Want to create jobs? Then create jobs.
An emergency job creation program for the Washington State
We’ve got an official unemployment rate of 9.3% here in Washington, and the likelihood of increased unemployment in the coming months. This understates the actual unemployment and underemployment of workers in our state, and the decrease in the employment to population ratio. The national underemployment rate (the unemployed, those who have quit looking, and those working part-time who want full-time work) is 17.5%. The private sector is sloughing off jobs. As unemployment increases, consumption falls, generating further cutbacks in economic activity and employment.
What can we do? Create jobs. The federal government should enable the states to immediately create public sector/service jobs. In Washington state, an immediate jobs program with 12,000 jobs would make up ten percent of the 121,000 jobs lost since the beginning of the recession in December 2007.
Here’s how we could create jobs – jobs that enhance public services, build public infrastructure, and stimulate economic growth. Read the rest of this entry »
Public sector should get to work on jobs
From the Everett Herald:
For anyone who thought we could just elect a new president and magically fix all our problems, the bloom is probably off the rose. Not even one year in, the Obama administration is grappling with fixing Wall Street, completing the job in Afghanistan and Iraq, getting a universal health care solution in place — and a deep, ongoing recession.
Here in this Washington, the private sector is sloughing off jobs. As unemployment increases, consumption falls, generating further cutbacks in economic activity and employment. We’re facing an official unemployment rate of 9.3 percent (likely to go higher in the coming months) and an underemployment rate — which includes part-time workers who want full-time jobs and laid-off workers who have given up looking for work — in the neighborhood of 15 percent or more.
So what can we do?
Washington’s 2010 budget leaves state morally bankrupt
The Governor’s 2010 supplemental budget, released today, is disastrous for Washington’s children. Among millions of dollars worth of cuts to every kind of basic service, the cuts to early learning and K-12 education are especially tragic. Here’s why.
“Commission” Is Washington Speak for Cutting Social Security and Medicare
EOI Board Member Dean Baker
The “experts” who could not see the $8 trillion housing bubble that wrecked the economy are now telling us that we have to create a special commission so that they can cut Social Security and Medicare. With much of Washington’s punditry behind this effort, they could succeed.
The basic story is straightforward. There is a determined clique, led by Wall Street investment banker Peter Peterson, that has been trying to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits for at least the last two decades. Peterson, a cabinet member in the Nixon administration, is especially important in this story because he has personally bankrolled much of it.
A Tale of Two Recessions: Wealth grows for a few as most Washington families struggle – how will state leaders respond?
EOI’s latest analysis of Washington’s economy reveals that many hallmarks of middle-class life – owning a home, sending the kids to college, having health care, and building a retirement nest egg – have become increasingly unattainable for local families:
- Owning a home: Falling home prices are good news for people looking to buy – but not for recent purchasers who now owe more than their home is worth. And the typical home is still far more expensive relative to family incomes than 20 years ago. In 1990 the median home value in Washington was 3 times the median household income. By 2008, a home cost 5 years of median income.
- Sending the kids to college: Between 1991 and 2008, tuition and fees at the University of Washington increased from 6.3% to 11.5% of median annual household income. At the more affordable community colleges, required expenses rose nearly as fast, from 2.7% to 4.7% of state median income. Even with financial aid, low- and middle-income students are graduating with significantly higher debt levels – and the effects of “sticker shock” can keep students from ever applying to college in the first place.
- Getting health care: Health care is eating up more of family budgets. Worker contributions to employer-sponsored family health insurance premiums have increased from 3.4% to 5.8% of median household income between 1999 and 2008. Out-of-pocket expenses have also shot up, particularly for workers approaching an in middle age – from $724 in 1996 to $1,118 in 2006 (in 2006 dollars).
- Building a nest egg: Only about half of private sector workers in Washington have access to a retirement plan at work. Today’s defined contribution plans, like 401(k)s and 403(b)s, make retirement income far more dependent on the ups and downs of the economy and the stock market than the defined benefit plans they replaced, which guaranteed workers income based on years of service and earnings. With the collapse of the stock market in 2008, workers who had consistently contributed to 401(k) accounts since 2003 lost nearly one-fourth of their account values.
According to The State of Working Washington 2009, even as costs have increased, today’s households and workers have less income than was the norm just a decade ago. Read the rest of this entry »
End of the line for Eyman?
Seattle Times: Guest columnist James N. Gregory urges state lawmakers to stop being afraid of Eyman and the voters, exercise some leadership and reform our tax system:
Tim Eyman may be finished. His Initiative 1033 proposal to freeze government spending was not only rejected by voters, it was crushed by a 15-percent margin. And he lost not only in Puget Sound, but also in most counties in Eastern Washington, counties that supported his previous tax-cutting initiatives.
There are reasons to think that this may be the end of line for Eyman. Major economic crises often provoke major political turns. If the past is any guide, voters are now becoming pragmatic. They know that the priority has to be jobs and basic social services, and that the anti-government campaigns that have dominated politics for the past generation have to be rejected. There is nothing like a major illness to inspire faith in doctors; a lasting economic crisis tends to do the same for faith in government.
Elected officials may want to think about this. If things follow the pattern of the Great Depression, next year’s elections are going to continue to deliver the message voters just sent to Eyman. | More
Voters send clear signal: Leave vital services intact
From the Everett Herald:
Voters east of the Cascades turned conventional wisdom on its head last week.
These voters are often portrayed by the Seattle media market as conservative, anti-tax, anti-government citizens. Turns out they can recognize snake oil as soon as they see it. Twelve out of 20 counties in Eastern Washington rejected Tim Eyman’s Initiative 1033.
Totaling up the complete Eastern Washington vote, 1033 was defeated by a margin of 54-46 percent. That’s not including any votes from west of the mountains, from the Puget Sound area, or even liberal Seattle. More voters in Spokane and the rural wheat-belt counties of Lincoln, Whitman, Adams, and Garfield turned thumbs down on 1033 than voters in Snohomish County, and by a higher proportion.
1033 promised to limit the growth of revenue for public services, and to reduce property taxes. Problem is, those public revenues have fallen sharply this year and continue to fall, while the need for public services, such as K-12 education, community college slots and basic health coverage, continues to rise.
The math doesn’t add up. Read the rest of this entry »
Will you “Come on Down!” to What Price is Right?
Tables are filling up fast for What Price is Right? – our very own “showcase showdown” of public policies to improve women’s economic security. If you haven’t RSVP’d, now is your chance to join us for an evening of game show contests, drinks, dinner and program.
After all, no one knows more about the dollars (and sense!) needed for public policies that improve women’s economic security than our keynote speaker Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, co-founder of MomsRising.org.
We’ll also be honoring the work of Cheryl Sesnon, executive director of Washington C.A.S.H. She’s had extraordinary success providing the training and capital that low-income entrepreneurs, especially women, need to start their own businesses.
And while Bob Barker and Drew Carey are good — very good — they’re no match for our host Yoram Bauman, The World’s First and Only Stand-up Economist.
The What: Cocktails, game show contests, dinner, and program
The When: 5:00 – 8:30pm, Thursday, November 19, 2009
The Where: SODO Park, 3200 1st Avenue South, Seattle
The Tix: $100 per person, or included with sponsorship opportunities
Download your RSVP here — for more information please contact Lisa Schubert, Development Officer, at (206) 529-6353 or by email.
A free-market mythbuster. Plus: Parents frozen out of childcare; Washington taxes just average; A scary path to women’s equality.
News and views, October 26, 2009:
Jeff Madrick, free-market myth-buster: There is no example of a major rich nation in the world whose government is not a leading agent of change, growing economies, creating jobs and producing prosperity. | AFL-CIO blog
Working parents frozen out of childcare: As budget problems worsen, states are tightening rules for childcare subsidies, eliminating enrichment programs, raising fees for parents and providers, and halting new subsidies. | USA Today [Editor's Note: Since the bulk of Washington's early learning funding is federal, when the budget axe falls next year it will very likely either reduce quality, limit access or cost parents more. Stay tuned.]
Just average: Washington’s taxes in middle of the pack: New federal data ranks Washington 26th nationally in state and local taxes as a percentage of personal income, and 32nd highest in property taxes. | Seattle Times
The incredible shrinking estate tax: The estate tax is only a faint shadow of its former self. In 2009, less than one-quarter of one percent of deaths—just 5,500 decedents—will leave taxable estates, the smallest percentage since at least the Great Depression. | Tax Policy Center
A scary path to women’s equality: “Die childless at thirty”: “[F]or women the easiest path to equality is to die childless at thirty, when their wages are nearly as high as men’s. …After that, two different patterns emerge: the glass ceiling and the maternal wall.” | MomsRising blog
