Bryce Covert

Editor

 

 

bcovert@rooseveltinstitute.org

Recent Posts by Bryce Covert

  • Justice on the Cheap Isn't Justice at All

    Jan 24, 2012Bryce Covert

    Budget cuts for police departments and court systems mean justice won't be handed out evenly -- or at all.

    Budget cuts for police departments and court systems mean justice won't be handed out evenly -- or at all.

    We can all recite the opening of Law and Order. "In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the police, who investigate crime; and the district attorneys, who prosecute the offenders." As much as the show gets wrong about the real world, this narration gets it right: it takes both law and order (i.e. police and court systems) to serve justice to the people. Yet neither of those services is free. We are officially in an age of austerity and our justice system isn't immune to the ravages of budget cutting. We're getting justice on the cheap, and like that electric blanket you bought at the dollar store, it's just not functioning correctly.

    It's no secret that state budgets have been hit hard by the recession and that the stimulus money that helped patch the holes is mostly gone. Public employees have been in the spotlight as they've been laid off and their bargaining rights have come under attack in response to the financial crunch. On the order side of the justice equation, police departments are no exception to the squeeze. By the end of 2011, 12,000 police officers were expected to have lost their jobs. That drop would be the first job decline in law enforcement in 25 years. This is just a sign of larger financial troubles. As a Justice Department report on the situation put it, it is "no longer a fiscal possibility" for governments to allocate half of their budgets to public safety. "The economic decline has severely affected law enforcement agencies' operating budgets across the nation," it states, leading to over one third of departments in a survey to report budget drops of more than 5 percent since 2009.

    This has a real impact on our police force's ability to prevent and respond to crimes. About half of the agencies that responded to a recent survey said budget cuts had or would cause changes in the services provided to their communities. That includes 8 percent of the departments that are no longer responding to any car thefts and 9 percent of departments that are no longer responding to any burglar alarms. At all.

    But that doesn't mean all crimes go unpunished. While offenses like theft, beatings, and even domestic abuse are falling to the wayside, drug enforcement is keeping apace. There were around 50,000 people arrested for marijuana possession in New York City last year, but an expose by the Village Voice showed NYPD officers were encouraged to downgrade or ignore other crimes. Part of this is due to the pressure of reporting lower violent crime rates, but there is also a monetary motive at work. Drug arrests bring in money in a variety of ways, but perhaps the most direct incentive is the competition among police departments across the country for federal anti-drug grants. As the Huffington Post reports, "The more arrests and drug seizures a department can claim, the stronger its application for those grants." It also reports, "police can seize property from people merely suspected of drug crimes," and most of the cash from those assets goes back to the department.

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    This is likely why the percentage of homicides solved by police in Chicago dropped from 70 percent since 1991 to under 40 percent, yet the overall number of drug arrests increased 264 percent between 1980 and 2003. The need to go after the money distorts which cases get solved and which suspects get pursued -- and that will only get worse if budgets continue to be crunched.

    Things aren't much prettier back on the other side. Even if the police do pursue your case, once you're in court you may not find you can take it much further. A report by the American Bar Association, "Crisis in the Courts: Defining the Problem," blames cuts in funding. "The failure of state and local legislatures to provide adequate funding is effectively -- at times quite literally -- closing the doors of our justice system," it says. This has led to "hiring freezes, pay cuts, judicial furloughs, staff layoffs, early retirements, increased filing fees, and outright closures."

    The cuts have had a real impact. Fourteen state court systems have had to shorten their hours or even the number of days they're open. Twenty-two have tried to offset the cuts by increasing filing fees and/or fines. Fourteen states have laid of staff entirely. Not to mention the furloughs and pay freezes that can't be motivating judges and clerks to perform their jobs to the utmost of their capabilities. All of these dysfunctions have meant that states face the dilemma of putting untried defendants in local jails or releasing potentially violent offenders because further pre-trial detention is either "constitutionally impermissible or practically impossible."

    Cuts to our court systems don't just mean distorted justice; they are also the definition of penny wise but pound foolish. Fully funding a court usually makes up about only 1 to 2 percent of a state and local budgets. Yet the costs of court-related delays in foreclosure cases in Florida alone have been estimated to be almost $10 billion. With the soaring caseload continuing to roll in from the foreclosure crisis alone, it makes no sense to be cutting back on our justice system.

    One sure way to deny equal justice to the citizens of this country is to continue starving police departments and court systems of funding. If we'd rather continue our history of blind justice for all, we'll have to get much smarter about what we shield from the budget cutting axe.

    Bryce Covert is Editor of New Deal 2.0.

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  • Retail Jobs Don't Serve the Women Who Dominate Them

    Jan 17, 2012Bryce Covert

    Even though they represent a majority of workers, women make less and get fewer benefits than their male counterparts.

    Even though they represent a majority of workers, women make less and get fewer benefits than their male counterparts.

    Looking for a job is a dismal affair in today's economy, but one bright spot for hiring has been retail. Holiday employment was up 15 percent over last year, and the industry had a net gain of 718,500 workers in the last quarter of the year, close to the same time period in pre-recession 2007. Overall, retail salespersons and cashiers had the highest level of employment in 2010, making up almost 6 percent of total U.S. employment.

    But the jobs themselves are not great news. According to a new report from Retail Action Project (RAP) that surveyed 436 retail workers in New York City, most make poverty wages and have few benefits, if any, to speak of. Over half of those who earn an hourly wage earn below $10 an hour, and 12 percent earn the minimum wage. Less than a third get health benefits from their job.

    In a twist that Alanis Morissette would call ironic, while women dominate this field -- almost two-thirds of the respondents to the survey were women -- they fare worse than their male counterparts in these jobs. RAP had already reported that the average woman in retail makes $9.77 per hour, while men make $10.64. But it goes further: women are also less likely to receive health coverage, paid time off, or promotions. They make up far more of their share of low-wage workers at almost 70 percent. So while men are now grabbing far more retail jobs than women, it's not clear that they're simply lowering their standards. After all, they are more likely to be paid well and receive benefits.

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    On top of these difficulties, the RAP report makes it clear that one of the biggest challenges facing retail workers is scheduling. Only 17 percent had a set schedule; over half only find out their schedules within a week. A fifth only get their schedule with three days' notice. This presents many challenges to a worker -- being able to get to a second job to supplement income, being able to take courses in higher education -- but it greatly impacts mothers trying to find childcare so they can get to work. It's next to impossible to set up a decent childcare situation in three days.

    That news comes on top of another report out today from the Human Services Council on where New York State budget cuts have taken their heaviest tolls, and it shows that states are pulling back on supports that these retail workers -- particularly women -- rely on. State funding for Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF), which provides support for childcare services, was cut by 71 percent for this year. That's after a 60 percent reduction last year. Cuts to child care support mean that women who are already struggling to find someone to watch their children will have fewer options.

    This year's budget also cut $2.7 billion in state Medicaid funding. Over 70 percent of retail workers don't get health care from their jobs, yet the state is pulling back support for those who rely on the government for health care benefits. And since women are less likely than their male peers to get these benefits, they're hit harder.

    The situation in New York is being replicated across the country -- both in terms of retail workers and government pullbacks. So while women rely on retail jobs -- and the economy as a whole seems to be relying on them -- they aren't getting nearly what they need. Wages and benefits need to catch up to the real needs of all retail workers.

    Bryce Covert is Editor of New Deal 2.0.

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  • Michelle Obama and the Fossilized Role of First Lady

    Jan 13, 2012Bryce Covert

    Women make up half the workforce, get degrees in droves, and have their own careers. So it's little wonder that a role that requires women give that all up is an awkward fit.

    Women make up half the workforce, get degrees in droves, and have their own careers. So it's little wonder that a role that requires women give that all up is an awkward fit.

    As long as there have been presidents in this country, there have been first ladies at their side. The role is traditionally to act as a homemaker and hostess, tending to the family and the White House. This was the purview of middle and upper class wives, after all. But now that we live in an era where women represent almost half of the workforce, pursuing independent careers and even sometimes acting as the breadwinner for their families, we're still playing catch up. The role of first lady in particular continues to be murky and old-fashioned. Not elected, yet married to the most powerful man in the country. Highly influential, yet often resented for using that influence. And above all, educated and often professionally successful, yet expected to give up their careers. It's an anachronistic role that has fossilized an older ideal of womanhood and wifeliness. And it traps many smart women. Enter Michelle Obama.

    When Michelle Obama entered the White House, I was hopeful that we would see a return to the model of a strong first lady who stakes out an agenda. After all, she's a Harvard-trained lawyer who had a career of her own. But I quickly became impatient. Mrs. Obama -- or advisers -- seemed more interested in preserving her sky-high poll numbers than giving her an aggressive agenda. She tackled obesity -- but never touched agriculture policy or our health care system. She reached out to military families -- but said nothing about our need to bring troops home.

    I held her in contrast to Eleanor Roosevelt, who had tremendous influence on the White House and the country. But in an excerpt from her new book The Obamas, Jodi Kantor shows there may be more similarities between the two than I had been giving credit for. Kantor's interviews "show that [Obama] has been an unrecognized force in her husband's administration and that her story has been one first of struggle, then turnaround and greater fulfillment." Something similar could be said about Eleanor Roosevelt, except perhaps the part about going unrecognized. Both women, successful professionally, struggled with their roles in the White House when they first arrived. Yet it seems that Obama may be starting to follow a trajectory similar to Roosevelt's -- exerting her influence over her husband's administration and beginning to find her place. As well she should. The role makes little sense given the changes to our workforce, and smart, powerful women must make it their own.

    Both women faced their coming roles with anxiety after their husbands won the election. As Kantor reports, "Even as Mrs. Obama dazzled Americans with her warmth, glamour and hospitality early in the presidency, she was also deeply frustrated and insecure about her place in the White House." Nothing could be truer of how Eleanor Roosevelt felt about her coming duties. As Blanche Wiesen Cook wrote in her biography Eleanor Roosevelt, "After the election of November 1932, ER worried that her talents would not be used; that she would become a shut-in, a congenial hostess in the political shadows politically sidelined." Obama tried to delay moving to the White House; Roosevelt went further and allegedly told friends she would run away with FDR's bodyguard, Earl Miller.

    This ambiguous and potentially confining role came for both women after highly successful careers that they were asked to drop upon taking up residence in the White House. Cook writes that Roosevelt "enjoyed many careers and was all in a day teacher, editor, columnist, and radio commentator" before the presidency. This was in the '30s, before World War II opened the floodgates for women to enter the workforce, but it was a sign of changing times.

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    Obama was, of course, a Harvard-trained, practicing lawyer. She exemplifies the high numbers of women seeking higher education today and moving (albeit slowly) into male-dominated professions. Obama, unsurprisingly, at first chafed at the change: as Kantor writes, "A Harvard-trained lawyer, she had given up her career for what initially seemed to her a shapeless post, and she tried to wriggle out of some ceremonial events that she saw as not having much purpose." Roosevelt also at first obliged grudgingly -- although later on went back to work as a unionized reporter, among other roles.

    Both of these stories display the inherent contradictions first ladies face. Both women were/are smart and successful, yet were/are supposed to give up all public roles, become the country's hostess, and stand by their man. It's little wonder that upon entering, Obama told her aides she

    never wanted to be the kind of first lady who interfered with West Wing business... It was her husband's administration, not hers, she sometimes said. She had little appetite or expertise for policy detail, and she knew the history of first ladies -- like Nancy Reagan and Mrs. Clinton -- who had been deemed meddlers, unelected figures who wielded unearned power.

    That's what tradition dictates. But it goes against her intelligence and skills. Once in, she told her advisers she "wanted a more central role in communicating the administration's message," particularly in selling health care reform. West Wing advisers declined, haunted by the ghost of Hillary Clinton past.

    It's taken some time to adjust, but it looks like Obama is warming to the fact that she can make this role what she wants. Kantor writes that later on, "Michelle Obama's trajectory in the White House was changing. She was mastering and subtly redefining the role that had once seemed formless to her, and becoming more acclimated to her new life."

    For starters, she's begun to play a similar role within the administration that Roosevelt did: keeper of her husband's conscience. The role of the West Wing advisors is often to figure out what deal is possible; these first ladies look for what deal is the right one. Cook wrote of Roosevelt, "FDR liked to boast that he was a "practical politician." He knew how to compromise, make deals, be duplicitous. ER understood the nature of the game, but wanted some assurance that it would be played for the right reasons, the most needful causes." Obama similarly, as it would seem from Kantor's article, butted heads with advisers because she "cherished the idea of her husband as a transformational figure" and "she saw herself as a guardian of values."

    The idea that women are no longer confined to the kitchen and tending to children still makes some people queasy. But it's been our reality for half a century. Our policies still haven't caught up, and the role of first lady is perhaps even more outdated. Here's hoping that Michelle Obama is allowed to take control of it, make it her own, and influence this country for the better.

    Bryce Covert is Editor of New Deal 2.0.

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  • Access to Contraception is an Economic Issue

    Jan 10, 2012Bryce Covert

    Supporting family planning saves the government and low-income women money. The GOP should be challenged when it threatens to take that support away.

    Supporting family planning saves the government and low-income women money. The GOP should be challenged when it threatens to take that support away.

    People tend to want to split debates along the line between economic issues and social ones. But that line isn't always so easy to demarcate. Case in point: Contraception was a big item on the agenda at the first of two GOP debates this weekend, but many commentators were impatient for questions about the economy. Yet questions about women's access to contraception have everything to do with the economy, and not just for the women who use it.

    Investing in contraception access makes sense for the economy at large, particularly in an age of austerity. Globally, every dollar spent on contraceptive services saves $1.40 in maternal and newborn health care costs by helping prevent unintended pregnancies. More specifically, every dollar invested in contraceptive access saves $4.02 in Medicaid expenditures that would have gone to pregnancy-related care. But there's still room to save more -- half of all pregnancies in the U.S. each year are unintended, and those who consistently and correctly use contraception make up only 5 percent of unintended pregnancies, leaving the rest to many who can't get what they need.

    Access to contraception is also a class issue, and the class divide in unwanted pregnancies is growing. When Republicans threaten to defund Planned Parenthood or Title X funding, which subsidizes family planning services, they threaten to make it more difficult -- or impossible -- for low-income women to get the contraception they need. It's a dire need that affects almost all women: virtually all those aged 15-44 who have ever had sex have used at least one method. The typical woman has to use contraceptives for about 30 years to achieve the number of children she wishes to have. And 43 million women -- seven in 10 -- are sexually active but don't want to get pregnant. Hard to do without contraception.

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    Over 7 million of those women get contraception from publicly funded family planning clinics, and many will have nowhere else to turn if those clinics are defunded. One-quarter of all poor women who obtain contraceptive services each year do so at a place that gets Title X funding. Many of them likely do so because they have no insurance -- four in 10 women of reproductive age don't. This is part of why Title X-supported centers saved taxpayers $3.4 billion in 2008, or $3.74 for every dollar spent on contraceptive care, by helping these women avoid unwanted pregnancies. If these centers shut down, low-income women without coverage are hit first and hardest. They're left with no other options.

    But even women who are lucky enough to have health insurance may not be able to afford contraception. Many can't afford the high co-pays. Contraception often requires a prescription, yet one in five health care providers report that most clients seeking contraception struggle to pay for the necessary doctor's visit.

    None of this is to dismiss the excruciating levels of unemployment we're currently experiencing or the miserably low rates of economic growth. The GOP candidates better have something to say about how to fix the economy and put people back to work. But when they also have extreme views about whether women should be allowed or able to access contraception, it's no small point for them or the economy at large. They're making an economic move when they threaten to curtail access.

    Bryce Covert is Editor of New Deal 2.0.

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  • The Womancession Will Prolong Our Economic Slump

    Jan 4, 2012Bryce Covert

    They oversee 80 percent of consumer spending. While they suffer, the economy suffers.

    They oversee 80 percent of consumer spending. While they suffer, the economy suffers.

    The New York Times reported earlier this week that consumer spending, while slightly up for the holidays, wasn't as strong as many were hoping and ended up looking pretty depressed in 2011. Consumers' unwillingness to open up their pocketbooks and go on credit-fueled shopping sprees portends dismal economic growth in the near future. They have already cut back so far that there is "little room for a big increase in spending in 2012," as the article puts it. And it reports, "Consumer spending makes up 70 percent of the economy, so until it ignites, general growth is likely to be sluggish."

    It's no mistake that both the people interviewed for the article were women. There's Sarah M. Manley from Minnesota, who has frozen crab legs she bought on discount stowed away for Valentine's Day and now buys milk in plastic bags from the gas station instead of in cartons. There's also Lynette Paudel of Ohio, who plans to drive her 2003 minivan until it breaks but was lucky enough to avoid being let go from her high school English teaching job. When it comes to talk of consumer spending, we might as well be talking almost exclusively about women. They oversee 80 percent of consumer spending, totaling $3.7 trillion. As long as they continue to suffer in the recession, the rest of the economy will sputter along.

    Paudel is very lucky to have kept her teaching job. Since the recovery officially began in 2009, women have actually been losing jobs. They saw 46,000 disappear, while at the same time men made some gains, getting back 1.26 million. Women's unemployment rate has also inched up while men saw a decline. And a large part of that trend is that women were big losers in public sector layoffs, losing 374,000 jobs. A lot of those came from public education jobs -- elementary and high school teachers like Paudel.

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    That's not the whole story, however. Men have also been making gains in the public sector while women lost, driven by huge job losses for administrative and secretarial positions. Men are even gaining in the traditionally female-dominated retail industry.

    Even those women who are still employed are likely struggling with other factors. Housing debt is a huge barrier holding consumers back. The Times article reports, "with more than one in every five borrowers still owing more than their homes are worth, many homeowners feel too pressed to spend on much more than the essentials." But as the Consumer Federation of America found, women were 32 percent more likely to receive subprime mortgages than men across all product lines, even though they have similar credit profiles. Those high-cost loans, often pawned off on those who could least afford them, have led to a massive wave of foreclosures and put many homeowners underwater. And overall, women's representation in the mortgage market has grown in recent decades -- the number of single women homeowners, for example, grew by 4 million between 1994 and 2002. They're likely to be struggling under heavy mortgage debt loads.

    They also, of course, make less than their male counterparts for similar work. So while American workers' wages have stagnated over the past three decades, women have yet to even catch up to men.

    It's likely that some of the women overseeing that 80 percent of consumer spending aren't going it alone. Many are making decisions for their families' spending, and if they are unemployed hopefully they can rely on income from an employed spouse. (Although in a recent poll almost a quarter of respondents had a family member who had experienced job loss.) But if consumer spending is going to continue driving the economy, and the economic recovery, what's happening to women in the recovery period can't be ignored. Things have been bad and show no sign of looking up.

    Bryce Covert is Editor of New Deal 2.0.

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