The Work-Wage Disconnect

(Cross-posted from The Progressive Post, a North Carolina blog)

The typical North Carolina family with children must earn $41,184 annually to afford the actual market prices of seven essential goods and services: housing, health care, childcare, food, transportation, taxes and other necessities. Yet 37 percent of studied family types fall below this modest income threshold.

These findings come from the new report Making Ends Meet on Low Wages , published by the NC Budget & Tax Center. By using actual cost estimates, the study constructs detailed budgets for four common family types in every North Carolina county, metropolitan center, workforce area and economic development region. All things equal, larger families and families in metropolitan areas require higher incomes than smaller families and families residing in non-metropolitan areas. Overall, families in the Triangle have the greatest income requirements.

Alarmingly, the vast majority of the families that fall below the income standard contain adults who work on a full-time basis. This suggests that difficulties result not so much from a lack of work effort as from the kind and quality of existing jobs.

Public policy can play a prominent role in closing the disconnect between the wages earned in many jobs and the amount of income needed to support a family with a modest, if not austere, lifestyle. Three broad areas of action are the following:

1) Expanding access to work-support programs, such as child-care subsidies and children's health insurance.

2) Improving the quality of existing jobs by strengthening existing employment standards and adopting new standards reflective of current realities.

3) Enriching the skills of current and future workers by strengthening the North Carolina Community College System.

BAITING HOOKS Tax incentives will always be with us, but states are finally keeping tabs on what they're getting for their money.

From the January 2008 edition of Governing Magazine:

Tax incentives have long been endorsed as the highway to prosperity — attracting businesses, providing jobs and enriching the state. That's been conventional wisdom in most states and cities.

One problem: Most public finance experts consider them bad policy. Tax incentives that target specific companies create inequities, complications and inefficiencies — and they shrink the tax base. Meanwhile, there's little evidence that targeted incentives bring growth in good-paying jobs. In short, big-ticket targeted tax incentives fail the test of any investment: the presence of a clearly identifiable return.

Many companies still seek incentives, and it's difficult for states to back away — particularly when there are lots of jobs involved. But there are questions states can focus on to mitigate the damage: Are the incentives transparent? Is there a look back to see if promises are met? Are there clawbacks — to retrieve the dollars spent if companies fail to hold up their end of the bargain?

Read full story in Governing Magazine http://www.governing.com/articles/0801taxinc.htm

Education forum: liveblogging

3:22 p.m.: We're wrapped up. The takeaway might be best summed up as "misery loves company." And there's plenty of misery to go around, including declining funding, misplaced priorities and backward-looking methods. The good news is that solutions were presented. If Southern states possess the will to make positive changes is an open question.

2:24 p.m.: Gene Bottoms, Senior VP for School Improvement, says that high-stakes accountability makes schools "do the wrong thing better."A la the saying "You are what you eat," students perform according to the quality of their schools. The better schools don't segregate reading and writing to the English department. They build reading and writing into all course work. If you had to make only one change at a school, Bottoms says, then hire a top-notch principal. That change can make a tremendous difference in the "community" of a school. He stresses implementing comprehensive reform backed by strong school board support and administration buy-in. Repairing weak school districts can't be fixed in three years because, says Bottoms, because it didn't decline in three years. Success is a healthy mix - competent administration, a solid and ambitious plan, teachers enthusiastically supporting the revisions and patience to wait for the changes to kick in over time.

1:55 p.m.: K-12 Education is the topic. Joan Lord is VP for Education Policies. She highlights a Web site that shows ranking among Southern states.

12:33 p.m.: AJC editorial page editor Cynthia Tucker is our lunchtime speaker. We had a nice chat about the role of editorial pages.

11:45 a.m.: Ansley Abraham, director of the SREB-State Doctoral Scholars Program, spoke next. He discussed the low number of racial minorities on college faculties.

11:31 a.m.: The name of this portion of the forum is "Higher Education: Helping More Students Earn Degrees." SREB's Joe Marks is leading the session. He notes rapidly changing racial changes in schools. Hispanic student enrollment will increase. The challenge is that achievement in terms of higher ed graduation rates among those students lags behind, he notes.

11:15 a.m.: Gale Gaines, VP for State Services at SREB, is talking about what's happening in state legislatures. Money is Topic A in Southern statehouses, according to Gaines. Under the guise of "tax reform," states are looking at "tax swaps," she says. The financial crunch has states talking about cuts to education funding.

10:30 a.m.: States need to have common standards for readiness. According to Spence, most states lack a unified system. Instead two-year colleges and public universities have wildly varying requirements for admission. The point, it seems to me, is that too many states allow its higher education institutions to chart their own admissions course. It's a patchwork quilt, and it's not very pretty.

10:07 a.m.: "The number one problem in terms of graduation and achievement is reading," Spence says. "Our schools treat writing as something once you're decoding by grade four, you're reading." He says stressing reading levels ought to continue throughout schooling, even to middle schools and high schools. "If you can't read with comprehension .. you are not going to be able to do math, and you are not going to be able to do science."

10:01 a.m.: Schools need statewide systems designed to ensure lower-grade students are ready for high school. Otherwise, high schools will continue to get stuck holding the bag, Spence says.

9:58 a.m.: Balancing improving both graduation and achievement rates is the push, Spence says. School systems in Louisiana and Virginia are working to correct the imbalance.

9:53 a.m.: Dave Spence, president of the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB), is talking about low-graduation rates. No Child Left Behind has "virtually no emphasis on graduation rates," he says. Asking states to improve achievement rates and graduation rates is almost without precedent, Spence adds.

9:48 a.m.: My friend Al Cross, director of the Institute for for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, is here. He's covering the event here at the Rural Blog.

Even happier trails

Updating on last week's post on the connection between the Pinhoti and Appalachian trails.
The Anniston Star filled out the story Sunday with a pair of guest columns.
In one, Joe Cuhaj writes :

The year 1925 was a historic time for hikers and outdoor enthusiasts in this country. An article written by a U.S. Forest Service employee, "An Appalachian Trail: A Project in Regional Planning," was put into action. Benton MacKaye's vision was for a footpath that would travel the ridgelines of the Appalachian Mountains from Georgia to Maine, with an eventual extension into Alabama where the mighty mountains end.
Last Sunday, that dream was completed. More than 200 volunteers and elected officials gathered on a mountaintop in the Talladega National Forest to dedicate a bronze marker that commemorates the connection of Alabama and its Pinhoti Trail to the world-famous Appalachian Trail.

In the other column, Pete Conroy writes:

From those who have passed away loving trails to those like Anniston's little Lexie Weidner, who was there last Sunday celebrating her very first birthday and learning to love trails, let us all be proud of this accomplishment. Let's also commit to less talking and more walking, especially outdoors and right here in our own back yard on the Pinhoti Trail. In fact, to see what that brass plaque says, you'll just have to walk out and read it!
Something big happened last weekend. Forevermore, it's yours to enjoy.

Live from Atlanta ...

it's a forum at the Southern Regional Education Board. The topic is editorial pages and Southern education issues.
We'll be updating throughout the day with highlights.

History in the Making

Yesterday, the North Carolina General Assembly met in special session to do something that the legislature had not done since 1880: expel a member.

Shortly before noon, according to The News & Observer, Rep. Thomas Wright, a Wilmington Democrat, was escorted from legislature after his colleagues decided by a vote of 109-5 to strip him of his seat.

The expulsion is the latest step in a long-running scandal involving Wright and his alleged improper use of $350,000 in campaign funds. The state Board of Elections already has ruled that Wright violated the state's campaign finance laws, and the former legislator soon will go on trial in Raleigh.

A detailed account of the expulsion vote is available from WUNC Radio, the NPR affiliate in Raleigh-Durham.

Happy trails

In the early 1920s a big dreamer named Benton MacKaye envisioned a trail along the spine of the eastern United States' Appalachian mountains. MacKaye was worried about the urbanization of the nation. City workers needed a retreat from the pressures of factory life. The result, thanks to the work of thousands, is the Appalachian Trail.

It's not exactly what Mackaye dreamed of. However, many ambitious hikers have covered the 2,000 miles from Georgia to Maine.

As of Sunday, the trail officially become longer, adding another state to its list.
Alabama's Pinhoti Trail now connects to Georgia's Benton MacKaye Trail which eventually joins the Appalachian Trail on Springer Mountain in north Georgia. A ceremony Sunday on Alabama's Mount Cheaha marked the occassion.

Read more about the event here.

Unlikely Allies in an Unlikely Place

The current issue of The American Prospect traces the evolution of the Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance (MIRA), an innovative effort to unite African-American, immigrant and labor groups in a common effort for economic and social justice.

While MIRA's constituent members long have operated at arm's length from one another, a sustained effort to work together since 2000 has paid dividends. With the support of the Mississippi legislature's black caucus, for instance, the group helped defeat every anti-immigrant proposal introduced in 2007.

Based on those and other recent successes, MIRA now is crafting a more proactive message designed to focus on core economic issues in an attempt to push Mississippi politics in a more progressive direction.

Mega-hurts

Recently a tornado warning rolled across east Alabama. Warning sirens sounded. Folks took appropriate steps. But on one local radio station news of the bad weather was AWOL. Instead a talk-show host based in New York named Mark Levin was hurling insults left and right; no one broke in at the AM station to warn listeners about bad weather.
The episode got the editors of the Anniston Star to thinking: What is the state of broadcasting? What has come of local broadcasters' public service commitments?
The newspaper produced a four-part series called Compressed Air. It examined broadcast media deregulation 12 years after President Clinton signed the Telecommunications Act of 1996.
Here's what one media critic -- Eric Klinenberg, New York University sociology professor and the author of "Fighting for Air: The Battle to Control America's Media" -- told us.

"When disaster strikes and having live human beings to report news becomes a matter of life or death, chain media have a hard time meeting their public interest obligations. Luckily for them — but not for citizens — the FCC doesn't seem to mind. The agency has essentially given irresponsible broadcasters a free pass to do as they please."

All four parts of the series are online.

About Those Jobs ...

(Cross-posted from the The Progressive Pulse, an NC blog)

Much of the reporting about the nation's economic troubles has focused on corporate issues to the virtual exclusion of the one part of the economy that touches almost every American: the labor market. While late, The New York Times finally has presented a much-needed analysis of how current conditions impact the ability of people to find and hold quality jobs.

Though top-level indicators suggest that America experienced an economic boom over the past several years, that boom generally bypassed the labor market, which never really rebounded from the 2001 recession. Since then, sluggish job creation has resulted in a slack demand for workers, which in turn has led to wage and income stagnation. In fact, a smaller share of America's working-age population is employed now than was the case in 2000. Similar declines have occurred in every major racial, age and educational category.

North Carolina has not been spared from these developments. A September 2007 analysis by the NC Budget & Tax Center documented the presence of similar trends across the Old North State.

Past developments suggest that the current economic downturn will differ from past ones. Given that the labor market never really recovered from the last recession, there likely will be fewer mass layoffs and large increases in the official unemployment rate. Instead, people who are unemployed likely will be out of worker for longer periods of time; settle for part-time, contingent or low-wage jobs; or abandon the labor market altogether. Workers with jobs, meanwhile, will be unlikely to see any wage gains. And if the labor recover takes as long as it did following the 2001 recession, it will be several years before the trends change.

All and all, not a rosy picture.

Entergy plans 1% rate hike in 2009 if legislation OK’d in Mississippi

Further increase may follow once new plant is under construction

Entergy officials said Monday they hope to seek a rate increase in 2009 if legislation is approved that eventually could allow utility companies to charge ratepayers before some plants are built.

Rates would be hiked 1 percent during the preconstruction phase of Entergy's $5 billion nuclear plant, officials said Monday at a meeting with The Clarion-Ledger editorial board. They said they didn't know how much rates would rise during construction.

Building an additional nuclear plant next to Grand Gulf Nuclear Station in Port Gibson would make future costs of electricity more affordable than relying on natural gas, officials said.

But the "pay-as-you-go" financing mechanism also being sought by Mississippi Power faces hurdles from legislators and Public Service Commission members concerned ratepayers would be stuck with the tab if construction plans fall through.

Legislation that would grant commissioners authority to consider incremental rate hikes for Entergy's facility and Mississippi Power's $1.8 billion coal plant in Kemper County cleared the Senate floor last week. But a key House leader said Monday he's not sure he'll bring up a companion bill by Thursday's deadline.

"I just don't think ratepayers should bear 100 percent of the burden," Northern District Commissioner Brandon Presley said. "Somewhere, utilities have to look at investing themselves."

Read full article here http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080226/NEWS010504/802260378/1205/NEWS010504

Flying high

In 2004, when European airplane maker European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company announced it was setting up a facility in Mobile, Ala, it seemed like a smart idea. Shorthand for European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company is either EADS or Airbus, one of the company's well-known offshoots.

The French-based company wanted to become a player in the lucrative U.S. defense contracting trade. Mobile seemed like a natural. Drive less than an hour to the west and you're in Mississippi. Head an hour to the east and you're in Florida. That adds up to six U.S. senators and countless congressmen with a stake in seeing that a share of defense contracts go to the Mobile facility.

The strategy paid off Friday when the U.S. Air Force awarded to EADS and its North American partner Northrop Grumman a contract estimated to be worth $35 billion or more.

While the results are not entirely positive and won't completely make up for the lost textile industry jobs that went overseas, Alabama is (or soon will be) the home to a German steelmaker and carmakers from Germany, South Korea and Japan.

An Abject Failure

Anyone who care about good government, responsible leadership, wise public policy and human decency will be outraged by a series of investigative reports appearing in The News & Observer of Raleigh.

Called "Mental Disorder: The Failure of Reform," the project charts how North Carolina's attempt to overhaul its mental health system went terribly wrong and left that system and the people and families who depend on it much worse off.

From the overview article:

North Carolina's mental-health reform was supposed to improve treatment for the mentally ill and provide good value for taxpayers. It has done neither.

The state has wasted at least $400 million in an ill-conceived and poorly executed plan to treat more mentally ill people in their own communities and fewer in the state's four psychiatric hospitals, a News & Observer investigation shows.

Local governments, forced to stop offering treatment, were replaced by providers out to make a profit. Most of their workers were high school graduates, not licensed professionals, but the bill was stunning. In a few months, the cost of the community support program was $50 million a month, more than 10 times what the state had expected.

[snip]

Meanwhile, some seriously ill people had to do without treatment. Services that were more likely to help them avoid hospitalization were in short supply.