Other Campaigns Engage Youth

E.J. Dionne, Jr. documents favorable progress in political engagement among younger Americans. There's not much discussion of the relationship between issue-based activism and partisan political participation, but, given the seemingly high levels of campus advocacy at least, one might expect more responsive political candidates to successfully bring young activists into the electoral fold. Imagine, for example, what might happen if just a fraction of these young climate change activists became more directly involved in electoral politics [HT: Sam Raskin]. If we build a more decent and responsive political system, I'd bet we'd see the recent increases in youth political engagement sustain itself.

Spending to Save

When faced with attacks against increased public spending, progressives might consider arguing more forcefully, when the facts fit, that public spending often saves money--both public and private dollars. To ideologues on the right, that may seem counterintuitive or irrelevant, but for most of the rest of us, a persuasive case might be made to support critical public investments.

One area where a clear need for public expenditures exists is on suicide prevention. In the domestic arena, more and more evidence suggests that increased public health expenditures lead to lower suicide rates. When considering the value of a life and the pecuniary costs involved in a tragedy such as a suicide, it turns out that public health interventions can be more than merely cost-effective: they can generate significant savings.

Vouching for Farmers Markets

One of the obstacles to turning academic research into sensible policy is the combination of the inability of some policymakers to understand such research and the inability of some researchers to adequately translate their work into plain English. So, I'm going to try to highlight interesting new, policy-relevant research that has been summarized into plain English, or, in some instances, summarize such research myself.

To get things going, here's a nice, concise, if now dated, summary from the New York Times of a study that found that

"Vouchers that permit low-income women to shop at a local farmers’ market increase fruit and vegetable consumption in poor families..."

Not exactly a shocking finding, but there's more in the Times's brief explanation that's worth reading.

[HT: Shally Venugopal]

Withdrawing to Win

In yesterday's Boston Globe, my friend and former colleague Sean Duggan has concisely laid out a strategic case for beginning to withdraw American forces from Iraq.

AS THE DEBATE over supplemental funding for the war in Iraq plays out in Congress, a growing consensus on the need to adopt a policy of "strategic patience" has become accepted wisdom in the national debate. Proponents of this policy argue that solidifying recent security and political gains in Iraq is contingent upon the US military remaining in the country indefinitely. However, in order to truly capitalize on those gains, the United States must begin to withdraw its forces from Iraq.

Obama and Affirmative Action

I previously posted an entry on why I think Senator Obama would not repudiate race-based affirmative action in favor class-based affirmative (not that there is much good reason to pit these two ideas against each other). Turns out that, at least then, I was right. Of course, things could change.

[HT: Maire Daly]

The "soft bigotry of low expectations"

In his 2004 Republican nomination acceptance speech, President Bush challenged "the soft bigotry of low expectations" in many public schools. Hopefully he'll challenge the growing trend of relatively lower expectations for the length of life itself among those with lower socioeconomic status:

"New government research has found “large and growing” disparities in life expectancy for richer and poorer Americans, paralleling the growth of income inequality in the last two decades."

Affirmative Hope

Rick Kahlenberg has a thoughtful piece in Slate on how Obama could and should repudiate affirmative action based on race, thereby winning over white working-class voters. Rick, among others, seem to believe this is a very real possibility.

I've met Rick in passing, read some of his work, and am friends with one of his former research assistants. I disagree with Rick's attempts to pit race against class vis-a-vis affirmative action, but he is deeply committed to social justice and has contributed enormously to the debate on affirmative action and educational equity.

Yet, at a minimum, Obama seems to at least support affirmative action in response to historical discrimination and at higher education institutions, and I think Rick and others might be misunderstanding Senator Obama's views and rhetoric.

For example, Rick favorably cites Senator Obama's South Carolina victory speech:

So far, at a rhetorical level, Obama has been masterful in favoring a strong civil rights agenda while forcefully rejecting identity politics. In South Carolina, the crowd chanted "race doesn't matter," and Obama thundered: "I did not travel around this state and see a white South Carolina or a black South Carolina. I saw South Carolina."

Senator Obama is thoughtfully weaving an argument that our lives are mutually intertwined throughout both his speeches--including this one--and his policies. I think we take Senator Obama too literally when he makes this argument however. He is not actually colorblind. I have zero doubt that he saw racism and racialized disparities in South Carolina. Recall, for example, that he has said,

I self-identify as African American - that's how I'm treated and that's how I'm viewed. I'm proud of it.

Obviously he understands quite clearly that people are treated differently based on their race.

But note that he didn't deny that; not in South Carolina or anywhere else. In his South Carolina victory speech, he said he didn't see a "Black South Carolina" or a "White South Carolina." He sees one South Carolina. And he's right. But that doesn't mean he didn't notice racial disparities--though he might well "see" absolute and individual disadvantages first and relative and group inequities second.

His supporters who chanted "race doesn't matter" at his victory speech are also right in a sense that requires some explanation. Do they believe that racial profiling doesn't exist? I would doubt that. But if you or I are told by someone, "I can't vote for Barack because he's black," we might reasonably say "Race doesn't matter." It's not that we believe that statement in a universal sense, or even in the sense of it actually not mattering, but more in the aspirational sense of "Barack's race shouldn't matter to you when you consider voting for him." My sense is that supporters in South Carolina at his victory speech were essentially responding to attempts to divide us, instead chanting in support of Obama's view that we are one people, one nation, and we are our brother's keeper, as he likes to say. Sen. Obama seems to argue that our sense of community should not stop at our profession, our town, or our race, but rather that we need a renewed sense of belonging to an American community if we are to successfully tackle the daunting challenges we face. And I for one absolutely agree.

It's also worth bringing up a fantastic speech Senator Obama delivered at Howard University last fall with a focus on race and class, which included this paragraph:

Like Katrina did with poverty, Jena exposed glaring inequities in our justice system that were around long before that schoolyard fight broke out. It reminds us of the fact that we have a system that locks away too many young, first-time, non-violent offenders for the better part of their lives - a decision that's made not by a judge in a courtroom, but by politicians in Washington. It reminds us that we have certain sentences that are based less on the kind of crime you commit than on what you look like and where you come from. It reminds us that we have a Justice Department whose idea of prosecuting civil rights violations is trying to rollback affirmative action programs at our college and universities; a Justice Department whose idea of prosecuting voting rights violations is to look for voting fraud in black and Latino communities where it doesn't exist.

I have to wonder if Rick or many others who believe Barack opposes or might oppose consideration of race in the interest or racial equity have actually read or heard this speech.

I wouldn't hold my breath on Senator Obama repudiating affirmative action that considers race. And as far as class-based affirmative action goes, I've yet to hear of any liberal or progressive opposed to it. I'm all for it. It's a puzzling question as to why it should replace race-based affirmative action though. My sense is that Senator Obama understands these false choices, whether around immigration, affirmative action, or the criminal justice system.

It seems to me that race doesn't matter to Obama in the sense that he cares about people of all races equally, which means that a criminal justice system that condemns huge swaths of a race to indefinite disadvantage must be changed at the same time that an economic system that devastates the communities of another race must also be transformed.

I for one will be stunned if Senator Obama essentially says to the white working class, "Your problems in accessing college can be partially addressed by eliminating race-based preferences and substituting class-based preferences." Doesn't it seem like expanding Pell Grants, controlling college costs, increasing high school graduation rates, etc... (all essentially effective efforts with universal appeal) would be more up his ally? But who knows;? I could be wrong.

[UPDATE: The New York Times has a nice piece out today on Obama and race.]
[UPDATE II: The Chronicle of Higher Education has a Q and A with Obama from last year up on its website, and it includes some of the Senator's thoughts on affirmative action.]

Ticking up

Ben Zipperer and John Schmitt of the Center for Economic and Policy Research note that new data from the Bureau Labor Statistics shows a tiny (not necessarily statistically significant) increase in the unionization rate for the first time in a quarter century. (HT: Ezra Klein)

Obama's Governing Strategy

Now here [subscription required] is a must-read from Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic, who has hardly been a strong supporter of Sen. Obama. Looking at Sen. Obama's time in the Illinois legislature, Cohn highlights Sen. Obama's commitment to and success in moving Illinois towards universal health coverage, in part by undermining conservative arguments. While Cohn notes that despite Obama's best efforts, Illinois still does not have universal health coverage, he argues that Obama's inclusive politics---including engagement with health insurance companies and negotiation with Republicans--did accomplish many of the goals health reform advocates hoped for. Cohn sums up the broader point well: "it would...be foolish to suspect that Obama equates compromise with capitulation." And John Bouman of the Sargent Shriver Center on Poverty Law in Chicago, warns naysayers:

"Do not conclude that he does not have firm principled bottom lines--he does...He doesn't compromise for the sake of it or because he's beaten. The talent is to achieve consensus on a good compromise and then push it through."

That sounds to me like a prescription for an ailing political system in need of bold progressive reforms.

Enemies and Naivete

Recently, my friend, fellow Obama supporter, and Obama staffer, Amrit Mehra passed along this LA Times piece by Jonah Goldberg of the National Review. As Amrit put it, this piece "encapsulates [Sen.] Clinton's underlying argument against Obama," i.e. that change doesn't happen by bringing people together, but rather by fighting it out. There is something to be said for this adversarial strategy for solving our country's problems, but, I believe, there is more to be said for Obama's "theory of change," especially in light of where we are as a country today and the nuance of Obama's politics of inclusion. Read Godlberg's brief piece, and then my response below...

I am not sure Sen. Obama or his supporters (including me) are right about our theory of change, but I do know that unlike Goldberg's argument implying that Democrats and Republicans are enemies (e.g. by comparing them to Superman and Lex Luthor), we are not. Being opposed to each other, even if consistently and passionately, does not make enemies of the two major parties. Even if Goldberg is correct that "Democracy is about disagreement, not agreement," surely democracy is also about compromise and inclusion, not rigid ideology and division.

At a practical level, 55 percent of the Senate, the House, or the electorate does not deliver universal health coverage, solve climate change, or intervene in Darfur. One might sensibly respond, "Well, that's why you have to fight it out and win elections." I couldn't agree more. But governing and winning elections, contrary to what Karl Rove might have you think, are probably not best tackled the same way. Throughout his campaign, Sen. Obama has been articulating how he hopes to govern. That said, Is there any evidence that Obama's message undermines the ability to pick up more Democratic seats? Not only would Sen. Obama possibly be the strongest Democratic nominee, but recent endorsements from Democratic Senators and Governors and purple and purplish red States suggest that Sen. Obama could begin in earnest to build an expanded majority in Congress. He is not merely relying on working with Republicans and Independents elected to Congress. He is also relying on working with Republicans and Independents throughout the country to, among other things, elect Democrats.

I have to wonder, as Mark Schmitt has suggested, if people taking Sen. Obama too literally. Does anybody really believe that Sen. Obama hopes to get 80 percent of the vote? On the other hand, how easily we have forgotten the decades past when Democrats amassed massive "working majorities," to use the term Obama is now utilizing, reflecting his genuine understanding of what is and isn't possible, and what it takes to achieve bold political change. Those historic Congressional majorities included some Republican and significant Independent support to create much of the progressive change we take for granted today. At the end of the day though, as Sen. Obama surely understands much better than critics give him credit for, those were, at their core, Democratic majorities. None of this is to suggest Sen. Obama is more partisan than Sen. Clinton or Sen. Edwards. Rather his strategy is to fundamentally undermine the ability of Republicans to hold on to the non-ideological allies in the middle who they need so dearly. That a move towards that great tradition of Democratic governance seems so naïve to many older Americans, and inspiring to many younger Americans suggests to me, in part, that many younger Americans, with some hope, are actually the ones who truly understand the scale of the problems facing America, while many older Americans fail to see how paralyzing today's politics has become vis-a-vis the great challenges of our time.

[I should note that I genuinely believe that Sen. Clinton and Sen. Edwards would each be an exceptional president, but I have volunteered for and contributed to the campaign of Sen. Obama.]

Inflation and Eating Healthy

A New York Times blog post summarizes a recent study finding that healthy food is more expensive than unhealthy food--not a surprising conclusion considering the high rates of obesity among lower-income populations. What was particularly interesting in this study is the finding that high-calorie, energy-dense, unhealthy food tends to rise in price more slowly than low-calorie, nutrient-rich foods. (Hat Tip: Shally Venugopal)

Obama suggests free-rider solution...

Sen. Obama, for whose campaign I volunteered from 27 December through the Iowa Caucuses, has stepped forward vis-a-vis the likely problem of young, health folks, free-riding under his proposed health care plan, with a suggestion of penalties against those who do not sign-up for insurance until they need care. Even Paul Krugman is amenable to this proposal.

Presidential Science

The New York Times's Cornelia Dean reports on a new group calling for a Presidential debate on science and technology:

"A group of scientists is making an unusual foray into presidential politics, calling on the candidates, Republican and Democratic, to hold at least one debate focusing on the environment, medicine and health, technology policy and other science-related subjects."

Thought Mike Huckabee's defense of biblical creation against evolution initiated this effort, an absolutely bipartisan collection of individuals is supporting this proposal. As the organizers put it,

"We have noticed that science and technology lie at the center of a very large number of the policy issues facing our nation We believe these scientific and technological policy challenges can bring out the best in the entrepreneurial American spirit. America can be a leader in finding cures for our worst diseases, inventing the best alternative energy sources, and graduating the most scientifically literate children in the world - or we can concede these economic and humanitarian benefits to other countries."and the world - issues that profoundly affect our national and economic security as science and technology continue to transform our lives. No matter one's political stripe, these issues pose important pragmatic policy challenges.

While nearly every interest group would like a debate on its issues, this is one debate proposal that we should all embrace. Proposed topics for the debate are included below. I only wish that access to quality, affordable, health care were included in the list. After all, what good is "finding cures for our worst diseases," if the cures are not widely and easily accessible? Maybe that issue falls under bioethics?

Proposed Debate Topics:

The Environment

• » Climate Change
• » Conservation and Species Loss
• » The Future of The Oceans
• » Fresh Water: Drought, Pollution, Ownership
• » Population Growth and Its Effect on Environment
• » Renewable Energy Research

Health and Medicine

• » Global Diseases and Pandemics
• » Stem Cell Research
• » Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria
• » Drug Patents, Generic Drugs
• » The Genome
• » Bioethics

Science and Technology Policy

• » Scientific Innovation and Economic Growth
• » Improving Science Education
• » Space Exploration
• » Preserving Scientific Integrity in Government
• » Energy Policy

Gaps in Teeth and Care

One of the more odd right-wing arguments against improving the conditions of folks in poverty is the argument that poor folks aren't really that badly off, because most own VCRs, some own homes (mostly elderly poor who bought homes when not poor), and nearly all have air conditioning. Wow! Looks like economic growth took care of poverty, right? Wrong. A more relevant conception of poverty does not compare the living standards of the worst off today to those 100 years ago, but rather to the real needs of people today, including what is socially required. Philosopher and economic theorist Adam Smith articulated this point well when he described necessary goods (as compared to luxuries):

By necessaries I understand, not only the commodities which are indispensibly necessary for the support of life, but whatever the custom of the country renders it indecent for creditable people, even of the lowest order, to be without. A linen shirt, for example, is, strictly speaking, not a necessary of life. The Greeks and Romans lived, I suppose, very comfortably, though they had no linen. But in the present times, through the greater part of Europe, a creditable day-labourer would be ashamed to appear in public without a linen shirt, the want of which would be supposed to denote that disgraceful degree of poverty, which, it is presumed, nobody can well fall into without extreme bad conduct."

One of the many ways poverty shows itself today is through our teeth. The NY Times has an article today highlighting the effect of a lack of access to dental care in the State of Kentucky. And it highlights Adam Smith's point all too well:

"Dr. Smith said some people assumed that if their parents and grandparents lost their teeth before they were 40, they would too. They figure no teeth, no costly toothaches, so they pre-emptively pull them.

“Try finding work when you’re in your 30s or 40s and you’re missing front teeth,” said Jane Stephenson, founder of the New Opportunity School in Berea, Ky., which provides job training to low-income Appalachian women."

Lack of dental care can literally lead to death, and this problem is sadly found throughout the country (e.g. Seattle, Maryland, etc...), and is particularly devastating for poor children, who are least likely to have coverage and most likely to suffer from dental disease.

Unions and Inequality

Bob Herbert's NY Times piece yesterday weaves together some of the most damning data available on the decline of mobility, increase of inequality, and consequent assault on the American Dream. I applaud him for being able to recognized the importance of the union movement in maintaining the American Dream, including equality and mobility. I don't agree with unions on everything--and they don't agree with each other on everything--but I could say that about nearly any social institution. More importantly, Herbert is on to something when he says,

"Americans work extremely hard and are amazingly productive. But without the clout of a strong union movement, and arrayed against the mighty power of the corporations and the federal government, they don’t receive even a reasonably fair share of the economic benefits from their hard work or productivity."

As Jared Bernstein of the Economic Policy Institute pointed out in response to a September 2006 David Brooks piece in the NY Times, "Brooks argues that declining unionization is not a "driving force" because it only explains 10-20 percent of the rise in inequality. But that's as big as any other force that economists have measured."

Green Jobs Act of 2007 Enacted!

At least one very positive set of provisions in the Energy Independence and Security Act is the Green Jobs Act of 2007, which was included in the larger energy bill that was recently signed by President Bush. Van Jones has a blog post on why this is so important.

As Jones puts it,

This ground-breaking legislation will make $120 million a year available across the country to begin training workers (and would-be workers) for jobs in the clean energy sector. When the bill becomes law, 35,000 people a year will benefit from cutting edge, vocational education in fields that could literally save the Earth.

[Hat Tip: David F. Pope]

Holiday Snapshot of Poverty and Hardship

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities just released a great short piece on poverty and hardship, in advance of the Christmas and New Year's Holidays. Some of the highlights:

• 36.5 million Americans are poor


• 35.5 million Americans are food insecure (at risk of hunger)


• 16 million low-income households are in unaffordable, overcrowded or substandard housing


• 47 millions Americans had no health insurance for all of last year

Dems fight over who's the anti-poverty candidate...

Now here's some good news, the Washington Post published an article yesterday on John Edwards's potential to derail Hillary Clinton in Iowa. What's particularly promising about this concern is that it seems to have prompted Senator Clinton to argue that those who care about fighting poverty ought to support her. Admittedly, she's referring to President Clinton's record on this front--but she's basically right about what happened: the poverty rate fell by 25% in just 8 years, hitting a now 32-year low.

On Wednesday, Clinton took Edwards on over his signature issue, indicating that she may view the Edwards improvements as quite real. "People talk about poverty in this campaign," Clinton said during a crowded event here, noting that her husband's administration was an era of great progress on the issue. "Well, we lifted more people out of poverty during the 1990s than at any time in our history.

"We had policies that actually helped to create 22.7 million new jobs. The typical Iowan family saw an increase of $7,000 in their incomes during the '90s."

During an appearance in Portsmouth, N.H., on Wednesday, Edwards responded sharply. "There are 37 million people living in poverty in America. Alleviating poverty is the cause of my life," he said. "What I would ask Hillary Clinton and the other candidates to do is to join me for calling for an increase in the minimum wage to $9.50 an hour, and to put forth a comprehensive plan to eliminate poverty, which I have done."

For more on presidential candidates plans to address poverty, visit the new Spotlight on Poverty website.

When we kill

One of the highlights of 2007 for progressives in the US is surely the elimination of state-sanctioned killing of the incarcerated in New Jersey. Just a few days ago, New Jersey Governor Jon S. Corzine, signed a bipartisan bill ending the death penalty in New Jersey. Most striking to me is just how much Governor Corzine understands what is most morally troubling about capital punishment, i.e. the societal endorsement of violence against someone who is or can be made virtually incapacitated with regard to his/her ability to kill again. Just as important is Governor Corzine's recognition of some of the strongest moral sentiments supporting the death penalty,

“Other good people will describe today’s actions in quite different terms — in terms of injustice — particularly those who carry heavy hearts, broken hearts from their tragic losses,” he said. “This bill does not forgive or in any way condone the unfathomable acts carried out by the eight men now on New Jersey’s death row. They will spend the rest of their lives in jail.”

[Hat Tip: Sojourner's SojoMail]

Emergency Rooms and Cancer

"[P]eople have access to health care in America. After all, you just go to an emergency room." - President Bush, 10 July 2007

Why does not having health insurance matter? A new report from the not particularly socialist American Cancer Society finds that "Uninsured Americans are less likely to get screened for cancer, more likely to be diagnosed with an advanced stage of the disease, and less likely to survive that diagnosis than their privately insured counterparts." [Hat Tip: NorthJersey] For more on why health coverage matters, see this report by Randall R. Bovbjerg and Jack Hadley at the Urban Institute.

Ending Hunger by Eliminating Food Banks?

Mark Winne, former director of Connecticut's Hartford Food System, is among the most highly regarded anti-hunger advocates in the country. So hopefully people have been and will continue to pay special attention to his November Washington Post opinion piece, "When Handouts Keep Coming, the Food Line Never Ends." Winne argues that "The cycle of need -- always present, rarely sated, never resolved -- will continue...Unless we rethink our devotion to food donation." Winne's main argument is that food banks and food distribution as a response to hunger actually perpetuates hunger, both by creating "troubling" co-dependency (e.g. between volunteers and the need) and distracting energy that might otherwise be targeted towards ending poverty by demanding "a living wage, health care for all and adequate employment and child-care programs."

I think there's certainly a lot to be said for Winne's courageous editorial, but one thing that he doesn't clearly address is how we address trade-offs between addressing hunger right now and ending hunger in a sustainable way? Surely there is some trade-off and Winne doesn't want an immediate end to the provision of food to those who are hungry today and will not eat a nutritious Christmas meal because of a Food Stamp expansion two years from now. Our tendency to focus on our urgent, deep psychological impulse to help those suffering in the present often prevents us from acting to end root causes of suffering. This phenomenon isn't unique to economic deprivation. The same could be said of aspects of the Bush Administration's response vis-a-vis Iraq to the horrific and unjustified attacks against American on September 11, 2001. The same could be said of many fixes proposed to our health care system. And the same could be said of countless other problems we face individually and collectively. In many ways, it is often a strategic decision to focus on the urgent versus the root cause (e.g. focusing on an urgent problem might help build support for focusing on the longer term problem). Nevertheless, at least with regard to hunger, Winne rightfully points out the pitfall of how we might be deceiving ourselves into thinking we are addressing a problem when we may actually be delaying a genuine solution.

"we're free physically"

With over 2.2 million people incarcerated in the US, nearly all of whom will re-enter society, there is an urgent need to invest in thoughtful reentry plans. A NY Times piece from early December explores a group of formerly incarcerated folks who probably deserve special attention: the wrongly convicted [Hat Tip: David F. Pope]. The article includes this comment from one wrongly convicted former prisoner:

“Some people feel, ‘All right, it’s over now. You’re out, you’re free, so what are you complaining about? What’s the problem?’” said Darryl Hunt, exonerated in North Carolina after serving 18 years for murder.

“The problem is that we’re free physically,” he said. “But mentally, we’re still living the nightmare every day.”

Forensic economist Stan Smith has found that the wrongly convicted suffer losses greater than how the loss of life itself is understood.

"“It’s not just the years they lost and the mental anguish of being incarcerated wrongfully.” Mr. Smith said.

“Your earnings are going to be impaired forever, your social interactions are going to be impaired forever. It’s like being thrown into a time warp.”"

Yet, at least one Florida State Representative, Ellyn Bogdanoff, argues for at least limiting compensation to those with clean records: "the taxpayer would be horribly offended if their money were to be spent compensating an exonerated prisoner who has a history of serious crimes." Really? I think politicians don't give "taxpayers" enough credit (Aside: Who exactly doesn't pay taxes? Newborns? With sales, property, income and payroll taxes, not to mention various excise taxes and fees woven throughout society, it's hard to imagine how one might not be a taxpayer.). This is like denying someone access to worker's compensation when a bone is broken on the job because s/he had previously broken a bone off the job.

How many people believe that the State should be able to completely and totally seize someone's freedom with impunity for a crime the s/he never committed?

Food inflation hitting the poor...

CQ has a story [registration required] on State actions to constrain WIC (Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children) spending because of skyrocketing food prices. The price of milk has risen over 20% this year and eggs are 35% more expensive. States are cutting back on the types and amount of food WIC participants receive or can purchase.

Here's an excerpt on the effectiveness of WIC for those who can't access CQ.com:

"Without a decline in food prices or an increase in appropriations, cutting some possible beneficiaries from the WIC rolls may be inevitable. Still, the program is popular with both Democrats and Republicans, and that may lead Congress to boost spending. Studies show that children who receive food through WIC are more likely to be breast-fed, less likely to be underweight at birth, less likely to incur government-funded medical bills and more likely to be intellectually ready to start school."

2%

In a recent New York Times article, Turkish billionaire and philanthropist Husnu M. Ozyegin complains at his lack of international renown despite the fact that he is "giving away 2 percent of [his] net income every month.” As Ozyegin notes, "[he doesn't] think Bill Gates is doing that.” Probably not. I'm happy to see Ozyegin at least thinks of his giving in terms of the share of his income he contributes, but, if anything, that makes it more clear how many of the world's wealthiest, including the world's largest philanthropists, are actually quite stingy. Consider that we know that working poor folks contribute more than higher income folks, with both groups contributing more than 2% of their income on average annually. The tendency of the wealthy contribute a smaller share of their income is even more unfortunate in light of the growing concentration of wealth at the top of the US income distribution [Hat Tip: Think Progress].

We often hear that conservatives contribute more to charity, but that seems to me something we should expect. As a progressive who does believe that civil society has a critical role to play in social change and addressing social needs, I nevertheless also know that my conservative friends and colleagues are much more likely to believe that non-governmental organizations, including churches in particular, offer solutions to social problems that I believe the public sector must address. In combination with the possibility that folks left-of-center give less to religious organization, maybe our tendency to believe more in the ability of government to solve our collective problems leads us to contribute less to charitable organizations?

Matt Bai: The Fight Over Mandates

The New York Times's Matt Bai has a thoughtful blog post on what the fight over health care mandates is about, beyond mandates themselves. I don't always agree with Bai, but I think he's mostly right here. In particular, Bai notes that differences between the three leading Democratic presidential candidates' proposals are not too different, contrary to "all the posturing." Yes, Obama does not have a mandate for all adults, but the outlines of each candidate's propoosal are otherwise very similar. On mandates, Bai writes, Obama is different because he "favors trying to reduce the cost of insurance first, and then, if the uninsured still refuse to buy in, he would consider further mandates. Surely there is truth to Bai's view that criticism over Obama's lack of mandates suggests that "something else is going on, and it has more to do with pure partisan rage." As Bai argues,

"There is currently a way of thinking in some quarters of the Democratic world that says “framing” is everything in politics. That is, conservatives have controlled our national debate by hammering home a number of insidious themes (big government is bad, liberals are elitists, entitlements are too expensive, etc.), and they have triumphed because of timid Democrats who refused to challenge these assertions, preferring instead to accept these premises and adapt to them. By this thinking, when Mr. Obama suggests that maybe it’s not the best idea for government to hand down new edicts — or when he asserts, as he also has, that Social Security may not be viable without significant fixes —he is reading from “Republican talking points” and giving rhetorical comfort to the enemy. In other words, Mr. Obama’s crime wasn’t really coming up with the wrong health-care solution. His crime was in saying what he actually believed."

I don't think Bai is correct with his implication that Obama's critics in this context disagree with Obama on framing alone. Most of his critics do disagree on priorities (e.g. "fixing" Social Security now versus addressing any possible shortfall decades from now) and they disagree on actual policy solutions (e.g. including an initial adult coverage mandate to prevent free-riding in a universal health care system) as well.

[In the interest of full disclosure: I have contributed to Senator Barack Obama's campaign.]

Should candiates offer anti-hunger plans?

Surely it's great news that Senator Edwards has offered a plan to fight hunger in America. The plan looks perfectly sensible and likely to be somewhat successful, but what's more important to me is that Edwards's plan can be thought of in the context of his broader anti-poverty agenda. Tackling poverty, broadly understood, ought to eliminate hunger and, consequently, the need for an anti-hunger strategy. Still, Edwards's plan begs the question: "Should other candidates show their commitment to ending hunger in particular by putting forward proposals to do so?"

More on Obama's committment to Universal Coverage

USA Today has a story out on Obama's "liberal" past. The story notes that earlier in his career,

"Obama said he would support a single-payer health plan for Illinois "in principal" [sic], "although such a program will probably have to be instituted at a federal level; the long-term objective would be a universal care system that does not differentiate between the unemployed, the disabled, and so on." The campaign says Obama has consistently supported single payer health care in principle.

Under single-payer health care, a government system would replace private health insurance. Obama's campaign said he has always supported the idea in concept, but thinks it is not currently practical because of the existing health care infrastructure."

[Hat Tip: Amrit Mehra]

[In the interest of full disclosure: I have contributed to Senator Barack Obama's campaign.]

One tiny step for racial equity

The Supreme Court issued a ruling today that allows judges to make downward adjustments from mandatory punishments in the federal sentencing guidelines. This 7-2 ruling is certainly good news for those who are concerned with racial equity in the US.

The particular case at hand focused on the crack-cocaine punishment disparity, which has a particularly nefarious racial component. As Marc Mauer from The Sentencing Project says, "Harsh mandatory sentences, particularly for those offenses involving crack cocaine, have created unjust racial disparity and excessive punishment for low-level offenses."

UPDATE: More good news from the US Sentencing Commission.

December 10th

We have designated days, weeks, and even months to help focus attention on all sorts of causes. Some times this makes sense, and other times the designation inadvertently serves to neglect the cause the rest of the year.

December 10th marks the anniversary of a cause that can hardly receive enough attention (And, in this instance, I doubt that this annual designation detracts from attention for it during the rest of the year.). Today, International Human Rights Day, should not only bring to the forefront human rights concerns in the US and abroad, but, as it marks the anniversary of the UN's adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, December 10th should remind us about about the centrality of respect for human dignity in all that we do. Take action here to fulfill the promise that we made to ourselves and posterity 59 years ago today.

What about non-working poverty?

The New York Times has a distressing story out today on the backlog at the Social Security Administration vis-a-vis disability claims. It is a story of struggling individuals and a shameful national response. It's a story of how we often force people to pauperize themselves before providing public assistance; of how we approach the most vulnerable with skepticism rather than compassion; and of how we allow people to fall into isolation and depression--and even die--before we reach out to them.

We often talk about eliminating working poverty, and it's absolutely something we ought to do as a nation. But what about those who cannot work and have no adequate source of income? Is it acceptable to us that they be poor? I would hope not. Fortunately, we as a country have come together to create national programs, including by spending about one percent of our country's annual economic output through Supplemental Security Income (about $37 billion/year) and Social Security Disability Insurance (about $98 billion/year), to maintain some minimal, if meager and below-poverty, standard-of-living for those who simply cannot provide for themselves. Our response to the most disadvantaged among us--a group that could include any of us--is as much about who we are and hope to be as a people, as it is about who is disadvantaged and why they are disadvantaged.

China Smaller than Previously Thought

Seems like an unbelievable headline, doesn't it? But that's essentially what the New York Times's Eduardo Porter is reporting today about the Chinese economy. Thanks to a massive statistical error, and correction, the Chinese economy turns out to be substantially smaller than previously thought:

"According to new estimates, the colossal Chinese economy that has been making marketers salivate and giving others an inferiority complex may be roughly 40 percent smaller than previously thought: worth $6 trillion rather than $10 trillion. That means it lost a chunk roughly the size of Japan’s output."

Porter goes on to note some of the consequences of this revision, including a tripling of the Chinese poverty rate. I can understand the generally difficulties in estimating the economic output of a relative closed country, but, in light of over-estimation of the USSR's economic output in the 1980s, I wonder if there's a tendency to over-estimate communist nations' economic output...

Driving off the health care cliff

One popular health care idea among conservatives is consumer-drive health care, which is meant to reign-in care spending by requiring consumers to pay high deductibles before insurance coverage kicks in. While many of these plans won't pay for benefits until some amount, say $2,500 is paid by the consumer, some of these proposals would cover preventive benefits before that threshold. That's an important exception, because it admits the lack of seriousness in these proposals as cost-containment proposals.

With chronic disease accounting for about 75% of health care costs and 10% of patients accounting for 70% of health care costs, there seems to be little reason to focus so much on disincentivizing the first couple thousand dollars of an individual or family's health expenses--unless this can be done by merely deterring unnecessary expenses, while having no effect on necessary ones. However, one survey found that, in general, participants in consumer-driven health plans, "do not report behaving as more informed, better shoppers than people in more traditional employer-sponsored health plans." That same Kaiser Family Foundation survey found that,

"While people in [consumer-driven health plans] are generally satisfied with their plans, on a variety of measures they report feeling somewhat less protected and more vulnerable than people in more traditional employer-sponsored plans, and they report more problems accessing care due to cost."

In fact, while those participating in consumer-driven health plans are less likely to receive unnecessary medical care and treatment, they are also significantly less likely to receive necessary medial care and treatment as well. Unsurprisingly, when compared with those in more traditional employer-sponsored health plans, those in consumer-driven health plans are 50% more likely to say they would be at least somewhat likely to switch plans if given the opportunity and are twice as likely to try to switch plans if they developed a chronic condition requiring more care. Based on all this information, a non-free market ideologue might come to the conclusion that preventing and managing chronic disease would be a more serious way to contain health costs. As Paul Krugman says, "Consumer driven' is a nice slogan, but it turns out that buying health care isn't at all like buying clothing."

(Hat Tip: The Progressive States Network, which has a nice, concise discussion of "Wringing Costs Out of the Health Care System")

Here is a differing perspective from the Republican Policy Committee in the United States Senate.

Health Coverage Mandates and Subsidies

Paul Krugman opinion piece today focuses on health coverage mandates. I think it sums up the argument for mandates fairly well, but I am less sure about some of the arguments against plans without a mandate. For example, Krugman writes,

"The second false claim is that people won’t be able to afford the insurance they’re required to have — a claim usually supported with data about how expensive insurance is. But all the Democratic plans include subsidies to lower-income families to help them pay for insurance, plus a promise to increase the subsidies if they prove insufficient.

In fact, the Edwards and Clinton plans contain more money for such subsidies than the Obama plan. If low-income families find insurance unaffordable under these plans, they’ll find it even less affordable under the Obama plan."

The claim "that people won’t be able to afford the insurance they’re required to have" isn't false. Unless you are willing to offer some free and/or near free adult health coverage, beyond Medicaid and Medicare, the claim is actually true. Affordability is subjective of course, but it is not difficult to see how, even with some subsidies, health coverage can be too expensive. In criticizing Sen. Obama's plan in particular, Krugman responds by arguing that Obama offers less in subsidies. Now, if that's true, that seems to be more troublesome than the lack of a mandate--unless the Obama proposal compensates by doing more to contain health coverage costs in general. I'll look for the data on it and post it as soon as I find it...

But one other point: Krugman closes his column by saying,

"I’d add, however, a further concern: the debate over mandates has reinforced the uncomfortable sense among some health reformers that Mr. Obama just isn’t that serious about achieving universal care — that he introduced a plan because he had to, but that every time there’s a hard choice to be made he comes down on the side of doing less."

Now, while I've outlined an argument for leaving out a mandate, and I nevertheless prefer a mandate--at least in the long-run--this accusation about Obama's intentions seems incredibly implausible at best, in light of . Obama's campaign announcement speech, as well as his pre-Presidential campaign record, including, for example, his push for universal coverage while in the Illinois Senate.

[In the interest of full disclosure: I have contributed to Senator Barack Obama's campaign.]

Sperling v. Reich on Mandates

Here is former Labor Secretary Robert Reich's defense of Sen. Obama--and attack on Sen. Clinton--focusing particularly on Senator Clinton's criticisms of Sen. Obama's health plan and its lack of a mandate for all adults (Hat Tip: Nicholas Rathod). Gene Sperling forcefully defends Sen. Clinton while criticizing Secretary Reich. Note: Talso some interesting debate about social security in those two links.

Reich's most compelling point is that "that mandates still leave out a lot of people at the lower end who can’t afford to insure themselves even when they’re required to do so." Of course, a mandate would surely leave out fewer people. My bigger concern with a mandate is over the severity of the possible penalties for non-enrollment and how fairly distributed those penalties would be along the socio-economic spectrum.

Sperling offers a few good links to articles, papers and testimonies laying out a strong case for the need for mandates in a universal system:

"I encourage Bob or anyone else interested in this issue to review the overwhelming consensus of credible independent experts who have found that an individual requirement is a necessary component of any plan designed to cover all Americans. [E.g. Jonathan Gruber, MIT (12/05/07); Diane Rowland, Kaiser Family Foundation (New York Times, 11/25/07); United Hospital Fund (December 2006); California Medical Association (July 2005); Henry Aaron and Bruce and Virginia MacLaury, Brookings Institution (CQ Congressional Testimony, 9/11/07); John Holahan, Urban Institute (October 2005); Len Nichols, New America Foundation (US Fed News, 6/26/07); Drew Altman, Kaiser Family Foundation (New York Times, 11/25/07)]."

I have previously defended as "reasonable" Sen. Obama's decision to not initially include a mandate in his health plan. I have to wonder if big enough subsidies--to the point of nearly paying for private insurance for some--under any of the Democratic plans can't attract lots more folks than models now show, and I do think there is a plausible story of how the lack of a mandate might boost support for increasing these subsidies, as I noted in my earlier post. Nevertheless, the research cited by Sperling underscores the argument that mandates are probably eventually necessary to achieve universal coverage, at least in a non-single payer system. Maybe there's good reason to begin without a mandate, work to address concerns about disproportionately affecting those lower on the socio-economic spectrum, and then introduce a mandate?

[In the interest of full disclosure: I have contributed to Senator Barack Obama's campaign.]

Cutting the fat by slashing the bone...

Governor Mitt Romney "has proposed capping non-defense discretionary spending at inflation minus one percent and will veto any budget that exceeds that amount." So, if we assume that a President Romney would not raises any taxes or cut defense, Social Security or Medicare spending, he would probably have to cut every other program by 20% to balance the budget by 2012, according to CBPP:


Look at these 2 charts below(admittedly longer-term) and tell me how much sense that makes as a serious budget constraint strategy (note: Social Security projections are not nearly as troublesome as Medicare projections.).



See here where your tax dollars go, and tell me which spending categories we should cut to constrain the federal budget.

Faith, poverty and climate policy

A good friend and colleague, Melissa Boteach at the Jewish Council on Public Affairs (JCPA) has a piece out on the connections between Jewish tradition, poverty and climate change. You can subscribe to the JCPA's Confronting Poverty emails here. Particularly thoughtful is the connection she draws between Chanukkah and current climate and energy crisis,

"Because December holds Channukah, it provides a perfect opportunity to highlight the connection between energy and poverty. Channukah celebrates the miracle of energy efficiency, an instance when the Jews had very little oil, and G-d helped us to make the light it produced last for eight days instead of one. Today, when fossil fuels are both increasingly scarce and primarily responsible for global warming, we have an opportunity to recreate the miracle of Channukah. We now have the tools, the technology and the opportunity to make more efficient use of fossil fuels and to develop alternative forms of energy that do not emit carbon. It is not of question of whether or not we have the ability to reenact the miracle of Channukah; it is only a question of if we have the will."

Channukah also reminds us of the plight of the poor. The holiday occurs at the darkest and coldest time of the year, when we most need energy and light and when America's most vulnerable populations are forced to make decisions between paying for the rising costs of utilities or paying for other basic necessities like food or medicine. As each day of Channukah brings us closer and closer to the winter solstice, we light more and more candles, bringing increased light and heat into our homes. This year on Channukah, we should take the opportunity to think about those in America who cannot afford to turn on the heat, and we should make a commitment to ACT to help those in need.

An earlier post on this blog touched on the connection between poverty and climate policy.

More on Health Insurance Mandates

Here are a few thoughtful letters to the editor in response to Paul Krugman's recent piece criticizing Senator Obama's lack of a mandate in his health plan. (HT: Amrit Mehra)

[In the interest of full disclosure: I have contributed to Senator Barack Obama's campaign.]

Owning Up

Can a family increase its assets and "own" its children's way up the economic ladder? Research from Julia Isaacs released by the Pew Economic Mobility Project suggests that black families are less likely to be able to pass along their economic success to their children than are white families. This phenomenon may in part be due to the significant black-white wealth gap--a gap that dwarfs the black-white income gap--which NYU professor Dalton Conley argues accounts for many socioeconomic disparities between blacks and whites. Conley has written in The Nation that,

"For much of the growing black middle class, a lack of assets means living from paycheck to paycheck, being trapped in a job or a neighborhood that is less beneficial in the long run, or not being able to send one's kids to top colleges. Income provides for day-to-day, week-to-week expenses; wealth is the stuff that upward mobility is made of."

Nevertheless, it was striking to see Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s recent opinion piece in the New York Times, which argued that there might be a connection between the economic success of some black Americans today and their family's property ownership...in 1920.

"I have been studying the family trees of 20 successful African-Americans, people in fields ranging from entertainment and sports (Oprah Winfrey, the track star Jackie Joyner-Kersee) to space travel and medicine (the astronaut Mae Jemison and Ben Carson, a pediatric neurosurgeon). And I’ve seen an astonishing pattern: 15 of the 20 descend from at least one line of former slaves who managed to obtain property by 1920 — a time when only 25 percent of all African-American families owned property."

While he makes clear he's not certain about the details of the relationship between property ownership and intergenerational economic success, Gates suggests that one possible transmission method of the property's advantages from one generation to the next might be that "People who own property feel a sense of ownership in their future and their society. They study, save, work, strive and vote. And people trapped in a culture of tenancy do not."

Hopefully Professor Gates will further explore this possible relationship in his forthcoming book, In Search of Our Roots, or some other analysis.

Mainstream Media Coverage for Green Collar Jobs

A previous post noted one connection between inflation, poverty and climate policy: increasing disparities between the those with very low-incomes and everyone else have contributed to higher inflation faced by the poor, making them even worse-off economically, while a need for workers in the "green collar jobs" field grows. Time magazine has a nice piece spotlighting activist Van Jones's efforts to push for greater investment in this field (HT: David Pope). I particularly appreciate how Van and the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights frames this and other opportunity-creation strategies as human rights issues, something lacking in the American discourse on human rights, which is almost entirely focused on civil and political rights.

Pulling Away from Peers...

Journalist Daniel Brook's book, The Trap: Selling Out to Stay Afloat in Winner-Take-All America, is in part on the new inequality and how it "is a problem for just about everyone." I haven't had a chance to read the book, but my understanding is that the book focuses on young, well-educated, idealistic, progressives and their professional career choices. Here is the author's own take on the phenomenon and book. And here is a review from The American Prospect.

Based on the reviews, it seems that one of the book's arguments is the decline in the share of jobs offering middle-class salaries. While this argument is hardly novel, few people seems to be familiar with data supporting this claim. One bit of data is available from NALP, the Association for Legal Career Professionals. Particularly striking to me is this chart of full-time salaries among folks in the law school class of 2006:

Source:Jobs & JD's, Class of 2006.
Note: The graph is based on 22,665 salaries. A few salaries above $200,000 are excluded for clarity. The first peak in this graph reflects salaries of both $40,000 and $50,000 (each about 11% of reported salaries). The second peak reflects salaries of $135,000 (10% of reported salaries) and $145,000 (7% of reported salaries).

Brook's piece makes a case for why we should care about a chart like this:

"So when we talk about the polarization of the class structure we aren’t talking, as conservatives would have you believe, about college educated people pulling away from high school drop-outs or talented, hard workers being rewarded while dopey slackers fall behind. We’re talking about the corporate class—who often have the same educational credentials as many public servants and creative types—pulling away from everyone else."

More broadly, economists David Autor, Larry Katz, and Melissa Kearney have documented a hollowing out of the middle of the labor marketover the past couple of decades, with inequality growth particularly sharp between the middle and the very top.

Tax Simplification for the Rich

Is yesterday's Washington Post, Michael Kinsley does a fantastic job explaining Governor Huckabee and Senator Fred Thompson's tax simplification proposals, including their distributional impact and embedded deception.

Partially in the name of simplicity, Huckabee endorses the Fair Tax which inherently distributes tax burdens away from the wealthy to everyone else (despite marginal provisions to counteract this inevitability).

Also advocating simplicity, Thompson proposes a Flat Tax option to taxpayers that follows a familiar tax-cutting strategy that Kinsley exposes for what it is:

"The real strategy of Thompson's plan is a familiar one from past Republican tax plans: give large breaks to business and the wealthy (such as abolishing the estate tax), bribe the middle class to go along by offering smaller breaks to them, and don't worry about paying for it all."

The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center has a helpful matrix of the presidential candidates' tax proposals.

Dr. Krugman v. Dr. Obama

Paul Krugman just published his most critical piece yet of Senator Obama and his health plan. Those who read this blog know that I think Krugman is a thoughtful political and economic analyst, but I have to wonder if he's missing a few critical points this time. One focus of the piece is Senator Obama's favorable portrayal of his own health plan's lack of an individual mandate for adults. I think a mandate makes a lot of sense, but that Obama's position is not unreasonable for an advocate of universal health care. Further, Obama's overall rhetoric around his lack of a mandate does not necessarily play into conservative hands as neatly as Krugman argues.

First, Krugman does not address the cost issue raised in an earlier post in this blog. This is a critical point. Even if, Senator Edwards, whose plan includes a mandate, proposes to automatically enroll non-enrolled folks who file taxes, that policy will not only continue to disproportionately leave out lower-income folks--many of whom do not file taxes, but it does not itself ensure an adequate subsidy for these folks. Affordability concerns are particularly salient under an individual mandate as the LA Times recently highlighted with regard to California and the Progressive States Network recently highlighted with regard to the Massachusetts individual mandate. (This doesn't mean that the Edwards automatic enrollment proposal isn't a good idea.)

Second, as Krugman recently noted--although not very favorably--the highly respected health care economist David Cutler and others have produced estimates suggesting "that a combination of subsidies and outreach can get all but a tiny fraction of the population insured without a mandate."

Third, is Senator Obama really "giving aid and comfort to the enemies of reform"? The words seem unduly harsh at best and there is certainly something to be said for Senator Obama's framing of the mandate issue as one of affordability. Senator Obama says that "the reason people don’t have health insurance isn’t because they don’t want it, it’s because they can’t afford it," which is mostly true now, but Krugman thinks this will be less true under Obama's plan. It's unclear why though. Of course some healthy folks will take the chance of remaining uninsured and their eventual medical care will end up costing the insured, but these folks are likely talking a chance primarily due to a lack of knowledge about enrollment or a decision that the plans are not worth their price. But that first issue is addressed through outreach and the second through subsidies and other mechanisms to make health plans more affordable. No less (and possibly more) than Senator Clinton or Senator Edwards's plan, Senator Obama's plan seems to do both. More importantly, Senator Obama's framing of health care enrollment as primarily an issue of affordability rather than choice for example--in part embodied by his lack of a mandate--might actually promote universal access by couching health care coverage as a need and desire among all Americans, largely limited by affordability rather than individual preference, as some conservatives argue.

Further, the lack of a mandate could boost support for subsidies to lower-income folks. One can imagine a situation 4 years from now, under any of the frontrunners plans, where we learn that some percentage of low-income folks aren't enrolled in plans. With a mandate, a debate on increasing access might be more likely to focus on increasing penalties for non-enrollment. Without a mandate, that same debate might focus more on increasing subsidies. Obama is emphasizing the carrot over the stick.

Importantly, Obama's decision not to have a mandate probably does not hinge so much, as Krugman argues, on the notion that Obama "doesn't want the government to “force” people to have insurance, to “penalize” people who don’t participate." More likely, the Senator doesn't want the government to force lower-income people to pay for insurance or penalize people who don't participate.

The point here is not to argue that individual mandates are bad (I think they may well be the right way to go.), but rather to say that Krugman and others might be misunderstanding the motives behind Obama's proposal and that Obama's proposal is quite reasonable.

Whenever I can find them, I'll post contrary opinions, and here's one from Ezra Klein. While there are other important points to make, I'll leave that to commenters. Oh, and here's a great piece from The Onion about universal health care.

[In the interest of full disclosure: I have contributed to Senator Barack Obama's campaign.]

UPDATE: Here is a great--if now old--explanation from Matthew Yglesias of the purpose of mandates (adverse selection and free-riding) and why maybe only massive government intervention can truly make health coverage universal. Len Nichols has a very different idea of the potential effectiveness of mandates. And while Ezra Klein lays out the argument that Obama's plan's lack of a mandate suggests a "lack of audacity," while Mark Schmitt makes the point, easily missed in Paul Krugman's columns, that objections to mandates have most often come from the left.

More on Inflation and People with Lower Incomes

Consistent with an earlier post on this blog, Paul Krugman's column from November 26th notes that comparing the inflation, as measured by the Consumer Price Index, to income growth understates the extent to which lower income folks are failing to experience income growth.

[UPDATE - 3/21/2008: Inflation Hits the Poor the Hardest]

Universal Health Coverage and Mandates

For progressives, it's exciting to see that at least all of the leading Democratic Presidential candidates have issued thought plans for affordable, quality, universal health coverage. The Edwards plan and Clinton plan are broadly similar. One striking difference between the Obama plan and the Clinton and Edwards plans is that Obama's does not require insurance for all adults. This, in Paul Krugman's view, among others, makes Obama's plan less comprehensive. The main reason for this sentiment is that without a mandate, some people will not choose to purchase insurance, with their bills falling in part on society at large when they seek medical care. I am enormously sympathetic to this view, but I think what matters here is the total share of the population covered and that the differences in that share under the Obama plan on the one hand and the Clinton and Edwards plans on the other is not fully known in the abstract. Keep in mind that even a "universal" plan with a mandate may not in reality cover many immigrants, lawfully or not lawfully present, and even a mandate cannot practically ensure that all adults are covered. Obama's plan relies on the expectation that coverage will be so affordable that few people will not sign-up for it. Additionally, mandates may largely punish lower income people who find coverage costs to be prohibitively expensive, even under plans like those proposed by Edwards and Clinton. Today's Progressive States Network's Stateside Dispatch highlights this concern, relying in part on the Massachusetts experience, concluding, rightly I think, that "As a means to achieving quality and affordable health care for all, individual mandates are problematic absent strong affordability protections for consumers."

[In the interest of full disclosure: I have contributed to Senator Barack Obama's campaign.]

Inflation, Poverty...and Climate Change?

Inflation is not often a big focus of conversation among advocates for those with lower incomes. When it is, it is often in the context of perceived or actual trade-offs between inflation and unemployment rates. However, inflation has indirectly come up in recent discussions among anti-poverty advocates insofar as automatic inflation adjustments to the Child Tax Credit's refundability threshold punish workers whose earnings do not keep up with inflation. Occasionally, folks point out that the primary inflation index used by the Federal Government, the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U), overstates inflation, and that this fact means that annual adjustments to the poverty threshold exceed what they ought to be. While the CPI-U does indeed seem to overstate inflation, the criticism misses the point altogether with regard to what the poverty threshold ought to be. I'll leave that discussion to a future post and this link to a hearing I worked on.

I do want to highlight here interesting papers by the Swiss investment bank UBS on the economies a few rich countries, including the United States: "Unequal economics?" and a follow-up "Income inequality revisited". The papers are focused on inequality--and have a lot of interesting things to say about it, and I'll highlight those points in a future post--but I bring these two papers up because they are among the few analyses I have seen that look at whether low-income folks face higher inflation than higher income folks. And the answer is yes. According to the analyses, this is in part, as many would expect, because energy costs have tended to rise faster than other expenses and are a larger share of lower-income folks' budgets. More interestingly, the analyses also find that this divergence in inflation rates between lower and higher income groups is in part due to increasing inequality. I guess that's one more downside to increasing inequality.

With regard to the higher share of income income folks devote to energy expenses, Bob Greenstein at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities delivered an unsurprisingly thoughtful testimony before the House Committee on the Budget on how climate policy might impact the federal budget and household budgets of people with low incomes. The testimony is well worth a read and highlights a few principles that ought to be considered as we mitigate against and reverse the damage of global warming. The conclusion of the testimony is critical: distributional effects of climate-change policy need not hurt the poor or increase inequality, but without special attention to these concerns, they certainly might.

In essence, inequality and increased energy costs--the later a near certainty in any effective climate policy, something we desperately need--can fuel higher inflation, i.e. costs for goods and services, for lower-income Americans. These phenomena can and should be addressed, and maybe one starting point is a proposal to create millions of new Green Jobs, which, as Van Jones has vigorously advocated, could simultaneously fight poverty and climate change.

Spotlight on Poverty

A new website, "Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity," was launched on October 30th, 2007 and it is well worth a visit for all those who care about improving the economic conditions of those at the lower end of our income distribution. Notably, the website is a genuine bipartisan (I would say "nonpartisan," but many of those involved are decidedly partisan.) effort to raise the priority of poverty and its solutions among Presidential candidates during this election cycle

One of the few substantive things a Presidential might be able to unilaterally affect vis-a-vis domestic poverty policy is the decision to set--or not set--a national goal for poverty reduction. The Spotlight on Poverty website has already received responses from several candidates, from both major political parties, on this issue, and they are worth reading or watching--some responses are in video format and some are written. I previously worked for the Center for American Progress's Task Force on Poverty, which did call for an initial, bold, though certainly attainable goal of cutting poverty in half within ten years. These sorts of goals do have their drawbacks, but the experience of the United Kingdom, well-summarized by my former colleague Elisa Minoff in "The UK Commitment: Ending Child Poverty by 2020," has seemed to prompt a renewed interest in such goals with regard to poverty reduction in the US.

[Additionally, in the interest of full disclosure, I have previously worked with Mark Greenberg, a member of the Spotlight's Advisory Council, and for Freedman Consulting, which is part of the Spotlight's Steering Committee for this effort. While Freedman Consulting's website still lists me as a Research Assistant, in fact I have no contractual or employment relationship with Freedman consulting.]

Economic Mobility in America

The US Department of the Treasury has released a "new" study on intra-generational income mobility in the United States from 1996 to 2005, which a recent Wall Street Journal editorial describes as "a careful, detailed piece of research by professional economists that avoids political judgments." The Journal says that the results "show beyond doubt that the U.S. remains a dynamic society marked by rapid and mostly upward income mobility." Is this true? A closer look at the actual study suggests that there is neither nothing new about the findings, nor anything particular careful or helpful about them. Sadly, as economist Tom Hertz, among numerous others, have found, both intra-generational and intergenerational mobility are distressingly low in the US when compared both to what a society with true equal opportunity might look like, as well as to mobility in other prosperous economies. For example, economists Katherine Bradbury and Jane Katz have found that "In the 1990s...53 percent of families that began the decade in the poorest quintile were still there ten years later... [and that] 40 percent of families ended the 1990s where they began..." Bradbury and Katz note that mobility in the 1990s was lower than in previous decades, giving "cause to worry." Chicago Federal Reserve economist Bhashkar Mazumder finds that some studies of intergenerational income mobility overstate mobility by up to 30 percent, and that, "Given the rising evidence from studies in other countries it appears that the U.S. may be among the most immobile countries." Nevertheless, the good news is that the US is not a rigid caste-based society. Table 2 in the Treasury study does somewhat adequately highlight the fact that there is substantial movement in and out of various income quintiles, though certainly not to the extent one might expect.

It's important to understand what Americans generally understand as "income mobility," as well as what a helpful study of income mobility might look like, thus revealing the flaws in analyses like the one just released by the Treasury Department.

How is income mobility defined?
First, income mobility is generally though about as either mobility within a lifetime (i.e. intra-generational) or mobility relative to one's parents and even grandparents (i.e. intergenerational). Second, income mobility is generally thought about as either absolute (i.e. increased or decreased real income over time) or relative (i.e. increased or decreased position in the income distribution). A society can have high levels of one without the other, with absolute mobility stemming largely from shared economic growth and relative mobility stemming largely from efforts to ensure equal opportunity. Thus, a prosperous nation that values equal opportunity would have high levels of both.

When should we care about absolute mobility versus relative mobility?
Because those on top have high initial incomes, we might expect small increases or even decreases in absolute mobility over 10 years, and because those at the bottom have low initial incomes, we might expect large increases in absolute mobility over 10 years. This is in part the statistical phenomenon of regression towards the mean. The Treasury study does confirm this phenomenon in Tables 3 and 8. Still, broadly shared absolute mobility is important for any society interested in continuously improving living standards, but it tells us little about whether or not our "society [is] stratified by more or less permanent income differences...[which] can breed class resentments and unrest." Relative mobility, on the other hand, tells us about the extent to which opportunity to move up and down within a society is equal or unequal for all.

How is income mobility related to income inequality?
There are at least three ways income mobility and income inequality relate to each other directly. First, income mobility might assuage some concern about income inequality. If high or low income status are temporary and people have an equal chance of finding themselves with high or low incomes (excluding the importance of merit in determining income), then the difference between high and low incomes, i.e. income inequality, might not matter so much. As the Treasury study argues,

"Economic historian Joseph Schumpeter compared the income distribution to a hotel where some rooms are luxurious, but others are small and shabby. Important aspects of fairness are that those in the small rooms have an opportunity to move to a better one, and that the luxurious rooms are not always occupied by the same people. The frequency with which people move between rooms is a crucial aspect of the trends in income inequality in the United States."

Second, the meaning of mobility depends in part on the extent on inequality; this is the other side of the same coin. The value of moving up or down depends in part on the income differentials in a society.

Related to that point is the third reason why one might care about income inequality even in a highly mobile society: income inequality can distort occupational choices in ways that are inefficient and harmful society as a whole. For example, Robert Frank points out that there are currently many "winner-take-all markets," in which the very best and brightest in particular fields are paid exorbitant sums relative to others. Robert Frank goes on to note that,

"The lure of the top prizes in winner-take-all markets has also steered many of our most able graduates toward career choices that make little sense for them as individuals, and still less sense for the nation as a whole. In increasing numbers, our best and brightest graduates pursue top positions in law, finance, consulting, and other overcrowded arenas, in the process forsaking careers in engineering, manufacturing, civil service, teaching, and other occupations in which an infusion of additional talent would yield greater benefit to society.

One study estimated, for example, that whereas a doubling of enrollments in engineering would cause the growth rate of GDP to rise by half a percentage point, a doubling of enrollments in law would actually cause a decline of three-tenths of a point. Yet the number of new lawyers admitted to the bar each year more than doubled between 1970 and 1990, a period during which the average standardized test scores of new public school teachers fell dramatically."

Are all changes in relative income also examples of relative income mobility?
No, and to answer otherwise would misunderstand what we mean when we think of income mobility. To understand clearly this apparent paradox--i.e. of some income changes not equaling income mobility--consider what we might expect to see and experience with regard to intra-generational mobility among those age 25 and over-- the focus of the Treasury study. First, most Americans would probably expect absolute and relative incomes to start off low around age 25; increase over a few decades, possibly plateauing; and then decrease nearing and during retirement. The fact that nearly all people's incomes follow this sort of trajectory is hardly a sign of meaningful relative income mobility.

What does income mobility look like then?
Rather, Americans interested in income mobility are interested in comparing people over time to others of similar age. The question we really care about is, "How likely am I to move up or down relative to others my age over my lifetime?" Thus, a thoughtful study of income mobility might track 30-year olds against each other over a decade. The Treasury study fails to do so. As University of Chicago labor economist Kevin Murphy pointed out 15 years ago in response to a horribly similar Treasury study, "This isn't your classic income mobility...This is the guy who works in the college bookstore and has a real job by his early 30's." Unsurprisingly, the Treasury study finds "There was considerable income mobility of individuals in the U.S. economy during the 1996 through 2005 period with roughly half of taxpayers who began in the bottom quintile moving up to a higher income group within 10 years."

Unlike the Treasury study, Americans do not consider the movement of a recent college or graduate student into a substantive job 10 years later to be a significant sign of upward mobility in society.

Unlike the Treasury study, Americans do not consider the movement of a high-earning 65-year old into retirement to be a sign of downward mobility in society.

Unlike the Treasury study, Americans do not consider the entry of new workers into the labor force to be a sign of upward mobility for everyone else in society.

Unlike the Treasury study, Americans are interested in mobility among all, not just those who file taxes.