Report: Anti-gay Laws Drive Up Poverty Rates for LGBT People
Miami Herald - September 30, 2014, by Steve Rothaus - A report issued Tuesday shows that LGBT Americans face added...
Miami Herald - September 30, 2014, by Steve Rothaus - A report issued Tuesday shows that LGBT Americans face added financial burdens — and often higher poverty rates — because of antigay national, state and local legislation.
NBC News has covered the story, with a video of Arlene Goldberg, the Fort Myers widow who is suing Florida to recognize her marriage to longtime partner Carol Goldwasser.
Goldberg’s primary income is Social Security. Because Florida doesn’t recognize Goldberg’s marriage, she is unable to qualify as Goldwasser’s widow and collect her Social Security payments, which were $700 more each month than Goldberg’s.
Here’s a news release from the Movement Advancement Project (MAP) and the Center for American Progress (CAP):
Washington, D.C. — A landmark report released today paints a stark picture of the added financial burdens faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Americans because of anti-LGBT laws at the national, state and local levels. According to the report, these laws contribute to significantly higher rates of poverty among LGBT Americans and create unfair financial penalties in the form of higher taxes, reduced wages and Social Security income, increased healthcare costs, and more.
The momentum of recent court rulings overturning marriage bans across the country has created the impression that LGBT Americans are on the cusp of achieving full equality from coast-to-coast. But the new report, Paying an Unfair Price: The Financial Penalty for Being LGBT in America, documents how inequitable laws harm the economic well-being of LGBT people in three key ways: by enabling legal discrimination in jobs, housing, credit and other areas; by failing to recognize LGBT families, both in general and across a range of programs and laws designed to help American families; and by creating barriers to safe and affordable education for LGBT students and the children of LGBT parents.
Paying an Unfair Pricewas co-authored by the Movement Advancement Project (MAP) and the Center for American Progress (CAP), in partnership with Center for Community Change, Center for Popular Democracy, National Association of Social Workers, and the National Education Association. It is available online at www.lgbtmap.org/unfair-price.
“Unfair laws deliver a one-two punch. They both drive poverty within the LGBT community and then hit people when they are down,” said Ineke Mushovic, Executive Director of MAP. “While families with means might be able to withstand the costs of extra taxation or the unfair denial of Social Security benefits, for an already-struggling family these financial penalties can mean the difference between getting by and getting evicted. Anti-LGBT laws do the most harm to the most vulnerable in the LGBT community, including those who are barely making ends meet, families with children, older adults, and people of color.”
The report documents the often-devastating consequences when the law fails LGBT families. For example, children raised by same-sex parents are almost twice as likely to be poor as children raised by married opposite-sex parents. Additionally, 15 percent of transgender workers have incomes of less than $10,000 per year; among the population as a whole, the comparable figure is just four percent. To demonstrate the connection between anti-LGBT laws and the finances of LGBT Americans and their families, the report outlines how LGBT people living in states with low levels of equality are more likely to be poor, both compared to their non-LGBT neighbors, and compared to their LGBT counterparts in state with high levels of equality. For example, the denial of marriage costs gay and lesbian families money; same-sex couples with children had just $689 less in household income than married opposite-sex couples in states with marriage and relationship recognition for same-sex couples, but had an astounding $8,912 less in household income in states lacking such protections.
DISCRIMINATORY LAWS CREATE A DEVASTATING CYCLE OF POVERTY
How do inequitable laws contribute to higher rates of poverty for LGBT people? The report documents how LGBT people in the United States face clear financial penalties because of three primary failures in the law.
1. Lack of protection from discrimination means that LGBT people can be fired, denied housing and credit, and refused medically-necessary healthcare simply because they are LGBT. The financial penalty: LGBT people can struggle to find work, make less on the job, and have higher housing and medical costs than their non-LGBT peers.
2. Refusal to recognize LGBT families means that LGBT families are denied many of thesame benefits afforded to non-LGBT families when it comes to health insurance, taxes, vital safety-net programs, and retirement planning. The financial penalty: LGBT families pay more for health insurance, taxes, and legal assistance, and may be unable to access essential protections for their families in times of crisis.
3. Failure to adequately protect LGBT students means that LGBT people and their families often face a hostile, unsafe, and unwelcoming environment in local schools, as well as discrimination in accessing financial aid and other support. The financial penalty: LGBT youth are more likely to perform poorly in school and to face challenges pursuing postsecondary educational opportunities, as can youth with LGBT parents. This, in turn, can reduce their earnings over time, as well as their chances of having successful jobs and careers.
“Imagine losing your job or your home simply because of who you are or whom you love. Imagine having to choose between paying the rent and finding legal help so you can establish parenting rights for the child you have been raising from birth,” said Laura E. Durso, Director LGBT Progress at the Center for American Progress at CAP. “These are just a couple of the added costs that are harming the economic security of LGBT people across the country. It is unfair and un-American that LGBT people are penalized because of who they are, and it has real and profound effects on their ability to stay out of poverty and provide for their families.”
Paying an Unfair Price offers broad recommendations for helping strengthen economic security for LGBT Americans. Recommendations include: instituting basic nondiscrimination protections at the federal and state level; allowing same-sex couples to marry in all states; allowing LGBT parents to form legal ties with the children they are raising; andprotecting students from discrimination and harassment on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.
“At a time when so many American families are struggling to make ends meet, the report's findings point to an even bleaker reality for those who are both LGBT and people of color," said Connie Razza, Director of Strategic Research at the Center for Popular Democracy. "Unchecked employment discrimination and laws that needlessly increase the costs of healthcare, housing and childcare are doing profound harm to our economic strength as a nation. This report offers real-life policy solutions that, if implemented, would protect some of our most vulnerable individuals and families."
“Reducing the unfair financial penalties that LGBT people face in this country because they are LGBT is not that complicated. It is a simple matter of treating LGBT Americans equally under the law. For example, extending the freedom to marry, including LGBT students in safe schools laws, and ending the exclusion of LGBT people from laws meant to protect families when a parent dies or becomes disabled,” said Deepak Bhargava, executive director of the Center for Community Change.
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Black leaders in Pittsburgh echo frustration voiced across nation
Black leaders in Pittsburgh echo frustration voiced across nation
Pittsburgh could easily become the next Dallas as frustrations in poor black neighborhoods continue to mount over...
Pittsburgh could easily become the next Dallas as frustrations in poor black neighborhoods continue to mount over perceived economic inequalities and mistreatment by police officers, black community members said Friday.
They condemned the attacks in Dallas that left five officers dead and seven officers and two civilians wounded.
They attributed the shootings to escalating frustration over socio-economic conditions in poor neighborhoods and repeated incidents across the nation in which officers were caught on video using deadly force to subdue minorities.
“These things will fester and grow and grow and grow,” said Connie Parker, president of the Pittsburgh branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. “It's Texas right now, but it can be Pittsburgh next week.”
T. Rashad Byrdsong, president and founder of Community Empowerment Association, a Homewood-based nonprofit, said police officers have become a whipping post for deep-rooted problems beyond their control.
“The real problem is the inability of our public officials to sit down and come up with some comprehensive plan on how to include everybody in this democratic process,” Byrdsong said.
Pittsburgh has had its share of high-profile incidents. The most recent in January — the fatal shooting by Port Authority police of Tyrone Kelly Jr., a 37-year-old homeless man who fatally stabbed a police K-9 dog — drew protests. Police killed Kelly while attempting to arrest him for drinking beer on Port Authority property after he stabbed the dog.
In April 2009, Officers Eric G. Kelly, Stephen J. Mayhle and Paul J. Sciullo II were killed by Richard Poplawski while responding to a 911 call about a domestic disturbance at his Stanton Heights home
Pittsburgh police Chief Cameron McLay was in Washington for a conference when news of the Dallas shootings broke Thursday night. He and his command staff returned to Pittsburgh immediately to begin reaching out to community leaders. He said he was worried about the mood he'd find when he returned to the city Friday morning.
“I expected to find the atmosphere more tense,” he said, adding that city officers remain positive. “I'm really, really proud of them.”
Officers across Allegheny County said that it was impossible not to react emotionally to the massacre in Dallas. A Pittsburgh officer directing traffic Downtown called the mood somber but professional.
Malik Bankston, executive director of the Kingsley Center in Larimer, praised McLay and Mayor Bill Peduto for initiatives to improve relations between police and residents.
“To me, that's sort of the heart of the challenges we have right now, this whole idea of building trust,” Bankston said. “That's very unglamorous, thankless work that's only going to be realized over time, but there has to be a commitment from the highest level.”
Tim Stevens, chairman of the Black Political Empowerment Project in the Hill District, said Dallas is a pivotal moment for the nation to begin bridging a racial divide.
He said the majority of black people are horrified by violence directed toward police, but they also feel the justice system is weighted against them. He called on political and community leaders and residents to unite in an effort to find solutions.
“We have a lot of work to do,” he said.
Greensburg police on its Facebook page said that “no police officer wakes up in the morning wandering who they can shoot today. Realize that none of us are perfect, but we certainly strive to be the best that we can.”
By Bob Bauder & Megan Guza
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As Attacks on Unions Continue, Bringing Back the Strike May Be Our Only Hope
On December 14, Chicago Teachers Union Vice President Jesse Sharkey announced the results of the union’s strike...
On December 14, Chicago Teachers Union Vice President Jesse Sharkey announced the results of the union’s strike authorization vote. For the second time in three years, the union’s membership voted overwhelmingly to strike if necessary. "Our ability to withhold our labor is our power," declared CTU President Karen Lewis on the eve of voting.
That axiom, that strikes are where unions derive their power, is pretty out of favor these days. A wave of disastrous strikes and lockouts beginning in the Reagan era that helped deunionize much of American industry has left the surviving labor movement skittish about the prospect of full-scale walk-outs. But bright spots like Fight for 15, Bargaining for the Common Good and the Chicago teachers strike have shown that workers can win strikes (if one defines victory as workers walking away from the ordeal feeling more powerful). Labor activists and leaders, particularly as they anticipate a viciously anti-union Supreme Court decision in Friedrichs v. CTA, have to figure out more strategies to revive the strike weapon in our current era.
How strikes became a “bad idea”
Ironically, the seeds of labor’s 1980s defeats were planted during its best seasons for growth in the 1930s. During the wave of sit-down strikes that grew union membership by leaps and bounds, Congress passed the National Labor Relations Act in 1935. The purpose of the act was to establish an orderly process for certifying unions and compelling employers to bargain in good faith with them. The plain language of the law also made it illegal to fire an employee for union activity.
But in two of the early Supreme Court cases that established the constitutionality of this law, the court casually cut into workers’ rights to their jobs.
In a 1939 case called NLRB vs. Fansteel Metallurgical, the court ruled that the NLRB cannot compel the reinstatement of a fired worker who broke the law, even if his illegal activity was part of an otherwise protected union activity like striking. Sit-down strikes, the physical occupation of someone else’s property to prevent their business from operating without you, was simply not going to be a protected activity under this new labor law regime.
In an earlier case, 1938’s NLRB v. Mackay Radio, the Supreme Court stripped workers of their unalloyed right to return to their jobs after a strike. The Court held that not only was an employer allowed to replace striking workers to keep a business going during a strike, but that they could keep the scabs on the job after the strike was over. The strikers would not be fired, per se, as an employer would have to make provision to recall former strikers as vacancies occur.
The McKay germ lay dormant for over 40 years. There were thousands of strikes in the United States all the way through the 1970s. And while plenty of bosses hired plenty of scabs, those scabs were almost always let go after a strike. To take a worker’s job away for standing with her union was viewed as almost un-American.
Or at least it was, until no less of an American than the sitting President, Ronald Regan, fired the striking air traffic controllers in 1981, sending a strong signal to industry: have at it..
McKay was weaponized by the Phelps-Dodge Corporation in 1983. The copper mining company bargained its Steelworkers local to impasse over drastic cuts in pay, benefits and working conditions—essentially daring the union to strike. Exploiting the bad economic times, the company had no problem importing a permanent replacement workforce, for whom even the reduced pay was far better than most jobs available. After 12 very ugly months, the scabs voted to legally decertify the union.
This Phelps-Dodge blueprint is how much of the deunionization of American industry occurred in the Reagan-Bush (and Clinton) era. Unions that survived frequently did so by capitulating to management’s giveback demands.
Tellingly, the AFL-CIO’s 1990s version of labor law reform was not for organizing rights, like card check, but a bill to undo the McKay doctrine and ban the permanent replacement of strikers. In 1994, the year that the Workplace Fairness Act effectively died, there were 14 major strikes involving over 108,000 workers. By 2012, there were only four, and they involved less than 15,000 workers.
And perhaps most telling of all: Unions’ most recent attempt at labor law reform, the Employee Free Choice Act, did not include any provision on strikes. We have abandoned the strike weapon.
Well-planned strikes serve as inspiration
Not every union has abandoned strikes. The last Chicago teacher strike served as the strongest example in years for everyday workers of the power of a well-planned work stoppage.
On paper, it made no sense that a teachers union could wage a successful strike in 2012. Teachers unions had suffered from years of well-funded political attacks that cast them in the media as villains who prioritize “adults’ interests” over “students’.” The city’s power brokers, Mayor Rahm Emanuel in particular, were crying broke and exploiting civil rights rhetoric in their give-back demands. And there were thousands of teachers in charter schools and unemployed and recently retired teachers in the Chicago area who could have been recruited as replacements if they viewed the Chicago Teachers Union as striking against the public interest.
Instead, the Chicago public overwhelmingly viewed the CTU as striking for the common good. Partly, this was thanks to two years of deep and meaningful community organizing and partnerships that the union diligently pursued knowing there would likely be a strike. And partly, this was thanks to the union bargaining for school resources demands that resonated beyond just their membership.
For the last really big strike that got even non-union workers thinking about their power, you have to go all the way back to 1997. The Teamsters—who, like the CTU at the local level, had elected progressive reformers to their national leadership—also spent years preparing for a planned strike against UPS. These sort of well-planned strikes are crucial for getting workers, those in unions and those without, to think about power and the exercise of it.
In his book Only One Thing Can Save Us, labor lawyer Thomas Geoghegan expresses a preference for one-day strikes, which he has seen used effectively by the hotel employees union. In such a strike, a union signals its intent to return to work after 24 hours, allowing strikers to impact the employer’s business but protecting them from permanent replacement.
Joe Burns, also a labor lawyer, has written extensively on labor’s need to bring back the strike weapon. In his Reviving the Strike, he scorns one-day “publicity strikes” as no substitute for “an effective traditional strike,” which he defines as one that aims to halt production.
Burns’ contribution gets us thinking not just about the need to get more strikes going in this country, but to really think through how to define a “successful” strike. But his mantra-like focus on “halting production” is strangely limiting. As a result of union busting and globalization in manufacturing, most of the new organizing and strategic contract campaign action is in healthcare, education and the service industry. A Chicago teacher would likely rankle at the thought of their strike “halting production.” (What, after all, does their employer aim to produce? One hopes it is citizens and scholars, but fears it is docile workers and future prisoners.)
My own union work so far has been in hotels, home healthcare and education. I have worked on only a small number of work stoppages, most of a limited duration. In my experience, employers are working from such an ossified playbook that unions can get a lot of mileage out doing the last thing that the boss and his lawyers expect.
For example, hotel employees can cost the company more money by not striking on the day the company expects, thus costing them the expense of paying and lodging scabs as well as the continued payroll costs of the union members who stayed on the job an extra day.
I don’t prescribe a perfect form of strike. American workers will not learn to strike again from articles like this or books like Burns’ and Geoghegan’s, which are really more for labor nerds and bookish organizers—they will only learn to strike by watching contemporary examples of workers striking. Since it’s hard to raise chickens without eggs, even one-day “publicity strikes” have an educational value.
But many thousands times more working people will be educated by the next Chicago Teachers strike. The teachers will halt production, but, perversely, that will save their employer money. Chicago will continue to collect taxes and be freed of the burden of compensating its teachers for a few weeks. (In fairness, Joe Burns expounds upon this unique aspect of public sector strikes in his follow-up book, Strike Back.)
To be effective, the CTU must take the students and parents who will be disrupted and bring that disruption to the doorsteps of Rahm Emanuel, Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner and Chicago’s unelected school board. To win for the working class, they must continue to loudly proclaim, as CTU President Karen Lewis did, “Your power is your ability to withhold your labor.”
Possible paths forward
Our challenge is to inspire even non-union workers to think about their power and how to exercise it using the tools we have on hand: a union movement with miniscule density in only a handful of service and public sector industries largely led by staff who have precious little personal experience with leading job actions. We should be clear about how deep this deficit is.
One of the most promising labor projects of the moment is Bargaining for the Common Good. This is an effort by public sector unions in Washington, Oregon, California, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois and Ohio to align their bargaining demands with each other and with community demands around progressive taxation, affordable housing, youth incarceration and government transparency.
These community demands fall well outside a union’s scope of bargaining and are therefore technically illegal. But as long as the unions also have demands that are within their legal scope (not hard to do when employers refuse to pay people what they deserve), then the unions can press the community’s case. This is a brilliant way of getting community to see unions’ fights as their own and of building worker and community power—and the next Chicago teachers strike will likely be the highest profile test of the theory this side of the Mississppi.
What follows could be bigger. A number of public and private sector unions in Minnesota have contract expirations in 2016. Their bargaining demands for the common good are focused not just on their individual employers but also on the largest employers in the state: Target and Wells Fargo. This is the potential for the closest thing we’ve seen in a while to a general strike (something Minnesota has a history of doing).
Another promising project is the Fight for 15. Some have dismissed the series of rolling one-day strikes for increases in the minimum wage and organizing rights as mere P.R. stunts. But there is something deeply radical and significant at play here. Workers who don’t even technically have a union are proving their value—and their power—to their bosses by withholding their labor. And the response from the general public is, at worst, a sort of patronizing “Well, good for them” but more often something a bit closer to “Go get ‘em!”
Just two short years ago, it would have been inconceivable to most union strategists that the lowest paid and most vulnerable workers would be willing to risk it all as these fast food workers have done. But, then, one is reminded of the old Dylan lyric: “When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose.”
The great potential of Fight for 15 is that unorganized workers see reflections of themselves in the strikers and begin to fantasize about what a job action could look like at their workplace. This is the perfect complement to well-planned and executed strikes by established labor unions.
The labor wars of the 1980s and 1990s were won by bosses who caught their unions by surprise. The unions that are still here are survivors who have an obligation, both to their continued survival and to the hope of inspiring a greater wave of organizing, to meaningfully plan for job actions that can win in every round of bargaining.
Those who toil in alternative forms of worker representation—the workers centers, advocacy groups and non-majority unions—should strategize and experiment in job actions that help their members and anyone watching and drawing inspiration feel a sense of their own power and agency.
And the rest of labor, starting with the AFL-CIO, should send a strong signal that strike plans are back by incorporating a ban on permanent replacements in the successor to the Employee Free Choice Act and as part of a broader “right to your job” movement. For those public sector unions who are most threatened by the pending Friedrichs decision, a wave of “free speech” strikes to both celebrate and protest the dubious new rights that the Supreme Court threatens to give them.
Source: In These Times
Proposal Would Allow Immigrants in New York Illegally to Become Citizens
ABC 7 New York - June 16, 2014, by Dave Evans - It is a long shot, but a proposal by a New York State lawmaker would...
ABC 7 New York - June 16, 2014, by Dave Evans - It is a long shot, but a proposal by a New York State lawmaker would allow immigrants in the state illegally to become so-called "state citizens" if they've paid state taxes for at least three years.
It might sound a little strange for people to say 'I'm a citizen of New York State yet not an American citizen', but legal experts say it's doable.
And it's something many immigrants in New York desperately want, since the federal government hasn't budged on immigration reform.
"I could be deported tomorrow even though New York is my home. Brooklyn has been my home," said lawyer Cesar Vargas.
Vargas came to this country from Mexico when he was five. He's like almost 3 million other undocumented workers in New York State with few rights. He's a lawyer. He passed the bar but can't practice. He's not a citizen.
"I pay taxes, I created my own small business, I advocate for my community, I only want the opportunity, no special treatment, just the opportunity to be a lawyer for my community," he said.
In Battery Park Monday, a rally was held with the Statue of Liberty as a backdrop.
"2.7 million people make their home in this state and we have a responsibility to them as a state," said State Senator Gustavo Rivera.
Rivera introduced a bill Monday that if someone has an ID, has lived in this country for three years and paid taxes, they could then become a citizen of New York State.
They would be allowed to vote and run in local and state elections. They could get a driver's license, and qualify for Medicaid coverage.
"Now all of these things will allow almost 3 million people to fully participate in the civic, political and economic life of the state of New York. They are already contributing," said Rivera.
The bill has almost no chance at becoming a law anytime soon in Albany. If it did, we would be American citizens and New York citizens as well, and conservatives call that absurd.
"It's a bad idea. It's not only bad, it's probably an insane idea to create a separate category of citizens in our country," said New York Conservative Party chairman Mike Long.
Conservatives say they're worred the idea is even being brought up in Albany, because that gets the discussion rolling, and eventually they fear something like this could pass.
Also, advocates agree, saying this bill won't pass anytime soon. But they want people to start thinking and talking about this issue.
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Trump expected to nominate Powell for Fed chair
Trump expected to nominate Powell for Fed chair
Most on Wall Street welcomed the news that Powell is the likely nominee. Investment bank Deutsche Bank put out a note...
Most on Wall Street welcomed the news that Powell is the likely nominee. Investment bank Deutsche Bank put out a note last week to clients saying Powell would be the best choice if Trump did not want to keep Yellen on. But some liberal groups, including Fed Up, were disappointed and see the selection of Powell as an attempt to make the Fed more favorable to big banks. "Jerome Powell's most important qualification is that he served with Janet Yellen. His confirmation should depend on his willingness to follow in Yellen's footsteps on both monetary and regulatory policy," said Shawn Sebastian, co-director of Fed Up, a campaign from the Center for Popular Democracy.
Read the full article here.
Democrats Criticize Fed for Lack of Diversity in Leadership
Democrats Criticize Fed for Lack of Diversity in Leadership
The U.S. Federal Reserve came under criticism Thursday from some lawmakers over the lack of diversity in the central...
The U.S. Federal Reserve came under criticism Thursday from some lawmakers over the lack of diversity in the central bank’s leadership.
A majority of Democratic members of Congress -- 11 from the Senate and 116 from the House of Representatives -- signed a letter addressed to Janet Yellen, calling on the Fed chair to include more African Americans, Latinos and women when it considers candidates for top posts. The letter was written by staff for Representative John Conyers of Michigan, according to Ady Barkan of the Fed Up campaign, an activist group that lobbied members of Congress to add their names. No Republicans signed.
“We remain deeply concerned that the Federal Reserve has not yet fulfilled its statutory and moral obligation to ensure that its leadership reflects the composition of our diverse nation in terms of gender, race and ethnicity, economic background and occupation,” according to the letter, whose signatories included presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren.
The letter said more than 80 percent of directors at the Fed’s 12 regional banks are white and about three-fourths are men. Of 12 regional Fed presidents, who participate in monetary policy meetings, 11 are white and 10 are men, it added.
Improvements Made
Fed spokesman David Skidmore said the central bank and its branches have focused in recent years on increasing ethnic and gender diversity. Minority representation on Reserve Bank and branch boards has risen to 24 percent this year from 16 percent in 2010, he said, and the proportion of female directors has increased to 30 percent from 23 percent over the same period. “We are striving to continue that progress,” Skidmore said.
Fed Up is organized by the Center for Popular Democracy, non-profit groups and unions who are lobbying for the Fed to reject raising interest rates.
Regional Fed presidents are chosen by non-banking members of their respective boards of directors. The appointments are subject to the approval of the Board of Governors in Washington.
Regional boards have nine members, as stipulated in the Federal Reserve Act. Three are chosen by and represent banks in the district; three are chosen by the same banks to represent the public; three are designated by the Board of Governors to represent the public.
Jesse Ferguson, a spokesman for Hillary Clinton, issued a statement on Fed diversity after the letter was released saying the leading Democratic presidential candidate “believes that the Fed needs to be more representative of America.” She also thinks “commonsense reforms” such as removing bankers from regional Fed boards, “are long overdue,” Ferguson said.
Lockhart Retiring
Barring a surprise resignation, the Atlanta Fed presidency will be the next seat on the Federal Open Market Committee to open. Dennis Lockhart, the current president, will be required to step down in March 2017 after serving for 10 years.
“Diversity for the Federal Reserve is critical. This is the very nature of this institution, to broadly represent the communities we serve,” Kansas City Fed President Esther George said in response to a question Thursday after a speech in Albuquerque, New Mexico. “That means industry diversity. It means diversity of thought. And it means racial and gender diversity in the institution.”
There are two governorships already open. President Barack Obama has nominated Allan Landon, the former chief executive officer of Bank of Hawaii Corp., and Kathryn Dominguez, an economics professor at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, to fill the posts. Republican Senator Richard Shelby has refused to hold confirmation hearings for the pair in a dispute with the White House over its failure to fill a separate Fed post.
By Christopher Condon & Steve Matthews
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Ciudades no sólo benefician a los inmigrantes con el ID municipal
Ciudades no sólo benefician a los inmigrantes con el ID municipal
Ocho años atrás, a raíz de ataques contra la comunidad local de inmigrantes y el fracaso de la legislatura estatal en...
Ocho años atrás, a raíz de ataques contra la comunidad local de inmigrantes y el fracaso de la legislatura estatal en expandir el acceso a licencias de conducir, la ciudad de New Haven creó el primer programa municipal del país que otorga un documento de identificación.
Poco a poco, otras ciudades siguieron el ejemplo de New Haven y reconocieron los grandes beneficios que otorga una identificación municipal, no solo para los residentes que no pueden obtener acceso a otros tipos de identificación emitida por el gobierno, sino por el bien de la vida política y económica en general.
Al principio, la adopción de programas de identificación municipal fue un proceso lento, pero se ha acelerado significativamente en el año 2015, impulsada en gran parte por el lanzamiento de la identificación municipal de la ciudad de Nueva York. El IDNYC , aprobado por el Concejo Municipal el año pasado y estrenado a inicios de este año por el alcalde Bill de Blasio, es ahora el más extenso programa de identificación municipal en el país, con más de 350,000 inscritos.
Sin la correcta identificación, una persona tal vez no pueda abrir una cuenta bancaria o cobrar un cheque, recibir atención médica en un hospital, inscribir a su hijo en la escuela, solicitar beneficios públicos, presentar una queja ante el departamento de policía, sacar libros de la biblioteca, votar en las elecciones o siquiera recoger un paquete de la oficina de correos. Con una simple medida, la identificación municipal elimina todas esas barreras.
Si bien las comunidades inmigrantes han sido una fuerza influyente al solicitar que las ciudades adopten programas de identificación municipal, los beneficiarios no se limitarán a las comunidades de inmigrantes.
La identificación municipal es una medida política de gran impacto, precisamente por su potencial de adaptarse a un amplio espectro de situaciones de la vida real. Una docena de ciudades tienen programas nuevos, y hay campañas a su favor en otras tantas. Estos programas tienen el propósito de reducir la falta de acceso a servicios municipales para jóvenes, personas sin hogar, ancianos, ex convictos y personas trasgénero.
Las ciudades también se están dando cuenta de que, para que sus programas de identificación local tengan éxito, deben ser atractivos para todos, incluso residentes que ya tienen otras formas de identificación. El uso de estos documentos de identificación otorga beneficios en negocios e instituciones culturales locales. De esta manera, las ciudades atraen una amplia gama de participantes, lo que le da mayor legitimidad a dicho documento en la comunidad.
Mientras continúe la lucha por la reforma a nivel federal, la identificación municipal es algo que los gobiernos locales pueden hacer para incluir y empoderar a los inmigrantes en su comunidad.
Programas como estos envían un mensaje de inclusión y bienvenida no solo dentro de los linderos de la ciudad donde existen, sino también externamente, hacia el resto del país y Washington DC, donde millones de vidas están en la cuerda floja, pendientes de un debate paralizado.
Source: El Diario
Exigirán en Washington Ayuda a Puerto Rico a Seis Meses Después del Huracán
Exigirán en Washington Ayuda a Puerto Rico a Seis Meses Después del Huracán
“Los manifestantes partirán desde diversos estados y Puerto Rico y harán una primera parada en la sede central de la...
“Los manifestantes partirán desde diversos estados y Puerto Rico y harán una primera parada en la sede central de la Agencia para el Manejo de Emergencias (FEMA), para finalizar su protesta en el Congreso. Será un día con una cargada agenda que además de la protesta incluirá reuniones con congresistas y en la que no descartan los actos de desobediencia civil para llamar la atención sobre la crisis humanitaria en la isla, dijo a Efe Sammy Nemir, portavoz de The Center for Popular Democracy. De acuerdo con la coalición, que incluye también sindicatos, la "desastrosa respuesta del Gobierno federal ha sido más devastadora y dañina que el huracán".
Lea el artículo completo aquí.
Can We Forgo Wells Fargo?
Can We Forgo Wells Fargo?
When disgraced Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf was forced to resign a few weeks ago, it was a victory for economic justice...
When disgraced Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf was forced to resign a few weeks ago, it was a victory for economic justice. But this move, however dramatic, does not go far enough to fix the problems with Wells Fargo and Wall Street.
Christina Livingston, executive director of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE).
A diverse array of progressive organizations are joining forces to not only end Wells Fargo's predatory practices, but also increase the pressure for broad Wall Street reform that puts people and communities first.
Through a new "Forgo Wells" campaign, they are pushing city councils, state legislatures, school boards, and other public bodies to stop doing business with Wells Fargo. And they've already scored some wins.
The groups launching this divestment campaign include national organizations like Jobs with Justice, the Communications Workers of America, and Center for Popular Democracy, as well as local groups like New York Communities for Change, Minnesota-based Isaiah, and the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE).
Inequality.org co-editor Sarah Anderson interviewed ACCE's executive director, Christina Livingston, about her involvement in the Forgo Wells campaign.
Sarah Anderson: How did you come to be involved in this campaign?
Christina Livingston: Since our doors opened in 2010, Wall Street accountability work has been a staple issue. That's because so many of the issues people are battling have connections to Wall Street banks. From the foreclosure crisis, to wealth stripping of cities and municipalities, to student debt, and beyond, Wall Street banks and hedge funds are behaving in ways that harm you and me for the sake of unchecked power and greed.
Last year we engaged in a campaign organizing bank workers under our worker justice campaign umbrella and quickly realized that bank workers were being treated poorly by the big banks in many ways, including the use of unrealistic sales goals.
Working with the Communications Workers of America (CWA), we began to research how widespread these sales goals were and the impact they were having on workers. We didn't know then that because of these sales goals Wells Fargo workers were being compelled to open fraudulent accounts. However, given our interactions with Wells Fargo in the past, we were not surprised to find that such a widespread fraudulent practice existed. In fact, this is very reminiscent of the robo-signing practice Wells Fargo was found guilty of during the height of the foreclosure crisis.
What role will ACCE be playing in the Forgo Wells campaign?
Given that Wells Fargo is based in San Francisco, we felt compelled to immediately begin working with some of our largest California cities to call on the city government to take action. Already the Los Angeles City Council and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors have moved to suspend business with Wells Fargo and we plan to move at least 2-3 other cities in the coming months to take action. We are also encouraging organizing groups in other states to work with their legislators to suspend business with Wells at the state or city level.
Why is this a strategic moment for targeting Wells Fargo?
First, hubris and exploitation is in their DNA. They have never worked with community organizations, and racially biased marketing and fraud is baked into their way of doing business. It is sort of like a game of Jenga (or house of cards). Once you pull out that piece that makes the tower fall, which in this case was the fraud that front-line workers were forced to commit, you unearth many more parts of fraudulent behavior, and realize it is pervasive through everything.
Just a couple days ago, Wells reached a $50 million settlement for mortgage appraisal fraud. There are so many ways in which they are corrupt, and their tentacles are everywhere. They are invested big in private prisons, police foundations, the Dakota Access pipeline, Puerto Rican bonds. Basically, they are invested everywhere, and bad things come from their investments.
Do you see any potential for building alliances that cut across partisan lines in this campaign?
We think so. Part of the right-wing pushback against Hillary Clinton is that she has been friends with Wall Street. People do not trust her to stand up to the banks and hedge funds. Some of Trump's economic appeal has been his willingness to "tell it like it is." And there are unfortunately some Bernie followers who are supporting Trump. The anti-Wall Street message holds both major parties accountable.
Is this campaign just about Wells Fargo or are you trying to address broader problems with Wall Street?
This is absolutely not just a campaign about Wells Fargo, it is about all the big banks and hedge funds that are implementing practices and policies that hurt communities in order to deliver for the wealthy few at the top. Wells is emblematic of what everyone else is doing.
What would victory look like for you?
If we are really successful, we would see the break-up of Wells Fargo and would send a message that banks will be held responsible for the ways they treat their workers, shareholders, and customers. Along the way, we hope to get a fair amount of justice in monetary settlements, rights for workers, and divestment from a host of racist and exploitative investments.
This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.
By Sarah Anderson
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Jeff Flake jokes about moment when sexual assault survivors confronted him on elevator
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