Demos Asks Obama to Step Up on Creating Good Jobs

In case you missed it: The economy is kind of in the dumps. With unemployment still uncomfortably high and real wages stagnating, lots of progressives are trying to figure out ways to kick-start the economy.

Demos and The American Prospect (TAP), in its forthcoming collaborative special report, have noted that though Congress has passed a $26 billion jobs bill earlier this month, they want the Obama administration to do something about the jobs problem as well. In a call today with bloggers and reporters, they outlined some ways Obama could kick-start jobs without congressional intervention.

As I mentioned earlier today, one of the themes that gets repeated in discussions about the economy is to push for more education. But as TAP founder and Demos senior fellow Robert Kuttner notes in the introduction, "It’s true that well-educated U.S. workers have been better defended against these trends. On the other hand, economists report that tens of millions of Americans with college degrees are already performing jobs that don’t require a college education. It is neither feasible nor necessary for every American to get an advanced degree as a defense against faltering earnings."

As Lawrence Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute said on the call, "We can expect real wage decline for a number of years to come."

But before young people panic about the state of the economy, there is a possible solution: The Obama administration to use its power to award government contracts to leverage better jobs in the economy. According to the report, the government spends $500 billion on goods and services through government contracts each year—affecting roughly one in four jobs in all of the U.S. economy.

It seems Congress has given the administration the power to place conditions on those contracts—and the courts have backed them up. Ann O'Leary, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress (CAP) senior fellow, notes that "This authority has been used by many presidents for many years." The Johnson administration once used government contracts to leverage widespread affirmative action policies, not just on the contracts procured by the government but company-wide. In a video for the CAP website, O'Leary noted that contracts could be used to create more family-friendly policies for workers.

In the TAP/Demos report, David Moberg that investigates current government contracts with companies like the meal ration manufacturer, Wornick, which pays their employees less than $10 an hour. Few of Warnick's employees are able to afford the company's health insurance plan. This is one instance in which the Obama administration could use its power of awarding contracts to place requirements of fair wages and good benefits on the companies from which it solicits services.

Of course, the report also argues that if the Department of Labor also put its effort into more strictly cracking down on violations of existing labor law, like some of the reports of Wal-Mart misclassifying warehouse workers as temporary employees. Though the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) has fallen to the bottom of the pile of legislative priorities this congressional session, the report argues that "a lot is possible without EFCA."

Ultimately the report tells the story that leveraging better job isn't just something we should sit by and hope employers will be good enough to do on their own or something that we necessarily have to rely on a dysfunctional Congress to take care of. The Obama administration has the power to create a progressive jobs agenda. The question is if they will use it.

Cross posted.

Graph of the Day: Veterans' Unemployment

Courtesy Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.

A Conservative Guide to Economics

Young America's Foundation, like many other groups on the right, is taking up the moniker of freedom as a veil for opposing progressive economic reforms. The organization is holding an event at their Reagan Ranch home on the "road to freedom: selling your freedom to government in the era of Obama." They're billing seven old white dudes to teach you about economics. Sounds riveting.

You could watch it all live on U Stream tomorrow, but -- well -- we're guessing you'd rather not. Instead, I've summarized what each of the sessions will be about:

Lecture: Rabbi Daniel Lapin, President, Toward Tradition, "Restoring America's Respect for the Morality of the Free-Market"
CliffsNotes: Seriously, guys. It wasn't free market that destroyed the world economy. It's because the market wasn't free enough.

Lecture: John Fund, Editorial Board Member with the Wall Street Journal, "Reaganomics vs. Obamanomics"
CliffsNotes: Reaganomics are better.

Lecture: Tibor Machan Ph.D., Professor, Chapman University, "Liberty: Pessimistic and Optimistic Assessments"
CliffsNotes: Sure the economy is going to hell, but let's be optimistic. The rich will still be rich.

Lecture: Reagan Ranch Roundtable: John Fund, Editor, Wall Street Journal, "A Visitors Guide to an Alien Planet: Washington, D.C."
CliffsNotes: Did you know that Washington is full of lobbyists? Also we upped our cool factor by referencing science fiction. Get it?

Lecture: Kirby Wilbur, Foundation Director and Seattle Talk Show Host, "Ronnie and Me"
CliffsNotes: In case we didn't already mention it and you didn't get it from the fact that we're hosting this event on Ronald Reagan's sacred ranch, we just wanted to reiterate that Ronald Reagan was awesome.

Lecture: Lawrence Reed, President, Foundation for Economic Education, "Great Myths of the Great Depression"
CliffsNotes: The Great Depression didn't exist. Even if it did, FDR totally wasn't the one that fixed it.

Lecture: Ivan Pongracic, Professor, Hillsdale College, "The Lessons of the Great Recession: The Limits of Knowledge in Economics and The Case for De-politicization of the Economy"
CliffsNotes: Conservative, free market economics are the only real economics.

Cross posted.

The Refined Thoughts of Nobel-Prize Laureate Paul Krugman

Paul Krugman is pissed. That seems pretty clear. While business media outlets are noting growth and cautious optimism at slowly rising stocks, Krugman is furious that Wall Street is back to usual:

First, there’s no longer any reason to believe that the wizards of Wall Street actually contribute anything positive to society, let alone enough to justify those humongous paychecks.

That certainly sounds like someone who is pissed. It's somewhat justifiable, since most of the things that promise to give our economy long-term growth, like health care reform and investing in clean and renewable energy, have ground to a halt while the president "deals" with the financial crisis. Since the crisis is so complicated, it's hard to make it a rallying cry. But Krugman sure is trying.

What Kind of Capitalism?

This poll that Marc Ambinder points to is a little misleading. He says Americans are "split" on whether they prefer socialism or capitalism, but the breakdown goes more like this:

53 percent of Americans prefer capitalism, 20 percent prefer socialism, and 27 percent say they're not sure.

That doesn't sound very divided to me. True supporters of "free market" are down from 70 percent last year, but it's still a decided majority that favor a kind of capitalism. Americans obviously love the kind of economy that gave them iPods and Amazon.com, but it's also the same economy that got them sub-prime mortgages.

Still, it's important to remember that there isn't exactly a total "free market" and there isn't really "socialism." The differences were talking about are a matter of degrees. Americans like to throw around socialism as a smear but probably wouldn't turn down a lot of the benefits found in social democratic countries like high-quality government-subsidized child care and lengthy paid maternity and paternity leave.

By posing this question as free market v. socialism, it's missing the point. No economy today is totally unregulated. You need to have some kind of regulation to make it function. Likewise, no economy today is totally socialist. The differences we're talking about are how much and what kind. Probably if you tweaked the questions to ask more in-depth questions about what the economy should actually look like, you'd get a very different picture than asking Americans to set up camp in one or another kind of political rhetoric. Until we're really willing to ask real questions about in what ways we want our economy regulated and what kinds of socialized institutions we want, polls like this are useless.

Meghan McCain Didn't Watch the Whole Interview

So Meghan McCain Twittered this after Obama's appearance on Leno last night:

But, if Meghan McCain had actually watched the interview (I mean, I know it's 27 minutes, so it's a long one) she would have noticed that Obama did deal substantively with AIG bonuses. Now, it's up for debate whether you agree with Obama's take on the bonuses, but ultimately you can't accuse him of shying away from the issue.

Take this excerpt from the transcript:

Q Let me ask you about this. I know you are angry –- because, you know, doing what I do, you kind of study body language a little bit. And you looked very angry about these bonuses. Actually, stunned.

THE PRESIDENT: Stunned. "Stunned" is the word.

Q Tell people what happened. I know people have been over it, just –-

THE PRESIDENT: Well, look, here's what happened. You've got a company, AIG, which used to be just a regular, old insurance company. Then they insured a whole bunch of stuff and they were very profitable and it was a good, solid company.

Then they decided –- some smart person decided, let's put a hedge fund on top of the insurance company and let's sell these derivative products to banks all around the world –- which are basically guarantees or insurance policies on all these sub-prime mortgages.

And this smart person said, you know, none of these things are going to go bust; this sub-prime thing, it's a great deal, you can make a lot of profit. So they sold a whole bunch of them –- billions and billions of dollars. And what happened is, is that when people started going bust on sub-prime mortgages you had $30 worth of debt on every dollar worth of mortgage –- and the whole house of cards just started falling down.

So the problem with AIG was that it owed so much and was tangled up with so many banks and institutions that if you had allowed it to just liquidate, to go into bankruptcy, it could have brought the whole financial system down. So it was the right thing to do to intervene in AIG.

Now, the question is, who in their right mind, when your company is going bust, decides we're going to be paying a whole bunch of bonuses to people? And that, I think, speaks to a broader culture that existed on Wall Street, where I think people just had this general attitude of entitlement, where, we must be the best and the brightest, we deserve $10 million or $50 million or $100 million dollar payouts –-

Q Right.

THE PRESIDENT: And, you know, the immediate bonuses that went to AIG are a problem. But the larger problem is we've got to get back to an attitude where people know enough is enough, and people have a sense of responsibility and they understand that their actions are going to have an impact on everybody. And if we can get back to those values that built America, then I think we're going to be okay. (Applause.)

Q Well, you know, it’s interesting, when you said -– it's, like, I had to laugh the other day when the CEO of AIG said, okay, I've asked them to give half the bonuses back. Now, if you rob a bank and you go into court –- (laughter) –- and you go, Your Honor, I'm going to give you half the money back. (Laughter.) And they seem stunned that we’re not jumping at this wonderful offer.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, you know, the only place I think that might work is in Hollywood. (Laughter.)

If that's avoiding talking about the bailout bonuses, then I'd like to see what Meghan was looking for. The interview, despite the joke about "Special Olympics," was one of the most substantive things I've seen on late night TV in a while.

Back From Atlanta, Clark University Lays Off 70 Faculty

This weekend I was in Atlanta for Campus Progress' very first Southern Regional Conference. This time, we had an activism track for those activist-types and a journalism track for the nerdier writer-types. Overall I was really impressed with a lot of the young people I met there. I also was impressed that a lot of our guest speakers like Ta-Nahasi Cotes, Christopher Hayes, Richard Kim, and our keynote, Isabel Wilkerson, weren't all doom-and-gloom about the future of the journalism industry.

It seems clear that media is in an economic crisis, just like the rest of the country. That, in turn is prompting a lot of changes in how media is presented -- something that would have happened eventually, but now that companies are trying to trim their budgets, they're also trimming in places and starting to see what doesn't work anymore. Many of our speakers noticed that although media seems to be "dying" it won't be dead. Instead, it just might look a little different than the hard-core newspaper days of yore. Wilkerson seemed particularly optimistic, pointing to the times historically when people said upon the invention of the radio and the television that the newspaper was dead.

This morning I saw this article in Inside Higher Ed about how Clark Atlanta University, the place where Wilkerson teaches, has laid off about 70 faculty members last week, some of them forbidden from teaching this week and had their classes canceled on Friday. Perhaps Wilkerson was optimistic about journalism, a profession in which she'd reach success by working at the New York Times and winning a Pulitzer Prize, over academia where her colleagues are getting the boot. Apparently in these tough economic times, even the university isn't a safe haven.

UPDATE: Apparently I was totally wrong. Wilkerson teaches at Emory University, not Clark. I take a week off from blogging and totally fail. The point is still interesting, though, that academia, which has traditionally been seen as a "safe" place to wait out a recession may not be such a safe place after all.

Ford: Squeezing the Middle Class

Ford proposed a new plan to Congress today with various components, which included Ford CEO Alan Mulally volunteering to accept a salary of $1 for a year. But part of the plan also includes negotiating with the United Auto Workers to cut their “labor costs”–in other words, Ford is seeking pay cuts for its workers. I understand the mentality: to save the company everyone needs to make sacrifices.

But what I wonder is if cutting workers’ wages really accomplishes the plan of stopping economic hardship. Despite claims of $70-an-hour union workers, unionized auto workers are squarely in the middle class, the economic group that’s seeing the most squeeze in this economic recession. They’re still paying taxes, but with inflation and pay freezes, the middle class is seeing their real wages shrink. By asking the unions to drop securities for their members and cut wages, the companies may actually make the economic situation worse for the average worker.

Cross posted at Pushback.

Bankers Are Like Cheap Boyfriends with Expensive Guitars.

Jessica Pressler has a great analogy for the bankers that are in dire financial straights -- but still manage to have a few billion leftover for bonuses:

Have you ever dated one of those guys who never has any money? Like you go out to the movies or whatever, and you have to pay because he's like, "I spent my entire paycheck on weed"? He never brings you flowers or anything like that because of his lack of funds, but also because, you figure, he is a burgeoning alternative rock star, and beyond engaging in such corny behavior. Then one day he suddenly shows up with a bright, shiny multi-thousand-dollar guitar. "Check out this riff!" he says, as you clench your teeth and silently seethe.

Awesome.

More on Lilly Ledbetter

Today my first column is posted over at RH Reality Check. I went down to report on fair pay rally that was down at the Capitol last week (in attendance were Hillary Rodham Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, and Lilly Ledbetter herself), but mostly it's an analysis of the candidate's economic plans for women (short version: McCain doesn't really have one):

"This is not just a women's issue," Clinton said. "This is a family issue." Clinton may as well have been speaking about a broad set of economic concerns. Pay discrimination, sick leave, the minimum wage and childcare are all economic issues that may not just affect women, but families more broadly.

After a long Democratic primary battle that was heavily tinged with disputes over women's issues, both parties' candidates seem to be making bids for the Clinton supporters through their economic plans.

As I've said before, Obama's plan is largely an adaptation of a larger economic plan for all workers. But what's good for women tends to be good for families and others. In any case, you should go over to RH Reality Check and read the whole thing.

Graph of the Day

Well, this is depressing. Via the Economic Policy Institute, women start out of college with a nearly $3.00 an hour wage difference. That amounts to roughly $6,000 a year, and we all know your starting base wage has a long-term impact on raises (which are usually figured on a percentage basis) over a lifetime. Furthermore, women's hourly wages in the few years after graduating college seem to have stayed roughly stagnant since 2003, while men's wages have averaged an increase during that time.

Furthermore, a second graph indicates that a college degree is becoming less and less of a guarantee for pension coverage and health insurance for both men and women.

Cross posted.

Dear College Graduate: Good Luck Finding a Job

That's the message of an NPR story this morning about college graduates on the job hunt. It's not available in print form yet, but you can listen to it here. Apparently if you're anything less than an A/B student, you should "take whatever job you can get." Many companies are putting hiring freezes on in light of the credit market crunch. Additionally, many graduates are competing with more "experienced" people who are on the job market because they've been laid off.

Great. As if college graduates don't panic enough during their job search.

Cross posted.