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2021 Pennsylvania Budget Analysis Webinar
With Diana Polson Click here to download or read full screen. Continue reading
Category: My Work
A minimum wage hike would reverse 40-year pay stagnation for working people
Originally published in The Morning Call on March 11, 2021 Raising the minimum wage is about helping low-income workers do better — but not just that. It is about changing the rules of our economy so that we all do better, now and in the future. To all do better we must reverse the 40-year trend that has seen skyrocketing incomes and wealth for the owners and executives of the largest corporations while income for working people and the middle class has been stagnant. This transformation was not the necessary result of a free market economy. The economy is a human creation subject to the rules we choose. Political and legal changes made at the behest of the corporate elite deliberately tilted the economy to their advantage and against the working and middle classes, as well as small businesses. What were those changes? First, lawmakers allowed the value of the… Continue reading
Analysis of the 2021-22 Pennsylvania Executive Budget
With Diana Polson and Stephen Herzenberg Click here to print or read full screen. Continue reading
The minimum wage was created during the Great Depression. We need to raise it during the Pandemic Recession
Originally published at the PA Capital-Star on March 7, 2021 Opponents of raising the minimum wage seem to have an inexhaustible supply of concerns which they repeat no matter how often we present evidence that refutes them. The latest one is the claim that we cannot raise the minimum wage during the COVID-19 recession. Raising the minimum wage during a recession, they say, will stall our recovery. This might sound plausible for a second—or until one remembers that the minimum wage was created during the Great Depression by the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA). After a slow recovery from the Great Depression, the economy went into reverse in 1937 and the beginning of 1938. The reason is clear. In 1936, President Franklin Roosevelt started to listen to orthodox economists worried about the budget deficit. Taxes were raised, government spending was cut and the U.S. government had a balanced budget in 1937. The Federal Reserve raised interest rats as well, hurting the economy. But the economy suffered. Unemployment, which was still high… Continue reading
The Trouble with TABOR
UPDATED April 12: The Republican leadership of the House of Representative is poised to bring a dangerous constitutional amendment, the so-called Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR), HB71 tomorrow, April 13, 2022. This amendment, which has been championed in states all over the country by the right-wing American Legislative Exchange Council, would limit the growth in PA General Fund spending to the previous year’s level adjusted for the sum of (1) the average percentage change in the U.S. Consumer Price Index for all urban consumers (CPI-U) over the preceding three calendar years plus (2) the average of the percentage change in the resident population for the preceding three calendar years. Adopting this constitutional amendment would be a terrible mistake for many reasons. General Fund spending has not been growing faster than TABOR rates. First, even if one believes that the growth in state spending should be restrained, it is unnecessary. Over… Continue reading
Initial Response to Gov. Wolf’s Proposed 2021-22 PA State Budget | Thursday, February 4, 2021
The Pennsylvania Budget & Policy Center’s director Marc Stier and senior policy analyst Diana Polson provide an initial overview of Gov. Wolf’s proposed FY 2021-22 state budget, highlighting some of the governor’s key initiatives & priorities and identifying some of the challenges that are likely to impact budget negotiations. Marc & Diana respond to questions posed by representatives of various nonpartisan advocacy organizations, who participated in a Zoom meeting on Thursday, February 4, 2021. Continue reading
On Governor Wolf’s 2021-22 Legislative Agenda
Harrisburg, PA — Statement on the governor’s newly released agenda by Marc Stier, Director, PA Budget and Policy Center Legislative enactment of the agenda Governor Wolf announced today would be a huge step forward in meeting the needs of Pennsylvania workers and businesses that are suffering from the COVID-19 pandemic, while also ensuring a fast and inclusive economic recovery. Critical elements of his agenda include providing support to working people, especially those with low incomes; raising the minimum wage and investing in workforce training to help people move into new jobs; and providing support to small businesses damaged by the pandemic. Investments in public infrastructure, and especially in school buildings and broadband internet access, would overcome some of the deep inequities in public services that some of us have known about for years but the pandemic has revealed to all. Corporate tax reform would require large multinational corporations to pay… Continue reading
States Can Choose a Better Path for Higher Education: A Pennsylvania Perspective
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Judicial Gerrymandering Talking Points
with Kadida Kenner Click here to print or read full screen. Continue reading
Deflection by Constitutional Amendment: On HB 55
Republicans this week will seek to advance a constitutional amendment that would enable the General Assembly to act by a concurrent resolution to override a governor’s emergency order after 21 days. In doing so they are doubling down on their false narrative about COVID-19 and the economic crisis it created. That crisis remains severe. New cases and hospitalizations have fallen to about half of their peak in mid-December—but they are far greater than the first wave of March and April. Meanwhile, COVID-19 deaths per day have just reached their peak. The economy of the state remains in bad shape especially for small businesses and those with low incomes. Small business revenues are down by more than 25% from January 2020 and, shockingly, by more than 40% in high-income neighborhoods, where many people with low incomes work. As a result, employment remains at 6.7% below the January 2020 level and for… Continue reading