A Tax Bill to Depress the Economy
The so-called tax bills just passed by the House and Senate will depress the economy, which is easy to understand.
Governments rapidly return all of their tax money to the economy for salaries, schools, health care, defense contractors, road building and plenty more. They tend to put tax money into the spending stream as it arrives generating spending for, and income to, millions of people widely dispersed in all the states. Federal tax money tends to be spent in the United States and therefore supports the domestic economy.
To cut taxes by billions and billions to enrich a small number of people and corporations with no need to return that buying power to the spending stream guarantees a slowdown. A look at annual Corporate 10K reports often finds billions sitting as cash in liquid accounts. Corporations are slow to return revenues and profits to the spending stream and they have no obligation to spend in the United States. Tax money that once supported our domestic economy will end up going abroad.
The rich speculate in stocks and real estate and trendy collectibles and bid up the price of things that already exist, all of which creates nothing much for employment or the economy. Recall the Credit Default Swaps and Collateralized Debt Obligations after the Bush era tax cuts, and the depression that followed.
Claims that tax breaks to the rich creates a bigger supply of capital to finance investments ignores the need for demand and the mass buying power that cannot exist in a country with the crude and extreme inequality of the United States and tax bills to make it worse.
The bloated and privileged rich can do nothing to benefit the country or the economy buying the Congress and helping themselves to the country’s buying power. Some of us think the wealthy and the Congress have a responsibility to support the welfare of the larger society. Instead they act like marauders and midnight looters, pillaging and laying to waste.
Monday, December 4, 2017
Saturday, November 25, 2017
Job Rights and Sexual Harassment
Job Rights and Sexual Harassment
The recent spate of sexual harassment charges against a growing number of men by a growing number of women derives directly from the U.S. history of labor relations. Notice the majority of charges occur as part of employment and while on the job. The harassers tend to be past middle aged white men accustomed to giving authoritarian orders to people who have no job rights.
As I recall from my high school history, it was all white men who wrote our constitution. In spite of the “all men are created equal” stuff in the Declaration of Independence, their constitution left women out entirely and then created a whole under class of people with no rights at all; slaves they were called. We did have a great civil war to end slavery, but authoritarian white male privilege and notions derived in part from dictatorial authority over slave women, who I have read, were subjected to some grimy and disgusting sexual abuse. Unlike slaves you can quit your job, but in the United States employees work at will; anyone can be dismissed at any time and without cause or explanation. If you dare to study closely your job rights under U.S. state and federal law be sure to compare them with slavery.
Privileged white men of authority hate any communitarian self help efforts like labor unions and they have successfully neutralized those efforts since 1789. Remember Trump bragged about groping married women before the election. Sexual harassment will continue unabated in the current environment of labor law. Well defined job rights remain as an essential precursor to ending, or even reducing, sexual harassment.
The recent spate of sexual harassment charges against a growing number of men by a growing number of women derives directly from the U.S. history of labor relations. Notice the majority of charges occur as part of employment and while on the job. The harassers tend to be past middle aged white men accustomed to giving authoritarian orders to people who have no job rights.
As I recall from my high school history, it was all white men who wrote our constitution. In spite of the “all men are created equal” stuff in the Declaration of Independence, their constitution left women out entirely and then created a whole under class of people with no rights at all; slaves they were called. We did have a great civil war to end slavery, but authoritarian white male privilege and notions derived in part from dictatorial authority over slave women, who I have read, were subjected to some grimy and disgusting sexual abuse. Unlike slaves you can quit your job, but in the United States employees work at will; anyone can be dismissed at any time and without cause or explanation. If you dare to study closely your job rights under U.S. state and federal law be sure to compare them with slavery.
Privileged white men of authority hate any communitarian self help efforts like labor unions and they have successfully neutralized those efforts since 1789. Remember Trump bragged about groping married women before the election. Sexual harassment will continue unabated in the current environment of labor law. Well defined job rights remain as an essential precursor to ending, or even reducing, sexual harassment.
Monday, October 16, 2017
Trump and NAFTA
Trump and NAFTA
Trump will have to fight the most powerful interests of corporate America to end NAFTA, which he now threatens to do. Any study of NAFTA since its inception in 1993 finds direct benefits to the growth of U.S. Domestic Production(GDP), not to mention the benefits to Canada and Mexico. It is unnecessary to cite studies since there are many and they all find benefits.
In the initial years NAFTA eliminated thousands of jobs. The U.S. textile industry nearly disappeared after NAFTA. In North Carolina, for example, there were 288 thousand jobs in 1990 in textile mills and apparel manufacturing. By the end of 2016 it was 42 thousand. Across the country these same industries had 1.629 million jobs in 1990; by 2016 it was 359 thousand. In the cut and sew industry alone jobs dropped from 749 thousand in 1990 to only 105.8 thousand by 2016.
Much of the NAFTA related job loss occurred before NAFTA generated a significant increase in trade along with new production and investment. Over the 24 years of NAFTA new trade related production expanded U.S. GDP and generated replacement jobs. Whether the new jobs generated because of NAFTA are more than jobs lost because of NAFTA is irrelevant to the current Trump demand. Current NAFTA trading does support U.S. establishment employment in 2017, which guarantees killing NAFTA will cut jobs and do noticeable harm to employment.
Corporate America will not be happy to see an end to NAFTA, but the job loss will be a minimal concern in NAFTA matters. They have always had the money and clout to get their way, but corporate nerves do get frayed with Trump bluster. If Trump cared about the working class and acted as a leader, he would ignore the NAFTA fight and work to change the horrendous federal personal income tax that bores down so heavily on wage earners. He would work to revise and enforce the Fair Labor Standards Act to raise the minimum wage and guarantee overtime pay for all and a few more.
If corporate America cared about the working class and acted as leaders who cared about Americans, they would acknowledge Congress and President Clinton did them a favor with NAFTA back in 1993 and then support sharing some of the benefits with the working class.
By now, the end of 2017, Trump policies all demand and intend to destroy something - Obama Care, climate accords, Iran nuclear deals, TPP, NAFTA, – except taxing, spending and Federal Reserve policy keep going on as before. He hasn’t destroyed the economy … yet.
Trump will have to fight the most powerful interests of corporate America to end NAFTA, which he now threatens to do. Any study of NAFTA since its inception in 1993 finds direct benefits to the growth of U.S. Domestic Production(GDP), not to mention the benefits to Canada and Mexico. It is unnecessary to cite studies since there are many and they all find benefits.
In the initial years NAFTA eliminated thousands of jobs. The U.S. textile industry nearly disappeared after NAFTA. In North Carolina, for example, there were 288 thousand jobs in 1990 in textile mills and apparel manufacturing. By the end of 2016 it was 42 thousand. Across the country these same industries had 1.629 million jobs in 1990; by 2016 it was 359 thousand. In the cut and sew industry alone jobs dropped from 749 thousand in 1990 to only 105.8 thousand by 2016.
Much of the NAFTA related job loss occurred before NAFTA generated a significant increase in trade along with new production and investment. Over the 24 years of NAFTA new trade related production expanded U.S. GDP and generated replacement jobs. Whether the new jobs generated because of NAFTA are more than jobs lost because of NAFTA is irrelevant to the current Trump demand. Current NAFTA trading does support U.S. establishment employment in 2017, which guarantees killing NAFTA will cut jobs and do noticeable harm to employment.
Corporate America will not be happy to see an end to NAFTA, but the job loss will be a minimal concern in NAFTA matters. They have always had the money and clout to get their way, but corporate nerves do get frayed with Trump bluster. If Trump cared about the working class and acted as a leader, he would ignore the NAFTA fight and work to change the horrendous federal personal income tax that bores down so heavily on wage earners. He would work to revise and enforce the Fair Labor Standards Act to raise the minimum wage and guarantee overtime pay for all and a few more.
If corporate America cared about the working class and acted as leaders who cared about Americans, they would acknowledge Congress and President Clinton did them a favor with NAFTA back in 1993 and then support sharing some of the benefits with the working class.
By now, the end of 2017, Trump policies all demand and intend to destroy something - Obama Care, climate accords, Iran nuclear deals, TPP, NAFTA, – except taxing, spending and Federal Reserve policy keep going on as before. He hasn’t destroyed the economy … yet.
Wednesday, October 11, 2017
Minimum Wages in Seattle
“Minimum Wage Increases, Wages, and Low-Wage Employment: Evidence from Seattle.” Ekaterina Jardim, Mark C. Long, Robert Plotnick, Emma van Inwegen, Jacob Vigdor, Hilary Wething, National Bureau of Economic Research, June 2017
In yet another study of the minimum wage six authors tell readers they intend to evaluate the wage, employment and hours effects of a first and second phase in of the Seattle Minimum wage ordinance. The first phase raised the minimum wage from $9.47 an hour to $11.00 an hour on April 1, 2015. The second phase raised the wage from $11.00 an hour to $13.00 an hour on January 1, 2016. They analyze “employment in all sectors paying below a specified real hourly rate.”
The paper’s opening sentence starts with the standard obsessions economists always cite against minimum wages: “Economic theory suggests that binding price floor policies, including minimum wages, should lead to a disequilibrium marked by excess supply and diminished demand.” Economists predict a raise in the minimum wage will reduce employment of those earning a wage lower than the minimum wage. The see cause and effect as part of their doctrine.
They conclude the first phase effect was smaller than the second phase, which second phase caused a decrease in hours worked in low wage employment by 9 percent while the wage of low-wage workers’ was about 3 percent so that the cost of this wage hike outweighed its benefits for these workers. They conclude the minimum wage hurts low wage labor because hours lost makes a loss bigger than the gain from higher wages.
People leave jobs and lose jobs for many reasons, especially in low wage employment where turnover rates can be high. If the Seattle minimum wage causes employers to decrease employment, it could be useful to go out and ask these low wage employers if they recently off employees and was that because of the higher minimum wage. Typically Economists resort to analysis using large data sets filled with severe shortcomings like the Seattle study I review here.
Their data set comes from Washington’s Employment Security Division, which is produced as part of national Unemployment Insurance(UI) system administered by each state. Old timers refer to it as ES 202 data, or just “the 202” data. It is compiled and used by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in their benchmark revision of the Current Employment Survey.
ES 202 data is reported by single or multi establishment within county and Metropolitan Statistical areas coded by industry using the governments North American Industry Classification System(NAICS). Public reports of the data have monthly employment and payroll totals, but there are no occupations reported and names of employers or employees remain suppressed and confidential.
The authors inform readers that the Employment Security Division provided them the total hours worked in addition to the employment and payroll totals. Further the Employment Security Division partitioned the Seattle-Bellevue-Evertt Washington Metropolitan Division data to break out Seattle as a special and private favor to them, perhaps from their connection with the University of Washington. Because their data is a special favor and confidential the authors were required to sign a document promising not to release the data under threat of legal action against them. Therefore no one else gets to look at the data; they provide only a summary of aggregated data by quarter in their Table 3 on page 45.
They state “This unique data set allows us to measure the AVERAGE wage paid to each worker in each quarter. We compute an hourly wage rate as total quarterly payroll divided by quarterly hours worked, which corresponds to average hourly earnings. They call these numbers a realized hourly wage rate. Therefore they use an average wage of thousands of employees, an amount no one actually earns. Actual wages paid to employees will be above and below the average.
In addition their data excludes those working at establishments with more than one location. These include a variety of chain stores and franchise restaurants in Seattle and the surrounding county and metropolitan areas. Seattle’s minimum wage for a business with 500 or more employees such as McDonald’s or Costco was $13.50 an hour during the time when smaller single establishment business had an $11 an hour minimum wage. The employees included in the study had a strong incentive to move out of small business and into the large businesses excluded from the study.
In addition they define low skill employment as those working with an average hourly wage rate of $19 an hour or less. While they give an excuse for doing this, they do so without knowledge of the occupations of the employees included in the sample or the skills, experience or education needed in the unknown occupations that justify such a decision. An establishment with an average wage of $19 an hour will have many earning wages above $19 an hour, which could be occupations that need college degree skills.
In their methodology at page 16 the authors admit the hazards of their partition at $19. They write “The proxy for low-skilled employment will produce accurate estimates of the impact of minimum wage increases to the extent that a wage threshold accurately partitions the labor market into affected and unaffected components.” Their partition comes at an AVERAGE wage causing some who work with an actual wage above $19 an hour to be included in the below $19 partition while others will be in the below $19 partition who have wages above the $19 partition. There can be no assurance the 9 percent decline in total hours they cite ever worked an hours below the minimum wage or lost their job because of it.
Further they state “[The threshold wage] will overstate employment reductions if the threshold is set low enough that the minimum wage increase causes pay for some work to rise above it. This concern is particularly relevant given previous evidence of "cascading" impacts of minimum wage increases on slightly higher-paying jobs.” The previous evidence of “cascading impacts” comes from several Neumark and Wascher studies and a book, one of which is reviewed on this link at
http://americanjobmarket.blogspot.com/2017/10/minimum-wages-in-seattle.html. The cascading impact terminology refers to people who lose their below minimum wage job, but rather than be out of work they apply for and find work at a higher wage.
As I have suggested before people who lose their minimum wage job do not disappear, but begin looking for other jobs in other occupations with wages higher in the wage distribution. Forced to leave a sub-minimum wage job the newly unemployed increase the supply of labor in other occupations where they moderate wages in higher wage occupations and add to employment. The authors might recognize the millions of opportunities to move from low wage to higher wage employment by looking at wage distributions by occupation reported by the U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics in their Occupational Employment Survey.
Their Summary of data in Table 3 supports this view. The table has three columns for total jobs, total hours and total payroll and a fourth column has computed average wages. The rows are for each quarter from the second quarter of 2014 to third quarter of 2016. The first column of each category has only those employers with employees that have an average monthly wage of $13 an hour or less. The second has only those employers with employees that have an average monthly wage of $19 an hour or less. The third set has an average monthly wage for all employers and employees.
These partitions allow a further partition into two additional columns through subtracting the less than $13 column from the less than $19 column, which leaves only those establishment employers with an average wage greater than $13 an hour and less than $19 an hour. Further subtraction leaves another column of only those employers with an average wage of $19 or more. Every employee and his or her employer is part of one and only one mutually exclusive column of the data.
These columns have the “cascading effects” but they show the benefit of the Seattle Minimum wage. In the second quarter of 2014 those working at establishments with an average wage less than $13 an hour total 39,807. By the third quarter of 2016 the total falls to 23,232, a loss of 16,575 working at establishments with an average wage less than $13 an hour.
Over that two year and one quarter period a low inflation rate combined with the higher minimum wage would tend to reduce people working at establishments that have an average wage below $13 an hour. Economists like to suggest that is a bad result caused by the minimum wage, but during the same period those working at establishments with an average wage above $13 and below $19 increased from 53,152 to 63,610, a gain of 10,548 jobs at above the minimum wage. Those working at establishments with an average wage above $19 increases from 199,681 to 249,675, a gain of 49,994 jobs. These are exactly what to expect if the minimum wage benefits low wage workers. In Seattle wage workers seek employment in other establishments in occupations that pay above the minimum wage.
In their 2008 book Neumark and Wascher Minimum Wages, cited by the authors in their Seattle study write on page 116, “. . . as we emphasized earlier in this chapter the potential for minimum wage increases to affect wages higher in the wage distribution is also important in assessing the effects of minimum wage policy.” It is. That is where the benefits of the minimum wage will be and that is where they are in Seattle.
This paper has no right to be a part of the public debate on minimum wages because it makes no attempt to persuade a general audience and cannot be read except by those with experience in the specialized terminology of the economics fraternity. It uses suppressed data and undefined insider terms from other studies such as region fixed effect, period fixed effect, treatment effect, idiosyncratic shock among other terms.
Business predictably opposes an increase in the minimum wage. It raises costs for businesses that depend on low wage employment and thereby pressures owners and managers to experiment with prices, jobs and work schedules. It might in some situations reduce long term profits, but that does not mean a higher minimum has no benefits to labor or the larger economy from those who will have more buying power.
Academic economists work under pressure to confirm market theory. When they do what is good for their career, the news media and the public seize on the conclusions and nothing else. They evaluate the conclusions based on academic credentials not the credibility of the work.
In Seattle I read the mayor and city council ignored the hecklers and went ahead with the next phase of their minimum wage program; they raised the minimum wage to $15 an hour. If I could get the suppressed employment data I could determine the benefits to labor and the economy I predict will continue.
In yet another study of the minimum wage six authors tell readers they intend to evaluate the wage, employment and hours effects of a first and second phase in of the Seattle Minimum wage ordinance. The first phase raised the minimum wage from $9.47 an hour to $11.00 an hour on April 1, 2015. The second phase raised the wage from $11.00 an hour to $13.00 an hour on January 1, 2016. They analyze “employment in all sectors paying below a specified real hourly rate.”
The paper’s opening sentence starts with the standard obsessions economists always cite against minimum wages: “Economic theory suggests that binding price floor policies, including minimum wages, should lead to a disequilibrium marked by excess supply and diminished demand.” Economists predict a raise in the minimum wage will reduce employment of those earning a wage lower than the minimum wage. The see cause and effect as part of their doctrine.
They conclude the first phase effect was smaller than the second phase, which second phase caused a decrease in hours worked in low wage employment by 9 percent while the wage of low-wage workers’ was about 3 percent so that the cost of this wage hike outweighed its benefits for these workers. They conclude the minimum wage hurts low wage labor because hours lost makes a loss bigger than the gain from higher wages.
People leave jobs and lose jobs for many reasons, especially in low wage employment where turnover rates can be high. If the Seattle minimum wage causes employers to decrease employment, it could be useful to go out and ask these low wage employers if they recently off employees and was that because of the higher minimum wage. Typically Economists resort to analysis using large data sets filled with severe shortcomings like the Seattle study I review here.
Their data set comes from Washington’s Employment Security Division, which is produced as part of national Unemployment Insurance(UI) system administered by each state. Old timers refer to it as ES 202 data, or just “the 202” data. It is compiled and used by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in their benchmark revision of the Current Employment Survey.
ES 202 data is reported by single or multi establishment within county and Metropolitan Statistical areas coded by industry using the governments North American Industry Classification System(NAICS). Public reports of the data have monthly employment and payroll totals, but there are no occupations reported and names of employers or employees remain suppressed and confidential.
The authors inform readers that the Employment Security Division provided them the total hours worked in addition to the employment and payroll totals. Further the Employment Security Division partitioned the Seattle-Bellevue-Evertt Washington Metropolitan Division data to break out Seattle as a special and private favor to them, perhaps from their connection with the University of Washington. Because their data is a special favor and confidential the authors were required to sign a document promising not to release the data under threat of legal action against them. Therefore no one else gets to look at the data; they provide only a summary of aggregated data by quarter in their Table 3 on page 45.
They state “This unique data set allows us to measure the AVERAGE wage paid to each worker in each quarter. We compute an hourly wage rate as total quarterly payroll divided by quarterly hours worked, which corresponds to average hourly earnings. They call these numbers a realized hourly wage rate. Therefore they use an average wage of thousands of employees, an amount no one actually earns. Actual wages paid to employees will be above and below the average.
In addition their data excludes those working at establishments with more than one location. These include a variety of chain stores and franchise restaurants in Seattle and the surrounding county and metropolitan areas. Seattle’s minimum wage for a business with 500 or more employees such as McDonald’s or Costco was $13.50 an hour during the time when smaller single establishment business had an $11 an hour minimum wage. The employees included in the study had a strong incentive to move out of small business and into the large businesses excluded from the study.
In addition they define low skill employment as those working with an average hourly wage rate of $19 an hour or less. While they give an excuse for doing this, they do so without knowledge of the occupations of the employees included in the sample or the skills, experience or education needed in the unknown occupations that justify such a decision. An establishment with an average wage of $19 an hour will have many earning wages above $19 an hour, which could be occupations that need college degree skills.
In their methodology at page 16 the authors admit the hazards of their partition at $19. They write “The proxy for low-skilled employment will produce accurate estimates of the impact of minimum wage increases to the extent that a wage threshold accurately partitions the labor market into affected and unaffected components.” Their partition comes at an AVERAGE wage causing some who work with an actual wage above $19 an hour to be included in the below $19 partition while others will be in the below $19 partition who have wages above the $19 partition. There can be no assurance the 9 percent decline in total hours they cite ever worked an hours below the minimum wage or lost their job because of it.
Further they state “[The threshold wage] will overstate employment reductions if the threshold is set low enough that the minimum wage increase causes pay for some work to rise above it. This concern is particularly relevant given previous evidence of "cascading" impacts of minimum wage increases on slightly higher-paying jobs.” The previous evidence of “cascading impacts” comes from several Neumark and Wascher studies and a book, one of which is reviewed on this link at
http://americanjobmarket.blogspot.com/2017/10/minimum-wages-in-seattle.html. The cascading impact terminology refers to people who lose their below minimum wage job, but rather than be out of work they apply for and find work at a higher wage.
As I have suggested before people who lose their minimum wage job do not disappear, but begin looking for other jobs in other occupations with wages higher in the wage distribution. Forced to leave a sub-minimum wage job the newly unemployed increase the supply of labor in other occupations where they moderate wages in higher wage occupations and add to employment. The authors might recognize the millions of opportunities to move from low wage to higher wage employment by looking at wage distributions by occupation reported by the U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics in their Occupational Employment Survey.
Their Summary of data in Table 3 supports this view. The table has three columns for total jobs, total hours and total payroll and a fourth column has computed average wages. The rows are for each quarter from the second quarter of 2014 to third quarter of 2016. The first column of each category has only those employers with employees that have an average monthly wage of $13 an hour or less. The second has only those employers with employees that have an average monthly wage of $19 an hour or less. The third set has an average monthly wage for all employers and employees.
These partitions allow a further partition into two additional columns through subtracting the less than $13 column from the less than $19 column, which leaves only those establishment employers with an average wage greater than $13 an hour and less than $19 an hour. Further subtraction leaves another column of only those employers with an average wage of $19 or more. Every employee and his or her employer is part of one and only one mutually exclusive column of the data.
These columns have the “cascading effects” but they show the benefit of the Seattle Minimum wage. In the second quarter of 2014 those working at establishments with an average wage less than $13 an hour total 39,807. By the third quarter of 2016 the total falls to 23,232, a loss of 16,575 working at establishments with an average wage less than $13 an hour.
Over that two year and one quarter period a low inflation rate combined with the higher minimum wage would tend to reduce people working at establishments that have an average wage below $13 an hour. Economists like to suggest that is a bad result caused by the minimum wage, but during the same period those working at establishments with an average wage above $13 and below $19 increased from 53,152 to 63,610, a gain of 10,548 jobs at above the minimum wage. Those working at establishments with an average wage above $19 increases from 199,681 to 249,675, a gain of 49,994 jobs. These are exactly what to expect if the minimum wage benefits low wage workers. In Seattle wage workers seek employment in other establishments in occupations that pay above the minimum wage.
In their 2008 book Neumark and Wascher Minimum Wages, cited by the authors in their Seattle study write on page 116, “. . . as we emphasized earlier in this chapter the potential for minimum wage increases to affect wages higher in the wage distribution is also important in assessing the effects of minimum wage policy.” It is. That is where the benefits of the minimum wage will be and that is where they are in Seattle.
This paper has no right to be a part of the public debate on minimum wages because it makes no attempt to persuade a general audience and cannot be read except by those with experience in the specialized terminology of the economics fraternity. It uses suppressed data and undefined insider terms from other studies such as region fixed effect, period fixed effect, treatment effect, idiosyncratic shock among other terms.
Business predictably opposes an increase in the minimum wage. It raises costs for businesses that depend on low wage employment and thereby pressures owners and managers to experiment with prices, jobs and work schedules. It might in some situations reduce long term profits, but that does not mean a higher minimum has no benefits to labor or the larger economy from those who will have more buying power.
Academic economists work under pressure to confirm market theory. When they do what is good for their career, the news media and the public seize on the conclusions and nothing else. They evaluate the conclusions based on academic credentials not the credibility of the work.
In Seattle I read the mayor and city council ignored the hecklers and went ahead with the next phase of their minimum wage program; they raised the minimum wage to $15 an hour. If I could get the suppressed employment data I could determine the benefits to labor and the economy I predict will continue.
Friday, September 8, 2017
Insulting Labor
Insulting Labor
The current United States Secretary of Labor, Alexander Acosta, has proposed putting former President Ronald Reagan in the Department’s Labor Hall of Honor. Ronald Reagan became president in January 1981 and so it was still early in his first term when the strike of the nation’s air traffic controllers union, PATCO, started August 3, 1981. The strike ended abruptly two days later when President Ronald Reagan fired 11,345 air traffic controllers. The firing ended, or busted, the union, which was decertified with little delay.
Many cite the failed PATCO strike as the date of an abrupt degeneration in U.S. labor relations. Reagan era strikes brought similar strikes with union defeats and failures at Phelps-Dodge in Arizona, to airline pilots, to Yale University support staff, at Hormel, at International Paper and others. Bush era strikes at Pittston Coal Co, A.E. Staley, Caterpillar and Bridgestone-Firestone were all defeats for organized labor.
It does not matter which side anyone takes in these disputes or that Reagan was the innocuous head of the Screen Actors Guild. Putting a management figure who crudely busted a union into a Labor Hall of Honor amounts to be a deliberate Trump style insult that ridicules and debases organized labor. Ronald Reagan was rigid and sanctimonious through the whole episode but I doubt even he would choose to show such contempt for the others in a labor hall of honor.
The current United States Secretary of Labor, Alexander Acosta, has proposed putting former President Ronald Reagan in the Department’s Labor Hall of Honor. Ronald Reagan became president in January 1981 and so it was still early in his first term when the strike of the nation’s air traffic controllers union, PATCO, started August 3, 1981. The strike ended abruptly two days later when President Ronald Reagan fired 11,345 air traffic controllers. The firing ended, or busted, the union, which was decertified with little delay.
Many cite the failed PATCO strike as the date of an abrupt degeneration in U.S. labor relations. Reagan era strikes brought similar strikes with union defeats and failures at Phelps-Dodge in Arizona, to airline pilots, to Yale University support staff, at Hormel, at International Paper and others. Bush era strikes at Pittston Coal Co, A.E. Staley, Caterpillar and Bridgestone-Firestone were all defeats for organized labor.
It does not matter which side anyone takes in these disputes or that Reagan was the innocuous head of the Screen Actors Guild. Putting a management figure who crudely busted a union into a Labor Hall of Honor amounts to be a deliberate Trump style insult that ridicules and debases organized labor. Ronald Reagan was rigid and sanctimonious through the whole episode but I doubt even he would choose to show such contempt for the others in a labor hall of honor.
Wednesday, August 9, 2017
West Virginia Jobs 2016
West Virginia Jobs 2016
West Virginia lost 11 thousand jobs during the recession that ran from the fall of 2008 until spring of 2010, but recovered those losses by 2012 when statewide employment reached its high of 765.2 thousand jobs. However, since 2012 statewide employment has declined by 17.4 thousand jobs to 747.8 thousand jobs in 2016. Even though jobs recovered to their pre-recession totals, the recent decline leaves West Virginia with a 2.3 percent loss of statewide employment. That makes West Virginia one of nine states with a loss of jobs since the 2008-2010 recession. Only two states had a bigger percentage loss of jobs than West Virginia. Those losses came even though national employment increased from 132 million to just under 138 million jobs during the same years.
After reaching a statewide high in 2012, West Virginia had a decrease in jobs in the lumber and mining industries, construction, manufacturing, wholesale-retail trade, financial activities, and a combination of repair and maintenance services, personal services, and non-profit associations. By 2016 the combined loss in these sectors was 26.3 thousand jobs.
Health Care, Government, and private education offset some of the losses with 6.9 thousand new jobs. An additional 700 hundred jobs in transportation and warehousing, a hundred jobs in information services, 800 jobs in business and professional services, mostly support services, and 400 jobs in restaurants bring the total job gains to 8.9 thousand jobs for those industries with any new jobs. Combining the gains of 8.9 thousand with the losses 26.3 thousand accounts for the net loss of 17.4 thousand jobs.
The prospects for job growth remain poor.
Back in 1990 West Virginia had 34 thousand jobs in lumber and mining, mostly coal mining, which was 5.4 percent of statewide employment. It was still 34 thousand in 2012 but the total was down to 4.4 percent of statewide jobs. By 2016 only 20 thousand jobs remained with a 2.7 percent share of statewide employment. Almost all of the job loss in lumber and mining came in the last four years. The sudden loss of jobs makes the decline more noticeable, but a 2.7 percent share for lumber and mining keeps West Virginia well above the national percentage of 1.7 percent for these jobs. There are only 50.3 thousand coal mining jobs left in the entire United States and they continue to fall month to month. West Virginia will not be able to hold onto its current coal jobs, much less increase them.
West Virginia has a smaller share of statewide employment than the national economy in all but three industry sub-sectors: health care, government service for the federal, state, and local government, and repair, maintenance, and personal services. Combined these three industries have 43.8 percent of West Virginia employment. Combined health care and government service had a 1.5 percent increase in the share of statewide jobs from 2012 to 2016. Only three other sub sectors had any percentage increase – business support services, private education, restaurants – and their total increase was .7 percent less than half of the health care and government increase.
West Virginia continues to lose jobs in all the same sectors as the national economy, but does not generate more jobs in the sectors doing well in the national economy. For example, professional and technical services have 6.2 percent of national jobs, but only 3.3 percent in West Virginia. In the national economy professional and technical services provide a major source of new jobs adding 30 to 60 thousand jobs a month, but in West Virginia the total has remained at or below 25 thousand jobs for over a decade with no growth.
In the national economy leisure and hospitality, especially restaurants, provide a major source of new jobs. They are often low paid jobs, but the West Virginia economy has not been generating many low paid jobs. Leisure and hospitality have only 9.9 percent of statewide employment, a percent below the national average. Worse their 2016 employment in this sector has not budged above 74 thousand jobs in the last four years.
In the national economy administrative support services provide a major source of new jobs. Administrative support services have 6.3 percent of jobs in the national economy but only 4.6 percent in West Virginia. These are jobs at employment services, telemarketing bureaus, security and armored car services, janitorial services, landscaping and a few more. They were 32.4 thousand in 2012 that reached their statewide high in 2016, but still only 34 thousand jobs.
In the national economy government services have 15.4 percent of national employment, but 20.9 percent of statewide West Virginia employment. All three levels of government employment – federal, state, local – have higher shares in West Virginia than the national economy. In the national economy health care has 13.2 percent of national employment, but 15.4 percent of West Virginia jobs. With so many industries in decline new jobs in health care and government services elevate their relative importance to new heights.
Between 2012 and 2016 the Bureau of the Census reports West Virginia had a drop in statewide population of 25.5 thousand. Given the prospects for jobs, we might consider them the smart ones; they left. In a recent news story the Governor of West Virginia announced he was leaving the Democratic Party to join the Republicans. Soon after Trump came to cheer him on with a rant through his well worn list of personal grudges. He did not tell the crowd their only hope for new jobs and a better economy lies with health care and government service. A good policy for jobs would tax the rich to pay for infra structure construction and generate government service jobs, especially social services. Wild, miserable West Virginia.
West Virginia lost 11 thousand jobs during the recession that ran from the fall of 2008 until spring of 2010, but recovered those losses by 2012 when statewide employment reached its high of 765.2 thousand jobs. However, since 2012 statewide employment has declined by 17.4 thousand jobs to 747.8 thousand jobs in 2016. Even though jobs recovered to their pre-recession totals, the recent decline leaves West Virginia with a 2.3 percent loss of statewide employment. That makes West Virginia one of nine states with a loss of jobs since the 2008-2010 recession. Only two states had a bigger percentage loss of jobs than West Virginia. Those losses came even though national employment increased from 132 million to just under 138 million jobs during the same years.
After reaching a statewide high in 2012, West Virginia had a decrease in jobs in the lumber and mining industries, construction, manufacturing, wholesale-retail trade, financial activities, and a combination of repair and maintenance services, personal services, and non-profit associations. By 2016 the combined loss in these sectors was 26.3 thousand jobs.
Health Care, Government, and private education offset some of the losses with 6.9 thousand new jobs. An additional 700 hundred jobs in transportation and warehousing, a hundred jobs in information services, 800 jobs in business and professional services, mostly support services, and 400 jobs in restaurants bring the total job gains to 8.9 thousand jobs for those industries with any new jobs. Combining the gains of 8.9 thousand with the losses 26.3 thousand accounts for the net loss of 17.4 thousand jobs.
The prospects for job growth remain poor.
Back in 1990 West Virginia had 34 thousand jobs in lumber and mining, mostly coal mining, which was 5.4 percent of statewide employment. It was still 34 thousand in 2012 but the total was down to 4.4 percent of statewide jobs. By 2016 only 20 thousand jobs remained with a 2.7 percent share of statewide employment. Almost all of the job loss in lumber and mining came in the last four years. The sudden loss of jobs makes the decline more noticeable, but a 2.7 percent share for lumber and mining keeps West Virginia well above the national percentage of 1.7 percent for these jobs. There are only 50.3 thousand coal mining jobs left in the entire United States and they continue to fall month to month. West Virginia will not be able to hold onto its current coal jobs, much less increase them.
West Virginia has a smaller share of statewide employment than the national economy in all but three industry sub-sectors: health care, government service for the federal, state, and local government, and repair, maintenance, and personal services. Combined these three industries have 43.8 percent of West Virginia employment. Combined health care and government service had a 1.5 percent increase in the share of statewide jobs from 2012 to 2016. Only three other sub sectors had any percentage increase – business support services, private education, restaurants – and their total increase was .7 percent less than half of the health care and government increase.
West Virginia continues to lose jobs in all the same sectors as the national economy, but does not generate more jobs in the sectors doing well in the national economy. For example, professional and technical services have 6.2 percent of national jobs, but only 3.3 percent in West Virginia. In the national economy professional and technical services provide a major source of new jobs adding 30 to 60 thousand jobs a month, but in West Virginia the total has remained at or below 25 thousand jobs for over a decade with no growth.
In the national economy leisure and hospitality, especially restaurants, provide a major source of new jobs. They are often low paid jobs, but the West Virginia economy has not been generating many low paid jobs. Leisure and hospitality have only 9.9 percent of statewide employment, a percent below the national average. Worse their 2016 employment in this sector has not budged above 74 thousand jobs in the last four years.
In the national economy administrative support services provide a major source of new jobs. Administrative support services have 6.3 percent of jobs in the national economy but only 4.6 percent in West Virginia. These are jobs at employment services, telemarketing bureaus, security and armored car services, janitorial services, landscaping and a few more. They were 32.4 thousand in 2012 that reached their statewide high in 2016, but still only 34 thousand jobs.
In the national economy government services have 15.4 percent of national employment, but 20.9 percent of statewide West Virginia employment. All three levels of government employment – federal, state, local – have higher shares in West Virginia than the national economy. In the national economy health care has 13.2 percent of national employment, but 15.4 percent of West Virginia jobs. With so many industries in decline new jobs in health care and government services elevate their relative importance to new heights.
Between 2012 and 2016 the Bureau of the Census reports West Virginia had a drop in statewide population of 25.5 thousand. Given the prospects for jobs, we might consider them the smart ones; they left. In a recent news story the Governor of West Virginia announced he was leaving the Democratic Party to join the Republicans. Soon after Trump came to cheer him on with a rant through his well worn list of personal grudges. He did not tell the crowd their only hope for new jobs and a better economy lies with health care and government service. A good policy for jobs would tax the rich to pay for infra structure construction and generate government service jobs, especially social services. Wild, miserable West Virginia.
Monday, July 24, 2017
State Health Care Employment 2016
State Health Care Employment 2016
Health care employment varies widely from one state to another. In the national economy establishment employment in health care has 19.1 million jobs, or 13.2 percent of national employment. California employs 2.183 million in the four health care sub-sectors of physicians services, hospitals, nursing and residential care and social services. California has the high while Wyoming is the low with only 24.8 thousand jobs working in the health care industry. The high percentage for health care in statewide employment is 17.3 percent in Massachusetts and the low 8.8 percent in Wyoming.
To allow for the enormous state population differences it is necessary to use employment per thousand population to compare state variation. Variations diminish but remain: California has 55.6 employed in health care per thousand population while Wyoming has 42.8 per thousand population and Massachusetts 90.5.
The high for health care employment per thousand population is 101 in the District of Columbia while the low is 39 in Nevada. There are 9 states with health care employment below 50 per thousand while 13 states have health care employment above 70 per thousand. The average is 61.3.
The five southern states - Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, North Carolina – are among the nine low health care employment per thousand population states. The other four including Nevada are Utah, Wyoming and Hawaii.
The nine states above 70 jobs per thousand population have five of the six New England states – Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island – and also close by New York and Pennsylvania are above 70 per thousand population as well. However the remaining six show less connection to location or population. They are the District of Columbia and Delaware in the east and North and South Dakota, Nebraska and Minnesota in the mid-west.
There are 32 states and the District of Columbia that took the Obama Care Medicaid option and 19 states that did not. All five of the low health care employment southern states mentioned above did not take the Medicaid option. Florida, Virginia, Tennessee and Texas did not take the Medicaid option either. While their health care employment was above 50 per thousand population, they were below the average; all four were between 50 and 55 per thousand population.
The remaining ten states that did not take the Medicaid option are scattered geographically and show a moderate correlation with employment per thousand population. The Pearson correlation coefficient between the Medicaid option (Yes = 1, No = 0) and health care jobs per thousand population in the fifty states and the District of Columbia equals .36, where 0 means random variation and 1 predicts exact variation.
If we think of health care employment per thousand population as a measure of state effort and commitment to health care, then there are some good signs. Every single state and the District of Columbia have a higher health care employment per thousand population in 2016 than in 2007, the last full year before the 2008 to 2010 recession. All the states are doing better. Four states have an increase over 20 percent and 12 more had an increase of 15 to 20 percent. However, the correlation between health care per thousand population in 2007 and 2016 is high, .98, meaning roughly the same relative differences between the states continue now as they were in 2007. While it is certain the Medicaid option helps health care employment the effect so far appears modest. The differences suggest a difference of state preferences reflected through fifty-one varied political systems, although the result does not necessarily reflect the popular will. We know there is money in politics as well as health care.
Health care employment varies widely from one state to another. In the national economy establishment employment in health care has 19.1 million jobs, or 13.2 percent of national employment. California employs 2.183 million in the four health care sub-sectors of physicians services, hospitals, nursing and residential care and social services. California has the high while Wyoming is the low with only 24.8 thousand jobs working in the health care industry. The high percentage for health care in statewide employment is 17.3 percent in Massachusetts and the low 8.8 percent in Wyoming.
To allow for the enormous state population differences it is necessary to use employment per thousand population to compare state variation. Variations diminish but remain: California has 55.6 employed in health care per thousand population while Wyoming has 42.8 per thousand population and Massachusetts 90.5.
The high for health care employment per thousand population is 101 in the District of Columbia while the low is 39 in Nevada. There are 9 states with health care employment below 50 per thousand while 13 states have health care employment above 70 per thousand. The average is 61.3.
The five southern states - Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, North Carolina – are among the nine low health care employment per thousand population states. The other four including Nevada are Utah, Wyoming and Hawaii.
The nine states above 70 jobs per thousand population have five of the six New England states – Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island – and also close by New York and Pennsylvania are above 70 per thousand population as well. However the remaining six show less connection to location or population. They are the District of Columbia and Delaware in the east and North and South Dakota, Nebraska and Minnesota in the mid-west.
There are 32 states and the District of Columbia that took the Obama Care Medicaid option and 19 states that did not. All five of the low health care employment southern states mentioned above did not take the Medicaid option. Florida, Virginia, Tennessee and Texas did not take the Medicaid option either. While their health care employment was above 50 per thousand population, they were below the average; all four were between 50 and 55 per thousand population.
The remaining ten states that did not take the Medicaid option are scattered geographically and show a moderate correlation with employment per thousand population. The Pearson correlation coefficient between the Medicaid option (Yes = 1, No = 0) and health care jobs per thousand population in the fifty states and the District of Columbia equals .36, where 0 means random variation and 1 predicts exact variation.
If we think of health care employment per thousand population as a measure of state effort and commitment to health care, then there are some good signs. Every single state and the District of Columbia have a higher health care employment per thousand population in 2016 than in 2007, the last full year before the 2008 to 2010 recession. All the states are doing better. Four states have an increase over 20 percent and 12 more had an increase of 15 to 20 percent. However, the correlation between health care per thousand population in 2007 and 2016 is high, .98, meaning roughly the same relative differences between the states continue now as they were in 2007. While it is certain the Medicaid option helps health care employment the effect so far appears modest. The differences suggest a difference of state preferences reflected through fifty-one varied political systems, although the result does not necessarily reflect the popular will. We know there is money in politics as well as health care.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
