Restaurant Workers and Sexual Harassment
"When the federal government began creating job protections during the New Deal era, Congress explicitly excluded jobs associated with women and black people: domestic and farm work." [1]
Fifty-two percent of female restaurant workers report sexual harassment on the job, according to the Restaurant Opportunities Centers (ROC) United. The ROC United survey fond that restaurant workers who depend on tips and live in states that exempt tipped workers from standard minimum-wage rules are far more likely to report sexual harassment. Women workers in those states are also three times as likely to report being asked by management to make their outfits sexier.
There are as many people in food services alone (roughly 12 million) as there are in all forms of manufacturing. [2]
Addicted While Pregnant
"In Pennsylvania overall, the number of pregnant women hospitalized for substance abuse has more than doubled from 2000 to 2015; in 2015, 4,600 pregnant women were hospitalized because of a drug problem." "The last thing anyone should want to do is deter pregnant women from seeking medical care or drug treatment. But criminalizing their drug use will cause addicted women to stay away from the very people who can help them, lest they end up under arrest. That doesn't help anyone." [3]
Seven states already have statutes criminalizing self-induced abortions, and another 18 have laws on the books that can be used to prosecute women who terminate their own pregnancies. "Drug dependency is a medical condition -- not a crime. Pregnant women do not experience drug dependency because they want to harm their fetuses or because they don't care about their children."
The National Association for Pregnant Women adds that: "There is also a general lack of available substance use disorder in Pennsylvania, especially in Butler County and especially for pregnant women."
Crosshairs of Police Violence
"Over the course of the past three years, the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement has inspired protests across the country against police violence." "In each city, SWAT teams equipped with tea gas, armored vehicles and rifles patrolled the streets, and protesters were subject to mass arrests and police brutality. In Ferguson, 10 days of protesting led to 150 arrests -- 80 percent of them for 'failure to disperse.' Nearly 200 protesters were arrested in Baton Rouge." [4]
It was in 1997 that the Department of Defense began to supply surplus military equipment to police departments across the country. A 2014 report by the ACLU found that 42 percent of those visited by SWAT teams to execute a search warrant were black, and another 12 percent were Latinos. In other words, more than half were people of color.
According to a 2009 study, 9.1 percent of black Americans experienced post-traumatic disorder, compared with 6.8 percent of white Americans. The American Heart Association has found that nearly 43 percent of black American adults have high blood pressure, compared with just over 33 percent of white non-Hispanic adults. Today, black men are six times more likely to be incarcerated than white men, and black women more than twice as likely as white women. Black men are three times more likely than white men to die at the hands of law enforcement. [5]
Footnotes
[1] Kai Wright, "Safety in Numbers," The Nation, November 20/27, 2017.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Katha Pollitt, "Addicted While Pregnant," The Nation, December 18/25, 2017.
[4] Collier Meyerson, "When Protesting Police Violence Puts You in the Crosshairs," The Nation, December 18/25, 2017.
[5] Ibid.
Sunday, December 31, 2017
Thursday, December 28, 2017
Playing the Numbers Game
50% - Amount of produce thrown away in the U.S. every year.
8% - Greenhouse emissions accounted for by global food waste --more than the output of the entire European Union.
$1,600 - Amount the average family of four in the U.S. spends each year on food they end up throwing out.
$940B - Estimated annual cost of food waste globally. (Source: The Nation, October 30, 2017.)
50 - Average daily number of workers nationwide who are sexually assaulted on the job, according to the Department of Justice.
80% - Proportion of women farm workers in California's Central Valley who experienced sexual harassment on the job, according to a 2010 survey.
14,900 - Estimated number of sexual assaults in the military in 2016, according to the Pentagon; only 6,172 of these assaults were reported. (Source: The Nation, November 13, 2017.)
32% - Number of college men who said they would "force a woman into sexual intercourse" if they were assured there would be no consequences.
60% - Number of rapes and sexual assaults against inmates that are committed by prison staff.
200K - Number of untested rape kits across the country.
19K - Number of rape kits that remain untested in Texas -- among the highest in the country. (Source: The Nation, November 20/27, 2017.)
400 - Average number of plastic bags used each year by a person living in California before the state voted in 2016 to ban single-use bags.
8M - Tons of plastic that enter the ocean each year; 60 to 80 percent of all marine litter is plastic.
2050 - Year when there will be more plastic than fish in the earth's oceans, if current trends continue.
85% - Amount by which plastic-bag use has decreased in England after it required all stores to levy a 5-pence-per-bag charge starting in 2015. (Source: The Nation, December 18/25, 2017.)
$68.1 billion - The cost this year of the mortgage-interest deduction.
72.6% - Benefits going to the richest one-fifth.
1.2% - Benefits going to the poorest two-fifths.
1 in 4 - families who qualify for rental assistance actually receive it. (Source: The Nation, December 18/25, 2017.)
ADDENDUMS:
*The ridiculously low minimum wage is the reason that the restaurant industry, with 14 million workers, remains the lowest-paying sector of the U.S. economy despite being one of the fastest-growing. Moreover, more than two-thirds of tipped workers are women. (Source: Saru Jayaraman, "The Other NRA," The Nation, November 13, 2017.)
*A recent study by the Pew Research Center found that only 20 of the 700 proposals introduced in Congress since 1999 have come up for a vote.
*A Kaiser Family Foundation poll shows that 60% will blame the Trump administration and congressional Republicans for future problems with the Affordable Care Act. 73% of Republicans would blame the Obama administration and congressional Democrats.
*The World Inequality Lab has found that from 1980 to 2014 in the U.S., the post-tax growth of income percentile was 4% for the bottom 4%; 40% for the middle; 113% for the top 10%; 194% for the top 1%; 423% for the top 0.01%; and 616% for the top 0.001%.
8% - Greenhouse emissions accounted for by global food waste --more than the output of the entire European Union.
$1,600 - Amount the average family of four in the U.S. spends each year on food they end up throwing out.
$940B - Estimated annual cost of food waste globally. (Source: The Nation, October 30, 2017.)
50 - Average daily number of workers nationwide who are sexually assaulted on the job, according to the Department of Justice.
80% - Proportion of women farm workers in California's Central Valley who experienced sexual harassment on the job, according to a 2010 survey.
14,900 - Estimated number of sexual assaults in the military in 2016, according to the Pentagon; only 6,172 of these assaults were reported. (Source: The Nation, November 13, 2017.)
32% - Number of college men who said they would "force a woman into sexual intercourse" if they were assured there would be no consequences.
60% - Number of rapes and sexual assaults against inmates that are committed by prison staff.
200K - Number of untested rape kits across the country.
19K - Number of rape kits that remain untested in Texas -- among the highest in the country. (Source: The Nation, November 20/27, 2017.)
400 - Average number of plastic bags used each year by a person living in California before the state voted in 2016 to ban single-use bags.
8M - Tons of plastic that enter the ocean each year; 60 to 80 percent of all marine litter is plastic.
2050 - Year when there will be more plastic than fish in the earth's oceans, if current trends continue.
85% - Amount by which plastic-bag use has decreased in England after it required all stores to levy a 5-pence-per-bag charge starting in 2015. (Source: The Nation, December 18/25, 2017.)
$68.1 billion - The cost this year of the mortgage-interest deduction.
72.6% - Benefits going to the richest one-fifth.
1.2% - Benefits going to the poorest two-fifths.
1 in 4 - families who qualify for rental assistance actually receive it. (Source: The Nation, December 18/25, 2017.)
ADDENDUMS:
*The ridiculously low minimum wage is the reason that the restaurant industry, with 14 million workers, remains the lowest-paying sector of the U.S. economy despite being one of the fastest-growing. Moreover, more than two-thirds of tipped workers are women. (Source: Saru Jayaraman, "The Other NRA," The Nation, November 13, 2017.)
*A recent study by the Pew Research Center found that only 20 of the 700 proposals introduced in Congress since 1999 have come up for a vote.
*A Kaiser Family Foundation poll shows that 60% will blame the Trump administration and congressional Republicans for future problems with the Affordable Care Act. 73% of Republicans would blame the Obama administration and congressional Democrats.
*The World Inequality Lab has found that from 1980 to 2014 in the U.S., the post-tax growth of income percentile was 4% for the bottom 4%; 40% for the middle; 113% for the top 10%; 194% for the top 1%; 423% for the top 0.01%; and 616% for the top 0.001%.
Monday, December 25, 2017
Trump's Handling of Tax Bill Much Less Than "Exquisite"
House Speaker Paul Ryan's description of President Trump's handling of the GOP tax bill as "exquisite" strips that word of any realistic meaning. Trump has repeatedly called the tax plan "the biggest in history;" however, as measured by percentage of GDP it is eighth. He had until recently called the plan "a middle-class tax cut," while most of the benefits go to wealthy individuals and profitable corporations. He has claimed that workers will have an annual income increase of anywhere from $4,000 to $9,000. This latter claim came from the White House Council of Economic Advisers, citing an economist who recently said he had calculated an increase of a more pedestrian $800. Perhaps Trump's most ludicrous claim is that he says that the tax plan -- labeled the Tax and Jobs Act of 2017 -- "will cost me a fortune." Some media sources have demurred from the task of estimating how much benefit will accrue to Trump, because he has not released his tax returns; others, however, including Democratic lawmakers, have gone back to this released 2005 federal income tax form and calculated an annual windfall of $11 million. This windfall is predicated primarily on the reduction of the top marginal tax rate from 39.6 percent to 37 percent and the increase in the income exempted from the alternative minimum tax (ATM). Trump will also benefit from the more generous treatment of business income. Trump's heirs will be enriched by the doubling of the monetary worth of inherited assets that can be exempted from taxation.
In addition to the exaggerated claims and outright lies that President Trump has issued about the tax plan before its enactment, he has made two very damaging statements and one of lesser significance since the enactment of the Tax and Jobs Act of 2017. He has called the reduction of the corporate tax rate from 35 to 21 percent the "most important factor" in the new law, thereby seriously damaging the prevailing GOP claim that it is a middle-class tax cut. He has also said that Obamacare has been repealed in the new law. What the new tax plan has eliminated is the individual mandate: All other provisions of Obamacare -- the Affordable Care Act (ACA) -- have been retained. By saying the ACA is dead, Trump has shifted to the Republican Party the responsibility for the millions who will become uninsured; and the premium increases that will result from the millions of healthy people, mostly young, who will decide to not purchase health insurance until they are hit by a bus, are seriously injured in a vehicle accident, or are diagnosed as having an expensive-to-treat medical condition.
The less significant but still damaging statement Trump has made is to downgrade the need to advertise the benefits of the new taxation structure. He thinks the tax cuts will sell themselves as people see less money being withheld from their checks for their work. To the extent that the GOP and their financial backers restrict their advertising to appease their leader, the less effective they might be to reverse current strong public opposition, assuming that to even be possible.
Democratic pollster Nick Gousevitch says the GOP can't win with a "tax cuts for everybody" argument, when they get a small cut and people who are already rich get huge cuts. Polling consistently shows that strong majorities favor taxing wealthy people and profitable corporations more if more revenue is needed to operate government.
Historically, political parties and their leaders have not benefited from prior major tax cuts. The Republican Party lost seats in Congress after major tax cuts in the 1980s. Barack Obama did not politically benefit from the fact that workers saw nearly a $700 increase in annual pay for a reduction in the FICA tax that finances Social Security. For the Bush II tax cuts in the early 1980s, the percentage who thought the rich benefited the most went from 55 percent in April 2001 to 60 percent in October 2004.
The Democratic Party will be spending heavily in 2018 to show how the new tax law is heavily skewed toward the wealthy; also, we should expect to see photos of GOP lawmakers up for reelection enthusiastically cheering for their party leader. A progressive group plans to double its media spending to $10 million for 2018 to defeat GOP supporters of the tax legislation.
I also will predict that the hastily approved roughly 1,000-page bill will be found to have many errors that will raise problems with its enactment. Claims of tax simplification, reform and being able to file one's return on a postcard have been superseded by a new tax structure with many new complexities added.
In addition to the exaggerated claims and outright lies that President Trump has issued about the tax plan before its enactment, he has made two very damaging statements and one of lesser significance since the enactment of the Tax and Jobs Act of 2017. He has called the reduction of the corporate tax rate from 35 to 21 percent the "most important factor" in the new law, thereby seriously damaging the prevailing GOP claim that it is a middle-class tax cut. He has also said that Obamacare has been repealed in the new law. What the new tax plan has eliminated is the individual mandate: All other provisions of Obamacare -- the Affordable Care Act (ACA) -- have been retained. By saying the ACA is dead, Trump has shifted to the Republican Party the responsibility for the millions who will become uninsured; and the premium increases that will result from the millions of healthy people, mostly young, who will decide to not purchase health insurance until they are hit by a bus, are seriously injured in a vehicle accident, or are diagnosed as having an expensive-to-treat medical condition.
The less significant but still damaging statement Trump has made is to downgrade the need to advertise the benefits of the new taxation structure. He thinks the tax cuts will sell themselves as people see less money being withheld from their checks for their work. To the extent that the GOP and their financial backers restrict their advertising to appease their leader, the less effective they might be to reverse current strong public opposition, assuming that to even be possible.
Democratic pollster Nick Gousevitch says the GOP can't win with a "tax cuts for everybody" argument, when they get a small cut and people who are already rich get huge cuts. Polling consistently shows that strong majorities favor taxing wealthy people and profitable corporations more if more revenue is needed to operate government.
Historically, political parties and their leaders have not benefited from prior major tax cuts. The Republican Party lost seats in Congress after major tax cuts in the 1980s. Barack Obama did not politically benefit from the fact that workers saw nearly a $700 increase in annual pay for a reduction in the FICA tax that finances Social Security. For the Bush II tax cuts in the early 1980s, the percentage who thought the rich benefited the most went from 55 percent in April 2001 to 60 percent in October 2004.
The Democratic Party will be spending heavily in 2018 to show how the new tax law is heavily skewed toward the wealthy; also, we should expect to see photos of GOP lawmakers up for reelection enthusiastically cheering for their party leader. A progressive group plans to double its media spending to $10 million for 2018 to defeat GOP supporters of the tax legislation.
I also will predict that the hastily approved roughly 1,000-page bill will be found to have many errors that will raise problems with its enactment. Claims of tax simplification, reform and being able to file one's return on a postcard have been superseded by a new tax structure with many new complexities added.
Trump's Denigration of African Americans
African Americans Are Special Target of Trump's Ire
President Trump called Rep. Fredericka Wilson (D-FL) "wacky" in a tweet. He accused the three African American women listening in on a condolence call of lying. He asked a reporter named April if she could set up a meeting with the Black Caucus, likely thinking that since she was black, she would have a special link to the group. Then there was the black reporter with ESPN, who called Trump a white supremist, and both Trump and press secretary Sanders called for her firing. When Trump urged pro football owners to fire protesting players, it is notable that most of the those protesting have been African Americans. And now, the aforementioned April has not been invited to the White House Christmas party, even though she is part of the White House press corps.
Electing Outsiders
Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders has said:"The American people voted to elect an outsider who is capable of implementing real, positive, and needed change -- instead of a lifelong politician beholden to special interests." "If they were interested in continuing decades of costly mistakes, another establishment politician more concerned with putting politics over people would have won." A White House source slammed the Bush II and Obama legacies: "If one presidential candidate can dissemble a political party, it speaks volumes about how strong a legacy its past two presidents really had."
George H.W. Bush has fired back by calling Trump a "blowhard" and his son, George W., has said that Trump "doesn't know what it means to be president." Former House Speaker John Boehner has declared that Trump is "not a Republican."
Gun Deaths Rise
The Associated Press reports that roughly two/thirds of gun deaths are suicides and those have been increasing for about ten years. The firearms death rate rose to 12 deaths per 100,000 people last year, up from 11 per 100,000 in 2015, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Overall, the same source reports more than 38,000 gun deaths last year, up from about 36,000 in 2015 and about 33,500 each year between 2011 and 2014.
Accidents kill a youngster under age 18 on an average of every other day, based on a joint study by the Associated Press and USA Today. The study went deeper than prior studies. Deaths and injuries have spiked for those under age 5. Nearly ninety 3-year-olds were killed or injured in shootings, the vast majority self-inflicted. The death rate spikes again for ages 15-17, when victims are most often fatally shot by other children.
Republican lawmakers and their leader in the White House seem to be determined to protect the rights of violent offenders, domestic abusers, and unstable miscreants to own whatever guns they want. They are also blocking regulation of the "bump stock" accessories. In February, President Trump signed a bill rolling back an Obama-era regulation that made it harder for people with a mental illness to purchase a gun.
Environmental Nominee Has Some Quaint Views
Kathleen Hartnett White is President Trump's nominee to be the head of the Council on Environmental Quality, and she believes carbon dioxide is harmless "plant food"; equates belief in climate change to "paganism"; and calls solar and wind power "unreliable and parasitic."
She has said that coal use in the 1800s actually ended slavery in the United States, because "fossil fuels dissolved the economic justification for slavery." When in her confirmation hearing, Sen. Jeff Markley (D-OR) asked her if she believed carbon dioxide levels have increased dramatically, White answered "no."
Evangelicals Warm to Moore
A JMC analytics poll found that 37 percent of evangelicals surveyed said the allegations of sexual abuse against Roy Moore make them more likely to vote for him, and 28 percent said it makes them less likely. 34 percent said it makes no difference. In all, including those who are evangelicals and those not, 29 percent said it would make them more likely and 38 percent said it would make them less likely. The poll was conducted November 9-11.
ADDENDUM:
*The Economic Policy Institute has calculated that approximately 1.8 million veterans -- or one in five -- would get a raise if Congress raised the minimum wage to $15 by 2024. Nearly two/thirds are age 40 or older.
President Trump called Rep. Fredericka Wilson (D-FL) "wacky" in a tweet. He accused the three African American women listening in on a condolence call of lying. He asked a reporter named April if she could set up a meeting with the Black Caucus, likely thinking that since she was black, she would have a special link to the group. Then there was the black reporter with ESPN, who called Trump a white supremist, and both Trump and press secretary Sanders called for her firing. When Trump urged pro football owners to fire protesting players, it is notable that most of the those protesting have been African Americans. And now, the aforementioned April has not been invited to the White House Christmas party, even though she is part of the White House press corps.
Electing Outsiders
Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders has said:"The American people voted to elect an outsider who is capable of implementing real, positive, and needed change -- instead of a lifelong politician beholden to special interests." "If they were interested in continuing decades of costly mistakes, another establishment politician more concerned with putting politics over people would have won." A White House source slammed the Bush II and Obama legacies: "If one presidential candidate can dissemble a political party, it speaks volumes about how strong a legacy its past two presidents really had."
George H.W. Bush has fired back by calling Trump a "blowhard" and his son, George W., has said that Trump "doesn't know what it means to be president." Former House Speaker John Boehner has declared that Trump is "not a Republican."
Gun Deaths Rise
The Associated Press reports that roughly two/thirds of gun deaths are suicides and those have been increasing for about ten years. The firearms death rate rose to 12 deaths per 100,000 people last year, up from 11 per 100,000 in 2015, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Overall, the same source reports more than 38,000 gun deaths last year, up from about 36,000 in 2015 and about 33,500 each year between 2011 and 2014.
Accidents kill a youngster under age 18 on an average of every other day, based on a joint study by the Associated Press and USA Today. The study went deeper than prior studies. Deaths and injuries have spiked for those under age 5. Nearly ninety 3-year-olds were killed or injured in shootings, the vast majority self-inflicted. The death rate spikes again for ages 15-17, when victims are most often fatally shot by other children.
Republican lawmakers and their leader in the White House seem to be determined to protect the rights of violent offenders, domestic abusers, and unstable miscreants to own whatever guns they want. They are also blocking regulation of the "bump stock" accessories. In February, President Trump signed a bill rolling back an Obama-era regulation that made it harder for people with a mental illness to purchase a gun.
Environmental Nominee Has Some Quaint Views
Kathleen Hartnett White is President Trump's nominee to be the head of the Council on Environmental Quality, and she believes carbon dioxide is harmless "plant food"; equates belief in climate change to "paganism"; and calls solar and wind power "unreliable and parasitic."
She has said that coal use in the 1800s actually ended slavery in the United States, because "fossil fuels dissolved the economic justification for slavery." When in her confirmation hearing, Sen. Jeff Markley (D-OR) asked her if she believed carbon dioxide levels have increased dramatically, White answered "no."
Evangelicals Warm to Moore
A JMC analytics poll found that 37 percent of evangelicals surveyed said the allegations of sexual abuse against Roy Moore make them more likely to vote for him, and 28 percent said it makes them less likely. 34 percent said it makes no difference. In all, including those who are evangelicals and those not, 29 percent said it would make them more likely and 38 percent said it would make them less likely. The poll was conducted November 9-11.
ADDENDUM:
*The Economic Policy Institute has calculated that approximately 1.8 million veterans -- or one in five -- would get a raise if Congress raised the minimum wage to $15 by 2024. Nearly two/thirds are age 40 or older.
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