President Obama and the FCC have taken a stand to protect the Internet’s future, but the cable companies are spending millions to block them and turn this into a partisan issue. We have days to show Congress that the public fully supports Obama’s call — click now to keep the Internet free and equal:
Ten people who wrote the President about their health care were invited to the White House this week. See what they said to the President, and read their personal stories here.
When the Health Insurance Marketplace opened last year, Ann from Westport, Connecticut found that she qualified for Medicaid in her state. That coverage finally gave her the opportunity to see a doctor — and catch her breast cancer early on.
Don from Phoenix, Arizona signed up for health insurance last year under the Affordable Care Act and had a general checkup soon after. After getting a routine colonoscopy, however, doctors found a large, cancerous tumor. Now it’s gone, and Don is cancer-free.
As House Republicans keep trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act — this week marked more than 50 times they’ve voted to repeal or undermine it — the law continues to help and save the lives of millions of Americans. A number of them have written the President just to say “thank you,” and on Wednesday, the President met with 10 of those letter-writers here at the White House.
Unfortunately, there are still millions of uninsured Americans who don’t know why it’s so important to get covered, or how they stand to benefit. And it’s on each and every one of us to change that.
If you know someone who needs to get health insurance, share these stories with them today — and remind them that the deadline to sign up for health insurance is February 15.
Friday brought some very good news for Americans in the workforce, and for those who haven’t yet entered it (students!).
The January jobs report added more evidence that the U.S. economy continues to get stronger, not just for those at the very top but also for the middle-class and those looking to get into the middle-class. Headlines from major news outlets delivered the message loud and clear:
A different event garnered far fewer headlines, but represents another important victory. This time, its not for those who are in the workforce now, but for those who rely on quality education to hopefully one join it.
Today, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), the lead Republican on the Senate Committee with jurisdiction over the nation’s education policy, reneged on his attempt to push through a partisan bill to rewrite the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, also known as No Child Left Behind. In a joint statement with Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), the top Democrat on the Committee, Alexander agreed to scrap his bill and move forward to develop a bipartisan starting point for the Committee to consider.
Just one month ago, Alexander put forward an aggressive timeline to have a bill on the Senate floor by the end of this month. But as education experts, including our colleagues at CAP, dug into the that bill, they found that it included a number of troubling provisions. Among other things, it would divert funding away from students living in the poorest communities who need it the most; fail teachers, parents, and students with disabilities; and rollback the federal government’s role in ensuring an equitable education for all students no matter their background, zip code, or income level.
A CAP report released this week demonstrated how communities with concentrations of poverty could lose federal funding to wealthier school districts under Alexander’s original proposal. For example, Chicago could lose more than $64 million, while the much more affluent suburb of Naperville could see its allocations increase. In Los Angeles Unified School District, students could lose out on more than $75 million, while Beverly Hills could gain.
BOTTOM LINE: In 1965, the original goal of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act was to ensure low-income students have a chance of success. After initially introducing a plan that could have done the opposite, GOP Sen. Lamar Alexander has pulled back and announced a more bipartisan process. That is a very important step in making sure that our nation’s education policy improves to ensure student success in an equitable way.
For the last 18 months, a group of 17 international experts from 5 countries has met to discuss the transnational trends of globalization, technology and declining worker power. These trends—all exacerbated by the financial crisis—have placed downward pressure on wages and incomes, and exacerbated economic inequality. This group, called the Inclusive Prosperity Commission, or IPC, and convened by the Center for American Progress, today released a robust report aimed at establishing sustainable and inclusive prosperity over the long term in developed economies, with a specific focus on raising wages, expanding job growth, and ensuring broadly shared economic growth.
The IPC identifies five key policy areas that can deliver more inclusive prosperity on a global scale: rewarding and encouraging work; promoting educational opportunity for all; improved measures to support innovation and regional clusters; a move toward greater long-termism in the private sector; and international cooperation on global demand, trade, financial stability, and corporate tax avoidance. Beyond that, the report details a number of policy proposals to achieve inclusive prosperity in the United States. Below are some of the highlights, and click here to read the whole report.
Increasing workers’ share of the economic pie, raise wages and incomes
Eliminating financial barriers to higher education
Structuring tax policy to promote fairness and support aggregate demand
Increasing labor-force participation and growth
Targeting public investment to create jobs and raise long-run economic potential
This list has just some of many recommendations included in the bold, comprehensive report. But even though the list is long, there is also momentum in some areas. Today, President Obama announced that he will sign a memorandum ensuring federal employees get at least six weeks of paid sick leave for the arrival of a new child and proposed that Congress pass legislation to give them six weeks of paid administrative leave (the United States is the only developed country that doesn’t have a national requirement that workers get access to paid sick leave). Also today, a new poll was released showing that 75 percent of 2016 voters support raising the minimum wage to $12.50 by 2020.
BOTTOM LINE: Despite the economic recovery, global trends are creating a toxic combination to suppress incomes and wages for middle-class families. Change won’t come with more trickle-down economics. But fatalism is not an option–the future of industrial democracies depend the growth of middle class living standards. Today’s report from progressive leaders across the globe is an important roadmap containing new, innovative ideas to spur quality job growth and tackle increasing economic inequality head on.
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