Thursday, July 31, 2014

[NJFAC] Workers are getting smaller share of income

Employees' Pay in U.S. Is Smaller Slice of Income Pie

By Lorraine Woellert, Bloomberg, Jul 30, 2014

Worker pay was a smaller piece of the U.S. income pie than earlier estimated as some Americans collected significantly more in interest and dividend payments over the past two years.

Employee compensation, including wages and benefits, was lower for each year from 2011 to 2013 than previously calculated, according to revised data from the Commerce Department issued today in Washington. The figures highlight the debate over inequality that flared this spring with French economist Thomas Piketty's work showing that the wealthy pull ahead by reaping disparate rewards from financial capital.

"It's even more money going to very high-income people relative to the rest of the country," said Harry Holzer, professor of public policy at Georgetown University and former Labor Department chief economist. "We were a little worried about it and now we're a little more worried about it."

With the revisions, employee compensation was reduced by $9.5 billion in 2011, $5.1 billion in 2012 and $14.6 billion last year, Commerce data showed. It accounted for 52 percent of gross domestic income in the last quarter of 2013, down from a prior estimate of 52.2 percent. The government revised GDI data back to 2003, before adjusting for inflation.....

More rank-and-file workers are participating in the recovery as companies report record profits and boost hiring. Compensation has accelerated this year, rising $134.8 billion after a $153.4 billion surge in the first quarter. It marked the biggest back-to-back gains since the six months ended in the first quarter of 2007.

That's because companies are hiring again and more people are returning to the workforce, not necessarily because paychecks are getting fatter, said Gary Burtless, a labor economist at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

"We've added millions of people to the payroll since the low point of the economy, but we haven't added at all to the payouts that workers are receiving," Burtless said. "Little has flowed to workers except as an increase in their employment rate."....

"Everything's coming up roses for people who own a chunk of American capital," Burtless said. "What we've seen in the economic recovery is inequality on steroids. The market is giving wealthy people a very good run."
....

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National Jobs for All Coalition
http://www.njfac.org/

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Sunday, July 27, 2014

[NJFAC] Wealth of the Typical Household, Now Worth a Third Less

The Typical Household, Now Worth a Third Less By ANNA BERNASEK NY TImes, JULY 26, 2014

Economic inequality in the United States has been receiving a lot of attention. But it's not merely an issue of the rich getting richer. The typical American household has been getting poorer, too.

The inflation-adjusted net worth for the typical household was $87,992 in 2003. Ten years later, it was only $56,335, or a 36 percent decline, according to a study financed by the Russell Sage Foundation.....The Russell Sage study also examined net worth at the 95th percentile. (For households at that level, 94 percent of the population had less wealth and 4 percent had more.) It found that for this well-do-do slice of the population, household net worth increased 14 percent over the same 10 years.

For households at the median level of net worth, much of the damage has occurred since the start of the last recession in 2007. Until then, net worth had been rising for the typical household, although at a slower pace than for households in higher wealth brackets. But much of the gain for many typical households came from the rising value of their homes. Exclude that housing wealth and the picture is worse: Median net worth began to decline even earlier.

"The housing bubble basically hid a trend of declining financial wealth at the median that began in 2001," said Fabian T. Pfeffer, the University of Michigan professor who is lead author of the Russell Sage Foundation study.

The reasons for these declines are complex and controversial, but one point seems clear: When only a few people are winning and more than half the population is losing, surely something is amiss. [emphasis added-jz]

See the study at http://web.stanford.edu/group/scspi/_media/working_papers/pfeffer-danziger-schoeni_wealth-levels.pdf

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National Jobs for All Coalition
http://www.njfac.org/

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

[NJFAC] Share of the long-term jobless giving up job search has been rising steadily

No, the Long-Term Jobless Aren't 'Catching a Break' Jun 27, 2014 By Ben Casselman

....

In April, Labor Secretary Tom Perez told me that "long-term unemployment is what really keeps me up the most at night." Based on May's data, it doesn't look like he'll be getting a good night's sleep anytime soon.

Earlier this month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the number of Americans out of work more than six months had dropped to 3.4 million in May, the lowest level since the recession. There are still two-and-a-half times as many long-term unemployed as before the recession, but the number is down 50 percent from the 2010 peak and down more than 20 percent in the past year alone. The long-term jobless now account for just over a third of total unemployment, down from 45 percent three years ago. A Bloomberg article this week declared that the long-term unemployed were "finally catching a break."

The reality, however, appears to be much bleaker. The government uses a relatively narrow definition of unemployment that includes only people who are actively looking for work. That means unemployment can fall for good reasons (because people are finding jobs) or bad ones (because they're giving up looking). The recent decline in long-term unemployment is being driven by the bad reasons.

....
Only about 11 percent of the long-term jobless find jobs each month, little better than in the depths of the recession. Moreover, even those who do find jobs are often able to find only part-time or short-term work.

If they aren't finding jobs, what's happening to the long-term unemployed? They're dropping out of the labor force altogether. As the chart below shows, the share of the long-term jobless who are giving up their job searches has been rising steadily, even as the job-finding rate has remained largely flat. (Not shown on the chart are the more than 50 percent who remain unemployed.)

casselman-datalab-longterm-2

So, long-term unemployment is falling fast — but for all the wrong reasons.

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National Jobs for All Coalition
http://www.njfac.org/

Monday, July 7, 2014

[NJFAC] Live! Jobs for All for Goes to Washington! Wed. July 9 @ 10 am.

Live! Jobs for All for Goes to

Washington! Wed. July 9 @ 10 am.

Here's the link for the stream. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfaqVIx6vaU

Jobs for All!

Enacting Job Creation Legislation

and

Building the Movement for Full Employment

National Conference July 9 & 10, 2014

Washington D.C.

Join us for a strategy discussion on job creation andbuilding a national movement for full employment.

This meeting will kick off two days of dialogue among national and grassroots jobs creation advocates for the purpose of developing a coordinated national strategy for job creation.

Featuring Members of:

The Congressional Full Employment Caucus

Wednesday, July 9, 2014

10:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.

2226 Rayburn House Office Building

Jobs for All Strategy Briefing

Representative John Conyers, Jr. (MI)

Representative Frederica Wilson (FL)

Representative Marcy Kaptur (OH)

Representative Barbara Lee (CA)

Rev. Rodney S. Sadler, Jr., Ph.D.

Moral Monday

Associate Professor of Bible

Union Presbyterian Seminary

Debby Szeredy

Executive Vice President, American Postal Workers Union

Kevin Bradshaw 

President, Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco, Workers

& Grain Millers Union

Local 252G

Kellogg's Workers in Memphis, TN have been off the job since October 2013.

George H. Lambert, Jr.

President and CEO of the Greater Washington Urban League,

Philip Harvey

Professor of Law & Economics

Rutgers School of Law

Executive Committee, National Jobs for All Coalition

Josh Nassar

Legislative Director, United Auto Workers

Chris Horton

Worcester Unemployment Action Group (MA)

Voices of Unemployed Workers

Deborah Weinstein

Executive Director, Coalition on Human Needs

Gertrude Schaffner Goldberg

Chair, National Jobs for All Coalition

Professor Emerita of Social Policy, Adelphi University

Jessica Schieder

Policy Associate, Center for Effective Government

Lunch with Witness Wednesdays, the critical effort to renew extended unemployment benefits, will be at the Triangle on the Capitol Hill lawn.

Witness Wednesdays for July 9 will be hosted by Representative Barbara Lee (CA) and will feature the stories of unemployed African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans and Native Americans.

Strategy Session A, July 9, 2014

2226 Rayburn House Office Building

2:00 p.m. – 5:30 p.m.

Chuck Bell , Facilitator

National Jobs for All Coalition

Robert Creamer

Democracy Partners

Miriam Pemberton

Institute for Policy Studies

Bill Barclay

Chicago Political Economy Group

Andrea Miller

Progressive Democrats of America

Local Reports

Kae Halonen

South East Michigan Jobs with Justice

Sheena Foster

Worker's Interfaith Network, Memphis, TN

Rev. Glencie Rhedrick

Mecklenburg Ministries, NC

Clinton Smith

Gray Panthers, Austin, TX

Joel Segal

Progressive Democrats of America, VA

Former Senior Legislative Assistant, Representative John Conyers, Jr.

Leonard Mell

National Jobs for All Coalition, VA

Larry Bresler

Organize Ohio

More, TBA

__________________________________________________________________

Thursday Morning Panel, July 10, 2014

10:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.

2226 Rayburn House Office Building

Logan Martinez, Facilitator

Miami Valley Full Employment Council and National Jobs for All Coalition

Frank Peterson

Unemployed Veteran

Other panelists, TBA

Thursday afternoon we will be meeting members of the US Congress regarding job creation legislation

Conference Host: National Jobs for All Coalition

Co-sponsors

Gray Panthers

Social Democrats

Progressive Democrats of America

People's Empowerment Coalition of Ohio

Jobs For All Campaign

Worcester Unemployment Action Group

If you are able to attend the meeting, please RSVP using our online form

For more information Contact:

Trudy Goldberg, National Jobs for All Coalition

trudygoldberg@njfac.org, or call 203-856-3877

Logan Martinez, Miami Valley Full Employment Council (Dayton, Ohio) loganmartinez2u@yahoo.com / 937-260-2591

ww.njfac.org

The National Jobs for All Coalition is dedicated to the propositions that meaningful employment is a precondition for a fulfilling life and that every person capable of working should have the right to a job. The Coalition not only fights to make these propositions facts of life, but it publishes invaluable research by noted scholars to support them.

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National Jobs for All Coalition
http://www.njfac.org/

Thursday, July 3, 2014

[NJFAC] "Harris v Quinn" [anti-] Union Decision

What The Court's "Harris v Quinn" Union Decision Means Dave Johnson July 2, 2014

The workers can still join unions. They can still collectively bargain. The union is still their sole bargaining agent. They just don't have to pay for the union's services because that violates their "free speech."[Services include grievance procedures.jz]

In case you were wondering why it is so hard for regular working people to get ahead in our economy, look no further than today's Harris v. Quinn Supreme Court decision. In the usual 5-4 pattern, the corporate-conservatives on the Supreme Court struck another blow against the rights of working people to organize and try to get ahead.

Home care workers (mostly women) in Illinois (like elsewhere) were on their own, working long hours for very low pay. They were treated poorly and did not have any job security. So they organized and a majority voted to join a union, Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Health Care Illinois-Indiana (SEIU-HCII). The union then worked with the state of Illinois to forge a contract to deliver services to elderly and disabled state residents. Since they formed the union, they were able almost double their hourly wages and they get health insurance, regular professional training and representation from the union.

An anti-union organization, the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation (NRTWLDF) – funded by the Koch and Walton families and others – brought filed the Harris v. Quinn suit against the union. This suit wound its way through the courts and finally the Supreme Court decided to rule on it.

The Court decided that a contract between the state of Illinois and Medicaid-funded home care workers cannot require the covered workers to pay a "fair-share fee" that covers the costs of benefits they receive from union representation. This "fair-share fee" (union dues) covers the costs of the union's activities – collecting bargaining, implementing and enforcing the contract including making sure people are paid the right amounts, representing employees at grievance hearings, etc.

The Court decided that the "free speech" interests of those who object to paying for representation outweigh the right of the democratically elected majority that formed the union and the state to enter into a contract that requires home care workers to pay those costs in exchange for the services those costs bring to the employees.

Justice Samuel Alito said that "free speech" means this union cannot collect this fee, writing, "The First Amendment prohibits the collection of an agency fee from personal assistants in the Rehabilitation Program who do not wrote to join or support the union."

ps on free speech of public-sector employees: "Significantly, those earlier [Supreme Court] cases repeatedly held that this leeway includes authority for public employers to limit their employees' job-related speech; just this Term in Lane v. Franks, the Court unanimously re-affirmed its holding from Garcetti v. Ceballos that public-sector employees receive no First Amendment protection at all for speech they are required to engage in as part of their jobs." http://www.scotusblog.com/2014/07/harris-v-quinn-symposium-decision-will-affect-workers-limit-states-ability-to-effectively-manage-their-workforces/ jz
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National Jobs for All Coalition
http://www.njfac.org/