges, and UCSC's Community Studies program. ...
Julian Marszalek, Catalyst Project Intern
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