The U.S. Postal System Crisis: Product of Conservative “Reform”

Today, the postal unions representing America’s postal workers is organizing a nationwide “Day of Action” to save the US Postal Service (USPS). National news media have reported extensively on the budget crisis facing the USPS, but has done a typically abysmal job of explaining why the crisis exists. These are the facts…

Republicans, with the support of the Postmaster, are demanding service cuts and layoffs due to the U.S. Postal Service’s (USPS) inability to fund $5.5 billion due on September 30 to its federal retiree health fund. The expected 100,000 layoffs, in addition to exacerbating an already grim unemployment picture in the U.S., will hit African-Americans and veterans particularly hard – two groups that already have much higher unemployment rates than the national average. But apart from the employment issue, we need to be asking why the USPS is in such dire straits in the first place.

The biggest budget problem by far facing the USPS is the mandate placed on it by an outgoing Republican congress in 2006, requiring USPS to pre-fund, over a decade, its employee pensions for 75 years. The USPS is among a handful of employers still offering a defined benefit pension plan that provides real security to retirees after a lifetime of work. The pre-funding requirement, never asked for by the postal unions, was and remains a poison pill for a federally run postal delivery service. No other pension plan, either public or private, is required to pre-fund pension obligations for 75 years into the future in order to be considered solvent. Without this burden, the USPS would be in the black today. The cost of pre-funding has exceeded $20 billion over the past 4 years – an amount that about equals USPS losses for the period.

There are a number of ways to solve the budget crisis in the postal service, but certainly the continued pre-funding required under the 2006 postal reform law should be curtailed. It is unreasonable. But even barring this, there are other options. The Inspector General has determined that USPS overpaid into a number of other funds – between $50 and $120 billion! Those funds could be redirected to the USPS pension fund, allowing it to meet the extreme pre-funding mandate. That, of course, would require commonsense action by a current congress in thrall to Tea Party conservatives bent on decimating government services, including the delivery of mail.

The shuttering of 4,000 mostly rural Post Offices and proposed reduction of service will create real hardship for small-town residents across America. Unlike FedEx and UPS, the USPS has a mandate to serve every American, wherever they live. The private delivery services do not have to deliver to rural regions where it is not profitable, unlike the USPS. In fact, the private companies use the USPS to deliver to some rural areas, because it is cheaper for them to pay the Post Office than to deliver to these areas themselves. Clearly, the private sector will not rush in to provide service when the USPS pulls up stakes in small-town America.

Republican calls for the USPS to “operate like a private business” is undermined by the pre-funding mandate they forced on the agency in 2006, and is unreasonable given the longstanding and laudable USPS mandate to serve all Americans regardless of where they live. Instead of calling for layoffs, reductions in service, and the shuttering of thousands of Post Offices, we ought to be talking about repealing the pre-funding requirement and even subsidizing the Post Office for providing the public good of rural delivery to areas that the private sector find unprofitable to serve.

The current USPS crisis is a wholly manufactured one brought on by conservatives who have wanted to bring down the USPS for decades, allowing private companies to pick up the profitable parts of the service while leaving the rest. We must not let that happen.

Mexico: Victim of America’s War on Drugs

Mexico: Victim of America’s War on Drugs

Paul Crist, March 3, 2011

All is not well in the complex and multifaceted relationship between the U.S. and Mexico. A number of recent issues have heightened tensions, including the murder of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent Jamie Zapata, and the wounding of another agent on February 15^th, on a highway near San Luis Potosi. That incident has once again ratcheted up jingoist rhetoric from some U.S. politicians and the sensationalist frenzy of U.S. corporate media. The Mexican government swiftly arrested alleged perpetrators, and have emphasized that the gun used, as most guns used in violent crimes in Mexico, came from north of the border.

The leaking by Wikileaks of diplomatic cables written by U.S. Embassy personnel depicting Mexico’s armed forces and police agencies as “inefficient, corrupt, riven by infighting,” and “reliant on the United States for leads and operations” has infuriated Mexican President Felipe Calderón.

Mexico continues to wait for the opening of U.S. highways to Mexican trucks, as called for under the North American Free Trade Agreement. (The U.S. Congress has blocked the program under pressure from industry groups, with arguments about highway safety and illicit drug and human trafficking concerns). Mexicans are angered by state-level measures to crack down on undocumented migrants such as the Arizona “papers please” law. Indiana just slipped through similar legislation while the media was focused on protesting workers, fighting to protect the right of collective bargaining. More states are sure to follow soon with anti-immigrant measures of various stripes, while the U.S. Congress continues to avoid the issue. Given the outsize influence in Washington that big agro enjoys, the status quo is functioning quite profitably for factory farms and meatpacking plants that pay undocumented workers below-minimum wages and ignore overtime and workplace safety rules, secure in the knowledge that undocumented workers will not file complaints.

Dominating all other problems, the U.S. leadership wonders if Mexico can control violence and bring criminals to justice, while Mexico wonders when the U.S. will address the issues of demand for illegal drugs in the U.S., and the flow of guns and weaponry across the border into Mexico.

Most of these current frictions, though not all, have deep connections to the “war on drugs” being waged as a proxy war in Mexico by the U.S. There is, after all, more than a passing connection between Mexico’s ability to expand its economy and provide jobs for its citizens, and the reality and perception of insecurity that has become a central feature of U.S.-Mexico relations. There are both human and economic costs to waging this so-called war, and Mexico is bearing the full brunt of both.

It’s true that under the Merida Initiative, the U.S. is providing resources to the Mexican government for security program capacity building. The funding is mostly for U.S.-built helicopters and equipment, and U.S.-paid training (run, of course, by a private U.S. contractor, Kaseman LLC, a Chantilly, Va.-based logistics company). The U.S. rarely provides any type of aid that doesn’t mostly benefit well-connected U.S. private interests.

On Thursday, March 3, President Calderón traveled to Washington. With hat in hand, he met with President Obama and Speaker of the House John Boehner, to ask that the $1.4 billion in funding for the next phase of Merida not be cut in the budget-slashing zeal that has overtaken Washington of late. But $1.4 billion is a paltry sum, relative to the actual cost and spending for this “war” by the Mexican government. Mexico, in order to fight America’s proxy “war on drugs,” must count not only the blood and treasure of Mexican citizens, but also the forever lost economic opportunities resulting from the shifting of resources from productive uses to “war” fighting, and the incalculable loss of both foreign and domestic investment resulting from concerns over violence and insecurity.

The current situation has put President Calderón in an untenable political situation. Under intense pressure from the U.S., and given that the “war” on the cartels has defined his presidency, he can hardly back away from it now. To do so would be to admit a grave and costly error. It would likely assure a PAN party loss in the upcoming 2012 elections. Further escalation will only increase the number of deaths reported in the media, increase the complaints over human rights abuses, and make matters worse in this unwinnable “war.”

But the Mexican polity is at a tipping point. There is a widespread sense among Mexican voters – rightly so – that this “war” is neither winnable nor the responsibility of Mexico to fight. Thus, it’s unlikely that the next President will come from the PAN political party no matter what course Calderón charts. He and his party have largely shouldered the blame for four years of rising violence (granted, not in all parts of the country, but concerns that violence could spread further continue to affect public opinion throughout the country). And there’s no real evidence that his strategy will win, or even lead to any sort of end that could be defined as success. He’s damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t.

Or is he? Would it be possible to proceed toward disarmament, end the “war,” and stop aggravating the conflict? And perhaps salvaging his presidential legacy in the process?

Gil Kerlikowske, Obama’s Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy has declared an end to the metaphorical “war on drugs” within U.S. borders. What exactly that may mean for U.S. drug policy remains to be seen, but the time has come to bring a stop to the much more real war on the cartels – the overtly military strategy – in Mexico. The cartels are neither “terrorists” nor “insurgents.” As Kerlikowske has pointed out, they are “multivalent criminal organizations,” that have diversified from the sale and transport of illegal drugs into a broad range of criminal activities: kidnapping, extortion, piracy, money laundering, human trafficking, and government corruption.

A central problem with a military strategy in crime fighting is that it does not distinguish between violent and non-violent criminals, or between serious and less harmful crimes. Among all of the crimes committed by the cartels, by far the least harmful for social and economic development is the transportation and sale of drugs. It’s also the most difficult to tackle, given the insatiable demand north of the Mexican border. Drug consumption is clearly damaging, but transporting and selling drugs do not, in and of themselves, create violence, economic crisis, or human suffering. Even the harm of drug consumption pales in comparison to the effects on a society of kidnappings, human trafficking, and beheadings – particularly when the drug consumed is marijuana, the sale of which constitutes up to two thirds of cartel profits by most estimates.

The effect of waging this unwinnable “war” on the relatively non-violent trade in prohibited drugs has, to a large extent, pushed the criminals toward more dangerous, harmful, and violent crimes. Under pressure from the U.S., Mexico has concentrated scarce law enforcement – and increasingly, military – resources toward a relatively harmless crime. As the criminals amped up their firepower and diversified into truly violent activities, Mexican authorities have been forced to do the same. The result has been an unending spiral of increasing violence by both sides. The cartels have diversified into violent activities to augment revenue needed to defend turf and protect “business interests.” The cartel violence is a predictable outcome of threats to a business model that was, to a cartel boss, working pretty well until 2006, when the current “war” strategy was begun. Meanwhile the military and law enforcement agencies have engaged in violent rights abuses and errors that have gone largely uninvestigated and unprosecuted.

The problem is not a lack of firepower; it is too much firepower on both sides of the “war,” and indeed, the very strategy of “war” itself.

Mexico should turn from this strategy, and focus on investigating, apprehending, prosecuting and punishing violent criminals, rather than on the transportation of drugs. Resources should be refocused – increased – for domestic security and policing of violent crime. This must include advanced training and better pay for law enforcement personnel; implementation of effective criminal investigation techniques; effective internal controls for law enforcement agencies; and judicial system capacity building for fairer and swifter prosecutions. And Mexico should do this on its own so as not to be beholden to U.S. pressure regarding non-violent crime related to drug transport and sale. The participation of the military within Mexico should be ratcheted down as quickly as is feasible while ratcheting up law enforcement for violent activities.

Such moves would help to reduce the appeal for engaging in extreme violence by the cartels, as the “core business,” – drug transport – again becomes a safer way to make money. And money is, in the end, what they’re after. It would ratchet down the number of homicides and the concomitant media sensationalism, giving tourism and other economic sectors in Mexico some breathing room. And it would reduce the incidence of human rights abuses that are currently earning Mexico well-deserved opprobrium from global and national rights communities.

U.S. politicians and those who profit handsomely from the ongoing “war on drugs” would no doubt be infuriated at Mexico’s change of strategy. The rhetoric in the U.S. media would surely be swift and damning. The U.S. interest in denying its own culpability, for the drug problem, remains strong. But at some point, the rest of the world needs to simply say, “Enough!” and force the U.S. to deal with its drug problem at its root: the demand side.

Mexico’s change of strategy on fighting the cartel activities would cost it Merida Initiative funding, and Mexico would be “decertified” for insufficiently combating drug production and trafficking. But Mexico is already branded, and so what? State Department “decertification” is little more than an annual charade anyway. It’s time the “supplier” countries stood up to the U.S. and insist that the U.S. do much more to reduce demand, to admit and deal with its own culpability, in exchange for future cooperation on the supply side.

The proposal for a change in strategy is not legalization, nor is it dependent on legalization of drug use. It certainly implies no pact with the cartels. On the contrary, it is intended to increase, not reduce, the pressure brought against the perpetrators of violent crimes. It is intended to enhance the rule of law and foster greater respect for law enforcement and the justice system.

Such a change in strategy would elicit swift and vigorous applause from Mexican citizens, who have largely concluded that peace and prosperity are more important than stopping the flow of drugs to eager consumers north of their border. The “No más sangre” (No more blood) movement is but one example of growing calls for change. The cartels need to be controlled, but in a way that does not destroy the fabric of Mexican society and its economy. It makes no sense to win the war if it leaves the country in shambles. It makes even less sense if the war is unwinnable, and the country is left in shambles.

President Obama would do well to listen to the Mexican people – perhaps instead of the supplicants who come to Washington seeking favors – and balance their voices with those of his military and drug policy advisers. The central objective for both Mexico and the U.S. in addressing the issue of drugs and the cartels should be the reduction of violence and establishment of the rule of law. Without these, everything else fails.

 

Paul Crist owns and manages Hotel Mercurio in Puerto Vallarta, and is the founder and President of Vallarta Enfrenta el SIDA, A.C. (V.E.S., Vallarta Confronts AIDS in English). A Washington, DC native and political activist interested in a range of public policy issues, he also leads a bipartisan effort to gain Congressional authorization for extending U.S. Medicare coverage to eligible seniors living in Mexico. He is a founder of Americans for Medicare in Mexico, A.C., and The Center for Medicare Portability. He holds degrees in Architecture, Political Science, and a Master’s Degree in International Economics. He has lived and worked as an economist in several Latin American countries, and was a staff member for a U.S. Senator for several years. He divides his time between Puerto Vallarta and Washington, DC.

Additional of Paul’s writing may be found at https://cristpd.wordpress.com/

Comments on his policy articles and editorials may be directed to: paul@paulcrist.org

ADA Launches Jobs-Social Security-Minimum Wage Campaign

ADA Launches Jobs-Social Security-Minimum Wage Campaign

Undaunted by setbacks, Americans for Democratic Action today launches a Progressive agenda for jobs, rejuvenating the American economy, saving Social Security, and raising the minimum wage.

JOBS

• Workers without jobs can’t provide adequately for the basic needs of their families. The unemployment crisis is damaging families and contributing to a multitude of economic and social ills, including:

o The highest poverty rate for working-age people between 18 and 64 – 12.9% in 2009 – since 1965. Today, 43.6 million Americans are living in poverty, 19 million of whom are in deep poverty.

o Workers who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own often cannot pay mortgages and rent, even when receiving unemployment benefits, which are not equivalent to wages lost. The foreclosure crisis –primarily the outcome of misdeeds of bankers and mortgage brokers – is driving further declines in home values while destroying once-vibrant neighborhoods. Joblessness also contributes to increased homelessness, which is not only tragic for families who lose their homes, but is accompanied by broader social harms and increased budget pressures on already strapped local and state governments.

o Unemployed workers – along with many who are still employed – are losing employer-based health insurance coverage. In 2009, 50.7 million people were without health insurance – the highest number of uninsured since the Census started collecting the data in 1987. Joblessness is increasing pressure on public programs such as Medicaid, while increased use of uncovered emergency services by those with no other option for care is driving further increases in healthcare costs for small businesses and those still fortunate enough to have jobs and healthcare coverage.

o Workers without jobs can’t pay taxes that provide the resources to hire teachers, police and firefighters, build and maintain roads, provide for appropriate national security, ensure product safety, protect the environment, and fill urgent long- and short-term national needs.

We condemn the folly of deficit slashing while 15 million Americans remain unemployed – plus 11 million more who are under-employed or have dropped from the labor force. Insufficient economic demand and idle productive capacity in the economy, in the short-term, bleeds federal and state budgets, whether or not current economic conditions meet the official definition of “recession.” Reckless spending (except perhaps for ill-conceived and poorly executed wars) is not the cause of our budget woes. This is made obvious as conservatives decry the deficit, but cannot or will not name any specific government program they would slash in order to meet their demands for deficit reduction.

Job creation – and the economic growth that spurs job creation – is the only way to reduce a budget deficit that is primarily the result of high unemployment. Unemployed workers represent idle productive capacity – lost wages and lost economic output. Lost wages reduce demand for goods, services, and investment, and depress tax receipts. Without consumers with money to spend, firms don’t invest or hire, leading to more joblessness and still lower output. That leads to declining tax receipts along with growing demand for automatic stabilizers (such as unemployment benefits) and safety net services (such as Medicaid, food stamps, and housing assistance). Government deficits are inevitable in economic downturns with high unemployment.

Since firms will not hire or invest where demand is lacking, and unemployed workers cannot expand consumption and increase demand, only the government can spur growth – through deficit spending and investment. Tax cuts may be helpful, but in the current climate, direct spending and investment will more quickly and more strongly stimulate demand. Investing now in America’s current and future prosperity is the remedy for both joblessness and the long-term budget deficit.

Conservatives argue that austerity will spur economic growth. That argument is based on evidence that fiscal austerity reduces interest rates (borrowing costs) for firms, and thus stimulates investment. But the evidence for this model does not mirror current conditions. Interest rates in the U.S. are already at historically low levels, yet firms are not investing or hiring. Moreover, few of the countries that experienced rapid growth while practicing fiscal austerity adopted austerity when the economy was operating far below its potential level of output, and in no case was a country as far below its potential as the U.S. is today.

Furthermore, all of the evidence that austerity fosters growth comes from countries with a much larger percentage of their economy involved in export industries than is the case with the U.S. Trade provides a source of demand for countries with a large export sector. The U.S. currently cannot rely on export-led growth to stimulate sufficient demand to reduce unemployment. For unemployment to be reduced in the short run, domestic demand must be increased. Thus, arguments for slashing government budgets in order to stimulate jobs and economic growth are not credible under current economic conditions.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) may have created or saved up to 3.3 million jobs and averted a second Great Depression, according to the independent Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates. But simple math shows that it was woefully insufficient to offset the loss of $2.1 trillion in economic activity, $3.4 trillion in lost home values, and $7.4 trillion in lost stock values in 2009 and 2010. Not only was $787 billion in stimulus insufficient to offset the losses, it was also swamped by an estimated $570 billion in spending cuts by state and local governments over the 2009-10 period. Thus, the stimulus provided by ARRA and other measures amounted to only about $126 billion per year for 2009 and 2010. The total effective stimulus was perhaps only 10% of the output lost.

By 2014, the CBO projects that total lost output will reach $3.4 trillion – more than $11,000 per person – assuming unemployment returns to normal levels by then. That figure will be worse if unemployment remains high. Additional and substantial economic stimulus that more realistically accounts for current economic realities is required, both to create jobs and to begin building the foundation for a prosperous future in which budget deficits can be reduced without causing economic contraction during a period of record unemployment.

The way to achieve a balanced federal budget is with a sound banking system and rational monetary policy; government investment (recognizing the difference between spending and investment); and full employment at decent wages and benefits.

We need jobs, and we have much work to do.

A great nation can’t remain great with crumbling bridges and schools, bursting water mains, leaking untreated sewage, grossly inadequate transportation systems, over-dependence on foreign oil, unaffordable higher education, and broadband preparedness that ranks 15th among OECD countries. ADA calls for restoring America’s global competitive position with a restored manufacturing base, and rebuilt and expanded public infrastructure including broadband, throughout the nation.

A great nation consists of livable cities and towns that work for people, with decent affordable housing, quality public schools, well-designed and functioning public transportation systems, and jobs that provide decent wages. Cities cannot be warehouses for vast numbers of homeless and impoverished people who have no prospects and no hope.

A great nation will be at the forefront of addressing global problems that have resulted from past mistakes. Global warming, polluted water, and energy insecurity require investment in high-speed railroads and mass transit systems; emission-free vehicles and the infrastructure to power them; research, development, and construction of renewable energy sources, such as solar, wind, and waterpower. These investments must be made at home, creating jobs in America, with enforced fair labor standards and collective bargaining rights.

To begin the process of restoring America’s industrial-employment base, ADA calls for fair trade policies that promote economic activity and lift wages in all nations, including our own; reformed tax policies that reward companies for creating jobs here, rather than for shipping them overseas; and national and local purchasing goals that support American manufacturing.

For community restoration and further job growth, ADA calls for doubling funding for programs to employ youth – including high school dropouts, high school graduates, and college graduates. This includes expanding AmeriCorps, the Job Corps, and the Peace Corps, a renewed Civilian Conservation Corps to restore our national parks and forests, a Neighborhood Corps to protect, maintain and revitalize (or as necessary demolish) distressed housing, and Home Care Corps providing services to the elderly in their own homes.

These ambitious programs, sparked by public investments, will generate millions of jobs that pay middle-class wages, serving urgent national needs and restoring the private economy. These are the necessary underpinning of a strong America.

SOCIAL SECURITY

Social Security is under siege on multiple fronts, most of them familiar.

• Social Security is not part of the budget deficit. It’s been made a scapegoat by long-time enemies of the program. Social Security payments are, in fact, not government spending at all. Government spending includes the purchases of goods and services by government. Social Security payments are direct transfers from working people with more income to the elderly, disabled, widows and orphans who have less income, and who mostly contributed to the program during their working years. As such, a dollar reallocated from one final consumer to another has no direct effect on GDP whatsoever. Such transfers are fair and effective, increasing security and reducing poverty.

• The Commission on Deficit Reduction is co-chaired by millionaire Erskine Bowles and former Senator Alan Simpson, who calls Social Security retirees “Greedy Geezers,” as if either man would consider living on the average benefit of $13,860 per year. The Commission includes only one economist; the rest are career politicians, most of whom have supported cuts to Social Security. And the Commission has accepted support from Peter G. Peterson, who has waged a relentless, decades-long campaign to cut Social Security and Medicare. The composition of the Commission is deeply flawed, including bias and conflicts of interest. Any proposal by the Commission regarding Social Security cuts should be rejected.
• For two-thirds of the elderly, Social Security is at least half their income. About a third of the elderly rely on Social Security for most of their income. Social Security isn’t in jeopardy, except from the Commission, other privatizers, and unemployment – jobless workers don’t pay payroll taxes.

• With no changes, Social Security can pay full benefits until 2039, and thereafter about 80% of currently scheduled benefits. Simple changes that don’t damage the program, and make contributions more progressive, can be made. Changes in FICA tax policies for higher-income earners would make it possible to reduce contributions by lower income earners, making the system less regressive and helping to address the enormous income gap that has developed in the U.S. over the past 30 years. Policy options include:

o Raising the cap on which the payroll tax (FICA) is applied above the current $106,800;
o Removing the cap entirely; or
o Applying the cap to all taxable income, including interest, dividends, and capital gains.

• The payroll tax, currently accumulating a $2.6 trillion surplus, is invested in US government bonds, about the safest investment in the world.

• Proposals to allow workers to contribute a portion of their FICA contributions to individual accounts are a sure way to undermine the entire Social Security system, and must be off the table. It may sound harmless, but siphoning off funds earmarked for Social Security makes it impossible to pay for current benefits. Individual accounts held in investment funds would be subject to the ups and downs of the business cycle. For those fortunate enough to retire in good times, the accounts may be a good deal. For those reaching retirement in a downturn, the effect could be disastrous. They may have little more than a much-reduced Social Security benefit to survive on and face years of poverty in retirement. We should not forget the last two years and the disastrous effect of the recession on 401(k)s.

• Baby boomers are retiring; our population is aging. Legislators noticed that in 1987 and took care of it by increasing the payroll tax, and by gradually increasing the retirement age to 67 by 2022. That increase in the normal retirement age cut benefits by 13%. Postponing retirement is tough for people who’ve had physically demanding jobs (unlike doctors, lawyers, economists, professors, and legislators). Recent data on longer life expectancy, the principal argument for raising the retirement age still further, have shown that longer life spans in the U.S. are principally a luxury for the well-off. Further, the life expectancy numbers are skewed because of declines in infant and young-adult mortality. Ordinary working Americans aren’t living appreciably longer lives, and thus longer retirements are largely a myth.

• We should also attract more young workers by creating an economically rational immigration policy.

o Current undocumented workers should be given a path to citizenship. This will ensure that they are appropriately contributing taxes, while affording them protections they now lack, including protection from workplace discrimination, wage and overtime protections, workplace safety, and collective bargaining rights.

o The Dream Act, a bill to provide citizenship to young people who were brought to this country as children, should be made law immediately. This would provide a path to citizenship for those who attend college or serve two years in the US Armed Forces, and would help the U.S. retain the most successful, productive young immigrants.

o Large numbers of the brightest students from around the world come to earn degrees from U.S. universities. Many wish to remain in the U.S., but our broken immigration system makes it nearly impossible for them to do so. We should be encouraging these graduates to remain in the U.S. on completion of their studies.

MINIMUM WAGE

The third prong of ADA’s program is increasing and indexing the minimum wage. It lags at a shameful $7.25 per hour, while Republicans call for tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires. At its current level, the minimum wage barely provides an annual income above the individual poverty level, and many minimum wage earners are trying to raise families. It is unconscionable that anyone working full time in America should be mired in poverty, unable to meet basic needs of shelter, food, heat, and clothing.
• The minimum wage should be increased, and should in future be indexed to the Consumer Price Index, to ensure that it keeps pace with the rising cost of living.

Opponents of raising the minimum wage will say that it increases unemployment. The evidence for this is extremely spotty. In some states that have increased their minimum wage, unemployment has declined relative to neighboring states that have maintained minimum wage at the federal level. In others, very small increases in unemployment were seen for the lowest-wage workers, and even those increases were temporary. Most of the economic research indicates that modest increases to the minimum wage have a negligible effect on employment, which is much more affected by other economic factors. The benefit of an increase to those workers at the minimum wage level outweighs the negligible effect on employment levels, and ADA strongly supports action on legislation to adjust the current minimum. ADA forged the coalition that led to the last increase in the minimum wage, and we can do so again.

All three prongs of ADA’s program – JOBS, SOCIAL SECURITY, and MINIMUM WAGE – are of a piece, and are essential to restoring the American middle class. The Republicans are raring to enact slashing cuts that mirror those of the Tories of the UK, a formula for a double-dip recession or worse. We know better. Americans need jobs. Our country needs refurbishing. Workers need jobs that pay for housing, food, education, and a decent standard of living. Workers pay Social Security taxes, so the elderly, disabled, widows, and orphans can survive above poverty. And minimum wage workers must not be left behind. ADA stands ready to build the Liberal movement to carry out this agenda.