jobs 
Tue Sep 13, 2011 at 13:21:53 PM EDT
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Yesterday I moderated a call where dozens of progressive Jews took the opportunity to hear the details of the American Jobs Act directly from members of the Obama Administration. On a call with David Kamin, Special Assistant to the President for Economic Policy, we asked whether spending for the proposed jobs bill might negatively affect safety net programs, how it would help create quality jobs for Americans with lower levels of education and job skills and whether it would really promote growth. While Jewish organizations have come out in support of many aspects of the president’s proposal to spur job creation, we have also heard deep concern within our community about whether the tradeoff will be harmful cuts to programs that millions of Americans depend upon to keep them one step ahead of hunger and homelessness. So imagine my surprise when David Kamin explained, in clear, unambiguous terms, that the bill the President sent to Congress includes the measures to pay for it without taking a dime from Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid or other programs that support the common good. The $447 billion, he explained, would come from a combination of limiting certain tax deductions for high income Americans, closing tax loopholes that benefit gas and oil companies, and eliminating a provision that taxes the earnings of hedge fund and private equity mangers at 15 percent, rather than at the regular individual income tax rate. What I came away with was a striking sense of a powerful disconnect between public perception and what the President has proposed. Given that most Americans and, most significantly, the majority of registered Republicans, support the idea of raising taxes on high income earners, it bears asking just who party leaders are speaking for when they declare dead on arrival any plan that asks the most well-off Americans to pay more – and asking what their real agenda is. One of the most dissembled responses to the Jobs Act came from Eric Cantor, the House Majority Leader, who said, “I sure hope that the president is not suggesting that we pay for his proposal with a massive tax increase at the end of 2012 on job creators.” What makes this so disingenuous is that, as Cantor surely knows, small businesses, which create fully two-thirds of all American jobs, are actually among the biggest beneficiaries of the American Jobs Act, which would continue current payroll tax reductions, eliminate payroll taxes for new jobs and employee raises, allow businesses to write off 100 percent of investments in new equipment, and provide hefty tax credits for hiring the unemployed. So, how have we come to a place where, with a balanced, deficit neutral plan on the table that would easily win the support of most Americans –– we retain the ominous sense that our most successful anti-poverty programs remain at risk? How has the country arrived at a place where some people can say with a straight face that the Act will kill jobs, rather than create them, and other folks can’t get past their complaints that it’s not a resurrection of the WPA? The Act, as proposed, will do so much more than either side seems willing to admit. In a public sphere dominated by self-serving stonewalling on the one hand and self-righteous grousing on the other – where the side that is best at putting up obstacles “wins,” while failing to produce any results for the nation – the Administration has put forth a serious, thoughtful plan that will put more money in people’s pockets immediately, will quickly create jobs rebuilding our nation’s infrastructure, keep essential public servants – teachers, police officers and firefighters – at work, and actively reward the businesses that are our nation’s primary engine of economic opportunity. Further, it is a plan focused on those Americans most in need – young people who have few first-job opportunities and the long-term unemployed who have lost all hope. At the end of the call I asked David Kamin what part of the Act he is most excited about. “We are putting in the best that we know is out there, and including rigorous evaluation,” he said. “Some is experimentation because there have been successful pilot programs and we’re bringing them up in scale. The major part of this bill is making sure we have enough jobs. It’s about making sure we don’t have a significant population in our country that is the long-term permanent unemployed.” What I heard was a plan built around thoughtful analysis, by an Administration willing to take risks, to experiment and evaluate to get the best results, to try something bold at a critical time using the best tools we have available. It’s hard to argue with this approach, particularly with so many Americans in such great need. It’s a challenge to those on both sides of the aisle – and to all of us on every side of the issues – to be about more than just putting up obstacles. To unite and be for getting our economy – and the millions out of work – back on their feet.
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Fri Apr 01, 2011 at 14:41:27 PM EDT
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A new report confirms something we all knew -- Americans don't just need jobs, they need good jobs, jobs that pay a living wage. Despite the uptick in employment in today's report from the US Department of Labor, the truth is that having a job isn't the same thing as having economic security. Or, as the New York Times put it yesterday: Many of the jobs being added in retail, hospitality and home health care, to name a few categories, are unlikely to pay enough for workers to cover the cost of fundamentals like housing, utilities, food, health care, transportation and, in the case of working parents, child care.
But there are subtle shifts at play, and a social justice movement committed to helping those workers struggling the most. Here in New York, it's been seven months since the signing of the precedent-setting Domestic Workers Bill of Rights. And the movement is growing. On the West Coast, our allies at the Progressive Jewish Alliance have been standing up for hotel workers for years (pictured below). .jpg) For a Jewish ethics perspective on hotel workers specificially, The Jewish Week has a piece this week from Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz. An excerpt: Spending money on a product is a vote for its producer, and one of the greatest influences we have on society is through our decisions about where to spend our money. How – besides the location, price, and accommodations – should we choose a hotel? Hotel workers very often work long days, for less than the minimum wage (let alone a living wage). These workers need protections to ensure that we follow the Torah on Peulat Sakhir (a worker’s rightful wage) and Oshek (the oppression of workers).
Let's hope that the next report will show a rise in jobs that pay a living wage.
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Thu Nov 18, 2010 at 09:15:31 AM EST
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 How many studies, how much evidence will it take to get people off the high horse that immigrants take jobs away from U.S. citizens? We shared one study 2 weeks ago, now another one, from NY's Long Island, infamous for fearmongering by a Democratic (and Jewish) county exec who turned Republican to run (unsuccesfully) for governor on an anti-immigrant platform. Turns out, as reported today, that:
contrary to a widespread perception on Long Island... the expansion of the immigrant work force — both legal and illegal — has crowded out few American-born workers. “The analysis finds very little basis for the frequently voiced concern that immigrants may be displacing U.S.-born workers, the report, which was based on census data and conducted by the Fiscal Policy Institute, an independent research organization in New York, said. “As immigrants have come to play an increasingly important role in the Long Island economy,” the study said, “they have for the most part been readily absorbed into the labor market.” Somehow, I suspect this will not end the politics of fear quite yet. Read the full story here.
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Sun Oct 31, 2010 at 09:23:57 AM EDT
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Now it can be told: Just in time for election day, a new study, "Immigration, Offshoring and American Jobs" is being reported on today and demonstrates that cheap immigrant labor prevents offshoring of jobs, resulting in more higher wage jobs for Americans. From the NYTimes: when companies move production offshore, they pull away not only low-wage jobs but also many related jobs, which can include high-skilled managers, tech repairmen and others. But hiring immigrants even for low-wage jobs helps keep many kinds of jobs in the United States, the authors say. In fact, when immigration is rising as a share of employment in an economic sector, offshoring tends to be falling, and vice versa, the study found. In other words, immigrants may be competing more with offshored workers than with other laborers in America. Funny how a little thing called data gets in the way of all that fear and vitriol aimed at immigrants this year. Al Tirah! Fear Not!
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Tue Oct 05, 2010 at 17:19:15 PM EDT
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For its October issue, the American Prospect teamed up with Demos to put out a special section dedicated to one of our favorite topics here at JFS. Jobs! Good jobs. Appearing under the headline "Jobs Well Done: What the Obama administration can do for American workers right now," the special section includes articles on domestic workers, unionizing and collective bargaining and -- an issue dear to my heart -- government contracts and purchasing, from food processing and farm work to the low-wage companies that make our soldiers' uniforms. And there's even a piece about how increased American productivity has gone hand-in-hand with decreased wages. That's longer hours, less money, fewer options, and for the unionized, decreased bargaining power. And that's just for the Americans who are lucky enough to have full-time work. Read all about it. Or start off with Robert Kuttner's piece: The Case for Presidential Action
For more than three decades, the wages of American workers have been close to flat while economic insecurity has risen massively. Although the productivity of the U.S. economy has doubled in a generation, most of those gains have not been captured by workers. And in the decade that began in 2001, inflation-adjusted wages have fallen for all but the most affluent 3 percent of the population.
This pattern of deepening inequality was well entrenched before the financial collapse -- which only made things worse. In 2006, economists at Goldman Sachs, sounding almost Marxian, reported that "the most important contributor to higher profit margins over the past five years has been a decline in labor's share of national income." By 2006, wages as a percentage of gross domestic product were already at their lowest share -- 45 percent -- since government began keeping statistics in 1947. In the past three years, the decline in worker earnings has only intensified, as worker bargaining power has been undermined by very high unemployment. As the economy has stumbled toward a feeble recovery, corporate profits and executive bonuses have rebounded smartly, but salaries and wages have not.
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Wed Jun 09, 2010 at 12:12:52 PM EDT
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Generally, when I hear about jobs that are lost because a business closes or government cuts a program, I am bummed. It's usually not a good thing for the loss of an entire industry to a region. Sometimes, though, we should rejoice. For example, the decrease in crime in New York City has led to a decreased need for prisons and juvenile detention facilities. Who could not be happy about that? Well, people in upstate New York, where small town economies rely entirely on incarcerating New York City residents. This is perverse in many ways.
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Thu Mar 25, 2010 at 20:55:02 PM EDT
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I was in Baltimore this Tuesday for the annual meeting of investors in an exciting project led by TRF Development Partners Baltimore, and BUILD, the Baltimore IAF affiliate, both long time partners of JFSJ. Together TRF and BUILD, led by a coalition of primarily African-American churches, are building housing and businesses for lower income ownership in East Baltimore, restoring hope in their community and bringing a long depressed urban area back to life. The most exciting new piece of the project, recently unveiled at a press event with HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan and National Endowment for the Arts Director Rocco Landsmen, is the City Arts development site, just two blocks east of Baltimore's Penn Station. This site, scheduled to open in December 2010, will provide affordable rental apartments for lower income artist, townhouses for sale, studio space, and professionally managed gallery and performance space. In a challenging economic time, when construction is down and jobs are tight, TRF and BUILD are
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Thu Mar 11, 2010 at 15:45:02 PM EST
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While the naysayers are denying that climate change exists (despite the abundant scientific evidence), the renewable energy market has been swelling in some regions. For Colorado, where solar companies alone employ 2,500 people, renewables are generating job growth, not just energy, as well as attracting new businesses. In response to the successes of new green technologies in the state and public pressure for job creation, the Colorado House this week passed a bill that would increase Colorado’s renewable energy standard (RES) to 30% by 2020. There's new energy in town, and it's powering a boom that will make Colorado a leader in recovering from this financial downturn. This clean, renewable energy will grow Colorado's economy and lead to a brighter future.
That’s how Colorado State Rep. Max Tyler started his Denver Post op-ed in support of the bill. He continued:
There are key sections of [the bill] that will ensure that these RES jobs come with good wages, benefits and steady employment for Coloradans….
Requiring a third of our power to come from renewable sources is a great example of doing well by doing good. We will cut our carbon footprint, stabilize or even lower our energy costs, and remove pollutants from our air. We get all this while building opportunity for growing businesses and creating good jobs. That's a darned good deal.
The bill is awaiting Gov. Bill Ritter’s signature. Which state will be next?
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Thu Mar 11, 2010 at 11:28:58 AM EST
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A piece in the Forward provides a good introduction to Tav HaYosher, an ethical seal given to kosher establishments that commit to treat their employees with respect.
The program has lofty ambitions, but is starting at an attainable tier. As the founder of Uri L'Tzedek (the organization that issues the seals) says:
When I went into this, I wanted a living wage, health care, all kinds of benefits, but came to realize that even the most basic things were not being respected.
Three of the 36 establishments granted the seal spoke with the paper, and indicated that the seal has "been a draw" for those committed to ethical standards of employment.
The Tav HaYosher website includes a complete list of certified establishments.
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