By: Jake Blumgart, Donald Cohen, and Peter Dreier. Posted in the Huffington Post. December 1, 2010.
Will raising income taxes on the rich hurt or help the economy? That's the key question that Congress will be debating as they consider whether to extend the tax cuts enacted by President George W. Bush in 2001 and 2003, which are set to expire at the end of the year.
By Donald Cohen and Jake Blumgart. Originally published in the New York Daily News. October 8, 2010.
Your second-grader has been up half the night with a hacking cough. Do you call in to say you can't go to work - and risk losing a whole day's paycheck? Or do you pack some tissues in his lunch box and hope that he makes it through the school day without getting worse or infecting half the class?
No working parent should face such a choice. But for thousands of New York City's public school parents, this is a very real dilemma. It doesn't need to be.
By Peter Dreier and Jake Blumgart. Posted on Huffington Post. October 5, 2010.
Six months ago, on April 5th, 29 miners were killed by an immense explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia. They didn't have to die. Mine owners, government officials, and union safety experts have known how to prevent such explosions for decades. Some operators take the necessary steps to prevent such occurrences, but others are willing to put short-term profits above worker safety.
By Laurie Johnson. Posted on the Natural Resources Defense Council's Switchboard blog. September 13, 2010.
With stalled clean energy legislation in DC, opponents of environmental protection have shifted their focus away from pro-active legislation toward dismantling existing environmental protection laws. Against the Supreme Court’s mandate, industry-funded politicians and the lobbyists that support them (e.g. National Association of Manufacturers (NAM)) are trying to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from doing its job: requiring polluters to reduce global warming pollution. Predictably, they are making the same argument they’ve always made—one that’s never come true: “Protecting the environment will destroy jobs; it will be impossible for firms to meet any new requirements and stay in business at the same time.”
By Jake Blumgart. Orginally published in the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Huffington Post.September 3, 2010.
You wake up Monday morning with a throbbing headache, achy muscles and a hacking cough. Do you miserably trudge into work, likely prolonging your recovery time and exposing your co-workers to infection? Or do you give your body the time it needs to heal, and call in sick? Can you afford to?
For almost 40 percent of the nation's private workforce, the answer to that last question is no. A recent Bureau of Labor Statistics report shows only 33 percent of workers earning $10.50 an hour or less have access to paid sick leave, compared with 81 percent of those earning $24.22 an hour or more. This means, perversely, that if you can afford to take an unpaid sick day, you generally don't have to.
