Happy Friday folks,
While it’s true that many of us are just working for the weekend (yep, that link is what you think it is), there are millions of Americans who are not working at all. Economic data released today shows that the current unemployment rate in the U.S. is 7.7 percent, the lowest since the end of 2008. On the surface, this is welcoming news.
However, jobs are still being created far too slowly to keep up with population growth, and the numbers are skewed because people are dropping out of the work force. According to a recent Gallup poll, the workforce participation rate dropped from 68.1 percent to 67.8 percent and the payroll-to-population rate fell .3 percentage points as well. Gallup notes that, “Although fewer people are unemployed now than a year ago, they are not migrating to full-time jobs for an employer. In fact, fewer Americans are working full-time for an employer than were doing so a year ago, and more Americans are working part time. Although part-time work is clearly better than no work at all, these are not the types of good jobs that millions of Americans are still searching for.”
Too many Americans are still searching for full-time work. Conservatives cannot become complacent in the drive to advocate policy that creates jobs. The headlines of 7.7 unemployment and strong stocks do not tell the whole story.
Seize the day,
Mark Bednar
@MarkBednar
Important Things On Tap For Today
11:15 AM—President Obama meets with faith leaders to discuss immigration reform.
12:30 PM—Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest briefs the press.
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On The Radar
Economic Growth
Obama Sets End-Of-July Goal For Bipartisan Agreement On Deficit from The Hill by Alexander Bolton. “President Obama wants to complete a grand bargain to reduce the deficit by the end of July, an aggressive timeline coinciding with the expiration of the nation’s debt limit. … A GOP lawmaker who met with Obama said the accelerated timeline has two advantages. Reaching a broad deficit deal by August would allow the president to avoid another messy standoff over raising the debt limit. The president, who has said he will not negotiate on the debt limit, believes it will be harder to forge a major deal in September and beyond, as both parties begin to position themselves for the 2014 mid-term election.”
How Colleges Are Making Income Inequality Worse from National Journal by Ronald Brownstein. “In higher education, as in health care, America boasts many of the world’s best institutions but produces disappointing results overall. Access is improving: Since 1972, the share of low-income high school graduates who start college immediately has about doubled, to more than half, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Yet nearly half of students who enroll in a postsecondary institution don’t complete a degree within six years. For African-Americans and Hispanics, the number is about three-fifths. Despite Washington’s huge investment in access, since 1970 the gap in college completion rates between students from the bottom and top fifths of the income ladder has doubled. Those from the top fifth are now seven times more likely to graduate than those from the bottom.”
Michigan Balks At A123′s Creditor Payout Plan from Reuters by Nick Brown. “Michigan’s attorney general is objecting to bankrupt A123 Systems Inc’s plan on how to pay back its creditors, saying it calls for the improper transfer of $125 million in tax credits provided by the state. The objection represents the latest wrinkle in a difficult and politically charged Chapter 11 bankruptcy process for A123, the lithium-ion car battery maker that got $249 million in federal grants.”
Mill’s Stance On ‘Black Liquor’ Irks Lawmakers from The Washington Post by Steven Mufson. “A month ago, the manager of Luke paper mill in western Maryland pledged in writing to remain neutral on a bill in the state legislature that would curtail renewable energy payments to mills burning a residue called ‘black liquor.’ This week, he changed his mind. The flip-flop irked key Maryland lawmakers, but the Luke mill manager was just one of a parade of people from the American Forest and Paper Association, the United Steelworkers and Dominion Resources who opposed the bill in hearings in Annapolis on Tuesday and Thursday.”
Wisconsin Assembly Approves Bill That Clears Way For Controversial Mine from Reuters by Brendan O’Brien. “Wisconsin’s Republican-controlled state Assembly approved a bill on Thursday that would clear the way for a possible $1.5 billion iron ore mine in the northwest corner of the state.”
Immigration
What Undocumented Workers Really Want from National Journal by Fawn Johnson. “A restaurateur by trade, Bailey has become seasoned in politics as a city-council member in his hometown of Nassau Bay, Texas, and as someone who has made dozens of presentations to GOP groups around the state, all on the same subject: the urgent need for immigration reform. He is pushing for a way out of the party’s current dilemma in which voters view Republicans as obstructionists and naysayers. … Bailey is like small-business owners all over the country who are stymied by out-of-date immigration laws and who couldn’t care less if their workers are foreign. His friends in the industry aren’t thinking about immigration as a nationwide supply-and-demand labor problem or as a political time bomb. They are simply trying to stay in business. … The raw economic case for legalization of undocumented immigrant workers is a few steps removed from the day-to-day operations of a restaurant. There is no question that bringing undocumented workers “out of the shadows” would boost the tax base considerably. The left-leaning Center for American Progress estimates that it would add $1.5 trillion to the nation’s cumulative gross domestic product over 10 years and increase tax revenue by close to $5 billion over three years. A more conservative estimate comes from a Joint Committee on Taxation and Congressional Budget Office analysis of a 2006 immigration proposal, which found that legalization would add a whopping $66 billion to federal coffers over 10 years. That can’t hurt.”
Health Care
New Idea On Tweaking Medicare Eligibility from The Wall Street Journal by Louise Radnofsky. “Raising the Medicare eligibility age to 67 from 65 is a third-rail for many Democrats, who argue that it could leave some seniors without access to insurance. It’s also difficult to do without disrupting the implementation of the federal health-care law, as we noted in this story, which makes it a tough proposition for the White House to swallow. But it turns out that that’s not the only option on the table. Researchers at the Urban Institute, a left-leaning think-tank, are arguing in a new paper that the government could save around $90 billion over ten years by allowing 65 and 66-year olds to buy into Medicare if they want, but asking middle and high-income ones to pay higher premiums and other out-of-pocket costs.”
Our Wait-And-See-Culture from The New York Times by Robert J. Abramson. “An increasing number of people are finding themselves in this ‘follow up in six months’ mode, and experiencing the same attendant anxiety. The idea of waiting is in itself an existential experience. If you go online, which I often recommend that my patients do not, you find an enormous amount of conflicting information, from ‘must have radical surgery now” to “wait a half-year and get a follow-up scan.’”
Nine In 10 Americans Say They’re In Good Health. They’re Wrong from The Washington Post by Sarah Kliff. “The Atlantic is out with a new national poll that shows that only a tiny sliver of the American population considers themselves unhealthy. The vast majority—90 percent—say they’re in ‘very good’ or ‘somewhat good’ health. One percent, meanwhile, were unsure whether they were in good or bad health. This flies a bit in the face of what public health research tells us about how healthy Americans are. More than one-third are obese, according to the most recent Centers for Disease Control numbers. About 10 percent of Americans live with a chronic condition, like diabetes or high blood pressure. This data suggests there’s some space between how healthy we think we are, and how healthy we actually are.”
Idaho, Utah, N.M. Running Out Of Time To Set Up State Exchanges from KHN by Phil Galewitz. “If the states fall short, it means the federal government would be in charge of running an insurance website for 36 states, far more than imagined when the federal health law known as Obamacare passed. Several million people are expected to start using the online websites to purchase individual health insurance and determine if they are eligible for government subsidies to help buy private coverage or Medicaid, the state-federal health program for poor. Open enrollment is slated to begin in October, with coverage taking effect Jan. 1.”
X-Factor
Republicans Warm To Obama’s Efforts from The Wall Street Journal by Colleen McCain Nelson and Damian Paletta. “Both Republicans and administration officials described the discussions as productive and even pleasant. But while the lawmakers’ mood may be improving, fundamental disagreements over taxes and spending persist, and lawmakers in both parties acknowledged that any significant deal would be months away at best. ‘I don’t think anyone left there with any anticipation that over the next month or six weeks anything is going to happen,’ said Sen. Bob Corker (R., Tenn.), who attended the dinner. ‘I think the goal would be to make something happen over the next four or five months.’”
Bin Laden Kin Nabbed from The Wall Street Journal by Devlin Barrett, Siobhan Gorman, and Tamer El-Ghobashy. “The U.S. seized a son-in-law of Osama bin Laden who once served as an al Qaeda spokesman and flew him to New York to face trial, an antiterrorism coup that casts light on the group’s murky relationship with Iran.”
This & That
Steamed Mussels Recipe from Cloture Club by Alex Benedetto.
Mutant Rats Vs. Snipers In Iran from The Huffington Post by Andres Jauregui.
Diplomat Calls For End To Drunkenness During U.N. Negotiations from The New York Times by Marc Santora.
The 30 Happiest Facts Of All Time from Buzzfeed by Dave Stopera.
The Lakers Tricked The Hornets Into Defending The Wrong Basket from Deadspin by Barry Petchesky.