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Thursday, July 20
A Pay Raise for Iowa?
by
Sam Garchik
on Thu 20 Jul 2006 09:12 AM CDT
 A Pay Raise for Iowa?
By The Iowa Policy Project A minimum-wage increase would benefit tens of thousands of working Iowans, the majority over age 20 and most of them female, according to a new report.
“Iowa’s minimum wage has remained at $5.15 since 1997,” said Elaine Ditsler, research associate for the nonpartisan Iowa Policy Project (IPP) and author of the report. “Back then, gasoline cost $1.22 per gallon and in-state tuition at the University of Iowa was $2,470. Those costs have more than doubled.”
Ditsler also noted rising prices for housing, health insurance and other consumer goods.
“The purchasing power of the minimum wage is at its lowest level since 1949,” she said. “A pay raise for Iowa’s working families is past due.”
According to the report, 21 states and the District of Columbia have raised their minimum wage above the federal level of $5.15. Seven of those states are above $7 per hour and four states adjust the wage every year for inflation.
“More than half the U.S. population is now covered by a state minimum wage higher than the federal level, including our neighbors in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Illinois,” Ditsler said. “Low-wage Iowans have been left behind.”
The report also addressed the typical arguments made in opposition to a higher minimum wage. “Economic research shows that a modest increase in the minimum wage does not negatively affect employment, and may actually lead to higher productivity,” added IPP Research Director and economist Peter Fisher.
The report found a minimum wage increase to $6.15 would benefit 53,000 working Iowans. The average hourly pay raise would be 37 cents. Of those workers:
€ 57 percent are over age 20;
€ 61 percent are female;
€ 27 percent work full time; and
€ 12 percent are parents.
If the minimum wage were increased to $7.25 per hour, about 257,000 Iowans – or 18 percent of all workers – would receive an average hourly wage increase of 60 cents. Of those workers:
€ 75 percent are over age 20;
€ 58 percent are female;
€ 42 percent work full time; and
€ 20 percent are parents.
The report also found that Iowa’s more rural northern, western, and southern regions have the largest share of workers who would benefit from an increase in the minimum wage. Numbers were also available for Iowa’s six most populous counties (Polk, Linn, Scott, Black Hawk, Johnson, and Woodbury). If the minimum wage were increased to $7.25, about 24,000 workers in Polk County, or 12 percent of all workers, would benefit. In Black Hawk County, about 14,000 workers, or 23 percent of all workers, would benefit.
The report is available on the web at http://www.iowapolicyproject.org. The Iowa Policy Project is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization based in Mount Vernon.
Friday, July 14
College Just Got A Lot Costlier
by
Caroline Vernon
on Fri 14 Jul 2006 07:00 PM CDT
 College Just Got a Lot Costlier 
By The Progress Report, July 13, 2006
I know many of you read the Progress report already but thought this was worth repeating in case anyone missed it... check out these stats!
On July 1, interest rates on student loans experienced the greatest jump in history, with the variable rate on common Stafford loans shooting up almost two percent for students and graduates. The rate hike comes as a result of the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, which was signed into law by President Bush on Feb. 8, 2006 as part of an effort to save the federal government more than $22 billion over the next five years. (By comparison, the Department of Defense spends approximately $8.1 billion a month in Iraq).
In today's global technology and information-driven society, obtaining a college diploma is more important than ever. The average college-educated worker earns about 73 percent more over a working lifetime than a high school graduate, and faces a 40 percent lower risk of unemployment. A college education opens up windows of opportunity, while leaving school prior to earning a post-secondary credential closes doors. But rising costs and shrinking financial aid are making higher education increasingly inaccessible for many Americans. Lack of academic preparation, inability to pay for a full college experience, and economic pressures to seek full-time employment already prevent many students from completing a post-secondary program. The student loan interest rate hikes will only exacerbate the problem.
Putting higher education out of reach
As of last Saturday, the new variable rate for Stafford loans will be 6.54 percent for students and 7.14 percent for graduates. In the 2004-2005 school year, the rates on the same loans were just 2.77 percent for students and 3.37 percent for graduates, and in 2005-2006, the rates were 4.7 percent for students and 5.3 percent for graduates. The interest rate hikes are estimated to add an additional $2,000 in loan payments to the average borrower's debt.
The rate hikes are only the latest blow to students trying to overcome the economic hurdles of earning a post-secondary degree. As a new report by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's (D-MA) office explains, "The cost of attending a public four-year college increased 32 percent between the 2000-2001 and 2004-2005 school years. The cost of attending a private school has also risen considerably -- a 21 percent increase -- and has reached nearly $26,500 a year."
Compounding the problem is the fact that family incomes have not been able to keep up with the exorbitant costs. According to the Kennedy report, "Median family income increased less than six percent" over the same period of time. This fall, Campus Progress will be launching a campaign focusing on the issues of student debt and access to higher education. Click here to sign up for more information.
Help is not on the way
Financial aid has been lagging behind for families in need of help. Federal grants have not kept pace with tuition growth. "While the maximum Pell Grant [which makes it possible for thousands of low-income students to attend college every year] covered 51 percent of the cost of tuition, fees, room and board at a public four-year college during the 1986-1987 school year, it covered only 35 percent of those costs in 2004-2005." As a result, more students are taking out loans to pay for college, leaving them to shoulder a larger debt burden than ever before.
From 1997-2002, the average undergraduate debt rose 66 percent. By another measure, "The average amount of federal student loan debt upon graduation has increased from $8,946 in 1992-1993 to $17,400 in 2003-2004." The debt that students are shouldering is increasingly limiting their career choices. An April 2006 report by the State PIRG's Higher Education Project shows that 37 percent of public four-year college graduates have too much debt to manage as a starting social worker, and 38 percent of private four-year college students would face an unmanageable debt burden as a starting teacher. Furthermore, reports show that students are delaying buying a home and putting off marriage due to educational debt.
One solution advocated by the Center for American Progress is to increase funding for the Pell Grant program so that it covers as much as it did two decades ago -- 50 percent of the average tuition, fees, room and board at four-year, public universities. The funding can be partially obtained by shifting student loans from bank-subsidizing programs to more cost-effective ones.
The expanding achievement gap
The gap in enrollment rates between low-income and high-income groups is distressing. The graduation rate for high-income students is 60 percent higher than the rate for low-income students. It is estimated that between 2001 and 2010, 4.4 million low- and moderate-income academically-qualified students will opt not to enroll in a four-year university, and 2 million of them will forgo college entirely -- all because the cost of a college education is beyond their reach.
American Progress Senior Fellow Gene Sperling has advocated addressing the growing achievement gap by promoting a nationwide educational early-intervention effort through partnerships between private and state universities and local communities. Part of the universities' commitment to long-term early intervention programs would entail offering free tuition to any qualified student admitted from a participating program. In addition, schools should be rewarded with cash bonuses for improving the performance of their disadvantaged students.
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"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes that you can do these things. Among them are a few Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or businessman from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."
----President Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1952-----
Thursday, July 13
Congress Values Own Paychecks More Than Workers
by
Caroline Vernon
on Thu 13 Jul 2006 11:00 PM CDT
 Congress values own paychecks more than workers
by Holly Sklar
Holly Sklar is a widely published op-ed columnist and author. Her op-eds for the Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service have appeared in hundreds of newspapers.
Call your Elected Officials Today! Capitol switchboard: (202) 224-3121
Members of Congress like to talk about values. They sure don't mean the Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
While more and more hardworking Americans struggle to make ends meet, Congress showed what it really values -- the rising value of congressional pay.
The House refused to block the $3,300 "cost of living adjustment" that will raise congressional pay on Jan. 1 to $168,500 -- not counting great health benefits, pensions and perks.
Congressional pay raises between 1997 and 2007 will add up to $34,900. That's more than average workers make in a year.
It would take more than three workers to make $34,900 at the minimum wage stuck at $5.15 an hour -- just $10,712 a year -- since Sept. 1, 1997.
Full-time workers at minimum wage make less than $900 a month to pay rent, food, healthcare, gas and everything else. No wonder the U.S. Conference of Mayors Hunger and Homelessness Survey found that 40 percent of adults requesting emergency food assistance were employed, as were 15 percent of the homeless.
Childcare workers and security guards struggle to care for their own children. EMTs and health care aides can't afford to take sick days.
Yet Congress has given itself raise after raise, while giving none to minimum wage workers.
As Adam Smith himself wrote in "The Wealth of Nations," "It is but equity … that those who feed, clothe, and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labor as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed, and lodged."
Today's minimum wage workers have less buying power than minimum wage workers did back in 1950 when Harry Truman was president. The 1950 minimum wage is $6.30 in 2006 dollars, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Inflation Calculator.
It would take $9.31 today to match the value of the minimum wage of 1968. It takes nearly two minimum wage workers to make what one worker made four decades ago.
The minimum wage has become a poverty wage instead of an anti-poverty wage. This has ripple effects far beyond minimum wage workers and their families.
The minimum wage sets the wage floor. When the minimum wage sinks, it drags down wages for workers up the pay scale as well. Between 1968 and 2005, worker productivity rose 111 percent, but the average hourly wage fell 5 percent, adjusting for inflation, and the minimum wage fell 43 percent.
The inflation-adjusted earnings of college-educated workers have fallen since 2000. Poverty rates are higher now than in the 1970s and we have an increasingly low-wage workforce instead of a growing middle class.
Contrary to myth, raising the minimum wage helps business and boosts the economy. We had high economic growth, low inflation, low unemployment and declining poverty rates after the last minimum wage hikes in 1996 and 1997. States that have raised their minimum wages above the increasingly inadequate $5.15 federal level have had better employment trends than the other states, including for retail businesses and small businesses.
Higher wages increase consumer purchasing power, reduce costly employee turnover, and improve productivity and the quality of products and services. For example, In-N-Out Burger, home of the nation's first drive-through hamburger stand, ranks first nationwide among fast food chains in overall excellence, food flavor, quality and customer service. Their entry-level wage of $9 is nearly $4 above the federal minimum wage.
Small business owner Malcolm Davis wrote in a letter to the editor, "My lowest-paid employee makes $8 per hour. … If I can find a way to be fair with my employees in rural Eastern North Carolina, why can't our government?"
A recent survey by the National Consumers League and Fleishman-Hillard Communications found that 76 percent of American consumers believe "how well a company treats/pays employees influences what they buy." Consumers said "commitment to employees" is the strongest proof of corporate responsibility and it is important for companies to ensure that workers "are paid a living wage."
A job should keep you out of poverty, not keep you in it. It's time for Congress to stop their luxury raises, and raise the minimum wage to a living wage.
Call your Elected Officials Today! Capitol switchboard: (202) 224-3121
Wednesday, July 5
Working Families Win
by
Sam Garchik
on Wed 05 Jul 2006 10:17 PM CDT
 Working Families Win
By Dave Leshtz
Friends,
1) 300 nurses at Finley hospital in Dubuque are about to go on strike. They have waged a difficult struggle against a management team that has gone as far as firing a 30-year nurse the day after a strike notice was filed. Management's primary goal appears to be a broken union. The nurses have tried to negotiate, but now feel that a strike is their only last-resort option. Call Anne at 319-350-1094 or 563-557-5832 if you'd like information on how to support these union health care providers, most of whom have lived and worked in Dubuque their entire lives.
http://www.thonline.com/article.cfm?id=122270
2) The Oman trade agreement (OFTA) is the latest version of NAFTA and CAFTA -- only worse. Cong. Leonard Boswell has yet to take a position on whether he supports or opposes a bill that has been negotiated in secret with a country that bans independent labor unions. Any Iowan concerned with international human rights and the damage that these kinds of trade agreements are doing to our own communities should contact Cong. Boswell's office immediately at 515- 282-1909.
http://www.citizenstrade.org/pdf/Oman_Sign-On_Letter,_6-27-06.pdf
Dave Leshtz
Working Families Win
319-621-4205 dleshtz@ia.net
www.workingfamilieswin.org
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