Tag Archives: thinkprogress

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

living wages


By 

It’s Time to Raise the Minimum Wage

The White House and Senate Democrats are zeroing in on a plan to raise the minimum wage, which has not increased in more than four years, to $10.10 per hour. The Senate is expected to take up the plan sometime “very soon,” according to Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY).

The renewed effort in Congress to increase the minimum wage comes afterimportant victories at the ballot box this past Tuesday.

ThinkProgress outlines five reasons why we should raise the minimum wage:

1. It would bring it in line with inflation: While the federal minimum wage isn’t indexed to inflation (unlike some state minimum wages) and hasn’t been raised in four years, if it had kept up with inflation since its peak in the 1960s it would be over $10 an hour. Many fast food workers have been calling for a $15 minimum wage — a rate that will soon go into effect in a small town in Washington state — which is more in line with what civil rights activists demanded in the 1960s.

2. It would boost the economy: While opponents of a minimum wage increase claim that it will hurt job growth, research points to the opposite. There is little evidence that it would hurt jobs, but it would very likely help businesses through increasing demand, lowering turnover, and boosting prices and would give the economy a big boost thanks to more money in people’s pockets to spend on purchases.

3. It would lift millions out of poverty: Full-time minimum wage workers earn just $14,500 a year, which for someone with two kids means living $3,000 below the poverty line. The wage isn’t enough to make rent in any state. Raising it to $10.10 an hour, on the other hand, would lift nearly 6 million people out of poverty.

4. It would be a big help for women and people of color: People of color make up 42 percent of minimum wage workers despite representing just 32 percent of the overall workforce, and women make up two-thirds of the country’s minimum wage workers despite being half of the population. Raising the wage to $10.10 an hour would lift 3.5 million people of color out of poverty and help close the gender wage gap.

5. Americans support it: A recent poll showed that 80 percent of Americans support raising the wage to $10.10 an hour, and that includes two-thirds of Republicans and nearly 80 percent of those making $100,000 or more. On Tuesday, voters approved minimum wage increases in New Jersey and a town in Washington and they also approved raises in the 2012 elections in three other cities. In fact, when given the opportunity, voters nearly always approve minimum wage raises by substantial majorities.

Raising the minimum wage it’s just good policy, it’s “a political goldmine.” The issue is very popular and cuts across party lines. In fact, it’s the perfect issue to help Democrats attract more white working class voters.

BOTTOM LINE: Raising the minimum wage will be a huge boost to our economy. More money in the pockets of workers means more customers for businesses large and small, which in turn leads to a virtuous cycle that creates jobs and grows the economy.

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

A Tale of Two Stories


By 

Media Prioritizes Gadgets Over Gun Violence

Is the launch of a thinner iPad bigger news than a teenager gunning down a teacher at school? Cable news seems to think so.

ThinkProgress took a look at the coverage of the two stories on Monday and here’s what they found:

On Monday morning, another school — this time in Sparks, Nevada — was thrown into chaos when a seventh grader brought in his parents’ semi-automatic handgun and shot a teacher, two 12-year-old boys, and himself. Local news outlets, notably the Reno Gazette-Journal, immediately and thoroughly reported the developing story on the ground. But as the tragedy unfolded, major cable news channels chose not to cover it as a breaking news event, only mentioning the shooting sparingly throughout the day.

According to a ThinkProgress analysis of the media monitoring site TVEyes between 10 am EST on October 21 and midnight, Fox News and MSNBC barely discussed the Sparks Middle School shooting on Monday. Fox News had nine mentions of the shooting, while MSNBC talked about the shooting just five times. CNN’s coverage was more regular, mentioning the keyword “Sparks” 19 times.

By contrast, another breaking news event on Tuesday attracted a flurry of media attention. The hype surrounding Apple’s press conference releasing the new iPad and iPad mini started growing hours before the event. All in all, the Apple event got more coverage than the Sparks shooting on all three channels: CNN mentioned the Apple event 23 timeson Tuesday, while Fox News mentioned it 12 times and MSNBC mentioned it nine times.

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

900,000


By

GOP Crises Alone Have Killed 900,000 Jobs

After shutting down the government for over two weeks in a failed attempt to deny affordable health insurance to millions of Americans, the prospect of a catastrophic economic shutdown caused by an unprecedented default on our obligations has finally brought enough Republicans to their senses. A bipartisan deal negotiated by senators to re-open the government and avoid a default appears set to pass both the House and the Senate this evening.

President Obama and Democrats stood strong and refused to grant Republicans any of their ransom demands in exchange for Congress agreeing to simply do its job, but unfortunately the series of crises manufactured by the GOP over the past few years has already taken a terrible toll on the economy.

A new report out yesterday pins the number of jobs killed by the GOP’s government-by-crisis strategy over the past few years at 900,000.

As ThinkProgress notes, the report also finds that the painful and unnecessary austerity spending cuts (themselves largely imposed by the GOP using crises and threats) in place have cost us more than a million jobs:

The report also finds that cuts to discretionary spending from 2011 to the present have cost the country 1.2 million jobs and 0.7 percentage points of GDP growth. About three-quarters of the $2.4 trillion in total deficit reduction enacted since the fall of 2010 was in the form of spending cuts. The Peterson-commissioned estimate of what that steep reduction in government expenditures has cost is a bit more conservative than previous estimates by other economists, but only slightly less negative.

This graphic from our Center for American Progress colleagues illustrates how many more Americans would have jobs in a world without austerity:

WorldWithoutAusterity

Finally, a different report out this evening finds the current shutdown crisis pulled $24 BILLION out of the economy and will slash more than a half-percentage off GDP growth.

BOTTOM LINE: It’s time for Republicans to stop trying to govern by crisis, hostage-taking, and extortion. The fight over the debt limit is over. Period. It’s now time for us to come to a long-term agreement on the budget that gets rid of the damaging sequester cuts and is instead focused on our real problems: jobs and economic growth.

It’s also time for Speaker Boehner to abandon his failed attempts to appease the extreme Tea Party wing of the GOP and instead seek a bipartisan governing majority focused on doing what’s best for our country, including the passage of immigration reform with a pathway to earned citizenship.

Evening Brief: Important Stories That You Might’ve Missed

Houston Chronicle regrets endorsing Ted Cruz.

POLLS: Shutdown hurting GOP Senate chances, even in red states.

Right-wing group that orchestrated shutdown overt Obamacare now admits that “everybody knows” Obamacare can’t be repealed.

Ted Cruz admits the shutdown was all about building email fundraising lists.

Anti-tax crusader says defunders owe conservatives an apology.

Senate Republicans: GOP didn’t get anything out of shutdown.

Tea Party already seeking purge of non-extremists in 2014.

Tea Party congresswoman who voted to shut down the government now wants billions in disaster aid.

More than five million poor Americans won’t get health coverage because of the GOP’s refusal to expand Medicaid.

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

War on Women, Shutdown Edition


How the GOP Shutdown is Hurting Women

As we discussed yesterday, the GOP shutdown is causing pain from coast to coast. Today ThinkProgress took a closer look how the shutdown is hurting women:

1. Federal Workers’ Pay

Women make up an estimated 43 percent of the federal workplace — but they’re disproportionately represented in the types of clerical jobs that are likely to get furloughed. Women who work for the federal government still tend to be overrepresented in administrative, human resource, and assistant-level jobs, and compared to men, they’re more likely to be bringing home smaller paychecks in the first place. There have been concerns that the workers who are currently furloughed may not receive back pay.

2. Nutrition For Low-Income Mothers And Infants

The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) hasn’t gotten any federal money since the government shut down October 1. Nearly 9 million low-income mothers and their children around the country rely on the program to afford food and formula. At first, all states except for North Carolina were providing benefits, and the state has since reversed course and will join the rest. But that will only last so long. Some states may only be able to cover the benefits for a few weeks or so. If the government remains shut into November, as Republicans are now proposing, some states may halt benefits to some of their neediest residents.

3. Rape Kits

If the government shutdown stretches on into November, it could eventually halt rape kits in Washington, DC. It’s just one of the many ways that the shutdown disproportionately impacts the nation’s capital, whose budget is under federal control. The two groups responsible for rape kits in DC anticipate running out of local and federal funds after this month. Rape kit processing is already notoriously sluggish across the country, an issue that can make navigating the court system even more difficult for victims of sexual assault — particularly since forensic evidence of rape quickly degrades.

4. College Sexual Assault Investigations

The federal investigations into U.S. colleges’ notoriously problematic sexual assault policies have been put on hold during the shutdown. When students or staff allege that their university is breaking federal law by under-reporting rapes or dissuading victims from coming forward, the case is handled by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. But those cases aren’t considered to be essential during the shutdown, so they’re all on hold until the government re-opens. That means federal officials aren’t in contact with the college students who filed formal complaints, and can’t conduct follow-up visits for the universities whose cases have recently been settled.

5. Domestic Violence Programs

Programs that offer shelter and support services to victims of domestic violence aren’t able to draw down any of their federal funding so long as the government remains closed. While some have other sources of funding to fall back on, others, particularly small, rural programs, could quickly face the possibility of shutting down their operations. Some are considering layoffs. Most have already faced severely reduced government funding, with 80 percent reporting a drop last year. Programs had already warned that the budget cuts from sequestration could lead to more homicides of women who are denied services.

6. Child Care And Head Start

Working moms are going to be put in a bind the longer the shutdown lasts. Twenty-three Head Start programs across the country were expecting federal money in October, and without it some have faced the need to close classrooms. More than 7,000 children in six states lost access, but since then wealthy philanthropists have offered the national organization enough money to keep it open for now. But the longer the shutdown lasts, more programs will face the same challenge. When a classroom shuts down, not only does a child lose access to preschool, but some parents are forced to quit their jobs because they have no where to leave their kids. The same problem will face working mothers if child care subsidies dry up during the shutdown. All federal money has been cut off since last Tuesday, and while states should have prior year funding to fall back on to cover the costs in the meantime, those funds may have been depleted by sequestration, a drop in welfare funding, and the ending of stimulus money.

BOTTOM LINE: Enough is enough. The longer the GOP keeps the government closed, the more Americans, including women, and our economy will suffer. It’s time for Speaker Boehner to allow a vote on a clean funding bill to end this shutdown crisis and re-open the entire government.

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Republicans, In their own words


By

GOPers Explain Why Congress Needs to Pay Our Bills

A growing number of Republicans are downplaying the significance of next week’s default deadline. Frighteningly, these default deniers are also downplaying the catastrophic economic impact of defaulting on our obligations, be they to bondholders, seniors, veterans, or millions of others.

It was not always this way. In fact, some of today’s most ardent opponents of a clean bill to take the threat of default off the table were among the most ardent supporters of raising the debt limit under President George W. Bush.

Here they are, in their own words (click through to watch):

DaveCampWide

As ThinkProgress notes, nearly $4 TRILLION of debt limit increases were routine matters under President Bush:

Boehner, Cantor, and the GOP leadership voted for five separate debt limit increases during George W. Bush’s presidency, requiring no similar concessions.

In November 2004, 104 Republican Representatives and Senators who are still serving today voted for an $800 billion increase in the federal debt ceiling, with no strings attached. Other increases in 2002, 2003, 2006, and 2007, requested by the Bush administration, were enthusiastically backed by his Republican allies.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Joint Economic Committee Kevin Brady (R-TX), House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI), Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA), and Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-TX) were among the most vocal supporters of debt limit increases between 2002 and 2006. They defended an increase as not only necessary, but also a basic matter of responsibility and good governance.

BOTTOM LINE: It’s time for Republicans to follow their own advice and agree to pay the bills Congress has already racked up in order to avoid an unprecedented and catastrophic default on our obligations.