Workers and their Wages

Happy Labor Day!

Summer is over, schools are back in session and working parents across the country are breathing a sigh of relief.

For many, it’s not so much that their kids are back into a productive routine. It’s that they’ve been struggling all summer to find money for food and a few fun things to do, losing sleep over how to juggle child care and unpredictable work schedules, wondering how they’ll buy school clothes for their growing kids and loned supply lists the underfunded schools send home.

It should be possible, in the wealthiest country in the world, for working parents to provide for their families.

But 48 million Americans struggle to put food on the table. One in five American children lives in poverty.

US Census bureau data in 2013 showed that 10.6 million out of 32.6 million US working families had incomes under 200 percent of the official poverty level. That means almost one third of working families don’t have enough to live on. (Why 200 percent? What’s the dollar amount? Who is impacted most? Here’s a good summary.) 

National Alliance to End Homelessness:
Why Minimum Wage Isn't Enough

It’s easy to get lost in discussion about causes of poverty. I just read an excellent interview with J. D. Vance, author of Hillbilly Elegy, about our conflicting visions of poverty and its causes. Yes, there’s systemic injustice that makes it almost impossible for the generational poor to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. And yes, without a sense of human agency, a strong work ethic and vision of the future, even the best social supports will fall short.  

My concern, today, is the working poor, the many living on the edge who DO want to build a better life, are committed to work and willing to show up, punch the clock, follow the rules, struggle to balance the checkbook.

It should be possible, in a nation as wealthy as ours, for everyone willing to work full time to survive and support a family. Yet, according to the National Low Income Housing Alliance:  “In no state can a minimum wage worker afford a two-bedroom unit at Fair Market Rent, working a standard 40-hour work week.” In Pennsylvania, a minimum wage worker would need to work 78 hours a week to afford a two bedroom apartment.

I’ve written before about taxes, income inequality, and the idea of “makers and takers.” 

I’ve written about welfare, TANF (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families), SNAP (sometimes called “food stamps” – the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program).

I’ve written about unions and their role in ensuring fair treatment and a living wage. 

And I’ve written about injustices in the food industry and the challenge of ensuring fair wages for farm workers.  

I see all these issue refracted through the lens of a summer spent in conversation with young working mothers who despite heroic effort and long, difficult days can’t find a toehold toward a more secure future.

Some are married. Some not.

Some have good educations. Some don’t.

Some have made careful choices all along the way.

Some have made mistakes, acknowledge them and are looking for ways to make sure their kids have better chances.

All look around and wonder: what will happen if someone gets sick? Or the old car dies? What do I tell my kid when he wants to go on the next school trip and there’s no way we can afford it?

It shouldn’t be so hard.

One piece of this is a living wage. How is it that Walmart executives, earning millions a year, can say, with a straight face, they can’t afford higher wages for employees? According to a Bloomberg report: 

 The CEOs of 350 Standard & Poor’s 500 companies made 373 times more than their employees in 2014, up from a ratio of 46-to-1 in 1983, according to the AFL-CIO. That’s more than twice the gap in Switzerland and Germany, and about 10 times bigger than in Austria. . . . A global Harvard Business School survey found that most people think pay gaps are far smaller than they are. That was particularly true in the U.S., where survey respondents thought the ratio of CEO to average worker pay was 30 to 1; they put the ideal ratio at 7 to 1. In June 2015, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission narrowly approved a rule requiring companies to reveal the pay gap between their CEO and their typical employee. At McDonald’s, that ratio was 644 to 1 in 2014, according to a Bloomberg analysis. 

The public picks up the tab for McDonald’s and Walmart workers who can’t make it on their low-wage jobs: an estimate 1.2 billion for health care and food assistance for McDonald’s workers;  $6.2 billion (in 2014) for Walmart employees.

Take away unions and government oversight and the powerful take from the weak, every time. 

Or – almost every time. There are noteworthy companies like Costco that believe caring well for employees is both morally right and economically wise. (Bloomberg explainshow that works.) 

What do our major candidates have to say on this?

Donald Trump has said the following: the minimum wage should stay where it is; it should go up; there should be no federal minimum wage; the federal minimum should be set at $10.00; states should decide. (Confused? So is he: the Washington Post and Politifact, among others, have done their best to explain. or more on this check  

  

Here’s what Hillary Clinton’s website says: 

Hillary believes we are long overdue in raising the minimum wage. She has supported raising the federal minimum wage to $12, and believes that we should go further than the federal minimum through state and local efforts, and workers organizing and bargaining for higher wages, such as the Fight for $15 and recent efforts in Los Angeles and New York to raise their minimum wage to $15. 

She’s been accused of having a confusing stance on minimum wage, In reality, it’s more complex than confusing: she supports an approach like one passed this year in New York State, providing for a gradual rise in minimum wage in a way that acknowledges differences between urban and rural economies and large and small employers. 

It makes sense but takes time to understand.

Another issue of importance to poor workers also takes time to understand and receives far too little attention: wage theft.

In a Labor Day speech last year, Clinton promised: "We’re going to go back to enforcing labor laws. I’m going to make sure that some employers go to jail for wage theft and all the other abuses that they engage in."

Her remarks were greeted by some observers with jeers, cries of “fascist!” and mocking questions, as in the Federalist Papers Project: "What is she talking about when she mentions ‘wage theft’ and how is she going to jail employers because of it? How will this help the economy? The only ‘wage theft’ that happens in the United States is by the government in the form of taxes."

What is she talking about?

According to an issue brief by the Economic Policy Institute:

Survey evidence suggests that wage theft is widespread and costs workers billions of dollars a year, a transfer from low-income employees to business owners that worsens income inequality, hurts workers and their families, and damages the sense of fairness and justice that a democracy needs to survive. . . 

No one knows precisely how many instances of wage theft occurred in the U.S. during 2012, nor do we know what the victims suffered in total dollars earned but not paid. But we do know that the total amount of money recovered for the victims of wage theft who retained private lawyers or complained to federal or state agencies was at least $933 million—almost three times greater than all the money stolen in robberies that year. . . .
 Obviously, the nearly $1 billion collected is only the tip of the wage-theft iceberg, since most victims never sue and never complain to the government.  

While Clinton has offered to prosecute and incarcerate white collar criminals responsible for stealing wages from employees, her opponent prides himself on bending the law to maximize profits, at great harm to those he employs.

As early as 1980 Trump was withholding wages from undocumented workers – detailed in an unresolved lawsuit Trump’s lawyers managed to delay for years 

Fox News, the Wall Street Journal and others have reported the more than 200 liens filed against Trump and his companies by employees and contractors still waiting to be paid.  Reuters examined questionable practices of withholding money from contracted work. And a USA Today investigation found hundreds of individuals – carpenters, dishwashers, painters, even his own lawyers – who say he didn’t pay them for their work. 

At least 60 lawsuits, along with hundreds of liens, judgments, and other government filings reviewed by the USA TODAY NETWORK, document people who have accused Trump and his businesses of failing to pay them for their work. Among them: a dishwasher in Florida. A glass company in New Jersey. A carpet company. A plumber. Painters. Forty-eight waiters. Dozens of bartenders and other hourly workers at his resorts and clubs, coast to coast. Real estate brokers who sold his properties. And, ironically, several law firms that once represented him in these suits and others. 

Trump’s companies have also been cited for 24 violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act since 2005 for failing to pay overtime or minimum wage, according to U.S. Department of Labor data. That includes 21 citations against the defunct Trump Plaza in Atlantic City and three against the also out-of-business Trump Mortgage LLC in New York. Both cases were resolved by the companies agreeing to pay back wages.

In addition to the lawsuits, the review found more than 200 mechanic’s liens — filed by contractors and employees against Trump, his companies or his properties claiming they were owed money for their work — since the 1980s. The liens range from a $75,000 claim by a Plainview, N.Y., air conditioning and heating company to a $1 million claim from the president of a New York City real estate banking firm. On just one project, Trump’s Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City, records released by the New Jersey Casino Control Commission in 1990 show that at least 253 subcontractors weren’t paid in full or on time, including workers who installed walls, chandeliers and plumbing. The actions in total paint a portrait of Trump’s sprawling organization frequently failing to pay small businesses and individuals, then sometimes tying them up in court and other negotiations for years. In some cases, the Trump teams financially overpower and outlast much smaller opponents, draining their resources. Some just give up the fight, or settle for less; some have ended up in bankruptcy or out of business altogether. 

Old Testament laws place a high priority on fair treatment of workers:

Do not defraud or rob your neighbor. Do not hold back the wages of a hired worker overnight. "(Leviticus 19:13) 

Do not take advantage of a hired worker who is poor and needy, whether that worker is a fellow Israelite or a foreigner residing in one of your towns. Pay them their wages each day before sunset, because they are poor and are counting on it. Otherwise they may cry to the Lord against you, and you will be guilty of sin. (Deuteronomy 4:240 

The prophet Malachi warned of punishment for mistreatment of workers:

“So I will come to put you on trial. I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive the foreigners among you of justice, but do not fear me,” says the Lord Almighty. (Malachi 3:5)

Jeremiah said this:

 “Woe to him who builds his palace by unrighteousness, his upper rooms by injustice,
making his own people work for nothing, not paying them for their labor.  (Jeremiah 22:13)

I’ve been in several of Trump’s palaces.

All built by injustice.

To quote Jeremiah: Woe to him.

And woe to those who excuse or ignore his treatment of the working poor.

This post is part of a series on What's Your Platform

Beyond the Party Platform July 24, 2016

A Different Way July 31, 2016 

Election Fraud and Rigged Elections, August 10, 2016 

How Long Will the Land Lie Parched? August 21, 2016 

Walls, Welcome, Mercy, Law August 28, 2016

Other Labor Day Posts:

Solidarity Forever: Love, Labor, Unions Sep 6, 2015 

What Are Workers Worth? Sep 1, 2014

How Much Does Justice Cost? Sep 1, 2013

Work Sep 5, 2011

What Are Workers Worth?

 “Don’t muzzle an ox when you are using it to grind grain.”

 “Workers are worth their pay.” (I Timothy 5:18)

Happy Labor Day!

Today I’m starting a series of posts about issues of importance in the upcoming state and local elections.

And today, in honor of Labor Day, the topic is labor law, wages, and our growing class of working poor.

It's a heavy, complicated topic, and I'm only scratching the surface. 

Even so, it's a topic worth struggling with.

For American workers, state elections are far more important than most of us realize.

Minimum wage, laws regulating overtime and sick leave, protections against wage theft, the role of unions: these are all heavily influenced by state legislators, many facing election on November 4.

Non-presidential elections often slip by with little attention, but for workers, state elections carry heavy consequences, and are often decided by just a handful of votes. A candidate for my own state senate race, canvassing door to door, reminded me that some area elections have been decided by single digit numbers; a look at Wikipedia’s list of “close elections” shows that some state elections have been decided by just one vote.

I may have said it before, but I’ll say it again: I’m a registered Independent. There are aspects of every party platform that I can’t support, and I’m looking for candidates whose positions are shaped by wisdom, concern for justice,  personal courage and conviction, rather than dictated by the prevailing party machine.

So – in what way is my own vote shaped by my understanding of work and concern for the rights of workers?

I posted about work, and workers, several years ago, and still affirm my conclusions: 

Of all people, Christ’s followers should be first to advocate for fair pay, fair conditions, equal benefits for workers.

In the three years since posting that I've seen up close, through the lives of friends, the challenges of low-income workers. Aheadline just last week threw those challenges into sharp relief: a woman working four part-time jobs died while napping in her car between shifts.

An analysis by the non-profit, non-partisan Center forBudget and Policy Priorities describes the accumulating forces that have undermined earning power and put workers in jeopardy:

The federal minimum wage ($7.25) and minimum for tipped employees ($2.13) have not kept pace with worker productivity or cost of living:

It seems fair that the minimum wage should maintain some rough parity with productivity (a measure of how much the average worker produces each hour), because productivity increases determine the nation’s capacity to raise its income. By that measure, since productivity has increased by 80 percent since 1973, the minimum wage should be about 80 percent higher in real terms than it was in 1973; instead of $7.25, it
would be $15.15. . . .

Another indexing option is to set the minimum wage high enough to keep a full-time worker with a family out of poverty. In 2013, that would require $11.30 an hour. (Pathway to Full Employment, 2)

Waiting for Change:
The $2.13 Federal Subminimum Wage

While federal minimum wage discussions remain stalled in partisan gridlock, 21 states have passed legislation setting higher minimums wages. PA Senate Bill 1300, raising the minimum wage to $8.20, then to $9.15 on January 1, 2015, $10.10 on January 1, 2016, and tied to a cost-of-living adjustment in the years beyond that, appears to be lost in committee.

PA House Bill 1896, with a similar graduated increase to $10.10 and an increase in the tipping wage income from Pennsylvania's current minimum of $2.83 to $5.05, or 50% of the minimum wage, was dismissed by the Labor and Industry Committee, despite 70 cosponsors from both sides of the aisle.

Living wage ordinances tie public spending to a higher minimum, often termed a "living wage," an amount needed to keep a family from poverty in a particular area. A recent Philadelphia ordinance requires any contractor or subcontractor employed by the city to pay $10.86 an hour, increasing to $12.00 an hour in 2015, enough to put a family of four just above the poverty line.

Unrealistic salary tests for exempt employees allow employers to overwork and underpay a significant percentage of the US workforce:

“Exempt employees” don’t punch a clock and are not held to minimum wage standards or overtime regulation. From 1938 to the mid seventies, the “exempt employee” salary test was adjusted regularly to reflect inflation and increases in the cost of living. From 1975 to the present, that level has been adjusted only once, in 2004, to  $455 a week, or $23,660 a year, a poverty income, just under the poverty level for a family of four.

That unrealistic level allows employers to bypass both minimum wage and overtime regulation. 

“The Government Accountability Office (GAO) in 2000 reported that an increasing number of American workers — between 19 and 26 million (20 to 27 percent of the full-time workforce) in 1998 — were subject to the exemptions.” (Pathway 3-4)

Legislation weakening worker protections and bargaining rights mean less full-time jobs, erratic work schedules, less safe workplaces, less training, less job security, and lower wages: 

Burt P. Flickinger III, a consultant for the retail industry, says that, “Over the past two decades, many major retailers went from a quotient of 70 to 80 percent full time to at least 70 percent part time across the industry.”  David Ossip, a workforce scheduling software maker, says, “Many employers now schedule shifts as short as two or three hours, while historically they may have scheduled eight-hour shifts.” (Pathway 6) 

Business Insider, Labor Share of Corporate Profits 2012

I’ve seen the havoc on family life when workers’ schedules change from week to week, with shifts are
posted Sunday for the week ahead. I’ve also seen the financial hardship when employees can send workers home if work is slow, with no recourse on the part of the worker, and compensation for time and money spent in travel, or wages lost because of shortened shifts.

The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 provided workers avenues for weighing employee needs against employer profits: 

In the past, unions would protect workers from the abuse of erratic work schedules, but with the decline of unions in general and the weakness of union density in the service sector in particular, union protection is, at present, a limited solution. (Pathway 7)

Opinion about unions is sharply divided, in part due to poor behavior on the part of some union leaders in the past, in part due to apparent union inflexibility in the present. Yet, I go back to my conclusions of three years ago: 

Historically, churches, and people of faith, have stood with unions on behalf of workers. Whatever their failings, for the past century and a half unions have been the strongest advocates for fair pay, safe workplaces, reasonable hours. Without unions, workers in mills, mines, factories would still be pushed to work twelve hours a day, seven days a week. Unions helped win workmen’s compensation, workplace safety standards, child labor laws. . . . No unions have been perfect, and power and money always leave the door open to abuse, but all of us, union workers or not, owe a great debt to the work of unions. 

As I look at the November elections, I’ll be looking for candidates who affirm an increase in minimum wage, and for candidates who have creative solutions to the needs of workers.

Two League of Women Voter tools can help voters find out more about local candidates. In many states, Vote 411, and in others, (including Pennsylvania and California) Smart Voter provide sample ballots by zip code, and links to candidates own websites. 

This is the first is a series looking at specific issues of importance in state and local elections, as an extension of my 2012 series "What's Your Platform?"

As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome. Just click on   __comments below to see the comment option.   

Welfare to Work and a Plea for Wisdom

Happy Labor Day.

I’m thankful today for jobs I’ve had – for the chance to work, to grow, to contribute. I’m thankful for my husbands’ good jobs, that my kids have work, that we have health care, homes, food to eat.

And I’m prayerful for all the people in my life who aren’t able to say the same: who have never had jobs that allowed them to thrive, who have never had room to stretch and grow, whose health care is uncertain, whose days are devoted to counting change, juggling bills, wishing there were a few dollars more so the kids could go on the next class field trip.

I was tempted to repost my Labor Day post from last year. The issues I discussed are relevant to current political discussion.

But this past week there's been much discussion on another labor related issues: welfare to work and the new state waivers. I've been hearing that "Obama gutted welfare reform," listening to people repeat “Obama said people on welfare don’t need to work.”  I've been praying for greater wisdom, on the part of leaders and voters, about the complex, troubling world of the poor, and I've been wishing that all of us, rich, comfortable, opinionated, wise in our own well-being, could spend a week or two exploring the reality of poverty in these United States.

First, we’d learn, fast, that survival is complicated. Start with the acronyms. Ever heard of TANF? That’s Temporary Assistance to Needy Families. Note the “Temporary.” TANF is the program prompting all the discussion. It grew out of the Welfare to Work legislation of 1996, but is so overburdened with record keeping, reporting requirements, conflicting conditions and consequences that many states find themselves putting more energy into documenting compliance than in effectively helping people find jobs. Here in Pennsylvania, people I know who have attempted TANF compliance have found themselves logging hours in a room with some crumpled want-ads, with no real hope of finding work, caught in a perpetual study hall with nothing to study, while their children are watched by neighbors or running free on city streets.

Which partially explains why 29 Republican governors signed a letter back in 2005 asking for waivers allowing state governments more flexibility in helping people move into the work force. Governors Rick Perry of Texas, John Huntsman of Alabama, Jeb Bush of Florida, Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, and Mitt Romney of Massachusetts were among those who signed the letter. Then President Bush ignored the request, but the issue was raised again last summer with a detailed proposal from Utah Governor Gary Herbert of Utah.

Those requests were met last month with a ruling authorizing increased flexibility, dependent on states continuing to meet or exceed the original goals of TANF: “helping parents successfully prepare for, find, and retain employment.” As the explanatory memorandum from the Department of Health and Human Services makes clear:

 “The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) is interested in more efficient or effective means to promote employment entry, retention, advancement, or access to jobs that offer opportunities for earnings and advancement that will allow participants to avoid dependence on government benefits. . . HHS will only consider approving waivers relating to the work participation requirements that make changes intended to lead to more effective means of meeting the work goals of TANF.”

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

The fact that governors who requested waivers are not strongly and vocally supporting this decision seems the height of dishonesty. Anyone who wants to see an end to regulation, stronger states rights, less federal government interference, should be applauding this change, rather than spreading misinformation and turning a malignant spotlight on those who find themselves in need of help.

Let’s pause, though, and ask: how much money are we talking about here? And how many people? People talk about welfare queens, as if there are people taking their ease while public assistance pays the bills. Current TANF allotments in most states are less than half the poverty level. In Pennsylvania, a single-parent family with two kids can expect $407 per month. Not enough to pay rent on even a studio apartment in any but the poorest neighborhood, so the single moms I know are camped out with their kids in one bedroom in someone else’s house, or scraping together whatever help they can find to perch precariously in inadequate, aging housing, hoping the sole toilet doesn’t break.

According to TANF regulations, no family can receive assistance for more than five years, total. And if a parent tries to go back to school to make a slightly better job possible, current TANF regulations allow exactly twelve months of assistance before that parent needs to get out in the work force.

Add in SNAP (that’s the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program – previously food stamps, now a digitized card, like a credit card), and a family on assistance is still far below the poverty level.
Since the Welfare to Work legislation took place, the number of families receiving aid has declined by 60 percent, even with increased unemployment and significantly increased poverty.

While Welfare to Work rules have encouraged significant numbers back into the workforce, it has also resulted in more and more families in extreme poverty, with less and less help for food, rent, and other necessities.

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

What happens when families are “sanctioned” because a parent fails to comply with the job search requirements? Or when the sixty month window expires? Assistance ends. Even though there are few jobs available. Even though the jobs open to someone with a GED and one year of training often pay minimum wage, no benefits, an no control over hours.

So back to my wish. For those with strong opinions about welfare and “the lazy poor”, of those not interested in poverty platforms, I wish we could all spend a week trying to figure it out: how to get to the welfare office by bus with a child or two in tow. How to feed a family on a few dollars a day, with limited transportation, limited space for storage. How to look and smell clean when there's no money for the laundromat. How to prioritize when there's not enough money to meet even the top priorities of housing, food, clean clothing.

We’d learn that life is confusing, with piecemeal offerings of help, confusing requirements, changing deadlines. We’d learn that hard choices are constant: get the brakes on the ancient van fixed, or buy the calculator needed for school? Pay the phone bill, or stock up on toilet paper?

Forget sports teams for the kids, summer camp, music lessons, braces. The questions are more immediate: milk or orange juice? Sneakers that fit, or a second-hand winter coat?

Yes, if you want, we can go back to the underlying question: isn’t it their fault they’re poor? These single moms: didn’t they make some bad choices?

Here’s a question of my own: where were you living when you were sixteen? Who was helping you think things through? Who was making sure you had a bed to sleep in? Who was holding you when you cried?

The 2009 film Precious, based on the first-person account of a young urban mom, did a great job of capturing the reality of many who struggle. Not an easy film to watch, but maybe it should be required viewing for all of us, politicians, pundits, person in the street.

This issue of work, welfare, and what we say about the poor is personal to me. My own family was on welfare when I was sixteen: food stamps, rent and medical assistance. We lived in a single parent household, with my grandmother as sole guardian. She was working long hours at a low wage job, working so hard she had a heart attack. Fortunately, she lived. Not every story ends so well. The issue is also personal to me because of my years of involvement in a poor Philly neighborhood, and my many friends with painful stories of their own. Until we find better ways of intervening in cycles of dysfunction, sexual violence, neglect, mental illness, drug dependence, we will not solve the problem of poverty.

Yes, there are people who continue to make unwise choices, and some who game the system, but the people I know who benefit from TANF are longing for a chance, struggling to survive, wishing they could find good jobs, worrying about their kids. They would benefit from more creative, more flexible programs. They are badly hurt when assistance to the poor becomes a political football and their needs and hopes are buried in partisan maneuvering.

What do I take from this?

• Our politicians need to be honest about programs and policies. If they endorsed a policy because of its merits, they should say so, rather than be silenced by party politics, or bullied into opposing something they know would help.
• Arguments about putting the poor to work should acknowledge our current climate: even people with years of experience, with extensive training and supportive networks, find it hard to find jobs that support their families. There are better ways to help families in need than insisting ill-equipped parents waste time looking for non-existent jobs rather than take the time needed to improve parenting and literacy skills and train for real long-term employment.
• Compassion for the poor requires knowing people who struggle, trying to understand the realities they face, and finding practical ways to share the burdens. Without that compassion, our opinions are sounding gongs, or clashing symbols, and do far more harm than good. 

“This is what the LORD Almighty said: ‘Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another.  Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor” Zechariah 7:9-10

This is part of a continuing series on politics and faith: What's Your Platform.

Please join the conversation. Your thoughts and experiences are always welcome. Look for the "__ comments" link below to leave your comments.