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U.S. Senate Candidate and financial expert Elizabeth Warren explores the consequences of America’s changing investment priorities and where the money goes.

CBS News Congressional correspondent Nancy Cordes reports on Democrats’ strategy for the 2012 House elections and interviews three of the top recruits who have a good shot at unseating their GOP rivals.

Buoyed by Connecticut’s enactment this month of the nation’s first state law guaranteeing paid sick days to most workers, more than 200 organizers for paid family leave and paid sick days pushed for national legislation this week as they gathered in Washington, D.C.

Their movement is picking up steam, despite the obstacles in Congress and in many states to passing any legislation helping workers. The organizers, most linked to either Family Values @ Work or the National Partnership for Women and Families, came from 23 states and the District of Columbia. Though success with federal legislation in this Congress is unlikely, they anticipate passage of paid sick day legislation in the coming months in Seattle, Denver, New York City, and possibly both Massachusetts and, in a weak form, Georgia.

The failure of many employers to provide paid sick days, and the failure of the country, alone among advanced industrial countries, to mandate such protection causes great personal hardship. Torrie Moffett of Milwaukee, for example, lost four jobs in five years because she had to take time off to address school problems of her mentally ill child. None of her employers paid for sick leave or protected workers against dismissal for taking days off for sickness, as much of the new legislation mandates.

New research by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research indicates that even at workplaces with paid sick days, nearly half of workers report that management has policies that could lead to dismissal for taking too many sick days.

Workers without paid sick days often simply can’t afford to take time off even when they are ill, often with contagious diseases they could spread to co-workers or customers and clients, according to a June report from the Economic Policy Institute. Just missing three days from illness in one month, an average worker without paid leave—making $10 an hour—would be on the verge of falling below the poverty line, EPI reports.

Paid leave is good not just for workers, says Ellen Bravo, executive director of Family Values @ Work, but also for the economy as a whole and even for employers. Studies of San Francisco after several years of mandated paid sick days shoed that six out o seven employers reported no problems and job growth was faster than in five surrounding counties, Bravo says. And PricewaterhouseCoopers, the accounting firm, ranked the city the third best for business. Employers benefit by keeping skilled staff.

Instead of such regulation killing jobs, Bravo says, research shows that paid sick days lead to job retention and stability, particularly important in an economic recovery. “The jobs killer,” Bravo argues, “is lack of paid sick days.” Both paid sick days and, to a slightly lesser degree, paid family and medical leave, score strong public support in polls, typically at or above 60 to 70 percent approval of legislation setting such standards. For example, in a 2010 National Opinion Research Center survey, 75 percent of those polled supported a mandate for a minimum number of paid sick days, with 61 percent strongly supporting it.

That makes it a bit easier for core advocate groups, like women’s, public health and labor organizations, to build the broader coalitions—including many business owners—that have so far been the key to legislative victories.
Newly proposed federal legislation would guarantee up to seven days of paid sick time for all employers of 15 or more workers. Other legislation would set up an insurance fund financed by payments from employers and employees to compensate for family and medical leave.

High-earning workers and public-sector workers are more likely to have some protection now than low-wage private sector workers, but legal guarantees can reinforce those policies.

Also, Bravo says, “You may have paid sick days, but when you go to a restaurant, you don’t want to be served flu with your fries. Everyone has a stake in it.”

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This entry originally appeared at In These Times.

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David Moberg, a senior editor of In These Times, has been on the staff of the magazine since it began publishing in 1976. Before joining In These Times, he completed his work for a Ph.D. in anthropology at the University of Chicago and worked for Newsweek. He has received fellowships from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Nation Institute for research on the new global economy.

The much-vaunted Republican pledge not to raise any taxes is crumbling. Today 34 Senate Republicans voted to end the special tax breaks for ethanol.

According to no-tax-increase purists like Grover Norquist, this is tantamount to a tax increase.

The truth is, Republicans are divided between those who want to bring down the budget deficit and those who want to shrink government. Ending a special tax subsidy helps reduce the deficit but doesn’t necessarily shrink government. That’s why Norquist and his followers have insisted any such tax increase – including even the closing of tax loopholes – be directly linked to a corresponding tax cut.

In order to save face on today’s vote, Norquist says renegade Republicans will still be considered to have adhered to the pledge if they vote in favor of an amendment offered by Senator Jim DeMint to eliminate the estate tax. Talk about grasping at straws. DeMint’s amendment isn’t even up for a vote. (more…)

By Dean Baker
Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research

The EPOP for African Americans hit a new low.

The unemployment rate edged up again in May, reaching 9.1 percent, as the rate of private-sector job growth slowed to just 83,000. There were also downward revisions to the prior two months data, which lowered the average for the last three months to 160,000, approximately 70,000 more than what is needed to keep pace with the growth of the labor force. Some of the weakness in May probably stemmed from quirks that exaggerated April job growth. For example, the retail sector reportedly added 64,000 jobs in April. It lost 8,500 in May. Health added 36,700 jobs in April, compared with an increase of just 17,400 in May. Food manufacturing added 6,300 jobs in April, it lost 7,000 in May. These are most likely quirks of seasonal adjustments, not sharp shifts in the economy itself. (more…)

By Lawrence Mishel
President, Economic Policy Institute

Many policymakers and pundits claim “we’re broke”¹ and “can’t afford”² public investments and policies that support workers. These claims are meant to justify efforts to scale back government programs and public sector workers’ wages and benefits. The “we’re broke” theme also implies that America’s working families should be satisfied with the status quo in terms of wages that have been stagnant for 30 years.

Despite the rhetoric, it is clear that “we” as a nation are not broke. While the recession has led to job loss and shrinking incomes in recent years, the economy has produced substantial gains in average incomes and wealth over the last three decades, and economists agree that we can expect comparable growth over the next three decades as well. Between 1980 and 2010, income per capita grew 66.4%, and wealth per capita grew 73.2%. Over the next 30 years, per capita income is projected to grow by a comparable 60.6%. In other words, “we” are much richer as a nation than we used to be and can expect those riches
to rise substantially in the future.

So who is the we in the “we’re broke” mantra? The recession has certainly been a rough patch of road for many families, but the output produced by corporations in the private sector has already recovered to pre-recession levels, and these firms’ profits were 21.7% higher overall, driven largely by the 60% jump in pre-tax profits enjoyed by firms in the financial sector.

Read Briefing Paper

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Lawrence Mishel has co-authored numerous books, including The State of Working America, Emerging Labor Market Institutions for the Twenty-First Century, The Charter School Dust-up: Examining the Evidence On Enrollment And Achievement, and The Teaching Penalty: Teacher Pay Losing Ground

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This article was re-posted from EPI.org

The manufacturing sector in the United States has lost 5 million jobs in 30 years and is down to about 11% of our workforce. Along with that corporate migration to feed the economies of other countries, union labor and its sponsorship of safety, well-paying careers and benefits for workers has dropped to less than 12% of the U.S. workforce (less than 4% in Georgia). Georgia has lost over 120,000 (15%) manufacturing jobs in the past decade (78,000 of those in free trade policy with China).

So, what does Georgia do? We hold a Manufacturing Summit in Dalton (www.mfg2011summit.com), home of the highest unemployment rate in the state and the area whose companies recruited and hired so many undocumented workers not long ago that the federal government stepped in, as it should, to protect American workers; implementing fines and other admonishments to the companies focused more on profits and less on people.

You would think the conference would be about innovation, entrepreneurship, our skilled labor, bringing outsourced jobs back, and perhaps holding a job fair. Nope. The event is for C-level and other senior level corporate management. The event, kicked off by U.S. Rep. Tom Graves, who’ll be speaking on current legislative issues supporting manufacturing (owners), focuses on how “U.S. manufacturing is under attack by a growing government, high taxes, increasing regulations, rising energy costs, and a new global climate that is making it easier for companies to do business overseas.”

19th century-style energy producers dominate the speaking agenda, including the Southern Co. CEO and COO, President of Georgia Tech, former President of Southern Natural Gas, President of MEAG, Dalton Utilities CEO and maybe even T. Boone Pickens – all people whose organizations and livelihoods have benefited from government investment and enormous taxpayer subsidies. The Wall Street Journal’s expert on free market and supply side economics (lower tax rates, less regulation) will also speak, probably about how well that theory’s been going since President Ronald Reagan.

Do you get the sense that the big bad government in this “right to work (right to be poor)” state is making manufacturing go overseas to avoid taxes that would help the economy here, to pollute freely, to avoid safety regulations, to hire cheaply, and to use child labor?

Patrick Thompson
Woodstock, Ga.

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By Dave Johnson
Fellow with Campaign for America’s Future

In 1983 NY hotel-chain-owning billionaire Leona Helmsley said, “We don’t pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes…” As our country migrates from democracy to plutocracy, this more and more appears to be official policy. Again and again we see tax cuts for the wealthy few, tax breaks and subsidies for the big corporations that operate as fronts for those wealthy few, and budget cuts for the things We, the People (government) do to empower and protect each other. Just a few weeks ago we watched as an extension of the Bush tax cuts and a huge cut in the estate tax rate was pushed through. Now we watch as the discussion turns to cuts in Social Security and the rest of the so-called “safety net.”

Another indicator of plutocracy (government of, by and for the wealthy) is impunity for those at the top. Leona Helmsley actually went to jail for tax evasion. Even as recently as the early-90s Savings and Loan Crisis our government investigated, prosecuted and jailed more than a thousand bad actors for fraud and other crimes. This time, well, … not so much. Well … actually not at all. Times have changed. Don’t look back. Deal with it. Suck it up. Let’s all get on the same team and keep this ball moving forward down the field at the end of the day. Whatever. Hey, look over there! (more…)

When will America’s teachers follow the lead of Wall Street and start making some sacrifices for the children?

Since government workers refuse to live up to the greedy goon stereotype, the Tea Party must do it for them. Stephen Colbert shows how they accomplish this.