Earlier today I praised the Obama administration's move to extend labor protections, including overtime and the minimum wage, to some two million home aides. Now for the reality check: This step will surely increase the cost of caring for the aged and disabled at a time when millions of Baby Boomers are starting to retire, straining entitlement programs. What's more, hikes to the minimum wage—such as one recently enacted by California—will further boost home care costs.
Progressives both in and outside New York City are super excited about Bill de Blasio running City Hall. President Obama summed up those feelings in his endorsement yesterday of de Blasio, saying that his ideas for universal pre-K and affordable housing could make him a "great mayor."
Suppose we think income redistribution is a good idea -- given near-record corporate profits at a time when wages for most workers are stagnant. There are two main ways to achieve this goal: We could make business pick up the tab directly by raising the minimum wage, making it easier for workers to form unions, and mandating more employee benefits, such as paid vacation time. Or, we could leave business alone, but give poorly paid workers public benefits like tax refunds, free health insurance, food assistance, and so on.
In 2005, Indiana passed a law requiring voters to present a government issued photo-ID before they would be allowed to vote. The law was challenged by voting rights advocates and was upheld by the Appellate Court and ultimately, the Supreme Court. The Appellate Court concluded that the burden placed on potential voters to show a photo-ID was outweighed by the state’s interest in reducing voter fraud.
Last week, I wrote about the “separate but equal” two-tiered voting system that Arizona and Kansas want to implement that would create two separate ballots for elections; one with federal, state and local races for eligible voters who show proof of citizenship, like a birth certificate or passport, and another with only federal races for remaining voters.
"It's unbelievable, probably half the states in the country have bills in play and more than a dozen are seriously in the pipeline," Tova Wang of the left-leaning think tank Demos told TPM in an interview. "It's really unprecedented in terms of geographic scope. I've never seen anything like it certainly since I've been working on voting rights issues that voter suppression bills would be introduced in so many places at the same time."
Among the other states taking up the issue are Alabama, Arkansas, Kansas and Ohio. In all four of those states, Republicans advanced their Voter ID bills last week. Those states look to join the eight states that require photo ID and the 19 that require some form of ID, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
The debate on voter ID is a clash between some people, many of them conservatives, who believe more restrictions are needed on voting and registration to rein in fraud, and others who think the process needs to be opened up to more voters, according to Miles Rapoport, who as secretary of state for Connecticut from 1995 to 1999 oversaw that state's election process.
Long lines, challenged ballots and two of the closest presidential elections in the country's history have touched off a landslide of propo
Steve Carbo, of the Democracy Project, a New York-based advocacy group that pushed for broader voter registration, said Iowa did far better than many states in implementing the provision.
Voter registration among the disabled and elderly in Iowa increased eight-fold between the 2000 and 2004 elections, Secretary of State Chet Culver said Wednesday.
Demos, a non-partisan election reform group, said higher voter turnout, especially among youth, reversed a decades-old trend of low electoral participation. The group said about 120 million voted in the Nov. 2 election, an increase of 15 million voters from 2000.
Election Day registration, or EDR, makes it possible for new voters, the recently relocated and those whose registrations were incomplete or lost, to participate without unnecessary hurdles, the group said.
A photo voter ID law signed by Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry is unnecessary, unfair, restrictive and intentionally discriminates against African-American and Latino voters, a coalition of civil rights groups will argue in a letter to the Justice Department on Wednesday.
In their new book, "Good Jobs America: Making Work Better for Everyone," Paul Osterman and Beth Shulman argue that the United States needs to worry about not just creating millions more jobs but also ensuring that the jobs are good ones.
The public is overwhelmed by budget deficits, shrinking public supports, and the inability of its government to compromise. In this climate, so-called minority issues seem like a distraction. But black and Latino men between the ages of 16 and 24 are profoundly more likely to be poor than whites, more likely to be unemployed or the victims of violent crime, and less likely to graduate from high school.
Their employment prospects are dim, their debt is high, their lives are on hold and a stunning number are living with their parents, even into their 30s.
The jobs crisis and rising healthcare costs have left millions of young Americans without healthcare coverage but the health reform law is turning things around, according to a new report from the liberal groups Demos and Young Invincibles.
White youths are more pessimistic about their economic future than young minorities, though black and Hispanic youth are more likely to be in a worse financial position right now.
