Mobility Agenda wishes everyone a  Happy New Year 2001, via  the National Employment Law Project . That’s right, 2001. With workers‘ wages stuck at 2001 levels, check out this short video about America’s lost decade.

Here’s a great new article citing The Mobility Agenda and making the case for reducing barriers to driving by lowering fees for reinstatement after suspension for non-driving offenses. 

“Revoking a license for non-driving offenses does not only hurt an individual, but can cause serious side effects in our communities.”

 

The Chicago Tribune reports on The Mobility Agenda research on transportation and access to driving.

…ownership of a car allows people to fully contribute to local economies through increased job opportunities, wages and hours worked.

“We forget that public transit really does not meet the needs of everyone,” Waller said, “particularly people who are working in the service economy whose schedules may not mesh very well with transit, or whose job location and home location don’t mesh well with public transit.”

Here’s a nice published commentary citing the work of Mobility Agenda from New York State — but it could be nearly anywhere in the USA. 

 I’ve met a lot of riders on the bus recently who, as a result of these NFTA changes, now need to transfer multiple times to reach work. One man said he wakes very early in the morning to take three buses to get to work. Another person who works Saturdays now has to pay for a taxi to get to his employer because the NFTA eliminated Saturday bus service on that route.

….Ownership, in this case car ownership, is the latest evidence of an ever-growing divide between the haves and have-nots in our society. That’s what I have learned riding the bus.

Thanks for sharing your perspective and the shout out for our work, Greg Slabodkin.

Read more about our research & recommendations regarding car ownership and a strong local economy here. 

It’s “Poverty Day”, as they say in policy circles. (Arghhh – that’s particularly ick.) And some people have taken (wicked) smart advantage of the media attention.

The news on poverty rates is really really tough. The findings on the dilemma created by too many low-wage jobs are in. Our economy is suffering under the weight of employers that pay too little.

Census reported today: The ranks of working age people are at the highest level of poverty since the mid-1960s.

And Census counted the most poor people ever in the 51 years we’ve been tracking these numbers.

So – it should come as no surprise that someone decided this would be a good week to host a big national meeting about welfare fraud.

That’s the way to link welfare and poverty in the mind of the public. And on top of that — they get to imply that people on welfare are really just lazy cheats too. Wow. 

As a result - USA Today and papers around the country have a news article with headlines about welfare fraud on the same day we learn that poverty is up up up, especiallly for workers. 

Our opposition is really quite skilled at this framing stuff. I sure wish advocates FOR low-wage workers were as good. 

 I don’t think that there’s any way for the country to succeed without wage growth and job growth, long term. Unions are simply a way that people get to share in the success, so that it all doesn’t end up among shareholders and executives. – Andy Stern

The Exit Interview – read the whole thing in the Washington Post. 

When Mayor Bloomberg proposed to test reducing poverty by paying for “good behavior”, we thought it was such a bad idea that I went on FOX NEWS to explain our concerns. It seems we had good instincts about this one. 

Back in 2007, we urged the Mayor to instead use his power and influence to improve the local economy by making bad jobs into better jobs, arguing that this would be a more likely way to reduce poverty and benefit the whole community at the same time.

Plus, we noted that this approach would avoid the downside potential of reinforcing the widely held perception that poor behavior is the primary cause of poverty — rather than recognizing the impact of jobs that don’t pay enough and don’t provide benefits, not even paid time off.

Finally, we cheered testing new ideas and taking risks, especially when you engage one of the world’s best research firms to monitor results.

This week, the very qualified and distinguished people at MDRC released the first report on the outcomes of the Mayor’s initiative. 

To his credit, the mayor was careful to announce the mixed (at best) results without blaming the residents of NYC. Instead, he and his staff noted that it’s important to take risks on new strategies. 

“If you never fail, I can tell you, you’ve never tried new, innovative things,” Mr. Bloomberg said.

 Good point.

Back in 2007, we encouraged the mayor to test other ideas — like guaranteeing time off to all workers, as other cities have done.

Strengthening the local labor market by improving jobs would be worth trying now.