Daily Clips: September 13th, 2016

September 13, 2016 Nick Cassella

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Brooks finds fault with Clinton and Trump: Sure, one candidate is cozying up to the KKK, but why is another candidate sick?! How dare she! False equivalency aside, he also finds the time to throw a punch at millennials: The rise of distrust has corroded intimacy. When you go on social media you see people who long for friendship. People are posting and liking private photos on public places like Snapchat and Facebook. The Fed will probably not raise interest rates Harvard Medical School study finds high drug prices in US caused mainly by government granted monopolies and market exclusivity The parties on the eve of 2016 election: This is a really big report that is well worth your time. Here’s the main takeaway: “The Democratic Party is becoming less white, less religious & better-educated at a faster rate than the country.” Household income rises for the first time in eight years: Terrific news not only for the economy, but also for the Democrats’ chance of keeping the White House in 2016. Also: The poverty rate fell to 13.5 percent from 14.8 percent in 2014, the report said. Tweet of the day: Households at all income percentiles saw incomes rise; largest gains at the bottom. #thanksobama pic.twitter.com/Hxld7GdNkm — Catherine Rampell (@crampell) September 13, 2016

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Tomorrow Morning, Speak Out for Secure Scheduling at City Hall

September 12, 2016 Paul Constant

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Policy, Scheduling

Over the summer, a Seattle City Council committee has gradually moved toward approving secure scheduling laws that will make it easier for workers to plan their lives around their jobs. City Councilmembers Lorena González and Lisa Herbold have met with workers, business owners, and other interested parties over the last half-year, and they’re finally ready to bring secure scheduling to the whole council for a vote. As the proposed law is written now , workers at large retail and food service establishments would earn predictability pay when employers ask them to go home early, they would be guaranteed ten hours of rest between shifts, and they would get an opportunity to pick up open hours before the employer hired new workers. This would enable part-time workers to make doctors’ appointments, plan time with their families, and even allow them to go back to school—all things that the current scheduling status quo makes difficult or even impossible for many workers. ( Listen to our Other Washington podcast for more information about secure scheduling .) Seattle made an important choice when we raised the minimum wage to $15 an hour; now we have to make sure these workers have the time to spend that money, and the security to invest in their futures. Tomorrow morning, the committee finally votes to send the legislation to the full council. But as always, the opportunity exists for tricky amendments to be added to the bill that would water down—or even completely defang—the secure scheduling legislation. What can you do to help? You can make your voice heard, literally: come to Council chambers and show your support. Any Seattleite can testify before the City Council: all you have to do is show up before the hearing—9 a.m. or earlier would be best—and sign in on the checklist. Then, you’ll have a minute or two to voice your support. This is useful for two reasons: for one
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Daily Clips: September 12th, 2016

September 12, 2016 Nick Cassella

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Daily Clips

Mosque where Florida nightclub shooter worshiped set on fire Fed rate hike and Clinton concerns hit stocks h ard How sexism, like Matt Lauer’s, could imperil the nation : When one candidate is constricted to answering repeated challenges to her on one topic for a third of her time on stage (and interrupted with reminders to shorten her answers), while the other is never challenged on his troubling recent behavior regarding matters of national security, the American people are being cheated. Monopolies kill innovation: The bigness of business is a result of federal policy, which, in the past three decades, has deliberately made it easier for large companies to dominate their markets, provided that they keep prices down. After years of sluggish wage growth and low levels of entrepreneurship, some people are starting to worry that America’s biggest companies are growing at the expense of the economy, even if they offer consumers good deals. Tweet of the day: United States world wide web home-page Vox said to be written by imbeciles and nimrods, utterly ignorant of Korean peninsular affairs. — DPRK News Service (@DPRK_News) September 12, 2016

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New Study Shows Paid Sick Leave Has No Effect on Business Costs

September 9, 2016 Paul Constant

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Policy, Scheduling, small business

As Washington state prepares to vote on Initiative 1433 , which if passed would raise the state minimum wage and enact paid sick and safe leave for all workers, we’ll likely hear the usual threats from business owners: providing sick leave for their employees will allegedly force them to cut benefits, hours, or even jobs. We heard these complaints five years ago from business owners before Seattle adopted its own sick leave law. We see this kind of thing whenever the people propose any kind of law that might benefit workers, of course: business owners loudly argue that their workers will suffer most of all, and they threaten total economic collapse. But we now have a few years of data from cities that have enacted paid sick leave laws, so we can put those scary claims to the test. And guess what? As Slate’s Henry Grabar says , a New York City study shows that paid sick leave has pretty much no effect on business. Here’s the nut of it: Their survey of 350 random New York businesses, stratified to appropriately represent different firm sizes, says: 85 percent of employers reported the law had no effect on business costs, 91 percent reported no reduction in hiring, 94 percent reported no effect on business productivity, and 96 percent reported no change in customer service. That jibes with findings from other cities published by the U.S. Department of Labor in October. San Francisco has outperformed surrounding counties in job growth since the passage of its policy in 2007. Likewise, analyses of Seattle and Washington, D.C., found negligible impacts on hiring and business location. A ton of research has also shown that flexible leave policies have a positive effect on worker productivity, happiness, and health. Huh. It’s almost as though business owners just don’t want to change because humans are uncomfortable with new things and would prefer to stick
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Daily Clips: September 9th, 2016

September 9, 2016 Nick Cassella

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Daily Clips

NYT Editorial Board warns that debate moderators must hold candidates accountable: I feel like that point should go without saying…but here we are. Police-involved injuries of civilians rises nearly 50%, says Harvard study: The rate of serious injuries caused by police and private security increased nearly 50% from 2001 to 2014, according to a new study from Harvard public health researchers that looked at emergency room visits. Marijuana legalization could help solve the heroin epidemic Review of the US stock market and economy: Eddy Elfenbein’s excellent blog, Crossing Wall Street, has a terrific post on the state of the US economy (he does these every couple of weeks, it seems). He, like most honest people, doesn’t have a great idea as to whether or not we are performing well or not. Or in his words: The big takeaway is that the economy is slowly improving. Sure, it’s certainly not great. But it’s getting better. With each jobs report, I’ve been keeping a close eye on wages. The good news is that Americans are finally getting a pay raise. It’s been years since we could say that. Tweet of the day *NFL player tries to kill wife/unborn child*Nothing. *Player exposed as serial rapist*Nothing. *Player kneels during a song* #boycottNFL — Jerry Topsider (@BostonJerry) September 9, 2016

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Are You Ready for the Trickle Down Economics Comeback Tour?

September 8, 2016 Paul Constant

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Economics, Minimum Wage

“Supply-side economics has been discredited since the Bush tax cuts failed to boost economic growth, but there is another way of thinking about the problem,” Bloomberg’s Tyler Cowen writes in his review of Edward Conard’s new book . That other way? “It is not enough for funds to be left in the hands of the wealthy; rather they must be invested in risk-bearing equity capital, focused on innovation.” Conard argues in his new book The Upside of Inequality: How Good Intentions Undermine the Middle Class that trickle down economics—he calls it “supply-side economics,” but they’re the same thing; “supply-side” is just a fresh coat of lipstick on a pig—is still the best way to boost the economy. The trick, Cowen explains, is to put the “concept of risk-bearing at the core” of trickle down, which means encouraging the top one percent to invest their money in the economy rather than dumping it in offshore accounts or sealing it away in illiquid accounts. But forty years of trickle-down policies have proven that when you give money to the top one percent, they keep it and figure out new ways to hoard even more of it. How do you supposedly encourage the wealthy to undertake risky investments? Cowen proposes ending the “bureaucratization of society” and “excess regulation,” which are, in fact, the same goals that trickle-downers like Ronald Reagan, Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney, and George W. Bush have been aspiring toward for generations. The concept of trickle down economics has been propped up for all these years by three core strategies: trickle-down clowns demand tax cuts for the rich, deregulation for the powerful, and wage suppression for everyone else. As we’ve seen, Cowen has already made the case for deregulation. Where does he stand on tax cuts? While we shouldn’t rely on tax cuts, they may still play a role in this
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Daily Clips: September 8th, 2016

September 8, 2016 Nick Cassella

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Daily Clips

Matt Lauer showed no signs of being an actual journalist: Then again, what did you expect? Lauer’s GMA brings in the start of every day with trivial and non-important items. Which reminds me: why did anyone give him this opportunity to stand toe-to-toe with Donald Trump? Having trouble hiring? Try paying more How Airbnb plans to fix its racial-bias problem Fear of a female president: A very, very sobering read. Over the past few years, political scientists have suggested that, counterintuitively, Barack Obama’s election may have led to greater acceptance by whites of racist rhetoric. Something similar is now happening with gender. Hillary Clinton’s candidacy is sparking the kind of sexist backlash that decades of research would predict. If she becomes president, that backlash could convulse American politics for years to come. Don’t blame a ‘skills gap’ for lack of hiring in manufacturing Tweet of the day: True story: "Income inequality isn't just about fairness, it's about growth." - @VP just now. #middleclassroadmap @amprog — Maggie Polachek (@maggiepolachek) September 8, 2016

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Job, Wage Growth Surges in King County

September 7, 2016 Paul Constant

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Economics, Minimum Wage

It’s true that Seattle’s minimum wage has not yet hit $15; the minimum right now ranges from $10.50 to $13 per hour, depending on employer size. The minimum-wage increase just started in January of 2015, so it’s too soon to conclusively prove that the minimum wage has been good or bad for Seattle. Two years is a blip of economic data. But we do have a conclusive answer to two very important questions: is Seattle a good place to work right now? Yes. Did raising the minimum wage immediately transform Seattle into an anti-business hellhole? No. Jon Talton at the Seattle Times has published an excellent column explaining where we stand in a new Bureau of Labor Statistics report. King County demonstrated tremendous job and wage growth in the first quarter of 2016: Weekly wages here increased by 5.1 percent to $1,456 through March compared with the first quarter of 2015. Nationally, wages fell 0.5 percent to $1,043… King County ranked 44th in job growth, up 3.6 percent year over year. Nationally the increase was 2 percent. Professional and business services saw the largest gain. King was also ninth among counties in total employment, with nearly 1.3 million employed. Talton addresses minimum-wage advocates directly in the next passage: “I know what some of you are thinking, but this doesn’t really tell us anything about the long-term affects of Seattle’s $15 an hour minimum wage experiment,” he warns. But he continues: “the propaganda about massive job losses proved bogus — again.” This is a very important point. Those business owners and conservative finger-waggers who warned that Seattle would almost immediately see a mass exodus of restaurants and industry if we raised the minimum wage have been caught in a lie. Workers in Seattle are seeing more jobs and higher wages. Now those same prophets of
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Daily Clips: September 7th, 2016

September 7, 2016 Nick Cassella

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Daily Clips

Government cash handouts won’t help families: Noah Smith takes issue with Tyler Cowen’s policy proposal of “sending people cash” instead of government-mandated paid parental leave. Smith claims that “giving cash is a favorite solution of many economists…but in this case, I see two reasons why paid parental leave is probably better than cash.” His reasons are as follows: 1) “mandated benefits like parental leave tend to distort the economy less than giving people cash” and 2) “if the government mails parents a check instead of mandating that they get time off to spend with their children, the parents may squander the money, instead of staying at home spending quality time with those kids.” Goldman Sachs bans employees from donating to Trump: I think this headline actually helps Trump convince his supporters that he represents the 99%. So, in other words, Goldman Sachs’ policy seems counterproductive. The geography of US inequality: Beautiful graphs and analysis from The Upshot. Why are men leaving the workforce? Tweet of the day: QCEW (big lag) shows King Cnty, WA #2 of 345 in wage growth Q1 15-Q1 16. Damn you, min wage. @ritholtz @NickHanauer pic.twitter.com/mJgInFzGv3 — Invictus (@TBPInvictus) September 7, 2016

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Daily Clips: September 6th, 2016

September 6, 2016 Nick Cassella

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Daily Clips

Construction worker shortage weighs on hot US housing market: After the 2008 financial crisis it was estimated that “30 percent of construction workers [went] into new fields.” Now, with the housing market back in business, homebuilders are having a hard time finding enough labor. David Brooks lies on health care: Today he wrote a column that attacked Obamacare, because, you know, it’s not like there is a deranged imbecile one election away from being the most powerful man in the world! Brooks also lied by saying that Obamacare’s exchanges “means less coverage.” He’s such a moderate conservative thinker. How Obama’s economic record stacks up: A nice read with strong explanations of indicators chosen. Gary Johnson isn’t a viable option for Democrats: He is no friend of the Left, no legitimate vessel for carrying forward any kind of progressive political revolution. He remains, at heart, the teenager who thinks economics can be taught in one lesson, and that freedom means protecting the liberty of the propertied. Think that’s enough of an indictment? Read this: After inaugurating New Mexico’s use of private prisons, Johnson made it his top political priority to install a school voucher system (an effort that failed because of the legislature’s opposition). He also annulled public employees’ collective-bargaining rights, slashed funding for social programs, reduced taxes for the wealthy, implemented one of the country’s strictest welfare-reform programs, and pushed for harsher sentencing laws. America’s bars and restaurants are hiring like crazy: Thanks, Obama. Tweet of the day: Clinton & her PACs received $201,119 from @GoldmanSachs in the 2016 cycle, per OpenSecrets. https://t.co/PxBk4iJCZ0 pic.twitter.com/ZxxnkUvUIt — Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) September 6, 2016

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