Workers make it, but corporate executives take it. The gap between what workers produce and what they take home has reached an all-time high. Since 2000, American workers’ productivity has grown by 19 percent, but income changes don’t reflect their hard work. Real median family income has actually fallen since 2000. [Economic Policy Institute]
Employers are denying workers the “union advantage.” Collective bargaining raises union members’ full-time median earnings by $10,400 a year. [Bureau of Labor Statistics] But union organizers and activists who try to help their co-workers form a union face a one-in-five chance of being fired for their efforts. [Center for Economic and Policy Research]
Forty-five years after the passage of the Equal Pay Act, pay still isn’t equal. Women earn 78 cents for every dollar earned by men. This gap costs the average woman $5,710 a year, causing an economy-wide impact of $319 billion. [Institute for Women’s Policy Research] For women of color, the gap is even greater: they earn about 60 cents for every dollar a white man makes.
After years of work, many Americans face an insecure retirement. Twenty-five years ago, 88 percent of workers who participated in a workplace retirement plan were covered by a defined benefit pension; in 2004, only 37 percent were. [Economic Policy Institute] Employers have shifted responsibility for retirement to workers through 401(k) plans, for which workers must shoulder most of the costs. Corporations that are cutting pensions for rank-and-file employees are using their pension funds to give oversized bonuses to executives. [Wall Street Journal]
The Argument
Pro-worker policies are pro-growth policies. Wage-driven growth in spending is the best path to a strong economy. Without it, bubble-driven growth emerges, as it did with tech stocks in the 1990s and housing more recently [Economist Dean Baker] Fair wages for all workers help ensure healthy consumer demand and economic expansion.
Working families need government on their side. Businesses are charging families more and more for necessities, while employers are taking away benefits and workers’ rights. American workers need their leaders to stand up and ensure that big companies play by the rules.
Enforcing equal pay laws helps everyone. More women are working outside the home, which means more families depend on the salaries women earn. [Bureau of Labor Statistics] Raising women’s earning levels can also help raise the wages of their male co-workers.
Progressive Solutions
Workers drive our economy, so our economy should work for them—not for special interests.
Freedom to unionize. American workers need the Employee Free Choice Act to protect their right to form unions and bargain collectively. More about the Employee Free Choice Act To sign a petition supporting the Employee Free Choice Act, click here.
Fair wages for all. Pass the Paycheck Fairness Act—which would strengthen protections against wage discrimination—and prevent conservatives from repealing the Davis-Bacon Act, which ensures that workers on public-works projects are paid the prevailing wage.
There is no credible evidence that school vouchers improve student achievement. Two studies from Bush’s own Department of Education found that the voucher program in Washington D.C. has had no impact on students’ academic performance. [Department of Education 2007, 2008] An exhaustive eight-year study of Milwaukee’s school voucher program reached the same conclusion. [Economic Policy Institute] The Milwaukee study also found that vouchers failed to raise public school achievement through competition, as many conservatives had claimed they would.
There is no credible evidence that private schools are better than public schools. There is virtually no difference between public and private school students’ academic achievements, once family background characteristics are taken into account. [U.S. Department of Education, Center on Education Policy] Attending a private school does not make a low-income student more likely to attend college, or to find a satisfying job later in life. [Center on Education Policy]
Vouchers fail to put private education in reach of students from the neediest families. Voucher programs do not cover the full cost of tuition at many private schools, leaving families and the schools to make up the difference. New Orleans, for example, caps voucher payments at $6,300, though the area’s elite private schools charge tuitions of over $20,000 a year. [Times-Picayune] Vouchers also fail to help low-income families meet other costs of private education, such as uniforms, books, and transportation.
Private schools receiving vouchers are not held to the same level of accountability as public schools. Even though vouchers are funded with public-school dollars, the private schools that take them do not have to meet the same standards that public schools do, such as those outlined in the No Child Left Behind law. In Washington, D.C., nearly 18 percent of schools that received vouchers reported that a significant proportion of their teachers lacked bachelor’s degrees, and many of the schools were not accredited. [Government Accountability Office]
The Argument
Our goal must be quality education for all, not for a few. We know that every child should have the opportunity to attend a high-quality school—so he or she can grow up to live the American Dream. Vouchers take funding, energy, and attention away from public schools, which is precisely the opposite of what’s needed.
Progressive Solutions
Public funds should support public schools. Instead of wasting public school dollars on private schools, we should invest in programs intended to improve every school, such as smaller class sizes, magnet programs, and measures to recruit and retain the very best teachers.
It’s back-to-school time. In conservative politics, that means it’s time to pull out their tired old ideological war-horse, school vouchers. But vouchers represent a cut-and-run strategy in public education and Americans have never liked them: voters have rejected every voucher and tuition tax credit referendum proposed in the past 30 years. Progressives need to speak up for quality schools, not school vouchers.
Americans strongly believe that NAFTA and similar trade agreements have hurt our economy. Fifty percent of Americans think “free international trade has hurt the economy” while only 26 percent think it “has helped the economy.” Fifty-eight percent say globalization is “bad because it has subjected American companies and employees to unfair competition and cheap labor” while only 25 percent say it is “good.” Moreover, nearly half of all Americans believe that free trade agreements have hurt their personal financial situation, while only 27 percent believe such agreements have “helped.” [PollingReport.com]
NAFTA has cost more than one million U.S. jobs. NAFTA advocates promised that the treaty would create hundreds of thousands of jobs in the U.S. Instead, trade deficits with Mexico and Canada have displaced over one million U.S. jobs. Roughly 660,000 of the lost jobs were in manufacturing. [Economic Policy Institute]
NAFTA has driven down U.S. wages. According to an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute, the one million Americans whose jobs were displaced by NAFTA were forced to take a pay cut of about 18 percent. Because of NAFTA, U.S. workers lost wages totaling about $7.6 billion in 2004 alone.
The Argument
NAFTA and similar trade agreements are weakening America. NAFTA was designed by and for the multinational corporations and banks—a strategy for Wall Street, not for Main Street. It encourages companies to ship our inventions, technologies and jobs abroad where they can take advantage of minimal safety, environmental and labor standards. That needs to change.
Progressive Solutions
We’ve got to stop approving trade agreements modeled after NAFTA. Instead, we need to renegotiate NAFTA and other current trade agreements so that they work for American workers. We need new trade rules that help raise up safety, environmental and labor standards abroad, rather than driving them down here. And we must restore our position as the best country in the world for both business and labor by investing in bridges and roads, mass transit, broadband access, energy independence, new “green” technologies, and better schools.
WE KNOW that global warming is one of the most urgent problems facing our nation and our world. Yet right now Americans are far more concerned about the cost of oil and where to get it than they are about the perils of climate change. So don't focus on environmentalism. Simply frame the issue as a matter of energy independence.
WE SHOULD SAY: We must end America's dependence on foreign oil and simultaneously meet the challenges of global warming. Over the past seven years, conservative politicians have just said no to solutions and to science. They scorned the reality of global warming, blocked progress on clean energy, and fought against efforts to roll back massive subsidies to oil companies wallowing in the largest profits in the history of corporations. We need change. Let's make a concerted effort to develop clean-energy technologies that will address global warming, move America toward energy independence, and simultaneously create millions of new jobs.
The Facts
Global warming is scientific fact. According to NASA scientists, 2007 tied with 1998 for the title of Earth’s second warmest year on record. [NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies] In fact, the eight warmest years on record have all occurred since 1998, and the 14 warmest years have all occurred since 1990. The polar icecaps are unquestionably melting. There is overwhelming agreement among climate scientists that an increase in greenhouse gases caused by human activity has contributed to the problem of global warming. [Harris Poll]
Global warming has already caused extensive damage. In recent years, western states have endured severe wildfires. Drought has created dust storms in the Great Plains, floods have caused billions of dollars in damage, and hurricanes have become more destructive. Three independent government reports released in the past year found that global warming is contributing to these environmental disasters. [GAO, USDA, National Science and Technology Council]
Air pollution that causes global warming is disproportionately generated by the United States. Though the entire world contributes to the buildup of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere, the U.S. emits the most global-warming pollution. Americans make up just four percent of the world’s population, but produce 25 percent of the carbon-dioxide pollution from fossil fuels. [National Resources Defense Council]
The Bush administration not only did nothing to combat global warming, it also cooked the books, pressuring government scientists to mislead Americans about the climate change threat. From the House Oversight Committee to the Union of Concerned Scientists to the testimony of NASA scientist James Hansen, it is well documented that the Bush administration, as the NASA Inspector General put it, “reduced, marginalized, or mischaracterized climate change science” to mislead policymakers and the public about the dangers of global warming.” [NASA Inspector General, Washington Post] The most recent federal government report on global warming only saw daylight after a years-long judicial battle forced it out. [New York Times]
Conservatives in Congress repeatedly blocked legislation to address global warming. When conservatives controlled Congress, nothing was done to address America’s addiction to oil or to make renewable energy accessible and affordable. Now majorities in both houses support clean energy, but the conservative minority in the Senate killed legislation in 2007 that would have required 15 percent of our electricity to come from renewable sources. Moreover, conservatives used a filibuster to block the 2008 bipartisan global warming bill in the U.S. Senate. [Washington Post]
The Argument
We need a proactive energy policy that ends our dependence on oil. Because of foot-dragging by President Bush and his conservative allies, America is faced with an energy crisis. If we had started to increase our clean energy supply 7 years ago, we’d be well on the road to addressing global warming and we wouldn’t be paying 4 dollars a gallon for gasoline today. We can’t afford more delay.
The debate about global warming is over; the right got it wrong. It’s time for conservatives to take their heads out of the sand, acknowledge the scientific fact of global warming, and agree with Americans that we need to take steps to solve the problem.
It’s time to put our children’s future ahead of oil industry profits. Conservative energy policies—written by the big oil companies—have failed America. Let’s change direction by harnessing American ingenuity to create a new energy future based on conservation, energy efficiency, and clean power.
Progressive Solutions
America can simultaneously meet the challenge of global warming and revive our economy. We must make a concerted drive to realize the promise of the clean-energy technologies that will move America toward energy independence while creating millions of new jobs, a mission outlined by the Apollo Alliance plan.
Invest in proven strategies for fighting global warming. Now is the time to begin investing in research and energy conservation efforts such as weatherizing homes and improving solar and wind technologies. An investment and growth agenda isn’t only the right answer to our environmental and energy problems; it’s also a vital strategy in this political climate. Conservatives are arguing for a “kitchen sink” approach to our environmental crisis. They’re trying to grab government subsidies for risky and untested projects such as offshore drilling and nuclear reactors—projects that can’t bring the change we need. Only progressives have a clear, science-based plan to fight global warming and achieve energy independence.
Get our priorities in order by devoting our resources to clean energy, not subsidizing oil companies. Oil companies are raking in record profits while “wind farms” across America are threatened with the loss of essential government funding. So why are conservative politicians fighting for oil company tax breaks and other giveaways? Sustaining these perverted priorities is a crime against the future.
Meet Al Gore’s challenge to generate 100 percent of our electricity from clean and renewable sources in 10 years. Working toward this goal will reduce our dependence on foreign oil, cut the greenhouse gases that are destabilizing our climate, and unleash American ingenuity to bring new energy solutions to the market.
In the long run, we must clamp down on polluters. To avert a climate crisis, we must gradually lower carbon emissions, cutting greenhouse gas levels 30% by 2020 and 80% by 2050. We should also eliminate financial incentives to pollute by implementing a “cap and trade” system. This system will offer a limited number of pollution permits for businesses to buy and transfer. Some conservatives say they favor a cap and trade system, but they would give away most pollution permits instead of selling them. Pollution permits should be auctioned off to generate funds that can be used to help consumers meet their energy costs, and to help kick start implementation of clean energy technologies.
As you know, the current political debate is too focused on phony solutions (e.g., offshore oil drilling) and irrelevancies (e.g., Paris Hilton). All of us in the progressive movement share a responsibility to move substance to the center stage. As in 1992, “it’s the economy, stupid.”
On August 1, 2007, Minneapolis’ I-35W bridge over the Mississippi River collapsed during rush hour, killing thirteen people. This tragedy is an illustration of a much larger problem—the deterioration of our nation’s infrastructure. Progressives should not be afraid to talk about spending priorities during this election. Polls demonstrate that the public supports “increasing government spending on things like public-works projects to help create jobs.”
George Bush, John McCain, and their conservative allies believe that the Iraq war has been worth the cost. About two-thirds of Americans disagree, according to a recent poll. Apparently, conservatives don’t understand “opportunity cost”—the basic economic concept that when you choose to buy one thing, you can’t use that money to buy something else. We offer ways to make it plain.
Read the Making Sense Alert | Watch the "Opportunity Costs" Video
The federal minimum wage has increased from $5.85 to $6.55, providing a much-needed raise to millions of American workers. Today is a good day to remind our fellow citizens that we’re on their side while the right wing fights against the interests of American workers.
Let’s tout last year’s victory. But let’s also remind Americans that the job isn’t done—we need a minimum-wage solution that works for the long term.
» From Our Blog:"The Next Minimum Wage Fight"
Our immigration system has been broken for years, and the Bush Administration let the situation fester. Bush was beholden to the corporations that wanted cheap labor, and the Republican Party was held hostage by anti-immigrant ideologues who thrive on fear and xenophobia. We must get beyond demagoguery to deal with the real problems.
The Facts
America’s immigration system is broken. About 12 million people live in the U.S. without authorization. Before 2008, about 500,000 illegally entered the U.S. every year. [Pew Hispanic Center]
Nearly half of illegal immigrants crossed the border legally. As many as 45 percent entered the U.S. with a legal visa and then stayed when the visa expired. A smaller number entered legally using a Border Crossing Card that allows short visits to the border region. [Pew Hispanic Center] So even if an impregnable wall could be built along our nearly 2,000-mile-long border with Mexico, it would have only a limited effect.
The people affected by any change in immigration policy are not just Mexicans; many, in fact, are American citizens. While 76 percent of the nation’s unauthorized immigrants are Hispanic, only 59 percent are from Mexico. [Pew Hispanic Center] And despite the status of their parents, 73 percent of the children of unauthorized immigrants were born in this country and so are U.S. citizens. [Pew Hispanic Center] Therefore, many of the harsh proposals offered as solutions would be ineffective or would devastate innocent children.
Unauthorized immigrants pay taxes and contribute to our economy. It is estimated that unauthorized workers paid nearly $50 billion in federal taxes between 1996 and 2003. [Drum Major Institute] Between one-half and three-quarters of unauthorized immigrant workers pay federal and state income taxes, Social Security taxes, and Medicare taxes. [Immigration Policy Center] Even low estimates put unauthorized immigrants’ contribution to the nation’s GDP at $428 billion a year. [Associated Press]
Without major reforms, immigration authorities cannot fix the problem. Despite the fact that the budget for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency grew from $3.7 billion in 2004 to $5.1 billion in 2008, the number of unauthorized immigrants living in the United States increased during that period by more than 30 percent. [Department of Homeland Security, Immigration Statistics]
The idea that we can round up 12 million immigrants is absurd. Conservatives know perfectly well that it is impossible to arrest and deport 12 million people. That would be almost like rounding up every living soul in New England (Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Massachusetts combined). That’s five times more than the number of inmates incarcerated in every prison and jail in the nation. [Washington Post]
Americans strongly favor immigration reform that provides a path to legal status. Sixty-six percent of Americans believe we are “better off if people who are illegal become legal taxpayers so they pay their fair share,” while only 23 percent believe we are “better off if people who are illegal left the country because they are taking away jobs that Americans need.” [America’s Voice] Similarly, 61 percent support giving illegal immigrants “the right to live here legally if they pay a fine and meet other requirements,” according to ABC News. That’s up from 49 percent in 2007. [ABC News/Washington Post Poll]
The Argument
Our immigration system is broken and can only be fixed by comprehensive reform that benefits both foreign and native born workers. We need to protect our borders, crack down on corporations that hire illegal workers for cheap labor, and require immigrants who are here to register and meet a series of strict requirements to earn citizenship.
By enforcing existing employment laws, we will remove the incentives for employers to hire unauthorized workers. When corporations pay illegal workers low wages and force them to work under miserable conditions, all workers lose as wages come down and basic worker rights are diminished. For most of his term in office, George Bush failed to enforce the law in order to protect the companies that were benefiting from the cheap labor.
We need to turn unauthorized immigrants into taxpaying citizens. We need a commonsense solution that reflects who we are as Americans—a strong but compassionate nation. It’s long past time to stop the mindless fear-mongering.
Conservatives don’t have a realistic solution to this problem; they just want to divide and distract Americans. The idea that we can arrest and deport 12 million immigrants is absurd—and they know it. That would be almost like rounding up every living soul in New England (Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Massachusetts combined). That’s five times more than the number of inmates incarcerated in every prison and jail in the nation.
The Right is Wrong
Opponents argue that progressive plans are just a fancy way of saying amnesty. They say we can’t reward those who have broken the law. But in fact, progressive legislation would only reward immigrants who follow the rules and earn citizenship. Conservatives say they’re against illegal immigration, but they don’t have any practical solutions. If you’re really against illegal immigration, this is the only way to solve the problem.
Opponents argue that law-abiding citizens are losing money because we’re paying for social services for illegal immigrants. But in fact, unauthorized immigrant workers pay taxes on their paychecks—and can’t get refunds that they would otherwise be owed. They are ineligible for nearly all government services. And services they might receive, like police protection or treating an infectious disease at a hospital emergency room, tend to make us all more secure.
Opponents argue that immigrants are refusing to learn English and changing our national culture. But in fact, recent immigrants are not acting any different than all our immigrant ancestors did. It takes time, but they are fitting in, working hard, strengthening communities, and building a better future for all.
Progressive Solutions
We must create an immigration system that protects both foreign and native born workers, and at the same time guarantees the security of our nation without compromising our fundamental civil rights and civil liberties. We can do this if we:
Enforce our employment laws to remove incentives for companies to hire illegal workers and stop allowing employers to turn full-time, permanent, year-round jobs into temporary jobs under guest-worker programs.
Spend the resources necessary to gain control of our borders.
Provide a path to citizenship for the unauthorized workers here who have worked hard, paid taxes, and made positive contributions to their communities.
Reverse international policies that contribute to the misery that forces people to leave their homes. Reform our trade policies so they raise, rather than lower, living standards for workers everywhere. And engage Mexico on ways to make that country’s economy work.
George Bush, John McCain, and their conservative allies believe that the Iraq war has been worth the cost. About two-thirds of Americans disagree, according to a recent poll. Apparently, conservatives don’t understand “opportunity cost”—the basic economic concept that when you choose to buy one thing, you can’t use that money to buy something else. We offer ways to make it plain.
The federal minimum wage has increased from $5.85 to $6.55, providing a much-needed raise to millions of American workers. Today is a good day to remind our fellow citizens that we’re on their side while the right wing fights against the interests of American workers.
Let’s tout last year’s victory. But let’s also remind Americans that the job isn’t done—we need a minimum-wage solution that works for the long term.
» From Our Blog: 
