Most Americans support a $15 minimum wage, but are split on how soon it should happen


Juliana Kaplan
Tue, February 23, 2021, 9


Demonstrators participate in a protest outside McDonald's corporate headquarters on January 15, 2021, in Chicago. Scott Olson/Getty Images


Over 60% of Americans definitely or probably support raising the minimum wage to $15, an Insider poll found.


Results came down along party lines; Democrats were more likely to support the increase.


But the poll found more Americans support a gradual increase to $15 by 2025.


Over 60% of respondents in a new Insider poll would definitely or probably support a $15 minimum wage.

That increase -which would give 32 million Americans a raise - is currently a hot topic in Washington. Democrats, led by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), are pushing for the increase to be included in reconciliation package for President Biden's $1.9 trillion stimulus relief plan.

While Biden has reiterated his support for the increase, he's also reportedly signaled that he's not optimistic it'll make it into reconciliation - and two Democratic senators seem to agree.

Outside of Washington, though, the $15 minimum wage seems to have strong support, and it has for years. A 2019 Insider poll found that 63% of respondents supported or strongly supported an increase. Since then, the economy and low-wage employment have been ravaged by the pandemic.

In Insider's most recent poll, participants were asked: Do you support increasing the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour?

Of the 1,130 respondents, 44% said they would definitely support the increase, while 21% said they probably would.

Conversely, 15% of respondents said they probably wouldn't support it, 17% said they definitely wouldn't, and 4% didn't know.

Party affiliations seemed to play a role in responses:

58% of respondents who said they would probably vote in their state's Democratic primaries or caucuses would "definitely" support an increase to $15 an hour.


But 28% of likely Republican voters would "definitely" support the increase.


Conversely, 9% of likely Democratic voters "definitely would not support" the raise, while 32% of likely Republican voters "definitely would not support it."

There was also some divide along generational lines:


52% of respondents between 30 and 44 "definitely would support" the increase, the highest percentage among age groups.


Meanwhile, 25% of respondents over the age of 60 "definitely would not support" the raise.

The current Democratic plans would gradually increase the federal minimum to $15 by 2025. Respondents to Insider's poll were asked: If the federal minimum wage was increased to $15 per hour, do you have a preference about how that would be implemented?


39% said that, if the increase were to happen, the "$15 minimum wage should be implemented immediately."


But 50% would "prefer a phased rollout, gradually raising the minimum wage annually to $15 in 2025."

When it comes to raising the minimum wage, it seems that slow and steady wins the race.

SurveyMonkey Audience polls from a national sample balanced by census data of age and gender. Respondents are incentivized to complete surveys through charitable contributions. Generally speaking, digital polling tends to skew toward people with access to the internet. SurveyMonkey Audience doesn't try to weight its sample based on race or income. Polling data collected 1,154 respondents February 22, 2021 with a 3 percentage point margin of error.

Living Wage Calculator (mit.edu)

#FIGHTFOR15

Democrats plot their Plan B to save minimum wage hike

Democrats are scrambling to piece together a backup plan that could save their minimum wage hike from getting tossed out of President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion relief package and win over moderates wary of the proposal.

The budget tool that Democrats are using to steer Biden’s plan through Congress without GOP support, known as reconciliation, is laden with thorny restrictions waiting to ensnare the $15 minimum wage boost they've added to the next tranche of coronavirus relief. The wage increase is also running into strong headwinds from two influential Senate Democratic centrists, Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), who are both resistant to enacting the sweeping policy change through the powerful budget process.

The White House and Democratic leaders have been waiting to see how the Senate's parliamentarian, its official adviser on procedural matters, opines on the wage increase. Both Democrats and Republicans are expected to meet with the parliamentarian on Wednesday to argue their case. Her ruling could follow soon after the arguments.

In the meantime, Democrats are already weighing several options to try to save the wage hike from fully imploding and make it more palatable for moderates in their own party — from whom congressional leaders need lockstep support in order to muscle the Covid-19 aid package through the Senate with a simple majority vote before unemployment benefits expire for millions of Americans in mid-March.

“There are two issues going on right now — one is Byrd Rule problems, one is whip problems,” said House Budget Chair John Yarmuth (D-Ky.), referring in the first case to the procedural hurdle that could quash the wage hike in the Senate. “If Joe Manchin isn’t going to vote for it because of the minimum wage, I assume we have to take it out or compromise in a way that he would accept.”

“Increasing the minimum wage, particularly in the middle of a pandemic when so many small businesses are struggling, would do nothing further than damage the economic welfare of low-income families,” said freshman Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), who said businesses in his district are concerned about the proposal.

“We know that when government raises the cost of doing business for small enterprises, such as through arbitrary minimum wage increases, the workers at the bottom actually get fewer working hours and fewer job opportunities,” Donalds said.

But progressives on the panel stressed that a wage increase is critical to lifting people out of poverty, especially during a health and economic crisis. Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), who used to own a small business, said "in many ways, it's like slave labor" to pay workers the current federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.

“We know that people of color have been paid poverty wages for too long," Lee said, "which deepens the longstanding racist and economic divisions in this country.”

“Paying more than poverty wages is good for the bottom line. People who are working should not have to go to food lines, should not have to apply for SNAP benefits, should not have to apply for Section 8 or other public benefits," she said. "That’s what happens when you pay $7.25. It’s just wrong.“

To ensure that a minimum wage boost survives, Democrats are discussing the possibility of capping the increase at less than $15 an hour, to possibly $11 or $12, Yarmuth said. Such a move could satisfy wonky Byrd Rule restrictions that constrain the projected cost of the pandemic relief proposal outside of a 10-year budget window, he said.

Budget rules that allow the bill to pass the Senate without the threat of a filibuster essentially require that all pieces of the bigger package have a significant effect on federal spending, revenues and the debt within a decade. If the package increases deficits beyond that window, approval from the Senate parliamentarian can get problematic.

Manchin has previously said that an $11 minimum wage hike, adjusted for inflation, would make more sense for his home state of West Virginia. Sinema's support for any wage hike would likely be harder to win, since she told POLITICO earlier this month that the increase is "not appropriate" as an add-on to the Covid-19 aid bill.

Manchin told reporters on Monday that if the parliamentarian rules favorably on the $15 minimum wage provisions, he will seek to amend the legislation to instead raise the federal hourly minimum to $11.

“$11 is the right place to be,” he said. "Throwing $15 out there right now just makes it very difficult in rural America.”

Notably, some Republicans have backed a wage bump, but with extra strings that would divide Democrats. Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) announced last week that he’ll introduce a bill with Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) that would raise the minimum wage — although he didn’t specify a number — “while ensuring businesses cannot hire illegal immigrants.”

Progressives aren’t yet ready to ditch the $15 figure. Senate Budget Chair Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and his staff have repeatedly contended that the Congressional Budget Office has already produced ample evidence showing that the $15 increase satisfies budgetary rules within the 10-year window. Sanders aides note that raising the wage will produce a much bigger effect on the budget than oil drilling in the Arctic and the repeal of Obamacare health insurance mandate penalties — which were both previously allowed under the Senate's arcane rules.

But to ensure that the $15 wage hike officially checks off all the right boxes, progressives have another idea. They're pushing the possibility of a small business tax relief plan that could be paired with the minimum wage increase in order to alleviate any burdens on businesses required to increase their pay, according to a senior Senate Democratic aide.

Separately, Democrats are exploring other options from the Senate Finance Committee that could include closing “some loopholes that benefit the rich or large corporations,” the Democratic aide said.

Democrats "could certainly repeal" some tax provisions, including one added to last year's pandemic relief measure, "that benefit wealthy real estate owners," the aide added. “There are some other tax provisions that President Biden has supported that would raise more than enough money to cover both the 10-year window and out-year expenses with respect to the minimum wage.”

Senate Finance Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) “is looking at various options to stay within our allocation and support small businesses,” said his spokesperson Ashley Schapitl, noting that he’s previously said “he’s doing all he can" to keep the minimum wage increase in the broader package.

A House Democratic aide, who described the issue as “a Senate math problem,” said additional revenue could also come from cutting one month off the expiration date for unemployment benefits that the House package would extend through August. House Democrats have already lopped a month off Biden’s original unemployment benefits extension, which he proposed to run through September, to offset the cost of pension aid that they included in the Covid-19 aid bill.

Schapitl said she hadn’t heard of any options involving unemployment insurance and raising the minimum wage, but declined to discuss any other specifics.

Biden has privately signaled to governors that the wage hike likely isn’t happening as part of his first Covid-19 aid measure. And while Democrats could technically overrule the parliamentarian on the issue, that's unlikely to happen given that Biden is leaning heavily against the idea, POLITICO reported earlier this month.

Liberals, however, remain confident that the minimum wage boost will survive without any compromises — and they’re confident of a parliamentarian ruling in their favor.

“We’ve made a very, very strong case,” Sanders said Monday. “And hopefully the parliamentarian rules in our favor. I think she should.”

Marianne LeVine contributed to this report.

The minimum wage hike Biden ran on is unlikely to be in the $1.9 trillion stimulus package because of 2 centrist Democrats

Grace Panetta
Mon, February 22, 2021,


In this Feb. 13, 2021, file photo Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va.,

 departs on Capitol Hill in Washington Alex Brandon/AP


An increase to the federal minimum wage likely won't be passed in a COVID stimulus package.


Biden reportedly told governors that he doesn't think the move would comply with a Senate rule.


Two key Senate Democrats, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, have also thrown cold water on the idea.


Democrats are gearing up to pass President Joe Biden's $1.9 trillion stimulus package, but all signs are pointing to a much-anticipated minimum wage hike not being included in the bill largely due to procedural hurdles and opposition from Sen. Joe Manchin.

Increasing the federal minimum wage from its current rate of $7.25 an hour to $15 is a major priority for Democrats, who now control the Senate for the first time since 2015, and is something Biden has also stressed in his campaign and in his presidency.

But in a recent call with governors of both parties, Biden told them not to get their hopes up about the wage increase being included in the stimulus package because of procedural rules, Politico reported.

The Senate will likely pass the stimulus package through a process known as budget reconciliation, which allows the Senate to pass budget-related legislation with just a simple majority of 51 votes instead of the usual 60-vote majority required in the Senate to get past the filibuster.

The Senate is currently divided between 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans, with Vice President Kamala Harris serving as the tie-breaking vote.

Specifically, Biden expressed doubt that a minimum wage increase being included in the reconciliation package would pass muster under the Byrd rule, saying, "doesn't look like we can do it," according to Politico.

Named for legendary former West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd, the rule stipulates that matters "extraneous" to the budget process cannot be passed through reconciliation.

It's ultimately up to the Senate parliamentarian, Elizabeth McDonough, to determine what can be included under the parameters of the Byrd rule. But Biden, who served in the Senate for 36 years from 1973 to 2009, doesn't seem optimistic that the process would survive a so-called Byrd bath, a review of the provision's permissibly through reconciliation.

Politico reports that McDonough is expected to rule on the matter on Tuesday.

It would take a two-thirds majority of the body to overrule a decision made by the Senate parliamentarian. And while some have suggested that Harris could simply ignore the parliamentarian's rulings, it would be an unprecedented and potentially risky move that could risk the entire package being derailed and losing support from key moderates like Manchin.

Powerful Democratic Senator Manchin of West Virginia, who holds Byrd's former senate seat, has also privately conveyed to Biden that he won't support any legislation that violates the Byrd rule and is unlikely to support a minimum wage increase in the stimulus package, CNN reported on Wednesday.

"My only vote is to protect the Byrd Rule: Hell or high water," the senator told CNN. "Everybody knows that. I'm fighting to defend the Byrd Rule. The President knows that."

Manchin conveyed the same sentiment in an interview with the Washington Examiner.

"I will defend the Byrd rule the same way I defend the filibuster. I am not going to just set back and say, 'Oh, well, he really didn't mean it,'" Manchin said of Byrd. Manchin, for his support, supports raising the federal minimum wage to $11 an hour.

Another key moderate, Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, has also appeared to put the kibosh on passing a wage hike through reconciliation.

"What's important is whether or not it's directly related to short-term Covid relief. And if it's not, then I am not going to support it in this legislation," Sinema recently told Politico. "The minimum wage provision is not appropriate for the reconciliation process."

House Budget Chairman Rep. John Yarmuth has also expressed doubts, telling CNN, "I think the minimum wage is a stretch to get through the Byrd Rule," adding. "I'm just not aware of how they do that."

Roll Call reported that if senators like Manchin and Sinema aren't swayed by a favorable ruling from the parliamentarian, Democratic leaders could include a small-business tax credit in the package to earn their support and ease some of their concerns about the impact of a wage increase on small businesses.

But ultimately, as Politico put it, "Senior Democratic aides are skeptical that progressives would risk tanking stimulus checks, child tax credits and money for state and local governments over the minimum wage."

Living Wage Calculator (mit.edu)

Romney, Cotton challenge $15 min wage with new proposal

WHAT YOU THOUGHT THEY WOULD RAISE IT TO $20

Republicans release bill to 'gradually raise the federal minimum wage to $10'

EVER SO SLOWLY

Aarthi Swaminathan and Denitsa Tsekova
Tue, February 23, 2021

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) and Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) unveiled a proposal on increasing the federal minimum wage to $10 by 2025. The proposal comes as President Joe Biden and Democrats push to include a provision increasing the minimum wage to $15 by 2025 in the next stimulus package.

“For millions of Americans, the rising cost of living has made it harder to make ends meet, but the federal minimum wage has not been increased in more than 10 years,” Romney said in a statement on Tuesday. “Our legislation would raise the floor for workers without costing jobs and increase the federal minimum wage to $10, automatically raising it every two years to match the rate of inflation."

Under the Republican proposal, the federal minimum wage will increase to $8.00 in 2022, $8.75 in 2023, and $9.50 in 2024, until it reaches the $10 threshold. Businesses with fewer than 20 employees would have a longer phase-in period.


Former Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney, right, speaks at a North Little Rock, Ark., news conference Thursday, Aug. 21, 2014, as he endorses U.S. Rep. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., left, in the race for U.S. Senate. (AP Photo/Danny Johnston)

“American workers today compete against millions of illegal immigrants for too few jobs with wages that are too low— that’s unfair,” Cotton said in a statement. “Ending the black market for illegal labor will open up jobs for Americans. Raising the minimum wage will allow Americans filling those jobs to better support their families. Our bill does both.”

The legislation would mandate stricter immigration control and would implement an E-Verify system to "ensure the wage increase only goes to legal workers," while raising civil and criminal penalties on companies hiring unauthorized aliens.
The current state of federal minimum wage

But most Americans favor raising the federal minimum wage, which was last increased in 2009.

Many cities and states have enacted their own hikes, including in Republican-leaning ones like Florida. While the federal minimum wage stands at $7.25 presently, 20 states (and D.C.) currently have a minimum wage at or above $10. By 2022, three more states will have increased their hourly wages beyond $10.


Living Wage Calculator (mit.edu)

Leading Democrats are pushing for a gradual increase of the federal minimum wage to $15 by 2025.

UC Berkeley's Center for Labor Research and Education recently found that $15 an hour would provide a “direct boost” in pay to 23 million Americans, a boon to many amid the pandemic.

“There’s good evidence to say: ‘Yeah, this is a bold policy, but it’s not as risky as some people think,'” Michael Reich, a minimum wage expert at the University of California, Berkeley, told Yahoo Finance in a previous interview.

Goldman Sachs analysts also previously estimated that a rise to $15 an hour would impact around 30% of U.S. workers, most of whom have household incomes below $50,000.

Critics of a $15 minimum wage, including most Republicans and some Democrats, generally argue that a large hike lacks nuance and is bad for businesses that are also dealing with the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

“Everybody’s trying to paint this whole thing with one broad brush stroke,” John Horne, owner of the Anna Maria Oyster Bar in Bradenton, Fla., told Yahoo Finance previously. “$15 [minimum wage] is fine in Miami... but it’s not good in a small town, you know?”

John Motta, chairman of the Coalition of Franchisee Associations, said during a press conference on February 17 that states that hiked their minimum wages “did it in a way where businesses can absorb that increase."

But he added that “doing it as quickly as the Biden administration is stating will definitely hurt businesses, will hurt jobs, and probably cause some businesses to close because they jus cannot compete and pay those wages.”

—

Denitsa is a writer for Yahoo Finance and Cashay, a new personal finance website. Follow her on Twitter @denitsa_tsekova

Aarthi is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. She can be reached at aarthi@yahoofinance.com. Follow her on Twitter @aarthiswami.

$20 PLUS BENEFITS 

A $15 minimum wage still won't be a living wage for many families, MIT and CNBC analysis says
AND A TRANSFERABLE DEFINED BENEFIT PENSION

Living Wage Calculator (mit.edu)

Juliana Kaplan Mon, February 22, 2021, 

A protestor holds a sign in Upper Senate Park during a rally on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, July 22, 2015, to push for a raise to the minimum wage to $15 an hour. Al Drago/CQ Roll Call


A CNBC analysis of cost-of-living data looked at how minimum wages compare to living wages.

For families, the proposed $15-per-hour minimum wage still falls short of a living wage.

For single adults, the $15 wage would bring about half of states to a living wage.

A new CNBC analysis of cost-of-living data from Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers looks at how a $15 minimum wage stacks up against a living wage.

For families with two children and two parents working at the minimum wage, current minimums in every state are below a living wage, and even the proposed increase to $15 an hour may still fall short for those families. As CNBC reports: "A $15 minimum wage would push a number of states closer to a living wage, but none would meet or exceed it."

That data doesn't take into account any income those families receive from safety net programs. A recent study from UC Berkeley's Labor Center found that lower wages cost taxpayers more than $100 billion a year, as almost half of the families who would see a raise from a $15 minimum wage rely on at least one social safety net program. The study found that 42% of the $254 billion spent on safety net programs goes to those families.

A $15 minimum wage would go a little bit further for single adults, according to the CNBC analysis. For them, minimum wages currently "fall short" of a living in every state. However, a $15 minimum wage would be a living wage for single adults in about half of the states.

Insider previously reported on the value that a $15 minimum wage would have in every state. Since the cost of living varies in each state, the value of the wage also fluctuates. Insider found that the new potential minimum would go the furthest in Mississippi, where it would be worth $17.77. Per the CNBC analysis, Mississippi is one state where a $15 minimum wage would provide a living wage for single adults.

Democrats are currently pushing for a $15 minimum wage as part of President Joe Biden's $1.9 trillion stimulus relief package, aiming to pass the increase through reconciliation. However, Biden has reportedly indicated that he thinks the raise won't be feasible - and two Democratic senators have also expressed their hesitations.

But the $15 minimum-wage's champion, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), has said he's "confident" the hike will stay in the stimulus package. Under the current Democratic plans, the minimum wage would gradually increase to $15 by 2025. By then, $15 won't even be worth what today's $15 is because inflation will impact its value.

Read the original article on Business Insider

For Women in Economics, the Hostility Is Out in the Open

Arindrajit Dube
Justin Wolfers
Ben Casselman
Tue, February 23, 2021

Attendees mingle at an American Economic Association conference 

in San Diego on Jan. 3, 2020. (Sandy Huffaker/The New York Times)

A few years ago, economists Alicia Sasser Modestino and Justin Wolfers sat at the back of a professional conference and watched Rebecca Diamond, a rising star in their field, present her latest research on inequality. Or at least she was meant to present it — moments after she began her talk, the audience began peppering her with questions.

“She must have gotten 15 questions in the first five minutes, including, ‘Are you going to show us the data?’” Modestino recalled. It was an odd, even demeaning question — the session was in the data-heavy field of applied microeconomics. Of course she was going to show her data.

Later that morning, Modestino and Wolfers watched as another prominent economist, Arindrajit Dube, presented a paper on the minimum wage. But while that was one of the most hotly debated topics in the field, the audience allowed Dube to lay out his findings for several minutes with few interruptions.

Over a drink later, Modestino and Wolfers wondered: Had the audiences treated the two presenters differently because of their genders?

They couldn’t be sure. Maybe the audience treated Dube differently because he was more senior. Maybe they had simply found his paper more convincing, or less interesting. Maybe the observations of Modestino and Wolfers were a result of their own biases — Dube, in an email, recalled getting lots of questions, some of them quite skeptical. (He added that he didn’t know how his reception compared with Diamond’s, and he said he didn’t challenge Modestino’s recollection overall.)

So Modestino and Wolfers, who has written on economics in The New York Times, did what economists often do: They gathered data. Along with two other economists, Pascaline Dupas and Muriel Niederle, they recruited dozens of graduate students across the country to attend hundreds of economics presentations to record what happened. Their findings, according to a working paper that is expected to be published next week by the National Bureau of Economic Research: Women received 12% more questions than men, and they were more likely to get questions that were patronizing or hostile.

“It measures something that we thought couldn’t be measured,” Modestino said. “It links it to a potential reason that women are underrepresented in the profession.”

The paper is the latest addition to a mounting body of evidence of gender discrimination in economics. Other researchers in recent years have found that women are less likely than men to be hired and promoted, and face greater barriers to getting their work published in economic journals. Those problems are not unique to economics, but there is evidence that the field has a particular problem: Gender and racial gaps in economics are wider, and have narrowed less over time, than in many other fields.

In response to those concerns, the American Economic Association commissioned a survey of more than 9,000 current and former members that asked about their experiences in the field. The results, released in 2019, revealed a disturbing number of cases of harassment and outright sexual assault. And it found that subtler forms of bias were rampant: Only 1 woman in 5 reported being “satisfied with the overall climate” in the field. Nearly 1 in 3 said they believed they had been discriminated against. And nearly half of women said they had avoided speaking at a conference or seminar because they feared harassment or disrespectful treatment.

“Half of women are saying they don’t even want to present in a seminar,” Modestino said. “We’re losing a lot of ideas that way.”

The harsh reception faced by women is particularly striking because they are also less likely to be invited to present their research in the first place. Women accounted for fewer than a quarter of the economic talks given over recent years, according to another paper. Racial minorities were even more underrepresented: Barely 1% of the speakers were Black or Hispanic.

“It’s just embarrassingly bad,” said Jennifer Doleac, an economist at Texas A&M University who is one of that study’s authors. Only about 30 talks have been delivered by Black or Latina women since the authors began tracking the data, she noted. “These scholars are just not being invited, ever.”

The lack of representation is so significant that Modestino and her colleagues could not study whether Black and Latino economists were treated differently in seminars than their white counterparts — there were too few examples in their data to analyze.

The lack of opportunities has potentially significant career consequences. Research presentations, known as seminars, are an important way that academics, particularly those early in their careers, disseminate their research, build their reputations and get feedback on their work.

Seminars play a particular role in economics. In other fields, they tend to be collegial affairs, with mostly respectful questions and few interruptions. In economics, however, they often resemble gladiatorial battles, with audience members vying to poke holes in the presenter’s argument. Seemingly every economist, regardless of gender, has at least one horror story of losing control of a presentation. Many say they have been brought to tears.

Most economists acknowledge that there are bad actors who are more interested in scoring debating points than raising legitimate questions. But many defend the field’s culture of aggressiveness, saying it is helpful to get feedback — even critical feedback — from colleagues.

“I expect a room full of economists to speak up and have their own opinions and ideas,” said Ioana Marinescu, a University of Pennsylvania economist. “To me, if they’re not asking questions, they might be a little bit zoned out.”

Marinescu recalled a talk she gave at a prestigious conference several years ago, where she, too, faced frequent interruptions. It was terrifying, she said — but also stimulating.

“The questions were incessant, but they were awesome questions from the top people in the profession,” she said. “From my perspective, it was one of the best experiences I ever had.”

Still, Marinescu said, reforms are needed.

In recent years, some economists have begun to question the field’s culture of aggressiveness, arguing that it discourages people from entering the field. Several universities have instituted rules meant to cut down on bad behavior, such as banning questions for the first 10 or 15 minutes of a talk so that speakers can get through at least the beginning of their presentations uninterrupted.

But Judith Chevalier, a Yale economist who chairs the American Economic Association’s Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession, said rules intended to improve seminars would not address the underlying problems that Modestino’s research revealed.

“Seminars are a public setting — seminars are when they are on their good behavior,” Chevalier said. “We can’t declare victory even if we fix seminars. We need to reexamine everything. Are we biased when we hire? Are we biased when we mentor? Are we biased in seminars? Are we biased when we promote?”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

SOUTH CAROLINA
Wateree power plant targeted for closure. How many jobs are on the chopping block?



Sammy Fretwell
Tue, February 23, 2021, 

Dominion Energy plans to close a 51-year-old Columbia-area power plant that has employed generations of workers but also has polluted groundwater and the Wateree River while burning coal to make electricity.

Company plans show that two other coal-burning power plants in Berkeley and Orangeburg counties also would close in the next decade, a change that would effectively end South Carolina’s production of power through coal.

Air pollution from coal plants is a leading cause of man-made climate change. If the Dominion plan becomes final, all of Dominion’s once robust fleet of coal-fired power plants would be closed by 2030. Santee Cooper and Duke Energy already have closed or announced plans to close coal plants in South Carolina.

The impact on jobs remained unclear this week because Dominion declined to say how many employees might be affected by the proposed closures.

But it could affect several hundred positions, if other coal plant closures are comparable. In announcing two years ago it would close a power station in Georgetown County, Santee Cooper said the change could affect 200 jobs.

A Dominion spokesman said the proposal is not final and is subject to change. The Orangeburg coal plant would close, but a natural gas plant also on the site would remain.. Dominion’s plans follow a ruling in late December by the state Public Service Commission. The PSC ordered the power company to study in more detail the possibility of closing coal plants and relying more on other forms of energy.

Now, Dominion said it is moving to close the three plants under a comprehensive energy resource plan it must provide to the PSC.

Closing the three coal stations is “the most reasonable and prudent resource plan to pursue at this time,’’ Dominion said in a recent filing with the PSC.

The Virginia-headquartered company says it is looking to replace the South Carolina power plants with solar and natural gas-generated energy, as well as relying on battery storage.

What impact the retirement of coal plants would have on rates remained unclear this past week, but the company said shifting from coal to more natural gas could mean the need for more gas pipelines — an issue sure to bring criticism from environmentalists.

The company had been considering closing the coal fired power plants decades into the future, but last week’s filing with the PSC sped up the timetable following the December utility board ruling.

Plants that generate electricity from coal have been used for decades, but have begun to close in recent years for a variety of reasons, among them their environmental impacts. Coal-fired power plants release mercury into the air that later rains back into rivers and contaminates fish. Such plants also contribute gases, such as carbon dioxide, that cause global warming.

Water pollution also is an issue. The Wateree plant in lower Richland County was the subject of a lawsuit more than a decade ago over plans to build a landfill to serve the facility.

Evidence presented in the trial showed that groundwater pollution from the coal plant had been extensive. At the same time, toxin-laden water was trickling from a coal ash waste pond into the Wateree River, upriver from Congaree National Park.

The Wateree plant is a visible part of the landscape of eastern Richland County, with emissions stacks rising high above the rural farmland.

According to the new Dominion Energy plan, the Wateree station would close in 2028, as would the company’s Williams’ plant in Berkeley County.

“The plan … indicates that the most reasonable and prudent path for the company is a plan to retire Wateree and Williams stations in 2028,’’ the company said in an email Tuesday. “Natural gas, solar and battery storage resources would be added to the system.’’

Dominion would close its Cope coal plant in Orangeburg County by 2030 and focus exclusively on using natural gas at the site. The plant now uses both coal and natural gas.

The company’s statement said detailed studies are underway before another proposal goes to the Public Service Commission.

Dominion, which acquired SCE&G two years ago, said in 2019 that it had no plans to retire its remaining three coal plants, including Wateree.

Officials with the Sierra Club and the S.C. Coastal Conservation League said they are glad Dominion is moving away from coal. The three power plants are in largely minority communities that have suffered from power plant pollution, the Sierra Club said.

“The closure of these plants will be a huge health benefit for families and children who have been forced to live, work and play in the shadow of coal-burning plants that pollute their air and the rivers where they boat and fish,’’ the club’s Will Harlan said in a news release. “These communities have fought long and hard for protections that others take for granted, and now there’s hope for real change.’’

Still, he and the Conservation League’s Eddy Moore said relying too heavily on natural gas could be a problem. Some of the gas would come from fracking, a controversial practice of extracting natural gas from underground, the Sierra Club said.

Both organizations favor greater use of renewable energy, namely wind and solar power. Moore said laying more pipelines for natural gas isn’t the answer.

“We should be super cautious about putting our eggs in the gas basket,’’ Moore said.

KILLER KOPS 

Man dies after police kneel on his neck for nearly 5 minutes, family says in wrongful death claim

By Stella Chan and Leah Asmelash, CNN
Wed February 24, 2021

(CNN)

A 30-year-old Northern California man undergoing a mental health episode died days after police officers kneeled on the back of his neck for nearly five minutes to subdue him, lawyers for his family said.

Angelo Quinto had been "suffering from anxiety, depression, and paranoia for the previous few months," his family's attorneys said in a wrongful death claim, filed on February 18.

His sister Isabella Collins called police to their Antioch, California, home on December 23 because she feared he would hurt their mother, family lawyer John L. Burris said during a February 18 press conference.

Before police arrived, Quinto's mother had been holding him to her chest with her hands clasped around his back for a few minutes, and "he had already started to calm down," the claim stated. When two officers from the Antioch Police Department arrived, Burris said they made no attempt to understand the situation and instead, immediately grabbed Quinto from his mother's arms.

Quinto lost consciousness and was taken to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead three days later, family attorneys say in the claim.
Maria Quinto-Collins, Quinto's mother, used her cell phone to record part of the incident.

"What happened?," she says breathlessly as Quinto is seen not moving and laying on his front. Officers roll him over to carry his body out, and his face is bloody. He is moved to a gurney and paramedics administer chest compressions on Quinto as his mother records on her phone, asking questions.

Quinto's mother and sister.

It was not clear from the video if the officers were wearing body cameras.
"As far as we know, they were not," Burris said last week.

In the nearly two months since Quinto's death, police have not issued a press release on the incident. The Antioch Police Department and the Contra Costa County Sheriff's Coroner's Division did not respond to requests for comment Monday.

"These Antioch police officers had already handcuffed Angelo but did not stop their assault on the young man and inexplicably began using the 'George Floyd' technique of placing a knee on the back and side of his neck, ignoring Mr. Quinto pleas of 'please don't kill me,'" Burris said.

Quinto's cause of death is still pending, the Contra Costa County Sheriff Coroner's office told CNN on Monday. His death is under investigation by the Contra Costa County District Attorney's office.

Isabella Collins said she called police in hopes they would help de-escalate the situation.

"I don't think I will ever not feel bad," she told CNN affiliate KGO. "If it was the right thing to do, it wouldn't have killed my brother."

The Antioch city clerk and attorney's office did not respond to requests for comment.

KILLER KOPS USA

No charges against officers involved in Daniel Prude's death

Police officers who put a hood over the head of a mentally distraught Black man, then pressed his body against the pavement until he stopped breathing will not face criminal charges after a grand jury declined to indict them, New York's attorney general announced Tuesday.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Daniel Prude, 41, died last March, several days after his encounter with police in Rochester, New York. Police initially described his death as a drug overdose. It went mostly unnoticed. But nightly protests erupted after body camera video was released nearly six months later following pressure from Prude's family.

Attorney General Letitia James, whose office took over the investigation, said her office had “presented the strongest case possible” to the grand jury, but couldn’t persuade it that the officers had committed a crime.

“I know that the Prude family, the Rochester community and communities across the country will rightfully be disappointed by this outcome,” said James, who travelled to Rochester to announce the grand jury’s decision at a church near where Prude was fatally injured.

She said she was bound to respect the grand jury’s decision, but she also condemned a system that she said had “frustrated efforts to hold law enforcement officers accountable for the unjustified killing of African Americans."

“What binds these cases is a tragic loss of life in circumstances in which the death could have been avoided,” said James, who, like the mayor of Rochester and the city’s current and former police chiefs, is Black.

“One recognizes the influences of race, from the slave codes to Jim Crow, to lynching, to the war on crime, to the overincarceration of people of colour: Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd. And now Daniel Prude,” she said.

Lawyers for the seven police officers suspended over Prude’s death have said the officers were strictly following their training that night, employing a restraining technique known as “segmenting.” They claimed Prude’s use of PCP, which caused irrational behaviour, was “the root cause” of his death.

Calls were made to the officers’ attorneys. Matthew Rich, who represents four officers, said “we’re still taking it in” and that the attorneys would speak to the press later.

Hundreds of protesters gathered Tuesday evening on the street where Prude was detained.

The March 23 video of Prude’s fatal encounter with officers was initially withheld by police in part because of concerns it would inflame street demonstrations occurring nationwide over George Floyd’s death.

Ultimately released Sept. 4, it showed officers placing a mesh bag over Prude’s head to stop him from spitting after they detained him for running naked through the streets. Prude had been evaluated at a hospital for odd behaviour a day earlier, but he wasn't admitted. His family called police because they were concerned about Prude's safety after he bolted from the house.

One officer pushed Prude's face against the ground, while another officer pressed a knee to his back. The officers held him down for about two minutes until he fell unconscious. He was taken off life support a week later.

“The system failed Daniel Prude again," Prude family lawyer Elliot Shields said of the grand jury's decision. ”It failed him on March 22 when he was released from the hospital. It failed him on the night of March 23 when the police used deadly force against him. And it failed him again today."

Shields said Prude's brother, Joe Prude, was “heartbroken.”

Officers Troy Taladay, Paul Ricotta, Francisco Santiago, Andrew Specksgoor, Josiah Harris and Mark Vaughn, along with Sgt. Michael Magri, were suspended after Prude’s death became public. The officers will remain on leave pending the outcome of an internal investigation, according to Rochester police chief Cynthia Herriott-Sullivan.

The Rochester police union said in a statement it would not immediately comment.

The grand jury decision isn't likely to end scrutiny of the Rochester Police Department, which has been heavily criticized over the past year over numerous incidents involving allegations of excessive force.

James, a Democrat, said that in addition to meeting with Prude’s brother, she wanted to speak with a 9-year-old girl who was recently pepper sprayed by city police officers responding to a family dispute.

The department has also been criticized for rough treatment of protesters last summer.

The U.S. Justice Department planned to review the attorney general’s findings, according to a joint statement from its Civil Rights Division, the U.S. attorney in western New York and the FBI.

“I don’t think it’s over,” said Mike Johnson, a Rochester activist who joined the protest of the grand jury decision Tuesday evening. “I don’t think this grand jury decision is the last say in seeking justice for this issue.”

“This is just another slap in the face," said Johnson, noting that Tuesday was the anniversary of the death of Ahmaud Arbery, a Black man who was chased and shot by armed men in Brunswick, Georgia, one year ago.

James said that for the sake of public transparency, she had asked a judge to unseal some records related to the grand jury proceeding.

She also issued a report recommending, among other things, that officers be trained to recognize the symptoms of excited delirium syndrome, which can make people vulnerable to cardiac arrest. The medical examiner and the attorney general’s expert both concluded that Prude was in a state of excited delirium because of his drug use.

The attorney general also called for communities to minimize or eliminate police responses to mental health calls and to find alternatives to the type of “spit sock” officers placed over Prude’s head. She said the mesh hood clearly added to Prude’s stress and agitation.

A police-practices expert hired by the attorney general found some of the officers’ actions, including the “segmenting” tactic, were reasonable — but the expert said keeping Prude on his stomach for three minutes, including nearly a minute after he’d apparently vomited, “was unnecessary, unreasonable, and against accepted police practice,” James’ office said in a report.

The county medical examiner listed the manner of death as homicide caused by “complications of asphyxia in the setting of physical restraint” and cited PCP as a contributing factor.

Rochester's mayor, Lovely Warren, who fired police chief La’Ron Singletary over his handling of the Prude case, called the grand jury decision “hard for many of us to understand."

“There are no words that can comfort a family who has lost their loved one in this tragic way," she said. "Our actions going forward will ensure that Daniel Prude’s death was not in vain.”

Some activists said that they never expected the officers to face charges.

“Historically, we can see when Black and brown people are killed across this nation, most times there is no indictment. However, it isn’t any less offensive, any less hurtful, any less painful,” said Ashley Gantt of Rochester, as she headed to protest the decision. “I’m disgusted."

Michael Hill And Carolyn Thompson, The Associated Press

‘We’ve been electrified’: after success in Georgia, Black organizers look to transform the south

Sam Levine in New York 

Ever since the runoff elections in Georgia, people have been talking.

They’ve been talking about how turnout among Black voters surged in December and January, propelling two Democrats to stunning victories in the state, long seen as a Republican stronghold. And how those same voters had helped Joe Biden become the first Democratic presidential candidate to carry the state in nearly 30 years.

They’ve also been talking about how it was a success made possible by years of voter mobilization led by Black organizers, including many groups led by Black women.

And this success is sending ripples in neighboring states across the US south. Since the election, Black women who helped organize the transformation in Georgia have been fielding calls from their counterparts in other states, asking them to come speak to organizers and share strategies for replicating it.

Related: Georgia Republicans in sweeping new effort to make it harder to vote

“Everybody in the south that I talk to is talking about what happened in Georgia,” said Oleta Fitzgerald, a Mississippi organizer who runs the Southern Black Women’s Rural Initiative, which targets barriers faced by southern Black women. “It’s like we’ve been electrified.”

Mobilizing voters in the south is not easy, Fitzgerald and other organizers said. Many southern states, including Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee and Texas, make it difficult to cast a ballot with strict voter ID laws and draconian restrictions on voting by mail.

White Republicans hold the levers of power in state houses and governor’s mansions. And gerrymandered electoral districts have helped entrench Republican power and Jim Crow-era laws disenfranchising people with felony convictions leave swaths of the Black voting population unable to vote.

“Georgia couldn’t carry a torch to the racism in Alabama,” said Sheila Tyson, a Democratic county commissioner in Birmingham.

Each state also has its unique politics and geography. Mississippi, for example, has a sizable and growing non-white population, but does not have the same kind of growing urban areas that helped carry Democrats to victory in Georgia, Politico reported in January. Voting in the state has become racially polarized – White people overwhelmingly vote Republican while Black voters back Democrats – making it difficult to build a multiracial coalition to back a Democratic candidate. There has not been a Black official in statewide office in Mississippi in over 150 years.

Some learnings from Georgia, however, could spread elsewhere in the south. Over the last two decades, organizers in Georgia have built a strategy around investing in Black communities, even when there’s no election around the corner, signalling to voters that the goal is building their communities, not just helping a particular candidate win. When an election does come around, organizers are already deeply embedded and connected to the communities they want to turn out and vote.

This was one of the lessons Cassandra Welchlin, a co-convener of the Mississippi Black Women’s roundtable, took away from a recent discussion with Helen Butler, an organizer in Georgia. In speaking with Butler, Welchlin said she recognized a lot of similar work was already going on in her state.

“We didn’t really see that there were these differences. They just got to it quicker than we did … We didn’t have a Stacey Abrams,” Welchlin said. “But we can continue the organizing year round.”

And many of the women who helped transformed Georgia are already connected to organizers in other states through a national group called the Black Women’s Roundtable. They talk regularly to not only share strategy, but also offer encouragement when organizing seems quixotic.

“When you want to give up it’s like, ‘Oh my goodness, are we doing this in vain or do people really need it?’” said Salandra Benton, co-convener of the Florida Coalition on Black Civic Participation. “It’s become a sisterhood.”

Welchlin added that it was “motivating and invigorating” to see the organizers she had worked with for years finally succeed in Georgia. She can now use the success in Georgia as a concrete example to show Black voters in Mississippi the power of their vote. She already has plans to have Georgia organizers speak to activists in Mississippi this month.

“It really just reminded us of our power as Black women in the south and in Mississippi,” she said. “After so long of doing the grinding you wonder, ‘is it ever gonna be [possible]?’”

“It has meant so much to these Black women in these local communities,” Fitzgerald added. “It’s almost like metamorphosis. It’s almost like we can do something.”

Tom Bonier, the CEO of TargetSmart, a Democratic data firm, said there are states in the south that had a potential path to follow Georgia, but it’s difficult to predict.

“A decade ago, Georgia seemed like a bad investment for Democrats. Yet the combination of favorable demographic trends with organizing strength built over several years created an opportunity,” he said in an email. “Looking at most other southern states at this point, it would appear that they don’t have enough well-educated white voters, along with a critical mass of voters of color, to deliver Democratic victories. Yet investment and organizing, along with favorable national trends, could change that.”

Despite the success in Georgia, getting financial support for organizing could still be difficult. National groups and philanthropic funders often look at long-term investments to mobilize voters of color with skepticism, several organizers said.

“We have been on the ground educating people for well over 10 years, so the footprint is there,” said Tyson, who also leads the state’s Black women’s roundtable. “What we don’t have, is what Georgia had, is funding. That’s what’s stopping us.”

In 2017, Black women in Alabama helped propel Doug Jones, a Democrat, to an unlikely victory in a US Senate race. In November, Jones lost his seat by nearly 20 points. “We didn’t have the resources in 2020 that we had in 2017, nowhere close to it,” said Tyson, the Alabama county commissioner.

We are the secret sauce. If you need the Black vote to win, you have to talk to Black women 

Melanie Campbell

“We drive the Black vote,” said Melanie Campbell, who leads the national Black women’s roundtable. “We are the secret sauce. If you need the Black vote to win, you have to talk to Black women.”

Teresa Younger, the CEO of the Ms Foundation for women, noted that groups centered around women and girls of color in the south often are underfunded. The Georgia election, she hoped, would be a wake up call. In December, the Ms Foundation, which focuses on backing women-led movements, announced an effort to fund organizations led by women of color.

“I actually hope people don’t just go, ‘Wow, what happened in Georgia was great,’” she said. “What happened in Georgia was a plan, it was a commitment, and it recognized that change takes time. And that you have to build relationships and deepen those relationships.”

While there are signs of new political force in the south, the structural barriers are increasing. State Republicans are advancing measures that would make it harder to vote by mail in what seems to be an obvious reaction to the high record turnout among minority voters. There are at least 165 bills in state legislatures across the country to make it harder to vote, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.

“These bills are coming up because people are watching. And they see what happened in Georgia and so they’re trying to do whatever they can to stop that from happening here,” said Welchlin, the organizer in Mississippi, where Republicans are advancing legislation that would make it easier to purge the voter rolls.

Even if it takes years to achieve, the Georgia election gave organizers a glimpse of what may be on the horizon.

“In southern states, in Mississippi, the minority are gonna become the majority,” Welchlin said. “It’s a matter of time and so we know it’s coming.”