With Eye on 2012, Republicans Trying to Block Votes
The anti-middle class agenda of conservative legislators across the country is not limited to attacks on collective bargaining, education and the nation’s safety net. Even before some legislatures took up state budgets and anti-worker legislation, they began trotting out claims of potential voter fraud to try and disenfranchise large groups of voters.
With the White House and control of Congress on the line in 2012, Republicans are pushing changes that would make it significantly more difficult for some traditionally Democratic voters to even cast a ballot–college students, immigrants, rural voters, senior citizens, the disabled, the poor and the homeless.
One popular tactic being used to block votes is to require voters to present their birth certificate before registering to vote and show a DMV-issued photo identification at the polls. In its Progress Report, the Center for American Progress Action Fund (CAP) estimates voter ID bills would depress Latino turnout by as much as 10 percent. The bills also would cost taxpayers millions of dollars.
Report: Unions Essential for Rebuilding U.S. Middle Class
 |
|
We know it. Now yet another study proves it: Unions are essential for building a strong middle class–and rebuilding the middle class is key to restoring the U.S. economy.
“Unions Make the Middle Class,” released today by the Center for American Progress Action Fund, (CAP) points out that unions make the middle class by ensuring workers have a strong voice in both the workplace and in our democracy. The study found when unions are strong they are able to ensure that workers are paid fair wages, receive the training they need to advance to the middle class, and are considered in corporate decision-making processes. Read the rest of this entry »
Democracy Roundtable: Right Changes Now Would Build Strong Future
 |
|
What will the economy be like in 2021? That’s the question five progressive experts venture to answer as part of an online roundtable in the latest issue of Democracy: The Journal of Ideas. Twice a year, the magazine poses a question to experts about what they foresee for the country in 2021 and posts the discussion on its website and in the publication.
The winter 2010 theme is focused on jobs and the economy in 2021. AFL-CIO Deputy Chief of Staff Thea Lee, one of the panel experts on this subject, said if we are prosperous and economically strong in 2021, it’s because in 2010 we recognized that we were on a path that was leading to greater erosion of the middle class.
The path that we were on was also undermining our ability to innovate and reap the fruits of innovation. I totally agree with the need for massive and targeted public investments in all the areas that we’ve talked about: clean energy, infrastructure, skills and education.
Just Jobs Network: Can Global Economy Share the Wealth?
The global economy has been very good to the very rich–but not so much for the 212 million people who are unemployed worldwide, according to the International Labor Organization (ILO).
The Center for American Progress (CAP) yesterday launched the Just Jobs Network, which will bring together scholars and institutions from around the world to explore how best to extend the benefits of the global economy to all of the workers. These experts will analyze employment policies and labor markets in their respective areas.
Just Jobs Network members will share knowledge and experiences and draw attention to the issue of just jobs— jobs complete with labor rights, appropriate remuneration, social protections such as health care and pensions, and opportunities for economic mobility. Read the rest of this entry »
Big Pix Solution Needed to Rebuild Manufacturing
 |
|
As important as a Buy America policy is, it is not enough to rebuild the nation’s manufacturing base. We must have a comprehensive industrial policy that supports manufacturing, promotes research and development, emphasizes worker training and rebuilds our infrastructure. Otherwise, the United States will no longer be the world’s top economy, participants at the America’s Future Now conference were warned today.
During a forum on “Making It in America: A Progressive Global Strategy,” Kate Gordon of the Center for American Progress said our competitors, like China and Germany, have strategies in place that are geared to increasing their economic development while the United States does not. Clyde Prestowitz, author of “Betrayal of the American Prosperity,” said when it comes to trade, we are playing an entirely different game than our competitors. While we admonish them to consume more and export less, they are figuring out ways to increase exports and consume less.
Biden: Strong Unions Needed to Build Middle Class
The nation cannot rebuild its middle class without strong unions, Vice President Joe Biden said today. Biden said he and President Obama believe it is impossible to grow the middle class without growing unions.
Biden, who chairs the White House Task Force on Middle Class Families, met with a panel of scholars assembled by the Center for American Progress (CAP) and Economic Policy Institute (EPI) to discuss the challenges facing America’s middle class in the 21st century economy.
At the live webcast event, EPI President Lawrence Mishel said unions set standards in the workplace. Decent standards help ensure “employers are not competing to see who can make the jobs worst, but who can make the products better,” Mishel said.
Workplaces, Laws Fail to Keep up with Growing Role of Women Workers
 |
|
For the first time in our nation’s history, working women make up nearly half of all U.S. workers, and mothers are the primary breadwinners or co-breadwinners in nearly two-thirds of American families.
This dramatic shift from just a generation ago marks a permanent cultural change, yet most institutions, including the workplace and government have not caught up with this new reality.
“The Shriver Report: A Woman’s Nation Changes Everything,” released earlier this month by the Center for American Progress (CAP) and Maria Shriver, looks at the changing face and attitudes of the American worker. The multi-faceted report includes a national poll on attitudes about the rising role of women.
Millions Lose Health Coverage Since Recession and Job-Based Health Care Declines
 |
|
The decline in the share of workers with employer-provided health care, the dramatic increase in the number of workers losing their health insurance along with their jobs, plus reports that employers are planning to shift even more health costs to workers, highlights the desperate need for comprehensive health care reform for all.
(Tell us what you think should be included in comprehensive health care reform. Take the 2009 Health Care for America Survey. The survey gives you the opportunity to make your voice heard and help shape health care reform to meet the needs of working families. Take the survey here.)
According to a new report by the Center for American Progress (CAP), the percentage of workers with employer-provided health care dropped from more than 64 percent in 1999 to just over 59 percent in 2007.
Forty-six million Americans lacked health care coverage in 2007, when the national employment level peaked and before the current economic recession officially began. Today, that number is markedly higher as many workers who have lost their jobs have also lost their employer-provided health insurance.
Clean Energy, Good Jobs Should Go Hand in Hand
 |
|
Twenty-five major leaders from government, business, labor and activist organizations—including AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, former President Bill Clinton and former Vice President Al Gore—met on Monday to discuss strategies for boosting the nation’s renewable energy production, reducing dependence on foreign oil and ensuring that “green jobs” are quality jobs.
The forum, titled “National Clean Energy Project: Building the New Economy,” was sponsored by the Center for American Progress (CAP). Participants focused on modernizing and expanding the electricity grid, rapidly increasing transmission capacity for renewable energy and reducing dependence on foreign oil by examining short- and long-term solutions to replace foreign oil with domestic resources. Click here for a video of the discussions.
As Sweeney told the participants:
The challenge of clean energy and climate change creates a rare opportunity to do two things at once—meet the challenge of a cleaner planet and at the same time use it to create the good jobs of a new economy. A new U.S. energy strategy can be the foundation of rebuilding the middle class if we ensure that the jobs we create are good, innovative jobs here in our country—and that can then become the foundation of a strong new economy.
14,000 Insured Lose Health Coverage Every Day
 |
|
In December and January, as the nation’s unemployment rate shot upward—hitting 7.6 percent in January—the number of Americans without health insurance neared the 50-million mark.
Some 14,000 people a day, nearly 100,000 a week, lost their health insurance during that two-month span, according to a forthcoming analysis by James Kvaal and Ben Furnas, reports the Center for American Progress’ Wonk Room.
The growing number of working families that are losing their health care coverage highlights the need for swift action on comprehensive health care reform.
