Fact Sheets & Briefs

NETROOTS: HEALTH CARE TOP PRIORITY, SESTAK OVER SPECTER FOR SENATE

Toby Chaudhuri — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 21:11:41 -0700

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**Netroots Nation 2009 Straw Poll Results**

Progressive bloggers and activists are focused on pushing comprehensive health care reform this year and overwhelmingly support Rep. Joe Sestak, D-Pa., over Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., for the Pennsylvania Democratic Senate nomination, according to a straw poll at this year’s Netroots Nation convention conducted by the Campaign for America’s Future and Democracy Corps.

Sixty percent of respondents said overhauling the nation’s health care system is one of their top two priorities. Fifty-three percent said they will not support a health care bill that does not include a public insurance option. Passing clean energy and environmental protection measures came in second with 22 percent.

President Clinton, former Gov. Howard Dean and White House senior advisor Valerie Jarrett all spoke this week at this year’s convention, which attracted more than 1,500 progressive bloggers and activists. Sen. Specter and Rep. Sestak both addressed the convention on Friday. Sen. Specter, who did not support a public health insurance option before, told the audience he supports it now.

In a match-up between the two candidates vying for the Pennsylvania Democratic Senate nomination, neither candidate reached 50 percent. A third remained undecided while 48 percent choose Rep. Sestak and 10 percent choose Sen. Specter. Rep Sestak was viewed more positively with a favorability rating of 46 compared to 15 for Sen. Specter.

President Obama received a 95 percent approval rating among the group. Not surprisingly, Sarah Palin was extremely unpopular with participants. Only 1 percent of attendees rated Palin favorably while 88 percent rated her unfavorably. Thirty-six percent rated Palin as the easiest Republican presidential nominee to defeat in 2012, followed by former Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., who was rated as easiest to beat by 20 percent, and Gov. Bobby Jindal, R-La., who was the choice of 12 percent.

This year’s convention marked the second year that Campaign for America’s Future and Democracy Corps conducted a straw poll at the Netroots Nation bloggers convention. More than 250 attendees participated in this year’s straw poll between Thursday, Aug. 13 and Friday, Aug. 14.

Investing In People

OurFuture.org Staff — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 10:53:04 -0800

•Every dollar invested into the high quality pre-school programs yields a return of over seven dollars later.

High/Scope Educational Research Foundation. Lifetime Effects: The High/Scope Perry Preschool Study Through Age 40. 2005.

•In mathematics, science, and problem solving, the United States ranked 25th, 20th, and 25th, respectively, out of the 30 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries (OECD).

United States Department of Education. “Table 389: Average Mathematics Literacy, Reading Literacy, Science Literacy, and Problem-Solving Scores of 15-Year-Olds, by Sex and Country: 2003.” National Center for Education Statistics. March 2005.

•High poverty school districts receive, on average, $938 less per-pupil in state and local funding than low poverty districts.

Carmen G. Arroyo. The Funding Gap. The Education Trust. January 2008.

•Public school teachers earn 15 percent lower weekly earnings than comparable professionals in other sectors.

Sylvia A. Allegretto, Sean P. Corcoran, and Lawrence Mishel. The Teaching Penalty: Teacher Pay Losing Ground. Economic Policy Institute. March 2008.

•Raising teacher wages by 10% lowers high school drop out rates by 3-6%.

Susanna Loeb and Marianne E. Page. “Examining the Link Between Teacher Wages and Student Outcomes: The Importance of Alternative Labor Market Opportunities and Non-Pecuniary Variation.” The Review of Economics and Statistics. August 2000. Volume 82. Number 3.

•One third of United States’ schools need extensive repair; 15,000 public schools had air that was unfit to breathe.

United States General Accounting Office. School Facilities: Condition of America’s Schools. February 1995.

•Investing $20 billion in deferred school maintenance would generate 250,000 skilled maintenance jobs.

Mary Filardo. Good Buildings, Better Schools: An Economic Stimulus Opportunity with Long-Term Benefits. Economic Policy Institute. Briefing Paper #216. 29 April 2008.

•Since 2000, the average cost of tuition at a public college has increased 39 percent but median household income has fallen 1 percent.

Carmen DeNavas-Walt, Bernadette D. Proctor and Jessica C. Smith. Current Population Reports: Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2007. United States Census Bureau. August 2008.
United States Department of Education. “Table 313: Average Undergraduate Tuition and Fees and Room and Board Rates Paid by Full-Time-Equivalent Students in Degree-Granting Institutions, by Control of Institution and By State: 2000-01 and 2001-02.” National Center for Education Statistics. November 2002.
United States Department of Education. “Table 321: Average Undergraduate Tuition and Fees and Room and Board Rates Charged for Full-Time Students in Degree-Granting Institutions, by Type and Control of Institution and State or Jurisdiction: 2005-06 and 2006-07.” National Center for Education Statistics. July 2007.

•In 1979, Pell Grants covered 77% of the cost of college; now it is down to 32%. An investment of $51 billion would return the Pell Grant to its 1979 level.

United States Department of Education. “Table320: Average Undergraduate Tuition and Fees and Room and Board Rates Charged for Full-Time Students in Degree-Granting Institutions, by Type and Control of Institution: 1964-65 Through 2006-07.” National Center for Education Statistics. July 2007.
Jacqueline E. King. "2003 Status Report on the Pell Grant Program". American Council on Education and the Center for Policy Analysis. October 2003.
American Council on Education and the Center for Policy Analysis. Fact Sheet on Higher Education. November 2004.

Remember Who We Are: The Facts

Anita Chariw2 — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 11:05:21 -0700

We have let public good be subordinated to corporate greed.

• Corporate profits have climbed 13 percent a year in the six years after the 2001 recession ended. Productivity has also increased by 11 percent since the recovery of the 2001 recession.

“Worked and Over Worked.” New York Times. Pg. 3. 20 April 2008.
Lawrence Mishel, Jared Bernstein, and Heidi Shierholz. The State of Working America 2008/2009. (Advance Proof). Economic Policy Institute. Pg 121. Ithaca, New York: Cornel University Press, 2008.

• Furthermore, it takes an average worker a whole year to earn what a CEO takes home in one day. In 2007, the chief executives of the 500 largest companies in the United States made an average of $12.8 million apiece—$51,200 a day—while the average weekly wage earner makes $42,650 a year.

Scott DeCarlo. “Top Paid CEOs.” Forbes. 30 April 2008.
United States Department of Labor. Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages. Bureau of Labor Statistics. 2008. Data compiled: 12 September 2008.

• However, since 2000, median household income has declined by 1 percent ($324.00); employer provided health insurance for workers has decreased by 8 percent, a decline of almost 2 million workers; and employer provided pension coverage receded by 2.8 percentage points from 2000 to 2006 to 42.8 percent, 7.8 percentage points below the level in 1979.

United States Census Bureau. Current Population Survey 2007. Table A-1: Households by Total Money Income, Race, and Hispanic Origin of Householder: 1967 to 2007. Pg 31. August 2008. (Adjusted 2008 Dollars)
United States Census Bureau. Current Population Survey 2007. Table A-1: Households by Total Money Income, Race, and Hispanic Origin of Householder: 1967 to 2007. Pg 61. August 2008.
Lawrence Mishel, Jared Bernstein, and Heidi Shierholz. The State of Working America 2008/2009. (Advance Proof). Economic Policy Institute. Pg 121. Ithaca, New York: Cornel University Press, 2008.

• Policymakers, egged on by Wall Street lobbyists, enacted policies that let financial institutions govern themselves. They rejected the warnings of financial experts who saw a disaster in the making. Only now are the apostles of deregulation admitting, in Alan Greenspan's words, "shocked disbelief" at the result.

The New York Times. "The Reckoning," (series). September 28-October 23, 2008.

We’ve let our economy be run into the ground, as bankers ran wild.

• The U.S. Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury provided over $900 billion in the government bailout of reckless financial institutions.

“FACTBOX: Government Bailout Tally Tops $900 Billion." Reuters. 16 September 2008.

• Since 2001, the overall cost of living has increased 21.5 percent; driven by big increases in living essentials; such as gas, home-heating oil and food. Gasoline and home-heating oil prices have increased 108 percent and 99 percent since 2001, respectively. Prices of some staple foods have increased disproportionately as well; for example, the price of eggs in this period increased 61 percent.

United States Department of Labor. Consumer Price Index: All Urban Consumers-(CPI-U); U.S. City Averages. Bureau of Labor Statistics. 14 August 2008.
Oil Price Information Service and AAA. Daily Fuel Gauge Report. 2008. (Adjusted 2008 Dollars).
Energy Information Administration. Weekly U.S. no. 2 Heating Oil Residential Price. 19 March 2008. (Adjusted 2008 Dollars)
United States Bureau of Labor Statistics. Consumer Price Index: Average Price Data. 2008. Data compiled: 12 September 2008. (Adjusted 2008 Dollars)

• Wages haven't kept pace: Since 2000, median household income has declined by 1 percent ($324.00).

United States Census Bureau. Current Population Survey 2007. Table A-1: Households by Total Money Income, Race, and Hispanic Origin of Householder: 1967 to 2007. Pg 31. August 2008. (Adjusted 2008 Dollars)

• The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight reported United States’ home prices fell 4.8 percent between the second quarter of 2007 and the second quarter of 2008—back to 2005 levels.

Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight. Monthly Seasonally-Adjusted and Unadjusted Indexes: January 1991 - June 2008. 26 August 2008.

• Since 2000, we’ve lost one out of five manufacturing jobs. Between September 2000 and September 2008, the United States has lost over 3.8 million manufacturing jobs—a decline of 22 percent. Fully twenty million more are at risk.

United States Department of Labor. “Employment, Hours, and Earnings from the Current Employment Statistics Survey (National).” Bureau of Labor Statistics. Data Compiled: 3 October 2008.

• American business is steadily moving finance, technology, production, and marketing beyond our borders. Some 50 percent of all U.S.-owned manufacturing production is now located in foreign countries, and 25 percent of the profits of U.S. multinational corporations are generated overseas—and the shares are rapidly growing.

Martin Crutsinger. “Factory Jobs: 3 Million Lost Since 2000.” Associated Press. 20 April 2008.
Jeff Faux. Globalization that Works for Working Americans. Economic Policy Institute. Briefing Paper #179. 11 January 2007.

We’ve let labor unions be attacked...

• Since 2000, the number of workers belonging to a union has decreased 600,000 to 15.7 million workers.

United States Department of Labor. “Union Members in 2000.” Bureau of Labor Statistics. 18 January 2001.
United States Department of Labor. “Union Members in 2007.” Bureau of Labor Statistics. 25 January 2008.

• Some 60 million U.S. workers say they would join a union if they could, based on research conducted by Peter D. Hart Research Associates in December 2006.

American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations. “60 Million Workers Would Join A Union If They Could.” 2007.

• However, when faced with organizing drives, 25 percent of employers fire at least one pro-union worker; 51 percent threaten to close a worksite if the union prevails; and 92 percent force employees to attend one-on-one anti-union meetings with their supervisors.

American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations. “Employer Interference by the Numbers (Private-Sector Employees).” 2007.

... and our middle class be weakened.

• The personal savings rate is the lowest it has been since the Great Depression (since 1933, the last year it was negative).

United States Department of Commerce. National Income and Product Accounts Table; Table 2.1 Personal Income and Its Disposition [Billion of Dollars] Seasonally Adjusted at Annual Rates. Bureau of Economic Analysis. 28 August 2008.

• In 2007, the total value of all forms of household debt was at its highest on record—nearly 20 percent of all assets. All debt, as a share of annual disposable personal income, was also at its highest at 141 percent.

Lawrence Mishel, Jared Bernstein, and Heidi Shierholz. The State of Working America 2008/2009. (Advance Proof). Economic Policy Institute. Pg 121. Ithaca, New York: Cornel University Press, 2008.

• Employer-provided health insurance for workers has decreased by 8 percent since 2000—a decline of almost 2 million workers.

United States Census Bureau. Current Population Survey 2007. Table A-1: Households by Total Money Income, Race, and Hispanic Origin of Householder: 1967 to 2007. Pg 61. August 2008.

• Employer-provided pension coverage receded by 2.8 percentage points from 2000 to 2006 to 42.8 percent, 7.8 percentage points below the level in 1979.

Lawrence Mishel, Jared Bernstein, and Heidi Shierholz. The State of Working America 2008/2009. (Advance Proof). Economic Policy Institute. Pg 121. Ithaca, New York: Cornel University Press, 2008.

Banksters Run Amok: The Facts

Brian Dockstader — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 11:51:48 -0700

The Unprecedented Crises Our Nation Now Faces

Lehman Brothers, one of the largest investment banks in the world, is now gone, having declared bankruptcy. Merrill Lynch agreed to sell itself at a fire-sale price to Bank of America. Mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were taken over by the Treasury Department, and the insurance giant American International Group needed more than $123 billion in federal loans to avoid collapse. Banks across the nation, holding billions in toxic loans, are in trouble.

This debacle unfolded when, to increase profits, finance companies sold subprime and nontraditional mortgages to millions of Americans who—the companies knew—could not afford to make the payments. The brokers didn’t care; before the mortgages could become a problem, they sold the loans to investment houses that repackaged them into exotic securities and marketed them around the world. Now the entire financial system is reeling since no one knows what the toxic loans are worth.

These follies were made possible when:

Banking deregulation allowed the growth of a totally unregulated shadow banking system that borrowed heavily while inventing exotic securities to hide the value of underlying assets.
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which could have halted the sale of the worst of these loans by designating them “unfair and deceptive practices,” refused to do so. [Center for Responsible Lending]
The Federal Reserve Board failed to regulate subprime and exotic mortgage loans, although it had the power to do so. [New York Times]
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development allowed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to purchase large numbers of subprime loans. [Washington Post]

The banks went on a binge; the cops on the street turned a blind eye. The bankers pocketed billions until the housing bubble burst.

Americans are now paying dearly for the folly. Across the nation, home values have dropped 16 percent over 12 months, the largest one-year decline on record. [New York Times] Almost one-third of U.S. homeowners who bought in the last five years now owe more on their mortgages than their properties are worth. [Bloomberg] Homeowners without mortgage problems find themselves surrounded by boarded-up foreclosed houses. And taxpayers will ultimately have to pay hundreds of billions for all the recent government banking bailouts. [U.S. News]

The huge sums of federal money taxpayers are being asked to spent to cover bad bets could have been used to make America better:

• Fix a broken health care system. In 2007, 45.7 million Americans were without health insurance; 8.1 million of these Americans are children.
(United States Census Bureau. Current Population Survey 2007. Table C-1: Health Insurance Coverage: 1987 to 2007. Pg 61. Table C-3: Health Insurance Coverage by Age: 1999 to 2007. Pg. 66. August 2008. (Adjusted 2008 Dollars)).

• End our addiction to oil. Since September 2001, U.S. oil imports have increased 12 percent.
(Oil Price Information Service and AAA. Daily Fuel Gauge Report. 2008. (Adjusted 2008 Dollars).
(Energy Information Administration. U.S. Crude Oil and Petroleum Products Imports from All Countries (Thousand Barrels). 26 August 2008)..

• Rebuild a country that’s falling apart:

♦ One out of four bridges in the United States is structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. Every $1 billion of federal funding invested in transportation infrastructure creates 47,500 jobs.
(United States Department of Transportation. “Deficient Bridges by State and Highway System.” Federal Highway Administration. 14 August 2008)

♦ One third of United States’ schools need extensive repair. Investing $20 billion in deferred school maintenance would generate 250,000 skilled maintenance jobs.
(United States General Accounting Office. School Facilities: Condition of America’s Schools. February 1995)
(Mary Filardo. Good Buildings, Better Schools: An Economic Stimulus Opportunity with Long-Term Benefits. Economic Policy Institute. Briefing Paper #216. 29 April 2008)

♦ Investing $500 billion in a comprehensive economic strategy to build America’s 21st century clean energy economy over the next 10 years would generate 5 million high-quality, green-collar jobs.
(Apollo Alliance. The New Apollo Program: Clean Energy, Good Jobs. September 2008)

Wall Street Is A Monster Donor to Both Political Parties

From 1990 through July 2008, the banking, real estate and insurance industries poured more than $2 billion into federal election campaigns, including $311 million just in the first seven months of 2008. The money follows the party in power: Republicans got more money when they controlled Congress; now that Democrats do, they’re getting more. Plus, these industries spent $415,259,323 on lobbying in 2007.
(Center for Responsive Politics)

Revised with content adapted from "Making Sense 2008" issue alerts, Campaign for America's Future. October 2008.

The Dream Gone Bad: The Facts

Alex Carter — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 13:55:23 -0700

The cost of living keeps rising.

• Since 2001, the overall costs of living has increased 21.5 percent, driven by big increases in such life essentials as gas, home heating oil and food.
(Consumer Price Index: All Urban Consumers-(CPI-U); U.S. City Averages. Bureau of Labor Statistics. 14 August 2008.).

• Gasoline and home-heating oil has increased 108 percent and 99 percent, respectively, since 2001.
(Oil Price Information Service and AAA. Daily Fuel Gauge Report. 2008. (Adjusted 2008 Dollars).
(Energy Information Administration. Weekly U.S. no. 2 Heating Oil Residential Price. 19 March 2008. (Adjusted 2008 Dollars)).

• Costs for many staples at the grocery store have gone up sharply: Shoppers are paying 41 percent more for bread, 37 percent more for ground beef, and almost 100 percent more for eggs since January 2001.
United States Bureau of Labor Statistics. Consumer Price Index: Average Price Data. 2008. Data compiled: 12 September 2008. (Adjusted 2008 Dollars).

Wages don’t keep pace.

Since 2000, median household income has declined by 1 percent ($324.00).
(United States Census Bureau. Current Population Survey 2007. Table A-1: Households by Total Money Income, Race, and Hispanic Origin of Householder: 1967 to 2007. Pg 31. August 2008. (Adjusted 2008 Dollars)).

Savings vanish.

The personal savings rate is the lowest it has been since the Great Depression (since 1933, the last year it was negative).
(United States Department of Commerce. National Income and Product Accounts Table; Table 2.1 Personal Income and Its Disposition [Billion of Dollars] Seasonally Adjusted at Annual Rates. Bureau of Economic Analysis. 28 August 2008.).

Debt builds up.

In 2007, the total value of all forms of household debt was at its highest on record—nearly 20 percent of all assets. All debt, as a share of annual disposable personal income, was also at its highest, at 141 percent.
(Lawrence Mishel, Jared Bernstein, and Heidi Shierholz. The State of Working America 2008/2009. (Advance Proof). Economic Policy Institute. Pg 284. Ithaca, New York: Cornel University Press, 2008.).

The inequalities scream out for change.

• An average worker works a whole year to earn what her CEO takes home in one day. In 2007, the chief executives of the 500 biggest companies in the United States made an average of $12.8 million apiece—$51,200 a day; while, the average weekly wage earner makes $42,650 a year.
(Scott DeCarlo. “Top Paid CEOs.” Forbes. 30 April 2008.).
(United States Department of Labor. Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages. Bureau of Labor Statistics. 2008. Data compiled: 12 September 2008.).

• A hedge fund billionaire pays a lower tax rate than his secretary. Hedge fund manager billionaire Warren Buffet presently pays taxes at a lower rate than his receptionist (18 percent vs. 30 percent) without offshore tax shelters or other devices he declines to use.
(Tomoeh Murakami Tse. “Buffett Slams Tax System Disparities Speech Raises at Least $1 Million for Clinton Campaign.” Washington Post. 27 June 2007.).

The old deal between the people who own the country and the workers who make it go has been busted.

• Over the last seven years profits and productivity have soared. Corporate profits have climbed 13 percent a year in the six years after the 2001 recession ended. Productivity has also increased by 11 percent since the recovery of the 2001 recession.
(“Worked and Over Worked.” New York Times. Pg. 3. 20 April 2008. ).
(Lawrence Mishel, Jared Bernstein, and Heidi Shierholz. The State of Working America 2008/2009. (Advance Proof). Economic Policy Institute. Pg 284. Ithaca, New York: Cornel University Press, 2008.).

• Meanwhile, since 2000, median household income has declined by 1 percent ($324.00).
(United States Census Bureau. Current Population Survey 2007. Table A-1: Households by Total Money Income, Race, and Hispanic Origin of Householder: 1967 to 2007. Pg 31. August 2008. (Adjusted 2008 Dollars)).

It’s time to empower workers to organize at the workplace and crack down on employees who trample their rights.

Some 60 million U.S. workers say they would join a union if they could, based on research conducted by Peter D. Hart Research Associates in December 2006. However, when faced with organizing drives, 25 percent of employers fire at least one pro-union worker; 51 percent threaten to close a worksite if the union prevails; and, 92 percent force employees to attend one-on-one anti-union meetings with their supervisors.
(American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations. “60 Million Workers Would Join A Union If They Could.” 2007.).
(American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations. “Employer Interference by the Numbers (Private-Sector Employees).” 2007.).

Corporations are shredding promises they made on health care and pensions. It's time to forge a new social contract.

• Employer-provided health insurance for workers has decreased by 8 percent since 2000. That means almost 2 million fewer workers have coverage.
(United States Census Bureau. Current Population Survey 2007. Table A-1: Households by Total Money Income, Race, and Hispanic Origin of Householder: 1967 to 2007. Pg 61. August 2008.).

• The percentage of workers covered by employer-provided pensions, which tended to rise in the 1990s, declined by 2.8 percentage points from 2000 to 2006 to 42.8 percent, 7.8 percentage points below the level in 1979.
(Lawrence Mishel, Jared Bernstein, and Heidi Shierholz. The State of Working America 2008/2009. (Advance Proof). Economic Policy Institute. Pg 284. Ithaca, New York: Cornel University Press, 2008.).

The Progressive Solution

Robert Borosage — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 07:44:43 -0800

Education has to become a real national priority. No Child Left Behind was great as a slogan coined by the Children's Defense Fund. It is a disaster as a national education law. College education is exceedingly unaffordable and the cost precludes many potential students from pursuing a college degree. Progressives must unite Americans to meet the challenges facing our education system in the 21st century. We must make progress in several key areas.

More Learning Time: All children should enjoy quality pre-school and kindergarten learning and socialization, and students from 1st through 12th grades should have meaningful afterschool education opportunities. The school year should move from the agricultural calendar of the 19th century to a calendar that maximizes learning.

Quality Teachers and Principals: Skilled educators should teach all students. Every teachers and principal should receive high-quality training before he or she enters school, have on-the-job training opportunities, and be rewarded for excellence. If we hope to retain the best teachers, we need to pay them more and provide them with career opportunities. Our best educators should receive financial incentives to teach in those schools with the most at-risk children.

An Equal Education: Every student should have an opportunity to learn. Adequate health care and nutrition, and an end to the savage inequality in school funding, are all keys to providing an equal education.

A Rigorous Education: Every student should be provided a first-rate education with demanding curriculum standards in core subject areas. Voluntary national standards can help parents hold schools accountable.

Affordable College: Every child must know that he or she can afford a college education. No student should be priced out of the college or advanced technical training they need to succeed in the modern economy. Tuition rates, grant aid, and loan forgiveness must be readjusted to make college affordable.

Progressives should challenge every sector of society and every level of government to make education a top priority. Doubling federal expenditures on education—from three to six percent—should be adopted as a near-term goal, even as states and localities are challenged to invest more. To guarantee the money is used well, we should require that districts are spending money wisely and investing in best practices.

America's future depends on how well we educate our children. To provide every child with a world-class education we need to start sooner, set standards higher and provide opportunities for advanced training and college for all. We need to attract and retain skilled teachers. We need to restructure the school day and the school year. Money alone won't solve the problems facing our schools, but a policy of reforms without resources mocks the scope of our challenge.