January 4, 2014

Raising The Minimum Wage To $10.10 Could Lift Nearly 5 Million Out Of Poverty

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/01/03/3115831/minimum-wage-poverty/


Raising the federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour could lift about 4.6 million people out of poverty directly, according to a new study from economist Arindrajit Dube. Longer-term effects could reduce the number of people living below the poverty line by 6.8 million.

That wage level “would reduce the poverty rate among Americans between the ages of 18 and 64 by as much as 1.7 percentage points,” Jillian Berman explains in the Huffington Post. Poverty increased by 3.4 percent during the recession, a rate that has not improved since, but a $10.10 wage would erase more than half of that uptick. Dube’s findings come from an analysis of 23 years of data on minimum wage increases as well as a review of previous findings.

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The current federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, and it has stayed at that level for more than four years. That’s not enough to keep a parent who works for that wage full-time, year-round above the poverty line, nor is it enough to make market rent in any state. But the wage used to be enough to keep a family of two above the poverty line, and in the 1960s it was even enough to keep a family of three out of poverty.

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A $10.10 wage makes sense in other ways. It would bring it in line with where it would be if it had kept up with inflation over the past half century. (To keep up with increases in all other workers’ wages, it would have to be $10.65, and to keep up with increases in worker productivity it would be $18.30.) Given that low-income workers are likely to spend a large portion of any extra pay, putting the money back into the economy, a $10.10 wage would boost GDP by $22.1 billion, supporting the creation of 85,000 new jobs. And Americans support such a wage: one poll found 80 percent support for it, including two-thirds of Republicans, and another found that two-thirds support a raise to $10.25 an hour.[/font]

January 4, 2014

Closing The Hedge Fund Manager Tax Loophole Would Raise $4 Billion Annually From The 25 Richest Mgrs

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/07/06/261268/closing-hedge-fund-manager-loophole-billions/

During the negotiations regarding raising the nation’s debt ceiling, congressional Republicans have gone to the mat to defend all manner of unwarranted tax breaks, including those for oil companies and corporate jet owners. Despite the drain on the Treasury caused by these tax breaks — and the negligible benefit they provide — Republicans have threatened to allow the nation to default on its obligations rather than abandon them.

One of the tax breaks upon which President Obama has focused is a provision that allows hedge fund managers — who make billions annually — to receive a substantial tax break. This particular tax break, known as the carried-interest loophole, allows hedge fund managers to treat the money they receive from investors as capital gains, subject to a 15 percent tax rate. Though this money is a paycheck received for services, just like a movie star receiving a bonus if her movie does well, it’s treated as investment income.

Since hedge fund managers are some of the richest people in the country, this tax break actually causes a significant loss of revenue. In fact, according to calculation by RJ Eskow, closing this loophole would raise more than $4 billion per year just from the 25 richest hedge fund managers:

"The top 25 hedge fund managers in the United States collectively earned $22 billion last year, and yet they have their own cushy set of tax rules. If they operated under the same rules that apply to other people — police officers, for example, or teachers — the country could cut its national deficit by as much as $44 billion in the next ten years."

That may seem like a lot of revenue to raise from just a few people, but it’s simply what would happen if the income hedge fund managers receive to manage other people’s money was treated the same as income earned by other workers. It would take the combined income of 441,000 middle-class families to equal the income made by just the 25 richest hedge fund managers. The top hedge fund manager at the moment, John Paulson, makes more hourly than most Americans will earn in a lifetime, while paying a lower tax rate. This is an egregious loophole, but the GOP refuses to consider it as part of a deal to avoid default and an economic catastrophe.

January 3, 2014

Climate Change Worse Than We Thought, Likely To Be 'Catastrophic Rather Than Simply Dangerous'

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/31/climate-change-worse_n_4523828.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular