Daily Clips: March 31st, 2016

March 31, 2016 Nick Cassella

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100 CEOs have more saved up for retirement than 41 percent of US families combined : Inequality is not inherently bad, but this level of wealth inequality is absolutely horrific. Especially when you consider that growth is a consequence of the middle class and that most Americans’ wages have hardly grown. Speaking of which… US jobs market is firming up, manufacturing regaining footing: Labor market strength, however, has not been accompanied by robust wage growth, making it unlikely the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates soon. The U.S. central bank is also keeping a cautious eye on international developments. Women are already punished for trying to end their pregnancies: After Trump’s despicable comments on abortion yesterday, finally the 2016 contest has turned its gaze towards this vital right. Donald Trump doesn’t speak for the pro-life movement. Yeah, but he most certainly speaks for the party which represents the pro-life movement. Tweet of the day: Pew Research poll: 75% of voters say the media has given Donald Trump too much attention. https://t.co/g2J5qplDd0 pic.twitter.com/OMHJ6E9HJE — Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) March 31, 2016

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In America, Cities Are Increasingly for the Rich

March 30, 2016 Paul Constant

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Economics, Minimum Wage

Sometimes you bump into two news pieces that seem as though they’re the flip side of one story. Today was one of those days for me. First, I read this Atlantic piece by Derek Thompson about how people moving to cities are white, child-free, wealthy, and in their 20s and 30s: If the U.S. is returning to any previous period, it’s looking like another Gilded Age—one based on geography. The richest 10 percent of households were most likely to move into dense urban areas between 2000 and 2014. The poorest 10 percent fled cities the fastest. Meanwhile, the U.S. is becoming much more urban for the white childless elite, and much more suburban for everybody else. The fastest growing suburbs are the most prototypically suburban: They have the lowest density, the greatest need for cars, and the most single-family neighborhoods. Meanwhile, the fastest growing urban areas among this privileged demographic are the most dense—places like Manhattan and Brooklyn, San Francisco, Boston, Washington, D.C. And then I ran across this Vox story by Soo Oh about how low-income Americans can no longer afford food, transportation, and, most importantly, housing : A new Pew Charitable Trusts analysis of data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that in 2013, low-income Americans spent a median of $6,897 on housing. In 2014, that rose to $9,178 — the biggest jump in housing spending for the 19-year period of data that Pew studied. This is why raising the minimum wage to livable levels is important, especially in urban areas: inequality has tipped over to a point where cities have become a battleground between the wealthy few and everyone else. Further, cities are losing diversity and catering to a shrinking pool of high-income spenders. This is antithetical to what a city is: cities, by definition, need lots of people. They cannot be exclusive; cities need lots of people from diverse backgrounds in
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Daily Clips: March 30th, 2016

March 30, 2016 Nick Cassella

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Daily Clips

ACA’s newest policy holders are sicker and costlier : Good thing they have health care now. Kansas tried tax cuts. Its neighbor didn’t. Guess which one worked? As many of you know, Kansas Governor Brownback is big a trickle down proponent. After he promised 25,000 jobs a year after enacting extensive tax cuts, “Kansas actually lost 5,400 jobs over the 12 months ending in February.” Vermont could change the marijuana legalization movement: Up until now, all of the states which have legalized marijuana have done so via the ballot. Vermont is looking like it could be the first state to buck this trend. Here are some interesting differences between Vermont’s approach and Washington State: There are a few other ways Vermont’s bill stands out: After watching Colorado struggle with how to regulate edibles, Vermont won’t be legalizing those at all. Lawmakers also resisted marijuana advocates’ lobbying to allow people to grow marijuana plants in their own homes. And if you want to invest in one of Vermont’s marijuana stores, you’ll have to move to the state and become a resident; no out-of-state funding is allowed. Tweet of the day: POLL: Half of Americans Support Proposed Islamophobic Policies https://t.co/rqYvZOo07T pic.twitter.com/nJWQS1Dado — Colorlines.com (@Colorlines) March 30, 2016

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What Happens in California Stays in California; Why $15 Will Boost Employment Statewide

March 29, 2016 Goldy

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$15, california, Economics, Forbes, Michael Reich, Minimum Wage, Worstall

Experienced bloggers know that if you provide a block quote, few readers will click through the cited link — a rule of thumb that less scrupulous bloggers sometimes exploit to devious effect. For example, take this recent post from Forbes economic blogger Tim Worstall: “ California’s $15 Minimum Wage Deal Will Cause Unemployment–And We Have Proof Of This .” Worstall’s claim (as always!) is that a $15 minimum wage will cost many low-wage workers their jobs. Only this time, he kvells, he’s got a lefty economist to back him up: And we actually do have proof of this: a report about what a $15 minimum wage will do to employment in Los Angeles City. This is not, by the way, a report by some from market fundamentalist like myself. This is from Michael Reich et al at Berkeley, stout supporters of a rise to $15. And yet even their report states that the net effect will be fewer jobs. Go ahead. Click through the link above and read this Worstall quote in its full context. The “proof” mentioned in Worstall’s headline, that $15 “will cause unemployment,” is a cited study by Berkeley economist Michael Reich. That is the main thesis of Worstall’s post. There is absolutely nothing misleading or unscrupulous about my block quote. Alas, the same can’t be said for Worstall’s out-of-context quoting of Professor Reich: Los Angeles City: Combining costs and benefits and taking into account multiplier effects,we estimate a cumulative net reduction in GDP of $135 million by 2017 and $315 million by 2019, or 0.1 percent compared to a scenario with no city minimum wage increase. These effects on the level of economic activity correspond to a cumulative net reduction in employment in Los Angeles City of 1,552 jobs by 2017 and 3,472 jobs by 2019, or 0.1 and 0.2 percent of all employment, respectively. Yes, according to Reich’s model, it is true that a $15 minimum
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Let’s Talk About the Real Issue with Bathroom Safety

March 29, 2016 Paul Constant

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Guns

The backlash to the latest spate of anti-transgender “bathroom laws” has begun, and Seattle Mayor Ed Murray is right at the forefront : Seattle Mayor Ed Murray signed an executive order Monday banning travel to North Carolina for official business by City of Seattle employees. It is a response to that state’s passage of a bill that revoked civil rights protections for the LGBTQ community. Mayor Murray is absolutely doing the right thing here. (So is the governor of Georgia, who announced he would veto a similar law in his state .) These bathroom laws are not only hateful and anti-civil-liberty—they’re also likely unenforceable. What they do is they target and single out trangender individuals, who are already at grave risk for violence , and they give business owners the right to confirm anyone’s gender at any time. (How? Unclear. Very unclear.) And by forcing trans people to use the opposite gender bathrooms, the law is creating some very uncomfortable situations: #boycottNC #wejustneedtopee #transdiscrimination @_michaelhughes1 pic.twitter.com/u3X73HdfE0 — Shay Hughes (@stacyhughes) March 27, 2016 Oh America please, from a woman who has to pee quite a bit, please get over it #wejustneedtopee pic.twitter.com/lkcShCeoi9 — Justina Kennedy (@JuzzyK14) December 5, 2015 These are the kind of exclusionary tactics that bring damage upon economies like North Carolina. (Nick Hanauer wrote about this last year.) Boycotts like Mayor Murray’s are a great way to get the attention of a governor who puts hate before inclusion, and I expect North Carolina will find itself to be the recipient of a whole lot of boycotts by the time this story ends. And besides, there are plenty other pressing issues of bathroom safety to address than the fallacious concern of LGBT-on-straight-person violence that anti-trans groups have been peddling to the media. I’m talking, of course, about guns. Today, NRA Family published a blog post by Brad Fitzpatrick titled “ Concealed-Carry Safety…In the Bathroom .” It’s all about what to do when you’re out on the town with your gun and nature calls. Fitzpatrick’s
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Say What? Trump Criticizes Scott Walker for NOT Raising Taxes

March 29, 2016 Nick Cassella

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2016, Economics, Policy

If you would have sat me down a year ago and told me that the Republican frontrunner for president would be lambasting another Republican for not raising taxes, well, I would have questioned your political acumen. Yet here’s a headline I awoke to : Yes, this is actually happening. The very party that told you that raising taxes was a confirmed “job killer” is now under the sway of a man who is deriding others for not raising taxes enough. Here’s what the frontrunner had to say about Walker’s trickle-down tenure in full: There’s a $2.2bn deficit and the schools were going begging and everything was going begging because he didn’t want to raise taxes ’cause he was going to run for president. So instead of raising taxes, he cut back on schools, he cut back on highways, he cut back on a lot of things … So what does this mean for the future of trickle down economics? Before I get into that, let me first define what I mean by trickle down. This is how we define it here at Civic Skunk Works: Trump’s criticism, therefore, signals that it is no longer popular for a Republican presidential candidate to openly run on the first aspect of a trickle down economic platform. (Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for #2 and #3.) Certainly, Trump is still intending to perpetuate obscene tax cuts for the rich , but he’s just not telling people about it. As a member of the one percent, he clearly has a vested interest in continuing favorable tax rates for the wealthy. However, he’s not dumb enough to actually be caught peddling this stuff during an era of pitchforks. After all, it’s tough to sell tax cuts for the rich when over 60 percent of Americans believe we are still in a recession . Just ask Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush. So Trump has repackaged the platform—and done so brilliantly. Nick Hanauer and Nicholas Confessore have both recently identified this sleight of hand
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California’s Minimum Wage Increase Is Totally Reasonable

March 29, 2016 Hanna Brooks Olsen

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$15, california, Minimum Wage

Just a few days after California’ minimum wage initiative officially qualified for to go before voters, lawmakers in the Golden States announced that they’d skip the fight at the ballot box fight and instead, start working on a plan to increase the minimum wage to $15 over the next six years. Naturally, immediately, opponents began telling their tall tails about how the decision would definitely lead to a loss of jobs , because of course, that’s exactly what’s happened before! Which is not true; if raising the minimum wage necessarily resulted in job loss, Washington State’s border towns, like Spokane, would be lined with empty storefronts—but of course, that hasn’t happened . And, statistically, it won’t . But I was curious about California’s increase, specifically, because unlike its neighbor to the north, California will only be phasing in their increase, but won’t be staggering them by the size of the city or county, or by cost of living. The entire state will be seeing an increase of a dollar each year between 2019 and 2022. Which sounds like a lot, but is it, really? From the Los Angeles Times : The NFIB called the California deal “reckless” and observed, that “small businesses in California are still struggling to cope with the 25% minimum wage hike over just the past two years.” This is a huge exaggeration: California’s minimum wage increased to $10 this year after being raised to $9 on July 1, 2014, and to $8 on Jan. 1, 2008; the proper math would place the increase at 25% over eight years, or 11.1% over the last year and a half. An increase of 25% over eight years might even still sound steep to a small business owner watching their bottom line, and heaven knows opponents of the minimum wage love to call any and all increase “an experiment,” but just how much is a typical minimum wage increase—and, historically, how does California’s plan factor in? Often,
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Daily Clips: March 29th, 2016

March 29, 2016 Nick Cassella

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Daily Clips

A narrow escape for public-sector unions: As Goldy said this morning, “God works in mysterious ways.” Indeed He does. Due to Scalia’s death earlier this year, the US Supreme Court split 4-4 in Friedrichs v. CTA. This tied thwarted “a legal challenge that labor activists feared would deal a crippling blow to public-sector unions throughout the country.” “The Other Washington” gets a great review: As our avid readers know, here at Civic Skunk Works we’ve started a new podcast series, “ The Other Washington .” Listen to these kind words we received from The Billfold! The Other Washington is the podcast arm of Seattle’s Civic Ventures , and I’m going to recommend it if you don’t live in Washington State because I think you’ll identify with much of what’s being discussed. Why aren’t campaign ads working? It’s a topic that Paul Constant has touched on befo re . Clearly, the logic behind political ads has utterly failed during this campaign cycle. Could it be because of the rise of social media? It’s an interesting explanation brought up by this Atlantic video. Tweet of the day: On the Democratic side Hillary Clinton still has solid lead over Bernie Sanders nationally at 54/36: https://t.co/XUfT2LTmLX — PublicPolicyPolling (@ppppolls) March 29, 2016

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Americans Want to Open Carry at the Republican National Convention. Why Won’t Republicans Let Them?

March 28, 2016 Paul Constant

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2016, Guns

As you’ve likely seen, t ens of thousands of people have signed a petition demanding that the Republican Party allow the open carry of firearms at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland this year. Which, when you think about it, makes a lot of sense, right? Republican politicians love guns so much; they block any laws that might save lives from gun violence, and they even block the study of gun violence , presumably because it might reveal some unflattering facts about guns (such as the fact that they kill people.) As the petition notes, every one of the three Republican candidates left in the race have argued that gun-free zones are targets for shooters. And Ohio is an open-carry state, so guns at the RNC seem like a no-brainer, on several different levels. Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump was asked about the petition, and he said he’d have to “study the fine print” of the petition before he commented on it. (I looked at the petition, and there is no fine print anywhere on it. That was easy!) But the Quicken Loans Arena, where the convention is happening, has a no-weapons policy . And the Secret Service has announced through spokesman Robert Hoback that “Individuals determined to be carrying firearms will not be allowed past a predetermined outer perimeter checkpoint, regardless of whether they possess a ticket to the event.” Another Secret Service spokesman told the National Review that “Title 18 United States Code Sections 3056 and 1752, provides the Secret Service authority to preclude firearms from entering sites visited by our protectees, including those located in open-carry states.” Still, even if the two biggest authorities in this scenario—the Secret Service and the Quicken Loans Arena administration—didn’t say no to guns, why would we expect Republicans to practice what they preach? After all, visitors to the National Rifle Association’s headquarters are expected to hand over their guns . Republican leadership has never allowed guns to be carried at presidential debates . They don’t even allow guns at meetings designed to protest gun-free zones. Are you noticing a pattern, here? You should be: Republican leaders basically want guns to
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Hillary Clinton Refuses to Evolve on Marijuana

March 28, 2016 Nick Cassella

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2016, Hillary Clinton, marijuana, Policy, Race

Hillary Clinton is a self-confessed pragmatic progressive . In everyday parlance, that means she’s the type of person that likes to dip her toe in the pool before jumping in. There’s a lot to admire in a deliberative person like that. There’s also a lot to despise in someone that uses “pragmatism” to veil their political cowardice. Unfortunately, Clinton continues to exhibit the latter when talking about marijuana. This is what she had to say on the subject last week on Jimmy Kimmel Live : What the states are doing right now needs to be supported. And I absolutely support all the states that are moving toward medical marijuana, moving toward absolutely legalizing it for recreational use. But I want to see what the states learn from that experience, because there are still a lot of questions we still have to answer on the federal level. There’s some great evidence about what marijuana can do for people who are in cancer treatment, who have other kinds of chronic diseases, who are suffering from intense pain… I’m accepting information from everybody. At the risk of mansplaining to the Secretary of State , here is some information which illustrates why she should reconsider her hesitant position on marijuana legalization: American support for legalizing marijuana has hit a record high (61 percent) 77 percent of Democrat and 63 percent of Republican millennials support legalizing the drug From 2013-2019, $20 billion will be spent by states on enforcing overly punitive marijuana laws A marijuana-related arrest is made every 42 seconds in the US (Perhaps that’s why we have the largest prison population in the entire world? Going out on a limb there.) Blacks are 3.73 times more likely than whites to be arrested for marijuana Supporting legalization could tick the following political boxes then for Clinton: Energize young people to vote for her. Which is something she could use going into the general election, as right now she only enjoys 37 percent of Democratic millennial support . She needs to give young people a reason to show up and vote for her – beyond telling them that they can refinance their student loans from 8% to 4%. YES WE CAN! Cut down on a huge amount of unnecessary public money on the drug war Confront racial injustice head on
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