Logo for The Tapback from Civic Action [[link removed]]
RICH DAD, POOR DAD
One welcome outcome of the US COVID response was that child poverty hit record lows [[link removed]] , thanks to the expanded child tax credit and other supports that put more money in the hands of poor families. No, we didn’t solve the problem completely — and really, does anyone have an argument in defense of any level of child poverty — but millions of families got a little bit of breathing room, and the trend moved sharply in the right direction.
Effectively, we conducted a real-time experiment on exactly what it takes to end child poverty, and it’s pretty much as obvious as it seems: give money to people with children, and poverty will go down . But then we simply stopped doing it: Congress allowed the expanded child tax credit to expire, and child poverty more than doubled to 12.4% [[link removed]] . That’s right: for a couple years we dramatically reduced child poverty… and now we’re dramatically increasing it. All with barely a word of public debate.
Make it make sense.
Three Numbers [[link removed]]
95% [[link removed]] of the market for internet search is controlled by Google [[link removed]] . The company is currently on trial for monopolizing the search market through anticompetitive behavior, and similar charges [[link removed]] have been filed over the company’s control of the digital ad market.
127,00 autoworkers [[link removed]] are on strike after the Big Three US automakers failed to reach agreement on a new contract with the United Auto Workers. The companies have banked a quarter trillion dollars of profits over the past decade [[link removed]] , and workers are calling for substantial raises and reduced work hours.
$11 an hour [[link removed]] would be the federal minimum wage under a proposal [[link removed]] released by several Republican Senators. This figure is far too low and the proposed multi-year phase-in of the $11 level would take far too long, but nonetheless it is remarkable to see a higher minimum wage on any Republican policy agenda .
A Chart [[link removed]]
The child-care industry experienced a series of massive disruptions over the past few years, from lockdowns and school closures to the increasing number of people with professional jobs working from home. And while across the economy overall, employment has rebounded to pre-COVID levels — and real wages adjusted for inflation have increased above the pre-COVID mark — the chart below shows that the childcare workforce has yet to recover [[link removed]] .
As always, the answer to a shortage of workers is to provide higher pay and better con
It’s fairly common at this point for a billionaire to cause controversy by saying stupid stuff on tape… but it’s far less common for those comments to be as clearly rehearsed as the latest outburst from Australian real estate investor Tim Gurner [[link removed]] . Even if you’ve already read about some of the highlights — for example, that workers have become “arrogant,” and that we need unemployment to increase “40% or 50%” to get them back in line — the video [[link removed]] is worth watching for the calm, thoughtful and dare we say… arrogant… tone he uses to share his point of view. In other words, this wasn’t an accidental revelation of what the guy actually thinks… it was a planned, pre-written declaration of billionaire supremacy. Perhaps the best part: this is the same dude who launched a decade of memes when in 2017 he was the first person to sincerely allege [[link removed]] that millennials couldn’t afford homes because they spent too much money on avocado toast .
ditions — two things the child care industry has long failed to offer. Affordable child care services and livable childcare wages are among the great unmet needs of the US economy, and unfortunately the situation doesn’t seem to be improving nearly fast enough: the Washington Post reports that 70,000 child-care centers may close as government funding runs out.
[link removed] [[link removed]]
Blowing up the Groupchat [[link removed]]
It’s fairly common at this point for a billionaire to cause controversy by saying stupid stuff on tape… but it’s far less common for those comments to be as clearly rehearsed as the latest outburst from Australian real estate investor Tim Gurner [[link removed]] . Even if you’ve already read about some of the highlights — for example, that workers have become “arrogant,” and that we need unemployment to increase “40% or 50%” to get them back in line — the video [[link removed]] is worth watching for the calm, thoughtful and dare we say… arrogant… tone he uses to share his point of view. In other words, this wasn’t an accidental revelation of what the guy actually thinks… it was a planned, pre-written declaration of billionaire supremacy. Perhaps the best part: this is the same dude who launched a decade of memes when in 2017 he was the first person to sincerely allege [[link removed]] that millennials couldn’t afford homes because they spent too much money on avocado toast .
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