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Things are bad:

From Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C.:

,,,The unemployment rate for the year is likely to average above 9.0 percent. The number of people who are involuntarily underemployed has generally been 8.5 and 9.0 million, close to double the pre-recession level. Millions more have given up looking for work altogether. Real wages have been stagnant or falling for the last 4 years, with little prospect of turning around any time soon as the high rate of unemployment continues to depress wages.

In addition, tens of millions of baby boomers are approaching retirement with almost nothing to support themselves other than their Social Security…

In short, most of the country is looking at a situation where they are desperate for work or fearful about losing their job. Older workers are looking at a retirement where they are not far above the poverty level, even after spending a life working in middle class jobs…

Will it get better? David Wessel, The Wall Street Journal’s economics editor, sees reasons for optimism, but just as many for pessimism:

The latest incoming data are encouraging. Initial claims for unemployment compensation, one of the better early-warning signs, have fallen to their lowest level in 3½ years. Consumers say jobs are a little easier to find, another useful indicator. Housing starts and home sales are up. Inventories are lean. And, for what it’s worth, the stock market has bounced back in the past month.

This could be the start of the much-hoped-for virtuous circle. The job market improves. Consumers have more income. Spirits and, more important, spending perk up. Meanwhile, weakening economies abroad keep commodity prices down and limit inflation in the U.S. With mortgage rates low and consumer finances improving, home prices turn up at last. Businesses, flush with cash, expand and hire more readily, offsetting the retrenchment by governments…

What could go wrong?

..The games of chicken between Germany and southern Europe and between political leaders and the European Central Bank aren’t resolved. Europe is almost surely in recession. When the best hope is that European governments will “muddle through” without any more big mistakes, well, the risks of something going wrong are uncomfortably high. And if it does, financial markets will transmit the pain promptly to the rest of the world.

Washington hardly offers an inspiring example of democracy at work. The battle over renewing a payroll-tax holiday and extended unemployment benefits wasn’t settled—it was recessed for a couple of months. That means another contentious fight—and more uncertainty—early next year, and an even bigger fight later when the Bush tax cuts expire, the debt ceiling needs to be raised again and across-the-board budget cuts are imminent…

And then there is the housing market. We’re told housing prices are “stabilizing,” and maybe they are. But we learned this week that they fell in October in 19 of the 20 cities tracked by the Case-Shiller index. Over the past year, its 20-city index fell 3.4%, on top of the 30% decline in the preceding four years. Wary home buyers, a still-dysfunctional mortgage market and an overhang of foreclosed homes continue to weigh on housing. If prices take another turn down, that could disrupt any virtuous circle.

ThinkProgress offers more details on How The Housing Crisis Could Kill Any Progress On Jobs:

…According to work by Prof. Joseph Gyourko of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, homeowners who are underwater — meaning they owe more on their mortgage than their home is currently worth — are 30 percent less likely to move than non-underwater borrowers. So the housing crisis is locking people in place, even if moving could help them find a job and increased mobility could alleviate the unemployment crisis.

Borrowers being stuck underwater is bad enough, but adding to the bad news is the fact that, after slowing down their foreclosure processes to deal with the fallout from the foreclosure fraud scandal, banks have picked it back up, with foreclosure jumping 21 percent last quarter. And there’s little reason to believe things are going to get much better in 2012, as scheduled foreclosure hit a nine-month high in November, meaning a slew of foreclosure is right around the corner. Continued foreclosures will drag home prices down even further, sinking those already underwater down even deeper, in a vicious cycle that will weigh down the wider economy.

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I don’t celebrate Christmas. And I believe strongly in the Constitution – and separation of church and state. But I haven’t declared war on Christmas.

I have no problem with “Merry Christmas.” Those aren’t holiday lights on the trees on Fairfield’s greens. Nor are those holiday lights string along the Post Road. But I can live with that. Live and let live, I say.

I’m sorry kids can’t sing Christmas carols in school any more. But come on, that’s not a war on Christmas, it’s just acknowledging both the law and some who aren’t quite as untouchy as I am about public displays of religion.

I love America. Christmas is part of America. I’m Ok with that. I hope you are too.

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From Esquire:

There are some truths so hard to face, so ugly and so at odds with how we imagine the world should be, that nobody can accept them. Here’s one: It is obvious that a class system has arrived in America — a recent study of the thirty-four countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development found that only Italy and Great Britain have less social mobility. But nobody wants to admit: If your daddy was rich, you’re gonna stay rich, and if your daddy was poor, you’re gonna stay poor. Every instinct in the American gut, every institution, every national symbol, runs on the idea that anybody can make it; the only limits are your own limits. Which is an amazing idea, a gift to the world — just no longer true. Culturally, and in their daily lives, Americans continue to glide through a ghostly land of opportunity they can’t bear to tell themselves isn’t real. It’s the most dangerous lie the country tells itself.

Read more:

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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, the first national standards to protect American families from power plant emissions of mercury and toxic air pollution like arsenic, acid gas, nickel, selenium, and cyanide. The standards will slash emissions of these dangerous pollutants by relying on widely available, proven pollution controls that are already in use at more than half of the nation’s coal-fired power plants.

Power plants are the largest remaining source of several toxic air pollutants, including mercury, arsenic, cyanide, and a range of other dangerous pollutants, and are responsible for half of the mercury and over 75 percent of the acid gas emissions in the United States.

Mother Jones:

Christmas is only a couple of days away, and this week the Obama administration delivered a last-minute Christmas present to all of us, one that’s been 20 years in the making. On Wednesday, following a tortured history, the EPA finally released new standards that sharply reduce the emissions of mercury and other airborne toxins from power plants….

The new standards for airborne toxins are expensive: they’ll cost upwards of $10 billion annually and will require dozens of old coal-fired power plants to shut down….So that’s the downside: $10 billion annually in costs and a difficult but manageable shutdown of obsolete power plants. And the upsides are enormous. Here’s the EPA’s estimate:

The total health and economic benefits of this standard are estimated to be as much as $90 billion annually….Combined, the two rules are estimated to prevent up to 46,000 premature deaths, 540,000 asthma attacks among children, 24,500 emergency room visits and hospital admissions. The two programs are an investment in public health that will provide a total of up to $380 billion in return to American families in the form of longer, healthier lives and reduced health care costs.

Much of this is due to reductions in particulate matter, not mercury, which suggests that, if anything, the EPA may be underestimating the benefits of the new rules. As Michael Livermore points out, mercury is a dangerous neurotoxin for small children, and the EPA’s analysis of that danger is limited to quantifying lost future earnings due to lower IQ. But even a grinch wouldn’t pretend that the cost of this kind of neurological damage is limited to lower wages. “There are,” says Livermore, “also risks of cognitive and social defects, negative autoimmune effects, genetic effects, and heart attacks that are not quantified.”

Paul Krugman:

The point that strikes me most, however, is that this shows that it matters who holds the White House. You can complain about Obama’s lack of a strong progressive agenda, which I sometimes do, or wonder what good it is to hold the White House when the other side blocks every attempt to do good through legislation. But mercury regulation would not have happened if John McCain were president.

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The Connecticut Working Families Party has endorsed Chris Donovan for Congress. WFP leaders lauded Donovan’s career fighting for Connecticut’s working class and middle class families, and specifically pointed to leadership on issues like raising the minimum wage and guaranteeing paid sick days, a long-time legislative priority of Working Families in Hartford.

“Chris Donovan is somebody who wakes up every day, thinking about how he’s going to help the regular people who are having a harder time than ever making ends meet,” said Julie Kushner, a co-chair of the WFP and Director of the United Auto Workers Region 9A. “If we’re going to get America back on track, we need more people like that in Congress.”

“The Wall Street banks are making huge profits and handing out eye-popping bonus checks, while the rest of us are still struggling,” said Sal Luciano, co-chair of the WFP and Executive Director of Council 4 AFSCME. “Donovan knows it’s his job to fight for the 99%, not the big bank lobbyists who are doing just fine.”

“You just can’t find a more dedicated fighter for the needs of hard-working families than Chris Donovan,” said Jon Green, Executive Director of the Working Families Party.

Working Families member Paula Broderick, of New Britain, thanked Chris Donovan for championing the paid sick days bill by sharing her story of being held captive by an abusive boyfriend. Broderick escaped her abuser after being held captive for three days. After escaping, she missed work while recovering from injuries and seeking a restraining order. Because she lacked paid sick days, she lost pay, and eventually, her job.

“No one should have to live through what I did,” said Broderick. “Chris Donovan understands that, and he had the courage to do something about it.”

Working Families is a grassroots party that focuses on the bread and butter economic issues that matter most to working families in Connecticut. WFP evaluates all the records of all the candidates, and endorses only those who stand up and fight for ordinary families.

If Donovan wins the Democratic primary, he will be listed on the general election ballot twice: once on the Democratic line and again on the Working Families ballot line. Votes received on the Working Families line will be added to his votes on the Democratic line to determine his total.

Voting on the Working Families line counts the same to elect Donovan to Congress, but, said Kushner, “also sends a message to all politicians that it’s time to put the needs of the 99% first.”

In 2010, the 26,000 votes Governor Dan Malloy received on the Working Families Party line helped push him to his razor-thin victory.

The Connecticut Working Families Party joins AFSCME Council 15, the Connecticut Council of Police, the Connecticut Education Association, the Connecticut State Council of Machinists, the IAFF – Uniformed Professional Fire Fighters Association of Connecticut, United Auto Workers Region 9A, the Connecticut Laborers District Council, the United Association of Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 777, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Blue America, former 5th CD Congressman Jim Maloney, and Simsbury First Selectman Mary Glassman in endorsing Chris Donovan as the best candidate to fight for the families of Connecticut’s fifth congressional district.

Working Families Party is an independent, grassroots party that stands up for ordinary working families and fights for creating good jobs, making healthcare more affordable, and fair taxes. Working Families examines the records of all and endorses only the candidates with a proven track record of working to improve the lives of ordinary families, not powerful special interests.

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Connecticut Early Care and Education Progress Report, 2011
Appendix

Following Connecticut’s loss in the Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge funding competition and the Governor’s call this week for education reform legislation, a report on the state’s early care and education system finds that a lack of central coordination of early childhood programs and stagnant or declining funding levels are leaving many children in need of early care unserved. The organization called on state legislators and Governor Malloy, who has identified increasing access to preschool as a priority, to maintain early childhood program funding and to develop a more integrated approach to child care and early education.

“High quality early care and education can help our state’s children be more academically and socially ready for kindergarten.” said Sarah Esty, Policy Fellow at Connecticut Voices for Children and co-author of the report. “The early education we provide now will have long-term consequences for our children’s school performance and the health of our economy.”

Key findings in the report include:

· Connecticut’s patchwork of early care and education programs needs reform to create a coordinated and comprehensive system. Connecticut’s publicly-funded early care and education programs rely on multiple funding streams controlled by multiple agencies with varied reporting and eligibility and data requirements. This creates confusion and complications for both providers and parents, according to Connecticut Voices.

Funding for early care and education has been stagnant and is more than 10% below 2002 levels. Total state funding for early care and education increased by less than 1% between 2010 and 2011, and remains substantially below levels from early in the decade.

· Connecticut is not serving many of the children who need help. Despite the need for child care from working families struggling through the recession, over 86% of infants and toddlers, and at least 25% of preschoolers living in struggling families (families earning under 75% of the state median income) remain unserved by any state or federal subsidy for early care and education.

· The state lacks the data necessary to determine which aspects of the early care system are working effectively. The report indicates that there is not sufficient data gathered to evaluate the impact of Connecticut’s early education services on a child’s later school success or which programs are having the greatest impact.

To improve access to and quality of child care programs, Connecticut Voices recommends that the Governor and state legislators:

· Maintain and ultimately increase funding for early care and education.
· Move forward on creating plans for a more coordinated system of early care and education that works to integrate existing program “silos,” gather data to evaluate and improve quality of care, and fund services based on the actual costs of providing care.

Early care and education has recently been a significant focus of attention among Connecticut policy makers. In the 2011 legislative session, legislation was approved to create a planning process for a more coordinated early care and education system. Connecticut’s application for federal Race to the Top education funding focused on improving quality in the state’s early education services. Also, Governor Malloy called this week for education reform legislation that “enhances families’ access to high-quality early childhood education opportunities.”

“Connecticut has many high-quality early care and education services already in place, and our Race to the Top application provided an excellent road map to achieving a more coordinated system that will ultimately lead to better long-term results for children,” said Cyd Oppenheimer, Senior Policy Fellow at Connecticut Voices and co-author of the report. “We know that our Governor and policy makers understand the importance of early care and education and will remain true to their commitment to better coordination and increased funding.”

Connecticut Voices is a research-based think tank that works to advance policies that benefit the state’s children, youth, and families.

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Hang in there, Rick!

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Community Leaders React

Leaders of the Catholic and Latino communities reacted today to a U.S. Department of Justice report, which denounced the East Haven Police Department for engaging in a pattern and practice of discrimination against Latinos.

“Two years ago this month, our congregation and others in the community joined together in a vigil recognizing the start of this investigation,” said Father James Manship, a priest at St. Rose of Lima Church. “The Department of Justice’s announcement today vindicates the complaints of racial profiling by Latinos that have devastated our community for years.”

The report found that EHPD intentionally targets Latinos for traffic enforcement and treats Latino drivers more harshly during traffic stops in violation of their constitutional rights. It also finds that Chief Gallo created a hostile and intimidating environment for people trying to cooperate with the DOJ investigation.

“Systemic reforms will be necessary to make sure the police department respects all residents,” said Manship. “During his time as police chief, Gallo failed to take steps to improve the culture of the department. The DOJ’s report makes clear that Chief Gallo is a primary reason for the Department’s failures, although his leadership is not the only problem.”

Mayor Joe Maturo reinstated Chief Gallo this November as one of his first acts as mayor. Gallo was placed on administrative leave by former Mayor April Capone Almon in March 2010 in response to the USDOJ’s investigation of claims of racial profiling and police harassment.

Angel Fernandez, a leader of the St. Rose Pastoral Council, stated: “Neither the Town of East Haven nor the East Haven Police Department has been willing to take any serious steps to curb anti-Latino abuse and harassment. Only a zero-tolerance policy toward harassment of Latinos and an end the intimidation of police officers and community members will address the community’s concerns.”

“The victims of the East Haven Police Department’s intimidation and lawlessness were betrayed by officers they trusted to protect and serve them,” said Kristin Macleod-Ball, a law student intern in the Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic at Yale Law School (WIRAC), which is representing the community groups in the DOJ civil rights investigation. “Today’s announcement brings them one step closer to justice.”

Fr. Manship and several members of the Latino community also brought a civil rights lawsuit in October 2010, alleging that the Town of East Haven and the East Haven Police Department failed to properly address a pattern of police harassment and violence against Latinos.