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When Unpaid Internships are Illegal (MSNBC)

On All In With Chris Hayes, Roosevelt Institute Fellow Dorian Warren discussed the normalization of unpaid internships in all sectors, even government, in response to last week's ruling that Fox Searchlight violated labor laws by not paying interns.

Faces of the Minimum Wage (NYT)

Annie Lowrey profiles six minimum wage workers and their struggle to get by. It’s hard to see what could help these people more than a minimum wage increase, but Republicans in Congress have blocked that option.

Are Long-Term Unemployed Taking Refuge in Disability? (WSJ)

Ben Casselman explains new research that shows few are taking advantage of disability: the law requires that a worker be unable to perform their last profession, and the job market is tight. Going on disability instead of finding a new career isn’t ideal, but it is legal.

BofA Gave Bonuses to Foreclose on Clients, Lawsuit Claims (Bloomberg News)

Hugh Son and David McLaughlin report that former Bank of America employees will provide evidence that the bank intentionally falsified documents related to mortgage modifications and slowed down that process in order to boost their foreclosures.

Chart of the Day: America's 30-Year Project to Make the Rich Even Richer (MoJo)

Kevin Drum looks at a chart from the Economic Policy Institute and the further calculations performed by Andrew Fieldhouse, which shows that thirty years ago, tax policy began to encourage income inequality on a massive scale. Under the 1979 tax code, the gap wouldn’t have grown as fast.

Want to Stop Flu Epidemics? Give Workers Paid Sick Days (Salon)

Katie McDonough says that researchers at the University of Pittsburgh have produced data to corroborate the common-sense assumption that lack of sick days contributes to the spread of infectious disease. One day off is enough to reduce flu infection transmission by 25%.

Great Gatsby Economics are no Party for the Middle Class (WaPo)

E.J. Dionne uses the music industry as an example of how the income inequality we're facing in the U.S. works, and argues that until those in the middle actually have a shot at huge success, our country will suffer..

Fight the Future (NYT)

Paul Krugman wants to stop focusing on the "long-run fiscal sustainability" of our economy, because we have no idea what the future will look like. Getting rid of sequestration and focusing on the short-term problem of mass unemployment is more important today.

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The tax break state (WaPo)

Roosevelt Institute Fellow Mike Konczal breaks down how the different kinds of tax expenditures work based on income distribution, and explains how they affect current policy debates that revolve around infamous numbers like 47 percent and the 1 percent.

Matriarchy, patriarchy and the masters of the universe (Reuters)

Chrystia Freeland reacts to Paul Tudor Jones's comment that women stop being successful investors or traders the moment they start breastfeeding. With female breadwinners in forty percent of U.S. households, she wonders if the plutocracy is not only patriarchal but oblivious to working women's achievements.

Affordable Care Act Could Be Good for Entrepreneurship (NYT)

Catherine Rampell writes that we can expect a significant jump in self-employment in 2014, thanks to the new health care exchanges. When it becomes possible to obtain affordable insurance without a traditional job, the definition of a "good job" can change.

Sorry, There's Been No Economic Recovery for Poor and Minority Households (MoJo)

Erika Eichelberger shows that wealth recovery has been heavily skewed towards the already-wealthy. As the housing market recovers, the households that haven't could be in even worse shape, as mortgage principal reductions look more and more out of reach.

Economic Storm Clouds Ahead (Robert Reich)

Robert Reich argues that we should stop listening to economic forecasters who say that everything is going just great. The current recovery is really only a recovery for corporate profits, and most of us are still facing tough times to come.

The High Cost of Unemployment (Slate)

Robert Shiller worries about the effect of unemployment on our nation's morale, because people don't respond well to sudden forced leisure instead of work. The concept of less work is nice, but not the current reality.

The Geezers Are All Right (NYT)

Paul Krugman is tired of listening to the deficit hawks claim that Social Security and Medicare are going to go bust, because it just isn't true, and worrying about funding benefits for 2035 takes the focus off today’s problems, like the jobs crisis.

Ending Corporate Tax Avoidance: Just the Debate I Asked For! (On The Economy)

Jared Bernstein looks at options to change how we tax multinationals, such as placing a minimum tax on foreign earnings or taxing based on where products are sold. Instead of endorsing one solution, he wants to keep talking so this issue can’t disappear.

The New Deal left women behind, but it proved government can be a champion for the economically downtrodden.

The participation of women in the American work force has expanded dramatically in the 78 years since the Roosevelt administration launched the WPA to provide jobs to Americans out of work and on relief. Today women comprise nearly half the work force and typically work through the life cycle, not episodically, before and after childrearing, which for so long was considered their principal occupation.

Today married, as well as single, women play a critical role in the U.S. economy. In nearly half the country’s dual income families, women earn as much or more than men. And as a percentage of the total, there are many more single women heading households today. For these reasons, today’s employment policies must be sensitive to gender in ways they never have been before.

Women were an afterthought of policymakers back in the Roosevelt years. Prevailing cultural mores still viewed work among married women as a threat to the sanctity and moral fabric of the family. New Dealers actually passed legislation (over the objection of Eleanor Roosevelt and others with feminist leanings) that prevented two workers in any one family from claiming a government salary, which meant that women during the Depression often were fired or forced to quit their jobs.

Women actually claimed only 13.5 percent of the 8.5 million total jobs created by the WPA, the majority of them in traditionally female occupations such as sewing, childcare and eldercare, teaching and education, etc. No surprise, these jobs paid less than other positions occupied by men, with WPA salaries ranging from only $20 to nearly $100 dollars per month. And most of those jobs, in fact, went to women who were divorced, widowed or unmarried.

With the advent of World War II, record numbers of women entered the work force to fill jobs left by men conscripted to fight the war. Despite postwar conventions that again celebrated domesticity and pushed women out of positions reclaimed by returning veterans, the war actually ignited a behavioral shift that forever reshaped the U.S. labor force.

In 1948, women comprised 29 percent of the labor force overall, and 17 percent of married mothers worked outside the home. Most of them were part of families living at the edge of poverty and needing two salaries, but some were in the professions and in business and simply rejected prevailing values. Those numbers have steadily increased over the last 60 years. Today, women make up nearly 47 percent of the labor force, with more than 79 percent of mothers now working.

But old ways die hard. Women may make up nearly half the American work force, but they still face an ever-increasing number of obstacles to balancing work and family and to achieving economic security. A report recently released by the Ms. Foundation for Women illustrates the myriad challenges facing women workers:

• The Bureau of Labor Statistics lists more than 440 occupations. Four out of five women are concentrated in only 20 of these jobs, most of them traditionally female roles such as secretaries, home health care and childcare workers, teachers, waitresses, etc. that barely afford women a living wage.
• Approximately 63 percent of minimum- and sub-minimum-wage workers are women.
• The recent recession has had a particularly negative impact on women. By 2011, women had regained only 11 percent of jobs lost (compared to men’s 24 percent), and by the end of 2012, the women had regained 46 percent (compared to men’s 50 percent).
• Of families headed by single mothers, 28.7 percent — 4 million of them — live in poverty compared with 13 percent (or 670,000) of those headed by men.
• Underemployment is a serious issue facing women workers. Approximately 26 percent of working women are in part-time jobs, which do not provide essential benefits and job security.

Though not sufficiently attentive to the needs of women at the time, Roosevelt’s New Deal and WPA exemplified the role government can and should play in guaranteeing a basic floor of well being for all Americans. We would be wise to revisit those ideals today as we think about how to protect and advance women workers across the United States.

President Obama has suggested many such initiatives: universal pre-school; better job training to equip students to pursue trades; a historic expansion of Medicaid and private health insurance that will guarantee all women basic preventative services (including reproductive health care and family planning); and pay equity and a raise in the minimum wage.

Indeed, the first piece of legislation President Obama signed upon entering office was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which overturned the 180-day statute of limitations for women to contest pay discrimination. Today, in commemoration of National Pay Equity Day, President Obama said:

Wage inequality undermines the promise of fairness and opportunity upon which our country was founded… Our country has come a long way toward ensuring everyone gets a fair shot at opportunity, no matter who you are or where you come from. But our journey will not be complete until our mothers, our wives, our sisters, and our daughters are treated equally in the workplace and always see an honest day's work rewarded with honest wages. 

There are other significant steps we can take:

• Congress should pass the Paycheck Fairness Act, legislation that has been introduced a number of times since 2009 but has failed to secure support from both chambers of Congress. The legislation – an update to the 1963 Equal Pay Act – would prohibit employers from paying a man more than a woman for the same job and would prevent employers from punishing women who call attention to pay disparities.
• We should ensure that women who work as nannies, home health care workers, housekeepers, etc. – positions that are a major backbone to our economy – receive a fair wage and benefits necessary to lead healthy, financially secure lives.
• We should ensure that all workers are guaranteed sick days and parental leave so their families don’t play second fiddle to a job.
• We should task our best and brightest with creating innovative job training programs (and job creation initiatives) that will enable women to move beyond the 20 or so occupations the majority currently occupy. And we should think critically about how the federal government can provide better job security for women in part-time and seasonal jobs.
• We should create affordable childcare programs that would allow women to know their children are being well-cared for while they earn a living to support their families. This would also give women greater flexibility to occupy full-time, more stable positions.

FDR may not have offered women their rightful place in the New Deal’s employment programs. But today we know better. Only by lifting the barriers that prevent women from achieving real economic equity, can we regain real security for American families and re-establish our country’s stronghold as a global economic leader. 

Andrea Flynn is a Fellow at the Roosevelt Institute.

Reformers should start building a coalition to push for expanding the bill and making it more affordable.

The whining from some fast food chains that they won’t be able to afford paying for their employee’s health coverage under Obamacare have gotten a lot of press. But what is more troubling is the recent news that some big chains are concluding that the costs won’t be nearly as high as they had projected. The reason: their employees won’t be able to afford the health insurance and will instead pay a fine and remain uninsured. This fight is just the first battle in the coming war over Obamacare that will center around those who get left out. Big flaws in the bill will mean that many low-wage workers will be forced to choose between paying huge chunks of their income on premiums or on a penalty that leaves them with no coverage at all. Reformers should take note and get ready for the coming struggle.

Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that Wendy’s lowered its estimate of the cost of Obamacare for each of its restaurants by 80 percent, from $25,000 a store to $5,000. The hamburger chain figured that many of its full-time employees, who will be offered health insurance through the company, will turn down the coverage because, as the Journal reported, “they can get insurance through Medicaid or a family member, or because they prefer to pay the penalty for not having coverage.” That penalty starts at $95 a year, although it will go up to $695 by 2016.

Wendy’s isn’t alone. Several other fast food chains have come up with similar estimates. One example is Popeyes, which figures that since only 5 percent of its employees have signed up for the high deductible plan now offered at a price of only $2.50 a week, few workers will choose to pay an estimated $25 a week for the improved coverage it will offer under Obamacare. While the new coverage required under the law will be far superior to the plan Popeyes now offers, with a good list of benefits, it will still include a steep deductible, particularly for a low-wage worker.

The debate over fast food chains and their workers is revealing one of the biggest flaws in the Affordable Care Act. Many low-wage workers will be put in a very difficult position: pay a big chunk of their limited wages for health insurance that is costly to use, or pay a fine for the privilege of remaining uninsured. This is an example of how the debate around Obamacare is about to take a huge turn. Instead of partisan opponents fearmongering about the theoretical impact of the law, the new struggle will be around the actual experience of those Americans whom the law was written to protect: people who are uninsured because they can not afford coverage or are locked out of the system because they have a pre-existing health condition.

Come January 2014, millions of people will get affordable health coverage for the first time. These will mostly be working people who do not get insurance on the job now but will become newly eligible for Medicaid or income-based tax-credits to buy insurance in the new health insurance marketplaces (“exchanges”). This will also include those who will no longer be turned down because of a pre-existing condition. The expansion of Medicaid – in states that give that the green light – and the income-based subsidies will create a huge new constituency for Obamacare that will oppose any attempts to roll back the law.

But due to problems written into the Affordable Care Act, the news won’t all be good for many people who can’t get affordable coverage now. There are some for whom the coverage in the marketplaces will still be too costly because the subsidies are too stingy. For example, a single person who earns just $33,500 will be required to pay $258 a month in premiums, which is more than 9 percent of his or her gross income, for coverage. That’s a big chunk out of a moderate income and is more than twice as much as that person would pay under Massachusetts’s current, successful law. In fact, people who earn more than two times the federal poverty level would be required to pay premiums from 6.3 percent to 9.5 percent of their incomes. If those costs are out of their financial reach, the bleak alternative is to pay a fine for remaining uninsured. It’s true that the coverage will include good benefits, free preventive services, and a cap on out-of-pocket costs. But unless it is already paying high medical bills, that won’t help a working family pay a high premium. The millions who face this dilemma will not be happy to have to make the choice between premiums that will put a big squeeze on an already tight budget or paying a fine they can’t afford for no benefits at all.

Which brings us to the second big group of people who will face this dilemma: low-wage workers who work more than 30 hours a week for a business that has 50 or more full-time employees. These employers can require employees to pay up to 9.5 percent of their incomes as premiums. The premiums are likely to be less for individuals; Popeyes estimates $1,200 a year, which would be similar to what has been found workable in Massachusetts. However, unlike in Massachusetts, the minimum coverage will have very high out-of-pocket costs, so workers will face high premiums for coverage that they can’t afford to use (although preventive care will be free). Furthermore, employers could decide to put more of the costs on to their workers, forcing them to choose between the premium and fines.

The news is much worse for family coverage. The IRS ruled earlier this year that the 9.5 percent rule will apply to the cost of individual coverage, even if family coverage costs much more than this. Here is how the New York Times editorial board explained the impact, in an editorial titled, “A Cruel Blow to American Families”:

A Kaiser Family Foundation survey found that in 2012, employees’ annual share of insurance premiums averaged $951 for individual coverage and $4,316 for family coverage. Under the I.R.S. rule, such costs would be considered affordable for an employee with a household income of $35,000 a year — making the employee’s spouse and children ineligible for a public subsidy on a health exchange, even though that family would have to spend 12 percent of its income for the employer’s family plan.

The Times goes on to report that between 2 million and 3.9 million spouses and children could lose access to affordable coverage because of the ruling. Those are millions of people for whom the law will be an empty promise.

The major purpose of the Affordable Care Act was to make decent health coverage affordable to Americans, and the law’s success will depend on how well it does just that. Next year, many millions of now uninsured people will gain access, but there will be millions of others for whom the promise remains out of reach. In the toxic political atmosphere surrounding Obamacare, the people left out will take center stage.

Republicans will seize on this situation to argue that the law is not working and use these people’s frustrations to portray the law as an expensive failure. The task for the champions of the ACA will be to unite those who are benefiting under Obamacare with those who will only benefit if the law is made more affordable. And since making coverage more affordable will take the government and, ideally, employers paying for more of the premiums, enacting the fixes will require a big political lift, particularly in the current Congress. Meeting this challenge will require organizing the winners and the losers to push for strengthening the law together.

All of this will become an issue in the 2014 and 2016 elections. In this way, Obamacare will join Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid as perennial issues of public debate, with competing visions of the role of government in assuring the security and well-being of our citizens. It’s a fight that never ends. 

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.