Richard Kirsch

Roosevelt Institute Senior Fellow
Roosevelt Institute Profile

Recent Posts by Richard Kirsch

  • The Progressive Economic Narrative in Obama's State of the Union

    Feb 13, 2013Richard Kirsch

    President Obama has begun telling the right story about the economy. Now we need to make sure that story spreads.

    President Obama has begun telling the right story about the economy. Now we need to make sure that story spreads.

    Two years ago, frustrated by a conservative resurgence in the 2010 election, a group of progressive activists, economists, communicators, and pollsters came together to write a compelling story about our view of the economy (as Mike Lux relates). Our goal was to write a story that people could easily understand, based on our beliefs about how to create an economy that delivered broadly shared prosperity -- a story that could stand up against the right’s familiar recipe of free markets, limited government, and rugged individualism. The core of the story we developed in our progressive economic narrative (PEN) was: “The middle class is the engine of our economy. We build a large, prosperous middle class by decisions we make together.”

    So it was a milestone in our work to hear President Obama tell our story and use our language in his State of the Union address. The key line, delivered at the top of the speech and quoted in almost every news story, was “It is our generation’s task, then, to reignite the true engine of America’s economic growth: a rising, thriving middle class.”

    Taking another lesson from PEN, the president prefaced that quote with an explanation of what the economic problem is, focusing on how working families and the middle class have been crushed. In PEN we say, “American families are working harder and getting paid less, falling behind our parents' generation. Too many Americans can’t find good jobs and too many jobs don’t pay enough to support a family. Big corporations have cut our wages and benefits and shipped our jobs overseas.” Here’s the president’s version:

    But – we gather here knowing that there are millions of Americans whose hard work and dedication have not been rewarded. Our economy is adding jobs, but too many people still can’t find full-time employment. Corporate profits have skyrocketed to all-time highs, but for more than a decade, wages and incomes have barely budged. It is our generation’s task, then, to reignite the true engine of Americas economic growth: a rising, thriving middle class.

    When it came to describing how we build this middle-class engine, the president again used the same ideas frame laid out in PEN: “We build a large and prosperous middle class through the decisions we make together; investing in our people, expanding opportunity and security, paving the way for business to innovate, and to do business in ways that create prosperity and economic security for Americans.” The president’s agenda was based on these same concepts:

    • Invest in people through education (starting at Pre-K), skills we need for today’s jobs, affordable health care, and a secure retirement.
    • Pave the way for businesses through research, infrastructure, and green energy.
    • Do business in ways that create prosperity, with a higher minimum wage and pay equity for women.

    The president’s story contrasted sharply with Marco Rubio’s. Rubio also paid homage to the middle class, but he told the conservative tale:

    This opportunity – to make it to the middle class or beyond no matter where you start out in life – it isn’t bestowed on us from Washington. It comes from a vibrant free economy where people can risk their own money to open a business. And when they succeed, they hire more people, who in turn invest or spend the money they make, helping others start a business and create jobs. Presidents in both parties – from John F. Kennedy to Ronald Reagan – have known that our free enterprise economy is the source of our middle class prosperity.

    So the fight is joined. For too long, progressives have not taken on the conservative story with our own narrative. As a result, even when people agree with us on specific issues, they still hold fast to the right’s definition of how to move the economy forward. We have, with the simple tale told by the president and in the progressive economic narrative, a very different story, an economy driven by working families and the middle class, which we create by decisions we make together, with our government as the catalyst.

    Our next task is to tell this same story over and over again in all of our communications. Repetition is key. People need to hear the story whenever we communicate on an economic issue. We give examples of how do to that on job quality, job creation, the federal fiscal mess, and health care at progressivenarrative.org.

    President Obama left out one part of the progressive economic narrative in his speech. As we say in PEN, “Our political system has been captured by the rich and powerful and corrupted by big money in politics. The issue is not the size of the government, it’s who the government works for – powerful corporations and the richest few, or all of us. We have to take our democracy back to ensure that our economy will work for all of us. ”

    That’s a story that politicians are reluctant to tell. As always, we need to lead and the leaders will follow. It is up to us to build an America and economy that works for all us. Clearly describing our vision of how to do that is a crucial element of building power that progressives overlooked for too long. We’re much closer when the president tells that story to the nation. It’s up to us to keep telling it every day.

    Richard Kirsch is a Senior Fellow at the Roosevelt Institute, a Senior Adviser to USAction, and the author of Fighting for Our Health. He was National Campaign Manager of Health Care for America Now during the legislative battle to pass reform.

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  • Christie and Cuomo's Minimum Wage Politics Highlight Different Economic Visions

    Feb 5, 2013Richard Kirsch

    Cuomo's minimum wage proposal is better for working families, but the debate needs to be broader.

    Cuomo's minimum wage proposal is better for working families, but the debate needs to be broader.

    Two potential candidates for president in 2016, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, have taken opposing positions on raising the minimum wage in their states. The debate between the two governors draws a sharp distinction between competing economic visions: trickle-down vs. middle-out economics. At the same time, it also shows how limited the current debate is when it comes to dealing with what’s needed to meet the needs of working families and, in doing so, change the direction of economic policy.

    In late January, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie vetoed a small increase in the minimum wage, from the current federal minimum of $7.25 an hour to $8.50 an hour. Christie said that raising the minimum wage would “jeopardize New Jersey’s economic progress.” Christie based his opposition on concerns about small business, although two out of three low-wage workers are employed by corporations with over 100 employees.

    Across the Hudson, New York Governor Cuomo argued just the opposite in his State of the State address. Cuomo made the economic case for how putting more money into people’s pockets by raising the minimum wage will move New York’s economy forward:

    Increasing the minimum wage leads to greater economic growth. Low-income individuals spend a larger percentage of their income than higher-income earners and salary increases in low wage occupations lead to increased demand for goods and services. Empirical evidence suggests that an increase of $1 in the minimum wage generates approximately $3,000 in household spending per year. Increased household spending will increase demand for goods and help businesses grow, thereby creating more jobs for New Yorkers.

    That’s a positive change from a year ago, when Cuomo raised the same concerns as Christie after New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver first put forth the minimum wage proposal. But by the end of the 2012 legislative session, Cuomo had warmed to the proposal, which in both states is supported by more than 80 percent of voters. This year, he has made it a top legislative objective, the first plank in what he calls a “progressive agenda.”

    While Cuomo’s support is very welcome, the governor’s own words provide strong evidence that the small hike in the minimum wage he has proposed, to $8.75 an hour, will still far short of what a family needs for the basics in life. In his State of the State address, he explained:

    The current minimum wage is unlivable. It's only $14,616. The annual cost of gasoline is $1,200. The annual cost of electricity is $1,300. The annual cost of auto insurance is $1,400. The annual cost of groceries is $6,500. The annual cost of childcare is $10,000. The annual cost of housing is $15,000 on a minimum wage of $14,000. My friends, it does not add up. Nineteen other states have raised the minimum wage; we propose raising the minimum wage to $8.75 an hour. It's the right thing to do. It's the fair thing to do. It is long overdue. We should have done it last year. Let's do it this year.

    Despite his passionate plea, the governor’s facts underscore the distance between his proposal and what it would take for a family to meet its essential needs. That figure is available from Wider Opportunities for Women through their Basic Economic Security Table (BEST), which measures by state and county the income a working adult requires to meet his or her basic needs without public assistance.

    The BEST number for New York, using the entirely unlikely assumption that a worker has health benefits on the job, is $19.89 for a single worker and about the same for a two-worker family with two children. A single working parent with two children would need to make $36.23 an hour to have a basic living standard. The importance of Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act coverage provisions, which will start in 2014, is underscored by how much higher the hourly wage would need to be in the much more likely scenario that low-wage workers have no health benefits at work. For example, without benefits, a single person would need to earn $25.63 to meet basic needs and a single parent with two children would need $50.72.

    A minimum wage that comes close to meeting to a family’s basic needs is both a question of morality and of economic policy. The underlying moral value is that all work has dignity and a full-time worker should earn at least enough to provide basic supports for themselves and their family: housing, food, transportation, child care, health care, personal and household items, and a bit to pus aside for emergencies and retirement (5 percent in the BEST budget). I’d add that a basic budget should include enough to save for higher education and a simple vacation, but those aren’t in the basic BEST calculation.

    The economic policy is founded on the premise that by putting money in the pockets of people to meet at least the basics, you make working families the engine of the economy. People who can educate their children, support and care for their families, and shop in their communities move the economy forward. Nick Hannauer and Eric Liu call this “middle-out” economics, the conditions that allow both middle-class consumers and the businesses that depend on them to thrive in a virtuous cycle of increasing prosperity for all. It is at the core of why Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz believes that decreasing inequality is the key to economic progress. Cuomo makes the same argument, along with a much more modest proposal, which Republicans in the State Senate are resisting.

    But as long as we are stuck in the politics of the immediately possible, our economy will remain stuck in low gear. To jump-start this conversation, Hanauer and Liu are proposing a federal minimum wage of $15. As Liu told me, “At a time of record corporate profits and record low wages (as shares of GDP), if poor and lower middle-class people are paid more they can buy more, and when they buy more, businesses sell more and can hire more. It infuses demand into the economy in a way that will circulate many times over. The best case for a big increase in the minimum wage is that it's great for business and prosperity.”

    Meanwhile, in the realm of the immediate politics, reformers in New Jersey are planning to put a minimum wage referendum on the ballot next fall, when Christie is running for reelection as governor. Cuomo has included his minimum wage hike proposal in the New York State budget, improving the chances that it will become law. Both governors like to be seen as gutsy populists. But only Cuomo is standing for an economics based on the little guy and gal. 

    Richard Kirsch is a Senior Fellow at the Roosevelt Institute, a Senior Adviser to USAction, and the author of Fighting for Our Health. He was National Campaign Manager of Health Care for America Now during the legislative battle to pass reform.

     

    Chris Christie image via Shutterstock.com.

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  • Two Inaugurals, Two Messages: From Mushiness to a Clear, Progressive Vision

    Jan 22, 2013Richard Kirsch

    President Obama's second inaugural moved past a vague message of compromise and charted a progressive course toward the future.

    Four years ago, I stood in the cold listening to President Obama’s first inaugural address. I remember it leaving me cold. This year, in the warmth of my den, the president’s clear projection of progressive values as core American values warmed my heart.

    President Obama's second inaugural moved past a vague message of compromise and charted a progressive course toward the future.

    Four years ago, I stood in the cold listening to President Obama’s first inaugural address. I remember it leaving me cold. This year, in the warmth of my den, the president’s clear projection of progressive values as core American values warmed my heart.

    I just looked back at Obama’s first inaugural address to see why I found it so disappointing. The speech starts by acknowledging the crisis of 2008, with the economy collapsing and war raging. As required, the president says that America is up to the challenge. The address includes a short list of progressive points on the economy, climate change, and the role of government. But these are interspersed with acknowledgments of the validity of conservative arguments. There is no unifying, values-based narrative or vision.

    What a difference from yesterday's address, which starts with the promise of the Declaration of Independence – we are created equal in the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness – and then unabashedly extends that to the struggle for civil rights, which Obama has often shied away from being seen as championing. He grounds our 200-year history “through blood drawn by lash, and blood drawn by sword," reminding us that "no union…could survive half-slave, and half-free.”

    From there, the president charges directly to the historic role of government in building our physical and human capital. And unlike four years ago – when he first trumpeted the role of free markets and then noted the need for regulation – he says unambiguously, “Together, we discovered that a free market only thrives when there are rules to ensure competition and fair play” and that “a great nation must care for the vulnerable and protect people from life’s worst hazards and misfortunes.”

    Even when the president recognizes values shared by progressives and conservatives – skepticism that about central authority and the importance of initiative and personal responsibility – he quickly affirms that “preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action.” To meet the future, the president says, will take the kind of things government does – educate children, invest in infrastructure – declaring, “Now more than ever, we must do these things together, as one nation and one people.”

    From there he makes it clear that our economic success is undermined when “a few do very well and growing many barely make it.” Instead, "America’s prosperity must rest upon the broad shoulders of a rising middle class. We know that America thrives when every person can find independence and pride in their work, when the wages of honest labor will liberate families from the brink of hardship.”

    Obama then begins to build a bridge linking the dignity of the individual with the collective, which he expands as his address progresses. The first span of the bridge is to connect the prospects of a “little girl born into the bleakest poverty” with freedom and equality “not just in the eyes of God, but also in our own.” He continues to build the bridge, insisting that in updating government programs, we should aim to “reward the effort and determination of every single American.” He then makes it clear that this includes keeping the “commitments we make to each other through Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security,” which “strengthen us” and “do not make us a nation of takers. They free us to take the risks that make this nation great.”

    The president then puts forth a values-based linkage of government's role in tackling climate change, refuting climate deniers and linking addressing climate change to our “economic vitality” and natural “national treasure.”

    Reaching to a preacher’s eloquence, the president affirms that he is not leaving anyone behind in our national journey. The cadences of “our mothers and daughters can earn a living equal to their efforts," “our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law,” “no citizen is forced to wait for hours to exercise the right to vote,” “immigrants who still see America as a land of opportunity,” and “children from the streets of Detroit to the hills of Appalachia to the quiet lanes of Newtown” resound with the voice and spirit of Dr. King. The president has built a bridge that links individual initiative and responsibility to oneself and each other with a values-driven role of government that unites our diversity on the American journey.

    Progressives need to pay close attention to another bridge Barack Obama has built here. He has integrated often separate strains: identity politics and the politics of government playing a key role in building an economy based on equal opportunity. The more we link those, the more we will create a story about America that commands a lasting majority.

    No progressive story of America would be complete without putting movement at its core, which the president does forcefully in his alliterative embracing of “Seneca Falls and Selma and Stonewall.” Notably, these reminders come at the end of his discussion of our role in the world, as he links American movements to Dr. King’s proclamation that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on earth.

    He doesn’t leave the call for action in the past. His concluding paragraphs clarify that “You and I, as citizens, have the power to set this country’s course.”

    The president will need lots of help setting that course over the next four years; surely he’ll be tested to keep to it himself. Our job is to do everything we can to assist him.

    Richard Kirsch is a Senior Fellow at the Roosevelt Institute, a Senior Adviser to USAction, and the author of Fighting for Our Health. He was National Campaign Manager of Health Care for America Now during the legislative battle to pass reform.

     

    Sign post image via Shutterstock.com.

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  • President Obama: Stay Progressive in the Fiscal Showdown Talks

    Dec 18, 2012Richard Kirsch

    President Obama must remember the message of election night and back away from cutting Social Security benefits.

    President Obama must remember the message of election night and back away from cutting Social Security benefits.

    That didn’t last nearly as long as I had hoped. I put on my Obama baseball cap – the one I picked up from a street vendor walking to the inauguration four years ago – a few weeks before the November election. I’ve worn it every day since, to both celebrate his victory and cheer on the president for keeping to a progressive promise in the fiscal negotiations. Part of that promise was telling the DesMoines Register that Social Security benefits should not be cut. But it looks like my cap is going back on the shelf if reports that Obama is willing to cut Social Security benefits prove to be true.

    There are three things to keep in mind about the president agreeing to cuts in Social Security benefits. The first is that Social Security’s benefits are slim, while retirement savings for most Americans are even thinner. The second is that if we are going to address Social Security’s eventual shortfall, there’s a simple progressive alternative to cutting benefits. The third is that this concession is giving in to the corporate deficit hawks, each of  whom has huge personal retirement accounts. Let’s take them – very briefly – one at a time.

    Social Security is what American seniors survive on. As Dean Baker reports, “The median income of people over age 65 is less than $20,000 a year. Nearly 70 percent of the elderly rely on Social Security benefits for more than half of their income and nearly 40 percent rely on Social Security for more than 90 percent of their income. These benefits average less than $15,000 a year.”

    And most people don’t have savings to fall back on. Half of Americans have less than $10,000 in savings and nearly half of baby boomers are at risk of not having enough savings to pay for basic necessities and health care.

    Point number two is if you are going to tackle the eventual Social Security shortfall – which has nothing to do with the fiscal talks since Social Security doesn’t contribute a dime to the deficit – there is a simple, progressive alternative to cutting benefits. Lifting the cap on payments into Social Security for income of greater than $110,100 would only impact 6 percent of wage earners and would extend the life of the trust fund for almost 75 years.

    Finally, let’s look at the corporate CEOs who blithely talk cuts in Social Security, like Goldman Sach’s CEO Lloyd Blankfein, who told CBS News, "You're going to have to do something, undoubtedly, to lower people's expectations of what they're going to get." It’s easy for a guy who has $12 million in retirement assets to dismiss a cut in benefits of $1,000 and more as just lowered expectations. Other CEOs leading the campaign to cut benefits include Honeywell’s David Cote, with $78 million in his retirement account, and GE’s Jeffrey Immelt, with $55 million stashed away for his later years.

    Hopefully the president will back away from cutting Social Security benefits. If not, we need Democratic leaders like Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to keep to his pledge to keep Social Security out of the fiscal talks. And if a fiscal package with the cuts is presented, Democrats in both houses should offer an amendment, substituting lifting the cap on 6 percent of upper-income Americans for cutting benefits for all our retirees. That’s the kind of choice we need Congress to face.

    But Mr. President, let’s not get to that choice: I really like wearing my Obama cap. 

    Richard Kirsch is a Senior Fellow at the Roosevelt Institute, a Senior Adviser to USAction, and the author of Fighting for Our Health. He was National Campaign Manager of Health Care for America Now during the legislative battle to pass reform.

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  • An Agenda for Revitalizing Our Democracy

    Nov 19, 2012Richard Kirsch

    As part of our series "A Rooseveltian Second Term Agenda," important steps that can get us back to a truly representative form of government.

    As part of our series "A Rooseveltian Second Term Agenda," important steps that can get us back to a truly representative form of government.

    This election was ample reminder of the myriad ways we urgently need to fix our democracy. As Justice Brandeis wrote a century ago, "We can either have democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." The greatest barrier to achieving the next Rooseveltian agenda proposed in these posts is the deep flaws in our democracy. To move forward on our aspirations, we need to integrate a democracy agenda into all of our battles for a fair economy and sustainable environment. Here is a short list of crucial reforms to revitalize our democracy:

    1. Bolster voting rights. President Obama can make good on his impromptu remark that "we should fix that" when he addressed Election Day voting problems in his victory speech by pushing for passage of the Voter Empowerment Act, sponsored by New York Senator Kirstin Gillibrand and Georgia Representative John Lewis. The act's two major provisions would automate voter registration whenever people interact with the government and allow for same day voter registration nationally. Other provisions address barriers to voting such as using mail to purge voters, partisan voter administration, and felony disenfranchisement. Nationwide early voting should be added to this agenda.

    2. Change the Electoral College. After another election in which the presidential candidates ignored the electorate in 40 states -- with fewer people in those states bothering to vote -- federal and state representatives from the outcast states should be eager for change. While it would be wonderful if that led two-thirds of Congress to amend the Constitution, an easier and more feasible path is offered by National Popular Vote. NPV is a compact between states representing more than half of the Electoral College to cast their votes for the winner of the national popular vote. The movement is halfway to its goal with legislation passed in 12 states that together hold 132 Electoral College votes, including California, Illinois, and New Jersey. Republican Governor Jan Brewer added her support after this year's election. Imagine an election in which presidential candidates had to focus on issues and voter turnout in every state! The result would impact not just the presidency, but down-ballot races across the country.

    3. Increase public financing. While Super PACs may not have gotten all their money's worth, the public agenda remains captive to the upper-income contributors and corporations who finance the lion's share of elections. We won't get a bumper crop of candidates who represent the interests of ordinary people until we have a campaign finance system that allows candidates to compete successfully by rejecting large contributions in return for small contributions matched by public funds. Getting there is impossible in this Congress, but that shouldn't stop reformers from constantly raising the flag while looking for opportunities to move forward in states. New York has a real shot of passing a good public financing bill in 2013. And when President Obama has the opportunity to appoint new Supreme Court justices, reformers should make both Citizen's United and the 1976 Buckley v. Vallejo decision that equates money with speech major issues in the confirmation hearings.

    4. Fix the filibuster. It's bad enough having a fundamentally undemocratic body like the U.S. Senate as a co-equal legislative body, but that institution's rules also thwart the constitutional provision that Senate decisions on legislation are to be made by majority vote. Democrats should not settle for making senators actually filibuster; they should put in place the proposal by Iowa Senator Tom Harkin, which would reduce the votes needed to stop a filibuster from 60 to 51 over the course of debate.

    5. Institute non-partisan redistricting. Partisan redistricting increasingly makes the congressional body designed by the Constitution to provide equal representation fall far short of that goal. While Democrats narrowly won the popular vote for members of the House this year, partisan drawing of congressional lines will result in Republicans having at least 30 more representatives. The path to change here is arduous: state by state. But a Supreme Court committed to the Constitution's vision of the lower body as a people's house could take a fresh look at permissible gerrymandering.

    Cast by themselves, democracy reforms too often cause the public's eyes to glaze over, not seeing the connection between process and the pressing issues in their daily lives. Champions of creating a vital democracy can turn that around by connecting people's topmost concerns -- good jobs, a secure retirement, affordable quality education, and, increasingly, climate disruption -- to creating a government that works for all of us, not just the wealthy and CEO campaign contributors. 

    Richard Kirsch is a Senior Fellow at the Roosevelt Institute, a Senior Adviser to USAction, and the author of Fighting for Our Health. He was National Campaign Manager of Health Care for America Now during the legislative battle to pass reform.

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