Labor Membership Boosts Incomes, Families And Economy

“A new report presented by the Center for American Progress co-authored with economists Richard Freeman and Eunice Han is only the latest look at how labor unions enable working people to do better. The report, “Bargaining for the American Dream: What Unions do for Mobility,” looks at “economic mobility” and “intergenerational mobility” and finds that mobility is better where unions are strong….

“The study found that areas with higher union membership demonstrate more mobility for low-income children:

● Low-income children rise higher in the income rankings when they grow up in areas with high union membership.
● An increase in union density is associated with an increase in the income of an area’s children – as much as or more than high school dropout rates.
● Children of non-college-educated fathers earn more if their father was in a labor union….”

We Don’t Need Your Dirty Business: Santa Cruz Washes Its Hands of Felon Banks

“In May, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland and UBS Group AG pled guilty to felonies. Swiss Bank had cooperated with authorities early on, and was ultimately not charged. The banks face collective fines of a little over $5 billion – paltry in relation to the money they handle and the money they manipulated. But while big banks continue to ruin communities and personal lives with light impunity, in some cases the people are fighting back….

“‘The [Santa Cruz] Supervisors can make a strong point and show disapproval with our dollars,’ she [Amanda Robinson, vice chair of the Santa Cruz County Democratic Party] said. ‘We will no longer put up with unethical and illegal banking practices. I hope other cities and counties will follow our lead and remove their monies from banks that don’t benefit local communities.'”

More at Occupy.com

Fewer Poor Uninsured After Health Law, Study Finds

Obamacare has been (and continues to be) an unequivocal success story at obtaining health coverage for poor folks in the U.S. according to recent findings by the National Health Interview Survey, confirming earlier polling by Gallup and others:

person signing up for healthcare coverage“In all, about 32 percent of poor Americans were uninsured in 2014, down from 39 percent in 2013. The share of near poor Americans who were uninsured declined to 31 percent from 39 percent.

“In states that expanded Medicaid, the share of people under the age of 65 who were uninsured stood at 10.9 percent in 2014, down from 14.9 percent the year before. In states that did not expand, where uninsured rates were higher to begin with, the share dropped far less, to 16 percent from 18.4 percent in 2013.

“Mr. Levitt said the law seemed to have had a greater effect on the long-term uninsured. The report found that the share of Americans uninsured for more than a year dropped to 9.7 percent from 12.4 percent, compared to a drop of about one percentage point for people who had been uninsured for just part of the past year.”

More at NY Times