tag:www.dmiblog.com,2009://2 2009-07-02T21:21:44Z All comments, ideas and thoughts on DMI Blog are property of their authors. Reasonable excerpts are permitted on other sites and blogs; otherwise reproduction without the author's permission is strictly prohibited. View our comment policy here. Movable Type 3.2 tag:www.dmiblog.com,2009://2.2406 2009-07-02T21:12:37Z 2009-07-02T21:21:44Z

Charlene Obernauer, Long Island Wins guest blogger, writes: When the majority of people in the United States think about so-called "illegal immigration", they picture a Mexican man crossing the border into the United States in the middle of the night. I don't have actual statistical numbers to back up this claim, but I do have the experience of growing up in Suffolk County, where the tensions over immigration sometimes boil to the surface...While I wholeheartedly disagree with the blame-the-immigrant discourse, one can surely ask, what about the children who came here with their parents? Read the rest of the story here

Cristina Jimenez Charlene Obernauer, Long Island Wins guest blogger, writes: When the majority of people in the United States think about so-called "illegal immigration", they picture a Mexican man crossing the border into the United States in the middle of the night. I don't have actual statistical numbers to back up this claim, but I do have the experience of growing up in Suffolk County, where the tensions over immigration sometimes boil to the surface...While I wholeheartedly disagree with the blame-the-immigrant discourse, one can surely ask, what about the children who came here with their parents? Read the rest of the story here tag:www.dmiblog.com,2009://2.2405 2009-07-02T16:27:57Z 2009-07-02T16:39:22Z

Could someone please explain to me how Atlantic Yards, which was a dubious project to begin with, is good for Brooklyn or New York City? The project, according to the IBO, is now estimated to be a money loser for the city. Now that there are no immediate plans for any office towers, the tax revenue generated from the commercial space will not materialize. The world class design of Frank Gerhy, whatever you may think of his designs, is gone. The affordable housing is also on hold. If the developer, Forest City Ratner, is fighting tooth and nail to get the financing for just the arena, what makes anyone think that Forest City will be able to finance affordable housing any time soon? What about jobs? The delayed build out of the project means that many of the temporary construction jobs would be spread out over 12-plus years. Most of the jobs at the arena would be part-time and low wage. With the first commercial tower on hold, there won't be any new white collar jobs at Atlantic Yards for the foreseeable future. The Metropolitan Transit Authority, who was expecting a new rail yard out of the deal, has said that it will settle for less; less money and less rail yard. There is a good chance that the promised open space will be replaced with parking lost for many years to come. Even if the project had all gone as planned, it would have likely had a negative impact on the area. I'm not suggesting that the current state of the site, with open rail yards, is ideal. However, there is nothing from the site plan to suggest that the development would have been anything other than a sterile master-planned community. The plan created vitality-sucking superblocks that would have discouraged pedestrian activity. The 2570 planned underground parking spots would have encouraged more automobile use, flying in the face of the goals of PlaNYC. The arena would have sit unused most nights, especially since the New York Times is already reporting an arena glut in the metropolitan area. It is still uncertain that the project will move forward. The state's highest court has agreed to hear an appeal on the eminent domain ruling. Mayor Bloomberg, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, the Empire State Development Corporation and the NYC Economic Development Corporation all insist that the project is still good for New York. They are acting as if the benefits promised in 2006 still exist. They don't.

John Petro Could someone please explain to me how Atlantic Yards, which was a dubious project to begin with, is good for Brooklyn or New York City? The project, according to the IBO, is now estimated to be a money loser for the city. Now that there are no immediate plans for any office towers, the tax revenue generated from the commercial space will not materialize. The world class design of Frank Gerhy, whatever you may think of his designs, is gone. The affordable housing is also on hold. If the developer, Forest City Ratner, is fighting tooth and nail to get the financing for just the arena, what makes anyone think that Forest City will be able to finance affordable housing any time soon? What about jobs? The delayed build out of the project means that many of the temporary construction jobs would be spread out over 12-plus years. Most of the jobs at the arena would be part-time and low wage. With the first commercial tower on hold, there won't be any new white collar jobs at Atlantic Yards for the foreseeable future. The Metropolitan Transit Authority, who was expecting a new rail yard out of the deal, has said that it will settle for less; less money and less rail yard. There is a good chance that the promised open space will be replaced with parking lost for many years to come. Even if the project had all gone as planned, it would have likely had a negative impact on the area. I'm not suggesting that the current state of the site, with open rail yards, is ideal. However, there is nothing from the site plan to suggest that the development would have been anything other than a sterile master-planned community. The plan created vitality-sucking superblocks that would have discouraged pedestrian activity. The 2570 planned underground parking spots would have encouraged more automobile use, flying in the face of the goals of PlaNYC. The arena would have sit unused most nights, especially since the New York Times is already reporting an arena glut in the metropolitan area. It is still uncertain that the project will move forward. The state's highest court has agreed to hear an appeal on the eminent domain ruling. Mayor Bloomberg, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, the Empire State Development Corporation and the NYC Economic Development Corporation all insist that the project is still good for New York. They are acting as if the benefits promised in 2006 still exist. They don't. tag:www.dmiblog.com,2009://2.2404 2009-07-01T18:28:15Z 2009-07-01T20:07:59Z

As state governments across the country grappled this week with painful decisions about tax increases and service cuts to close budget deficits, stimulus watchers raised serious concerns about the deleterious effects that these deficit-closing measures will have on economic recovery. Stephanie Kelton pointed out that "Jobs that are being created (or saved) through the left hand of the Obama stimulus package are disappearing at least as rapidly as the right hand slashes billions from state budgets." Indeed, state and local government purchases declined $78.8 billion in the last six months. These claims are used to argue for additional fiscal assistance for state governments. One popular means of providing this assistance is the now-defunct General Revenue Sharing, a Nixon administration program ended by Reagan that directed federal funds to state and (at that time primarily) local governments with essentially no strings attached. James Galbraith was an early proponent of resurrecting GRS to mitigate the economic downturn. As much as state fiscal relief does stimulate the economy and as much as a third stimulus might be necessary, GRS has two important flaws that point out a larger problem with the stimulus package: how we can effectively target stimulus funds to the people and institutions that need them most. First, GRS's allocation formula is problematic. The Wall Street Journal suggests today that so far stimulus aid has been insufficiently targeted to the states with the most need, that is, to those with the highest unemployment rates. An earlier San Francisco Federal Reserve research note elaborated on exactly which portions of the stimulus package are more and less targeted to needy states. The parts of the stimulus that are well-targeted are those with formulas that proxy for "rapid reversals in economic fortunes". This is true of the increased federal matching grant for Medicaid, which uses the rise in the state's unemployment rate as one variable in the formula. The parts that are rather poorly targeted are those with formulas based primarily on population. This is true of the state Fiscal Stabilization Fund, which uses population as its primary variable.A January Congressional Research Service report on GRS suggests that the grant program would be only modestly successful at targeting aid to needy states. Of the six states with budget deficits more than 20% of their general funds - Arizona, California, Alabama, Florida, Illinois, and Rhode Island - only three would receive more per capita than the country as a whole from a hypothetical GRS allocation of $40 billion. This hypothetical allocation would provide California with less than 25% of the funds it needs to close its budget gap; Rhode Island would receive around 30%. GRS's relationship to state unemployment is no better. Five of the ten states (including D.C.) with the highest unemployment rates would receive less than the country's per capita average from the hypothetical GRS allocation of $40 billion. In contrast, eight of the ten states with the lowest unemployment rates would receive more than the country's per capita average. GRS would certainly help states suffering from budget shortfalls. But its reliance on population, taxes, and income rather than on variables more directly associated with the economic downturn - such as the unemployment rate or, as John Judis might suggest, the number of unemployed - makes it a less-than-ideal allocation mechanism. The second problem with GRS is that it undermines the very component that is indispensable to an effective stimulus package: coordinated spending between federal, state, and local governments. By allocating funds directly to state governments with few strings attached, GRS gives federal officials little, if any, say in how funds will be expended. Rather than utilize federal resources - ranging from experience with grant programs to less susceptibility to parochial interests - to maximize the investment potential of federal funds, GRS promotes spending decisions based on local politics and short-termism. The need for federal aid for states is indisputable. But there are better ways to target stimulus funds than with a grant program that will help the states in most need only modestly and will damage the already tenuous coordination between federal, state, and local officials that is critical to economic recovery. After all, the third stimulus package should be the best so far.

Harry Moroz As state governments across the country grappled this week with painful decisions about tax increases and service cuts to close budget deficits, stimulus watchers raised serious concerns about the deleterious effects that these deficit-closing measures will have on economic recovery. Stephanie Kelton pointed out that "Jobs that are being created (or saved) through the left hand of the Obama stimulus package are disappearing at least as rapidly as the right hand slashes billions from state budgets." Indeed, state and local government purchases declined $78.8 billion in the last six months. These claims are used to argue for additional fiscal assistance for state governments. One popular means of providing this assistance is the now-defunct General Revenue Sharing, a Nixon administration program ended by Reagan that directed federal funds to state and (at that time primarily) local governments with essentially no strings attached. James Galbraith was an early proponent of resurrecting GRS to mitigate the economic downturn. As much as state fiscal relief does stimulate the economy and as much as a third stimulus might be necessary, GRS has two important flaws that point out a larger problem with the stimulus package: how we can effectively target stimulus funds to the people and institutions that need them most. First, GRS's allocation formula is problematic. The Wall Street Journal suggests today that so far stimulus aid has been insufficiently targeted to the states with the most need, that is, to those with the highest unemployment rates. An earlier San Francisco Federal Reserve research note elaborated on exactly which portions of the stimulus package are more and less targeted to needy states. The parts of the stimulus that are well-targeted are those with formulas that proxy for "rapid reversals in economic fortunes". This is true of the increased federal matching grant for Medicaid, which uses the rise in the state's unemployment rate as one variable in the formula. The parts that are rather poorly targeted are those with formulas based primarily on population. This is true of the state Fiscal Stabilization Fund, which uses population as its primary variable. tag:www.dmiblog.com,2009://2.2403 2009-07-01T15:32:29Z 2009-07-01T15:45:39Z

The housing bubble provided some clear indicators that there is something wrong with our current patterns of housing development. The suburban sprawl model that fueled the growth of many Sunbelt economies, from South Florida to Phoenix to southern California, sputtered out, leaving foreclosed homes, half-finished developments, and never-filled strip malls in its wake. It is difficult to determine cause and effect, but it is clear that the financial crisis had its roots in the wave of foreclosures that has swept the country. But, according to Joel Kotkin, once the dust settles we should just continue on our current trajectory. Kotkin believes that a "renewed quest for homeownership could underpin a sustainable recovery." However, there is nothing sustainable about our current housing model. It has real costs on our pocketbooks, our economy, and our environment. The Economist seems to agree. The Economist mentions that the housing bubble destroyed about $4 trillion in wealth before concluding, "[Policymakers'] efforts in the past few years seem to have weakened, though not destroyed, the best arguments for treating home ownership as something to be encouraged: that it increases people's savings and creates better neighborhoods for everyone." Kotkin doesn't take kindly to this type of advice. He sees this type of critique as a way for "new urbanists", "big-city theoreticians", and even "the fashion police" to force people out of their leafy bungalows and into drab apartment blocks. He seems to be defending homeownership, but really he's defending suburbs. So this is where Kotkin confuses his argument. He mixes up the concepts of homeownership versus renting and suburban sprawl versus transit-oriented development. I've argued before that we need a more balanced housing policy, one that looks at renting as a viable option for building wealth, but not that we should restrict access to homeownership. I've also argued that we need to be building higher-density housing developments in order to increase affordability, link households to jobs, and to tackle climate change. Luckily, some members of the administration have also sensed that the wind has changed direction. Earlier this year, HUD and the Department of Transportation announced a partnership that would "help American families gain better access to affordable housing, more transportation options, and lower transportation costs." The focus is on coordinating federal transportation and housing investments in order to drive down the two highest costs for households, their housing and their transportation. However, the need for diversity in our housing stock isn't just an affordability issue or an environmental issue. It's also a matter of providing choices for individuals and families. Would more Americans choose to ditch the car and take transit if that option is available? Yes. Would more Americans choose to live closer in to the central city and cut down on their commuting time if more housing was available in central neighborhoods? Yes. Would this lead to a cleaner environment? Yes. Would it lead to a healthier populace? Yes. Would it lead to, as Kotkin surmises, "declining living standards and a return to feudalism"? No.

John Petro The housing bubble provided some clear indicators that there is something wrong with our current patterns of housing development. The suburban sprawl model that fueled the growth of many Sunbelt economies, from South Florida to Phoenix to southern California, sputtered out, leaving foreclosed homes, half-finished developments, and never-filled strip malls in its wake. It is difficult to determine cause and effect, but it is clear that the financial crisis had its roots in the wave of foreclosures that has swept the country. But, according to Joel Kotkin, once the dust settles we should just continue on our current trajectory. Kotkin believes that a "renewed quest for homeownership could underpin a sustainable recovery." However, there is nothing sustainable about our current housing model. It has real costs on our pocketbooks, our economy, and our environment. The Economist seems to agree. The Economist mentions that the housing bubble destroyed about $4 trillion in wealth before concluding, "[Policymakers'] efforts in the past few years seem to have weakened, though not destroyed, the best arguments for treating home ownership as something to be encouraged: that it increases people's savings and creates better neighborhoods for everyone." Kotkin doesn't take kindly to this type of advice. He sees this type of critique as a way for "new urbanists", "big-city theoreticians", and even "the fashion police" to force people out of their leafy bungalows and into drab apartment blocks. He seems to be defending homeownership, but really he's defending suburbs. So this is where Kotkin confuses his argument. He mixes up the concepts of homeownership versus renting and suburban sprawl versus transit-oriented development. I've argued before that we need a more balanced housing policy, one that looks at renting as a viable option for building wealth, but not that we should restrict access to homeownership. I've also argued that we need to be building higher-density housing developments in order to increase affordability, link households to jobs, and to tackle climate change. Luckily, some members of the administration have also sensed that the wind has changed direction. Earlier this year, HUD and the Department of Transportation announced a partnership that would "help American families gain better access to affordable housing, more transportation options, and lower transportation costs." The focus is on coordinating federal transportation and housing investments in order to drive down the two highest costs for households, their housing and their transportation. However, the need for diversity in our housing stock isn't just an affordability issue or an environmental issue. It's also a matter of providing choices for individuals and families. Would more Americans choose to ditch the car and take transit if that option is available? Yes. Would more Americans choose to live closer in to the central city and cut down on their commuting time if more housing was available in central neighborhoods? Yes. Would this lead to a cleaner environment? Yes. Would it lead to a healthier populace? Yes. Would it lead to, as Kotkin surmises, "declining living standards and a return to feudalism"? No. tag:www.dmiblog.com,2009://2.2402 2009-06-30T19:00:00Z 2009-06-30T15:51:47Z

After the much anticipated immigration meeting, the President reiterated his commitment to reform our broken immigration system. The administration only committed to start the debate this year; hoping that a bill is passed in 2010 before the midterm elections. According to Emanuel, immigration reform lacks the votes to pass this congressional session. Congressional leaders present at the meeting and advocates feel enthusiastic about the outcome of this meeting. But the tension over a guest worker program is clear. After the meeting, Senator McCain said to reporters: I can't support any proposal that doesn't have a legal temporary worker program and I would expect the president of the United States to put his influence on the unions in order to change their position. Without a commitment to a legal temporary worker program for our high-tech community and agriculture sector, there is no such thing as comprehensive immigration reform. As I have said before, guest worker programs institutionalize a second-class labor market in which temporary workers are exploited and cannot look for other jobs. They are basically bound to unscrupulous employers. Guest workers' vulnerability in the workplace weakens conditions and lowers wages for all workers. Any kind of guest worker program will hurt foreign and native-born workers.

Cristina Jimenez After the much anticipated immigration meeting, the President reiterated his commitment to reform our broken immigration system. The administration only committed to start the debate this year; hoping that a bill is passed in 2010 before the midterm elections. According to Emanuel, immigration reform lacks the votes to pass this congressional session. Congressional leaders present at the meeting and advocates feel enthusiastic about the outcome of this meeting. But the tension over a guest worker program is clear. After the meeting, Senator McCain said to reporters: I can't support any proposal that doesn't have a legal temporary worker program and I would expect the president of the United States to put his influence on the unions in order to change their position. Without a commitment to a legal temporary worker program for our high-tech community and agriculture sector, there is no such thing as comprehensive immigration reform. As I have said before, guest worker programs institutionalize a second-class labor market in which temporary workers are exploited and cannot look for other jobs. They are basically bound to unscrupulous employers. Guest workers' vulnerability in the workplace weakens conditions and lowers wages for all workers. Any kind of guest worker program will hurt foreign and native-born workers. tag:www.dmiblog.com,2009://2.2400 2009-06-26T22:03:04Z 2009-06-27T00:33:18Z

The recession currently gripping the United States economy is the culmination of nearly a decade of poor job growth, stagnant wages, and growing inequality that has squeezed middle-class households across the country. An economy overly reliant on the profits of the financial services sector and driven by resource-intensive industries saw real median household income decline by 0.6 percent between 2000 and 2007 and the poverty rate increase by 1.2 percent. The percentage of GDP belonging to wages and salaries in 2006 was never lower. Middle-class Americans' standard of living is further threatened by human-caused climate change, which will result in more disease, heat-related death, extreme weather, and economic disruption if left unchecked. The American Clean Energy and Security Act, which the House passed today, is a significant shift of government investment away from an unsustainable economy and environment that have not worked for middle-class families to ones that will be based on sustainable, equitable growth and good jobs. The Act will reduce the economy's reliance on dirty fuels while for the first time making polluters pay the true cost of their emissions. The legislation establishes a market-based cap-and-trade system to limit emissions of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide. The program sets a declining upper limit on nationwide emissions and then issues allowances, which are rights to emit a particular amount of greenhouse pollutants. Most of the allowances would be issued to emitters for free in 2012, while the remainder would be sold at auction. Over time, the percentage of allowances auctioned off would increase until most are distributed by auction. The Act uses the allowances and proceeds from their sale to moderate the potential negative effects of the emissions cap on workers and emitters and to encourage energy efficiency. Funds are, in part, directed to protect consumers (particularly low-income households) and carbon-intensive manufacturers and to states for clean energy and energy-efficiency projects. Investments in clean energy and energy efficiency total over $190 billion through 2025 and a renewable electricity standard requires 20% of electricity to be generated through renewable energy and energy efficiency by 2020. Along with clean-energy investments made in the stimulus package passed earlier this year, the American Clean Energy and Security Act will create approximately 1.7 million jobs, reducing the unemployment rate by about a percentage point. Further investment in clean energy would create even more jobs: the American Solar Energy Society estimates that aggressive investment in energy efficiency will result in the creation of 37 million new jobs by 2030. The Act's renewable electricity standard alone would generate an estimated 185,000 new jobs by 2020. But middle-class households are in need not only of lots of jobs, but of lots of good jobs, ones that offer solid wages, access to health care, vacation, and paid sick days. Significantly, the "green jobs" created by the American Clean Energy and Security Act are concentrated in the middle portion of the wage distribution (they are neither particularly high-, nor particularly low-paying), they are unionized at a higher rate, and they are clustered in the manufacturing and construction trades, two industries with high unionization rates that have experienced severe job loss in recent years. These are all characteristics of jobs that enable households to achieve a middle-class standard of living. The Act begins the transformation to a sustainable economy that works for middle-class Americans responsibly by ensuring that most lower- and moderate-income families do not experience any hardship from the cap-and-trade program. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office finds that the annual cost of the cap-and-trade program in 2020 would be $175 per household, while households in the lowest income quintile (the lowest 20 percent of earners) would receive a net benefit of $40 from the program because of energy tax rebates. In fact, when the benefits of energy-efficiency provisions are included in the calculation of the legislation's cost to each household - the Act would decrease household spending on utility bills by 7% - the Environmental Protection Agency finds that the average household would gain $80 to $100 per year. Sill, the American Clean Energy and Security Act is not as ambitious as many had hoped. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Changes reckons that emissions should be reduced between 25 and 40 percent below their 1990 levels by 2020 in order to stabilize concentrations of GHGs and prevent the worst of environmental consequences. The entirety of the legislation only achieves, at best, a 23 percent reduction in emissions by 2020 and the cap-and-trade program alone will only achieve a 1 percent reduction from 1990 levels by 2020. Other estimates of the legislation's emissions reductions, such as that of Greenpeace, are much lower. Still, the 17 percent reduction required by the Act is equivalent to removing 500 million cars from the road, a significant achievement. The effectiveness of the legislation will depend in part on determinations of what emissions-reducing projects qualify as offsets. Authority to make this determination was delegated during 11th-hour negotiations to the Department of Agriculture, rather than to the EPA which has the institutional experience and capacity to make scientific decisions about emissions and qualifications for offsets. The Department of Agriculture will likely be too willing to classify projects with questionable emissions reductions as offsets because many of these projects will be undertaken by rural interests. Finally, the legislation allocates funds for programs of dubious worth such as "clean coal" whose merit as energy-efficient technologies has not been proven. The American Clean Energy and Security Act's creation of a cap-and-trade market provides the federal government with vast resources to invest in a labor-intensive, energy-efficient, green economy. But, like many government programs, the cap-and-trade program will be susceptible to the influence of powerful interests, whose manipulation is already apparent in the legislation's concessions to polluters. Indeed, the Act allocates vast sums to the very industries whose unwillingness to invest in energy efficiency has contributed greatly to global warming. Ceaseless oversight will be necessary to ensure that the American Clean Energy and Security Act really does transform the United States economy so that it strengthens and expands the middle class.

Harry Moroz The recession currently gripping the United States economy is the culmination of nearly a decade of poor job growth, stagnant wages, and growing inequality that has squeezed middle-class households across the country. An economy overly reliant on the profits of the financial services sector and driven by resource-intensive industries saw real median household income decline by 0.6 percent between 2000 and 2007 and the poverty rate increase by 1.2 percent. The percentage of GDP belonging to wages and salaries in 2006 was never lower. Middle-class Americans' standard of living is further threatened by human-caused climate change, which will result in more disease, heat-related death, extreme weather, and economic disruption if left unchecked. The American Clean Energy and Security Act, which the House passed today, is a significant shift of government investment away from an unsustainable economy and environment that have not worked for middle-class families to ones that will be based on sustainable, equitable growth and good jobs. The Act will reduce the economy's reliance on dirty fuels while for the first time making polluters pay the true cost of their emissions. tag:www.dmiblog.com,2009://2.2399 2009-06-26T14:59:32Z 2009-06-26T15:00:08Z

Earlier this week the state Assembly in Albany voted to expand access to college education for people receiving welfare. This legislation could help many poor and vulnerable New Yorkers, but the gridlock in the state Senate is jeopardizing its future. The leaders of the political circus upstate should take a moment to consider the story of someone like Hirah, whose life is literally in their hands and depends on their action. When Hirah graduated from high school last year, the NYC welfare agency notified her that she must do 35 hours of workfare and that her college education does not count. She got into Hunter, and is the first in her family to go to college--no small feat for a teenager receiving public assistance. She even scored an internship and started with a full load of classes. "I was then assigned nine hours of WEP (Work Experience Program) to go along with my internship and my classes. I was so upset. I kept thinking to myself, 'How will I be able to maintain a good GPA, take part in an internship, and fulfill the WEP requirement all at the same time?'," she told me. "My mom was even more worried and scared than I was. My mom was afraid that our family's case might get sanctioned and we would be left with no benefits. I am also afraid, right now, for my siblings. I do not want them to be in my same situation when it is their turn to go to college." She continued: "When I was given the WEP assignment regardless of having 13 class hours and 22 hours of internship- which adds up to 35 hours of work activity- I felt like welfare policies were placing obstacles in my way to prevent me from going to college. The hours I would have spent fulfilling the WEP requirement were going to replace the hours I would spend studying and doing homework. I was scared I might have to drop out of college. I was overwhelmed. Within the last three months, I have already missed classes because I had to attend appointments at my welfare center, at the team assessment group, at the job center, and at a fair hearing." Thousands of people like Hirah need access to education and training while receiving public benefits, especially right now, with welfare rolls growing, as the Wall Street Journal recently reported.

Maureen Lane Earlier this week the state Assembly in Albany voted to expand access to college education for people receiving welfare. This legislation could help many poor and vulnerable New Yorkers, but the gridlock in the state Senate is jeopardizing its future. The leaders of the political circus upstate should take a moment to consider the story of someone like Hirah, whose life is literally in their hands and depends on their action. When Hirah graduated from high school last year, the NYC welfare agency notified her that she must do 35 hours of workfare and that her college education does not count. She got into Hunter, and is the first in her family to go to college--no small feat for a teenager receiving public assistance. She even scored an internship and started with a full load of classes. "I was then assigned nine hours of WEP (Work Experience Program) to go along with my internship and my classes. I was so upset. I kept thinking to myself, 'How will I be able to maintain a good GPA, take part in an internship, and fulfill the WEP requirement all at the same time?'," she told me. "My mom was even more worried and scared than I was. My mom was afraid that our family's case might get sanctioned and we would be left with no benefits. I am also afraid, right now, for my siblings. I do not want them to be in my same situation when it is their turn to go to college." She continued: "When I was given the WEP assignment regardless of having 13 class hours and 22 hours of internship- which adds up to 35 hours of work activity- I felt like welfare policies were placing obstacles in my way to prevent me from going to college. The hours I would have spent fulfilling the WEP requirement were going to replace the hours I would spend studying and doing homework. I was scared I might have to drop out of college. I was overwhelmed. Within the last three months, I have already missed classes because I had to attend appointments at my welfare center, at the team assessment group, at the job center, and at a fair hearing." Thousands of people like Hirah need access to education and training while receiving public benefits, especially right now, with welfare rolls growing, as the Wall Street Journal recently reported. tag:www.dmiblog.com,2009://2.2398 2009-06-25T20:32:09Z 2009-06-25T20:57:58Z

Conservatives don't seem to understand that anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies are not popular. In a recent conference, Pat Buchanan and others advocated for English-only initiatives. Most states, however, are enacting integrative immigration polices. Ted Hesson, Long Island Wins blogger, tells us more about the American Cause National Conference: You can't hold a conference addressing English-only initiatives and then spell the word "conference" wrong. Amazingly, though, that's what happened at the American Cause National Conference this past Saturday. Read the rest of the story here

Cristina Jimenez Conservatives don't seem to understand that anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies are not popular. In a recent conference, Pat Buchanan and others advocated for English-only initiatives. Most states, however, are enacting integrative immigration polices. Ted Hesson, Long Island Wins blogger, tells us more about the American Cause National Conference: You can't hold a conference addressing English-only initiatives and then spell the word "conference" wrong. Amazingly, though, that's what happened at the American Cause National Conference this past Saturday. Read the rest of the story here tag:www.dmiblog.com,2009://2.2397 2009-06-25T19:58:52Z 2009-06-25T21:46:44Z

On the same day that New York City's Rent Guidelines Board approved rent increases on rent stabilized apartments of three percent for one-year leases and six percent for two-year leases, San Francisco was taking bold action to strengthen renter protections. New York's increases will seriously hurt low-income renters that are already suffering from the highest rate of unemployment in this economic recession. But that doesn't matter to the Rent Guidelines board which also approved extraordinarily high rent increases last year. Several New York City officials - Speaker Christine Quinn and mayoral candidates William Thompson and Tony Avella - supported the efforts of tenants to freeze increases this year because of the increasing hardships being faced by low-income renters. Mayor Bloomberg, who could have also stood up for these tenants, decided to keep silent on the issue, saying that he would leave the decision to the board (the mayor appoints the members of the board). In contrast, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors approved a series of laws that will protect low-income renters in rent stabilized apartments. One of the law states that a landlord cannot increase a household's rent above 33 percent of that household's income. The law applies to households that are experiencing hardship, defined in the law as those who are unemployed, whose wages have fallen by 20 percent or more over the past year, or whose sole income is from government assistance. Another law allows these same renters to add roommates to help them pay for their rent, even if the tenant's lease forbids it. Lastly, the law prevents landlords from "banking" rent increases, in which allowable rent increases are saved up over time and then imposed all at once. Rent stabilized apartments in San Francisco make up 88 percent of the total. In New York, it's 52 percent. Supervisor Chris Daly, the sponsor of San Francisco's legislation, stated, "This legislation makes sense give current economic conditions. These times are unprecedented. If the legislation is unprecedented, it is legislation for unprecedented times." San Francisco's time of glory may be short lived, however. Their mayor, Gavin Newsom, seems to be as unsympathetic of the plight of low-income renters as New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg. The new laws are likely to be vetoed by Newsom.

John Petro On the same day that New York City's Rent Guidelines Board approved rent increases on rent stabilized apartments of three percent for one-year leases and six percent for two-year leases, San Francisco was taking bold action to strengthen renter protections. New York's increases will seriously hurt low-income renters that are already suffering from the highest rate of unemployment in this economic recession. But that doesn't matter to the Rent Guidelines board which also approved extraordinarily high rent increases last year. Several New York City officials - Speaker Christine Quinn and mayoral candidates William Thompson and Tony Avella - supported the efforts of tenants to freeze increases this year because of the increasing hardships being faced by low-income renters. Mayor Bloomberg, who could have also stood up for these tenants, decided to keep silent on the issue, saying that he would leave the decision to the board (the mayor appoints the members of the board). In contrast, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors approved a series of laws that will protect low-income renters in rent stabilized apartments. One of the law states that a landlord cannot increase a household's rent above 33 percent of that household's income. The law applies to households that are experiencing hardship, defined in the law as those who are unemployed, whose wages have fallen by 20 percent or more over the past year, or whose sole income is from government assistance. Another law allows these same renters to add roommates to help them pay for their rent, even if the tenant's lease forbids it. Lastly, the law prevents landlords from "banking" rent increases, in which allowable rent increases are saved up over time and then imposed all at once. Rent stabilized apartments in San Francisco make up 88 percent of the total. In New York, it's 52 percent. Supervisor Chris Daly, the sponsor of San Francisco's legislation, stated, "This legislation makes sense give current economic conditions. These times are unprecedented. If the legislation is unprecedented, it is legislation for unprecedented times." San Francisco's time of glory may be short lived, however. Their mayor, Gavin Newsom, seems to be as unsympathetic of the plight of low-income renters as New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg. The new laws are likely to be vetoed by Newsom. tag:www.dmiblog.com,2009://2.2395 2009-06-25T13:15:16Z 2009-06-25T16:48:32Z

Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to make the case for the Employee Free Choice Act in the pages of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. I described the critical role unions played - and continue to play - in creating the American middle class and explained how weakened regulations protecting the right to organize had allowed employers to launch ever nastier campaigns against their own employees. The stimulus plan will help create jobs, I argued, but it won't do much for job quality. It is only when employees have the freedom to organize unions that they can improve their own job quality, lifting themselves into the middle class. Providing an opposing viewpoint was Mac Irvin, a lawyer at an Atlanta firm advising employers in "union avoidance" tactics. EFCA, he argued, "will take away the right of employees to determine their own future by secret ballot." How could I overlook such a critical point in my own essay? Because it's not true. The Employee Free Choice Act takes away no employee rights to a union election. Under current law, many decisions about union representation are already made without a secret ballot vote, using the same majority sign-up process working people use to organize throughout most of the world, as well as under state labor law in many parts of the U.S. Under this process, employers must recognize the union when a majority of workers sign cards saying they want to unionize. Academic research has failed to detect any sign of the union bullying Mr. Irvin insists is rife in majority sign up cases. The key here is that employers currently have the power to decide whether to call for an election or recognize the results of majority sign up. Under the Employee Free Choice Act, workers themselves would decide which method to use. What EFCA really puts a stop to is employer manipulation of the system: the increasingly common illegal firings, threats, surveillance and harassment that are a well-documented part of the current climate for employees trying to unionize. The situation is so bad, it has been denounced by international human rights organizations. This is far from the free and fair democratic election that Irvin describes. In a study by political scientist Gordon Lafer, the current union election process was found lacking on several critical democratic election standards. For example, democratic standards presume freedom of speech, yet Dr. Lafer notes that in U.S. union elections, "employees are restricted from openly expressing their opinions. Employers are allowed to enforce a total ban on employees discussing the proposed union outside of the break room. Yet employers enjoy unfettered communication, subjecting employees to mandatory staff meetings and one-on-one meetings with supervisors, often with the intent of intimidating those suspected of supporting union formation. Labor law provides no equal opportunities for pro-union workers to respond or present alternative viewpoints." This shortcoming is no doubt familiar to Mr. Irvin, as his own firm specializes in "train[ing] managers and supervisors... [in] communicating to employees the harm that union organizing brings" in cases where pro-union employees have no comparable access. Democratic elections also require timely implementation of the voters' will through a binding system of regular elections and fixed terms of office. Yet Dr. Lafer finds that in elections for union representation: "workers can face infinite delays in the implementation of election results. Often times these lengthy delays are a result of employers taking full advantage of permissive election guidelines. These guidelines not only allow the appeals process to drag on for years, but mandate that the workplace be governed as if employees voted against organizing for the duration of the appeals process." To get a sense of what the process really looks like for people going to work everyday, read the wrenching testimony of Smithfield Foods employee Keith Ludlum. Ludlum started organizing for a union at Smithfield's Tar Heel, North Carolina plant in 1993 and was illegally fired for his union organizing activity in 1994. The National Labor Relations Board found that union elections at his plant in 1994 and again in 1997 were tainted by massive employer violations of labor law, including Ludlum's illegal firing. After numerous appeals, the company settled in 2006, hiring Ludlum back and vowing to hold another election. In the meantime, however, the company took advantage of immigration enforcement efforts to continue spreading fear and try to drive a wedge between workers. It didn't work. In December 2008, Smithfield employees got their union after 15 years. Now all they need is a contract. Does that sound like a process we should preserve?

Amy Traub Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to make the case for the Employee Free Choice Act in the pages of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. I described the critical role unions played - and continue to play - in creating the American middle class and explained how weakened regulations protecting the right to organize had allowed employers to launch ever nastier campaigns against their own employees. The stimulus plan will help create jobs, I argued, but it won't do much for job quality. It is only when employees have the freedom to organize unions that they can improve their own job quality, lifting themselves into the middle class. Providing an opposing viewpoint was Mac Irvin, a lawyer at an Atlanta firm advising employers in "union avoidance" tactics. EFCA, he argued, "will take away the right of employees to determine their own future by secret ballot." How could I overlook such a critical point in my own essay? Because it's not true. The Employee Free Choice Act takes away no employee rights to a union election. Under current law, many decisions about union representation are already made without a secret ballot vote, using the same majority sign-up process working people use to organize throughout most of the world, as well as under state labor law in many parts of the U.S. Under this process, employers must recognize the union when a majority of workers sign cards saying they want to unionize. Academic research has failed to detect any sign of the union bullying Mr. Irvin insists is rife in majority sign up cases. The key here is that employers currently have the power to decide whether to call for an election or recognize the results of majority sign up. Under the Employee Free Choice Act, workers themselves would decide which method to use. What EFCA really puts a stop to is employer manipulation of the system: the increasingly common illegal firings, threats, surveillance and harassment that are a well-documented part of the current climate for employees trying to unionize. The situation is so bad, it has been denounced by international human rights organizations. tag:www.dmiblog.com,2009://2.2396 2009-06-24T21:10:46Z 2009-06-24T21:55:27Z

South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford's admission of an extramarital affair will dominate headlines for the next several days. I've been a rather avid Sanford-watcher for the past several months and have found quite a few opportunities to write about him. So while you soak up the sordid details of his trip, and marvel at the frankness of his press conference, here are a few things to keep in mind. Governor Sanford refused federal stimulus funds for South Carolina until the state Supreme Court forced him to accept them: The role of ideology and politics in Sanford's crusade against stimulus funding is less interesting. His ideological position is weak: government spending now is vital to ensure that future generations are actually capable of paying off future interest on debt accrued at present, not to mention that spending now will make future generations better off by investing in a new economy of energy efficiency, solid infrastructure, and green jobs. That this ideological positioning fits perfectly with Sanford's need to distinguish himself as a presidential contender certainly does not bolster his argument for rejecting the funds. In the same vein, Sanford penned an op-ed arguing that his four sons would be worse off because of government spending during the economic downturn : [T]he forgotten point of the stimulus debate [is that] running a high deficit can actually drive future economic success. Put simply, future generations - such as, for instance, South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford's four boys - would be worse off without the stimulus package, even if government debt balloons. Of course, the catch is that the government must spend on policies that provide a return to the future generations that will pay the future interest on current debt- the government must invest. Sanford sent a letter to President Bush urging him not to use TARP funds to bail out the auto industry because TARP funds were intended to shore up the financial sector:Sanford, an opponent of congressional auto industry bailout legislation as well as the TARP bailout plan, clearly hates federal spending of any sort more than he does violations of legislative intent. But his argument that the auto industry should be denied TARP funds because the American public was sold on EESA based on the universality of the banking industry is disingenuous (and probably gives too much credit to the bill's loose language). [T]he purpose of EESA is "to immediately provide authority and facilities that the Secretary of the Treasury can use to restore liquidity and stability to the financial system of the United States..." But EESA also must use this authority to promote "jobs and economic growth". It doesn't require too much of a stretch to consider TARP loans to auto companies part of an effort to restore liquidity and stability to the financial system. After all, if the auto companies could get sufficient loans through normal financial channels they would be in less trouble and Chapter 11 bankruptcy might be an option. It is, however, a stretch to see how TARP loans have thus far promoted jobs and economic growth (let alone preserved homeownership). Which purpose of TARP is really being undermined? Finally, Sanford and Texas Governor Rick Perry wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal requesting that federal government not provide money to states with budget troubles: Perry and Sanford call on the federal government "to stop believing it has all the answers." We have a system in which the federal government only steps in "for that which states cannot do themselves." Whether you believe that assertion or not, unfortunately, the "expansionist federal government" the governors criticize is the same one that has avoided doing what states cannot do for themselves (and the same one, in some important cases, that has prevented states from doing what they can do). One glaring example is President Bush's repeated veto of SCHIP. Indeed, in the same issue of the trusty Economist, the weekly writes an "e-mail" to Obama calling on him to "quickly increase the money given to states to pay for Medicaid and SCHIP (the scheme for children's health that W. hates so much). You can deflect skeptics by arguing that increased spending on health...will do more to stimulate the economy than issuing tax refunds..." At the governors' meeting yesterday, Obama told the state executives: "one of the messages that Joe [Biden] and I want to continually send is that we are not going to be hampered by ideology in trying to get this country back on track." Perry and Sanford, on the other hand, have maintained their ideological purity.

Harry Moroz South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford's admission of an extramarital affair will dominate headlines for the next several days. I've been a rather avid Sanford-watcher for the past several months and have found quite a few opportunities to write about him. So while you soak up the sordid details of his trip, and marvel at the frankness of his press conference, here are a few things to keep in mind. Governor Sanford refused federal stimulus funds for South Carolina until the state Supreme Court forced him to accept them: The role of ideology and politics in Sanford's crusade against stimulus funding is less interesting. His ideological position is weak: government spending now is vital to ensure that future generations are actually capable of paying off future interest on debt accrued at present, not to mention that spending now will make future generations better off by investing in a new economy of energy efficiency, solid infrastructure, and green jobs. That this ideological positioning fits perfectly with Sanford's need to distinguish himself as a presidential contender certainly does not bolster his argument for rejecting the funds. In the same vein, Sanford penned an op-ed arguing that his four sons would be worse off because of government spending during the economic downturn : [T]he forgotten point of the stimulus debate [is that] running a high deficit can actually drive future economic success. Put simply, future generations - such as, for instance, South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford's four boys - would be worse off without the stimulus package, even if government debt balloons. Of course, the catch is that the government must spend on policies that provide a return to the future generations that will pay the future interest on current debt- the government must invest. Sanford sent a letter to President Bush urging him not to use TARP funds to bail out the auto industry because TARP funds were intended to shore up the financial sector: tag:www.dmiblog.com,2009://2.2394 2009-06-24T18:08:49Z 2009-06-24T18:13:25Z

While most of the country tries to figure out what health insurance exchanges and health insurance cooperatives are (and what exactly South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford was doing in Argentina), Speaker Pelosi has snuck game-changing climate change legislation onto the House of Representatives calendar for a vote - and likely passage - this Friday. In addition to a renewable energy standard, the bill establishes a cap-and-trade system (two, actually: one for greenhouse gases and a separate one for hydrofluorocarbons) designed to reduce emissions 17% by 2020 and 83% by 2050 compared to 2005 levels. Limited emissions allowances will be both auctioned and sold to polluters, who can then purchase more allowances to emit more or sell allowances that are not needed because of energy efficiency improvements. In recent days, progress on the bill had been stalled by negotiations between Collin Peterson, the Democratic Chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, and Henry Waxman, Chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. At issue were the interests of rural constituents. Peterson and other farm-state representatives wanted more emissions allowances to be issued to rural electricity cooperatives and requested that the Department of Agriculture, instead of the Environmental Protection Agency (which is, evidently, in the pocket of large cities), to determine which offsets, schemes that farmers could use to make money by soaking up emissions, are acceptable. Debate, then, in these last critical days has focused on rural areas; the legislation's impact on cities has been largely ignored.In part, this is because urban and metro areas are better positioned to deal with any price increases that result from the cap-and-trade system. For one, metro areas have a smaller per-capita carbon footprint than rural areas and so on average will be less affected by the cap-and-trade system. But even representatives from older metros in the Midwest and on the Eastern Seaboard, which emit more than their Western metro counterparts because of dirtier energy sources, are less concerned about the legislation than their rural counterparts because the legislation redistributes proceeds from auctions of allowances to utilities according to increases in the price of electricity. Regions that experience more price increases receive more money, which they are required to pass along to their customers. At the same time, though, the legislation directs significant funds - 10% of the allowances in the initial years of the program - to state governments for clean energy and energy efficiency investments. This allocation ignores the leading role that cities have been playing in improving energy efficiency with programs like Chicago's green roofs initiatives and New York's plan to increase the energy efficiency of large buildings. The stimulus package is already leaning heavily on state governments to carry out energy projects. While city governments have gained experience instituting environmental initiatives, observers worry that Even the most competent government agencies have difficulty starting something new, and many state offices squeezed by budget cuts lack enough experienced civil servants to reliably avoid pitfalls. Finally, as Peterson presses for more concessions to gain farm state votes, he is sapping resources away from the meager allocations currently committed to worker assistance and job training (just 0.5% of allowances). Increased funding for job training in green collar jobs could help revitalize the industrial and manufacturing base as it retools to become more energy efficient, a critical step in ensuring the long-term vitality of the nation's metro areas.

Harry Moroz While most of the country tries to figure out what health insurance exchanges and health insurance cooperatives are (and what exactly South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford was doing in Argentina), Speaker Pelosi has snuck game-changing climate change legislation onto the House of Representatives calendar for a vote - and likely passage - this Friday. In addition to a renewable energy standard, the bill establishes a cap-and-trade system (two, actually: one for greenhouse gases and a separate one for hydrofluorocarbons) designed to reduce emissions 17% by 2020 and 83% by 2050 compared to 2005 levels. Limited emissions allowances will be both auctioned and sold to polluters, who can then purchase more allowances to emit more or sell allowances that are not needed because of energy efficiency improvements. In recent days, progress on the bill had been stalled by negotiations between Collin Peterson, the Democratic Chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, and Henry Waxman, Chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. At issue were the interests of rural constituents. Peterson and other farm-state representatives wanted more emissions allowances to be issued to rural electricity cooperatives and requested that the Department of Agriculture, instead of the Environmental Protection Agency (which is, evidently, in the pocket of large cities), to determine which offsets, schemes that farmers could use to make money by soaking up emissions, are acceptable. Debate, then, in these last critical days has focused on rural areas; the legislation's impact on cities has been largely ignored. tag:www.dmiblog.com,2009://2.2393 2009-06-23T19:22:42Z 2009-06-23T20:00:13Z

A twice-postponed immigration reform meeting between the Obama administration and key Congressional leaders is scheduled for Thursday. It's clear that Obama intends to push for immigration reform, as he said again on Friday, but a timeline has not been provided. The DREAM Act and other immigration bills will be part of the discussion. Days away from the White House meeting, hundreds of students across the country will be drawing national attention to the DREAM Act. Today, students will participate in a National DREAM Graduation ceremony in the steps of the U.S. Capitol to call for swift passage of the DREAM Act. Solidarity events are being held from coast to coast. The DREAM Act, first introduced in Congress in 2001, has strong bipartisan support. The President and leadership from both chambers support it. Educators, including the College Board and presidents of Harvard and Stanford Universities, have announced their support. In the last few weeks, businesses (Microsoft, NYC's CEOs and others) have also endorsed it. Students can't continue to be denied educational and economic opportunities. Limiting their contributions and advancement hurts our economy and the country at large. The DREAM Act should not have to wait another year to be passed.

Cristina Jimenez A twice-postponed immigration reform meeting between the Obama administration and key Congressional leaders is scheduled for Thursday. It's clear that Obama intends to push for immigration reform, as he said again on Friday, but a timeline has not been provided. The DREAM Act and other immigration bills will be part of the discussion. Days away from the White House meeting, hundreds of students across the country will be drawing national attention to the DREAM Act. Today, students will participate in a National DREAM Graduation ceremony in the steps of the U.S. Capitol to call for swift passage of the DREAM Act. Solidarity events are being held from coast to coast. The DREAM Act, first introduced in Congress in 2001, has strong bipartisan support. The President and leadership from both chambers support it. Educators, including the College Board and presidents of Harvard and Stanford Universities, have announced their support. In the last few weeks, businesses (Microsoft, NYC's CEOs and others) have also endorsed it. Students can't continue to be denied educational and economic opportunities. Limiting their contributions and advancement hurts our economy and the country at large. The DREAM Act should not have to wait another year to be passed. tag:www.dmiblog.com,2009://2.2392 2009-06-23T13:26:26Z 2009-06-23T18:54:00Z

"Our clients receive happy, appreciative employees that will thank you for allowing them the opportunity to work for you," boasted Kansas City staffing company Giant Labor Solutions. Contract for workforce needs with their company and "your recruiting, hiring, and payroll expenses will dramatically drop." What a pity trifles like alleged racketeering, forced labor trafficking, wire fraud and money laundering can come between employers and a cheap, compliant workforce. As Thomas Frank describes the federal charges against Giant Labor in a recent Wall Street Journal column: "The Kansas City ring recruited hundreds of workers from Jamaica, the Philippines, and the Dominican Republic with promises of visas through the federal H-2B seasonal worker program. To get the process started, however, the indictment says that workers had to pay the accused racketeers hefty fees. "Once in America, the workers found themselves at the mercy of the traffickers, who allegedly kept "them as modern-day slaves under threat of deportation," in the words of James Gibbons of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The recruiters apparently took care to keep the workers in debt, charging them fees for uniforms, for transportation, and for rent in overcrowded apartments. Paychecks would frequently show "negative earnings," in the words of the indictment. And if the workers refused to go along with the scheme, the traffickers held the ultimate trump card, the indictment claims: They "threatened to cancel the immigration status" of the workers, rendering them instantly illegal." The situation vividly illustrates the perils of guest worker programs. But it's not only the trafficked immigrants who lost out at Giant Labor. The exploited laborers primarily worked on hotel housekeeping staffs, cleaning rooms. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, they shared the occupation with more than 400,000 U.S. workers in 2008, making a national median wage of $9.13 an hour. It's not hard to imagine that hotel owners might not ask too many troublesome questions when a company like Giant Labor stepped in with a deal to slash their labor costs. But neither is it hard to conceive the impact of those lower wages and miserable working conditions on other hotel employees trying to get by on what is already a poverty wage for families. But if we can drag hotel workers down, we can also raise them up. In the New York City metro area, for example, housekeepers average $15.30 an hour and many get full family health benefits. The reason, of course, is the high unionization rate in the area's hotel industry, which pushes even non-union hotels to offer competitive pay and benefits to prevent their most efficient employees from leaving - or worse yet, organizing a union of their own. The nation faces a stark choice when it comes to hotel work, or any other employment. We can pass the Employee Free Choice Act, and watch a wave of union organizing lift workers throughout the country. Or we can expand guest worker programs and stick with a status quo where Americans compete for work with millions of undocumented workers with no effective rights on the job. You can bet hotel employees in Kansas City will feel the difference.

Amy Traub "Our clients receive happy, appreciative employees that will thank you for allowing them the opportunity to work for you," boasted Kansas City staffing company Giant Labor Solutions. Contract for workforce needs with their company and "your recruiting, hiring, and payroll expenses will dramatically drop." What a pity trifles like alleged racketeering, forced labor trafficking, wire fraud and money laundering can come between employers and a cheap, compliant workforce. As Thomas Frank describes the federal charges against Giant Labor in a recent Wall Street Journal column: "The Kansas City ring recruited hundreds of workers from Jamaica, the Philippines, and the Dominican Republic with promises of visas through the federal H-2B seasonal worker program. To get the process started, however, the indictment says that workers had to pay the accused racketeers hefty fees. "Once in America, the workers found themselves at the mercy of the traffickers, who allegedly kept "them as modern-day slaves under threat of deportation," in the words of James Gibbons of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The recruiters apparently took care to keep the workers in debt, charging them fees for uniforms, for transportation, and for rent in overcrowded apartments. Paychecks would frequently show "negative earnings," in the words of the indictment. And if the workers refused to go along with the scheme, the traffickers held the ultimate trump card, the indictment claims: They "threatened to cancel the immigration status" of the workers, rendering them instantly illegal." The situation vividly illustrates the perils of guest worker programs. But it's not only the trafficked immigrants who lost out at Giant Labor. tag:www.dmiblog.com,2009://2.2391 2009-06-22T15:29:50Z 2009-06-22T15:46:51Z

Atlanta, like many other US cities, is demolishing its public housing. The projects have come to be associated with crime and hopeless poverty. It was a mistake, many critics say, to have the federal government build housing for low-income individuals. In Saturday's New York Times: "We've realized that concentrating families in poverty is very destructive," said Renée L. Glover, the executive director of the Atlanta Housing Authority. "It's destructive to the families, the neighborhoods and the city." The new trend is to invite private developers to create mixed-income housing on the sites of newly demolished public housing. The federal government, through its HOPE VI program, has provided $391 million in grant money between 1996 and 2003 for the demolition of public housing projects. The federal government has gotten out of the public housing business and has shifted its focus to providing Housing Choice Vouchers to low-income households. Instead of building housing, HUD pays the difference between what low-income households can afford to pay in rent, about 40 percent of the household income, and the market rate. The shift from physical housing to vouchers is intended to disperse concentrations of poverty and to give participating households some choice in the location and type of housing they live in. The shift also represents an ideological shift, one that distrusts government and believes that the market can provide housing for all (with a little bit of subsidy). However, the federal government has not been living up to its obligations. If you are a low-income household that wishes to participate in the Housing Choice Voucher program in Atlanta, you must have a lot of patience. According to HUD: Since the demand for housing assistance often exceeds the limited resources available to HUD and the local housing agencies, long waiting periods are common. In fact, a PHA may close its waiting list when it has more families on the list than can be assisted in the near future. Atlanta does indeed have a waiting list. That list was closed in 2001. As of 2007, there were still 22,000 names on it. New York City also has a waiting list for housing vouchers. Luckily, the city also still has a viable public housing system. My colleague Harry Moroz and I argue in a recent DMI paper: The perception of public housing in the American imagination is not a flattering one. Most Americans would describe public housing projects as dirty and crime ridden. The flaws of public housing rest mainly in design--public housing tends to be physically, economically, and psychologically separated from the surrounding city--and in chronic underfunding. However, as other cities have demolished their housing projects, in New York City public housing still plays a vital role in the city's housing market. Over 400,000 people live in city-owned housing projects, a population roughly equal to that of Oakland, California. Without public housing as an option, many of these families and individuals would have nowhere else to go. Public housing can be successful and should once again be considered to support the housing needs of low-income households in our metropolitan regions. We need to remember that public housing, if done correctly, does not have to be a dirty word. Public housing projects are permanently affordable (at least when they're not being sold to private developers), they reach a segment of the population that is historically very difficult to provide housing for, and they provide opportunities for more housing development when it is needed. The mayor's New Housing Marketplace Plan has built 1,000 affordable units on land owned by the Housing Authority with 2,000 more in the "pre-development stage." Public housing has to be done right. It needs good transit connections to job centers. Public housing projects need to be physically and socially integrated with the neighborhood and the city as a whole. Done correctly, public housing can serve a vital purpose: the housing of the very poorest of our neighbors.

John Petro Atlanta, like many other US cities, is demolishing its public housing. The projects have come to be associated with crime and hopeless poverty. It was a mistake, many critics say, to have the federal government build housing for low-income individuals. In Saturday's New York Times: "We've realized that concentrating families in poverty is very destructive," said Renée L. Glover, the executive director of the Atlanta Housing Authority. "It's destructive to the families, the neighborhoods and the city." The new trend is to invite private developers to create mixed-income housing on the sites of newly demolished public housing. The federal government, through its HOPE VI program, has provided $391 million in grant money between 1996 and 2003 for the demolition of public housing projects. The federal government has gotten out of the public housing business and has shifted its focus to providing Housing Choice Vouchers to low-income households. Instead of building housing, HUD pays the difference between what low-income households can afford to pay in rent, about 40 percent of the household income, and the market rate. The shift from physical housing to vouchers is intended to disperse concentrations of poverty and to give participating households some choice in the location and type of housing they live in. The shift also represents an ideological shift, one that distrusts government and believes that the market can provide housing for all (with a little bit of subsidy). However, the federal government has not been living up to its obligations. If you are a low-income household that wishes to participate in the Housing Choice Voucher program in Atlanta, you must have a lot of patience. According to HUD: Since the demand for housing assistance often exceeds the limited resources available to HUD and the local housing agencies, long waiting periods are common. In fact, a PHA may close its waiting list when it has more families on the list than can be assisted in the near future. Atlanta does indeed have a waiting list. That list was closed in 2001. As of 2007, there were still 22,000 names on it.