What Matters Today

March 14, 2013

How Economic Inequality Influences Life Expectancy

Marie Arrasate, left, and Joan McGarr discuss the Social Security payment during an interview Thursday, Oct. 15, 2009 at the Southwest Focal Senior Center in Pembroke Pines, Fla. There will be no cost-of-living increase for more than 50 million Social Security recipients next year, the first year without a raise since automatic adjustments were adopted in 1975. (AP Photo/J Pat Carter)

Marie Arrasate, left, and Joan McGarr discuss their Social Security payments during an AP interview in 2009 at the Southwest Focal Point Senior Center in Pembroke Pines, Fla. (AP Photo/J Pat Carter)

A new report by the Washington Post shows that the growing economic inequality in the United States affects the life expectancy of Americans in different income brackets. According to research at the University of Washington, women living in affluent St. Johns County, Fla., can expect to live to be 83 years old, four years longer than they did two decades ago. Male life expectancy has also improved — it’s more than 78 years, six years longer than 20 years ago.

But just next door, in less wealthy Putnam County, women can only expect to live to be 78, and men, 71 — representing an increase of only a year and a year and a half, respectively, over the same time period. In St. Johns County, life expectancies have increased by roughly four times more than in Putnam County over two decades.

The widening gap in life expectancy between these two adjacent Florida counties reflects perhaps the starkest outcome of the nation’s growing economic inequality: Even as the nation’s life expectancy has marched steadily upward, reaching 78.5 years in 2009, a growing body of research shows that those gains are going mostly to those at the upper end of the income ladder.

News & Notes

March 13, 2013

Georgia’s Internet Uprising

by Timothy Karr, Campaign Director for Free Press and SavetheInternet.com

This article first appeared on The Huffington Post.

Georgia State Capitol building in Atlanta, Georgia. Photo by J. Glover courtesy of Wikicommons.

The movement to connect more people to high-speed Internet services scored a win in Georgia last Thursday. It’s a victory that should resonate in every U.S. community that is struggling to give people better Internet access.

A coalition of Georgia mayors, counties and local activists overcame an industry-backed bill that would have prohibited municipalities from building their own broadband networks. MORE

BillBoard

March 13, 2013

Five Great Online Tools for Mining Public Records

by Lili Shirley, Project On Government Oversight

This post first appeared on the Project On Government Oversight blog.

The homepage of the Recovery.gov website. The website was created under the Recovery Act to help Americans track government spending of Recovery funds, including contracts, grants and loans.

Thanks to our open records laws, you can find a treasure trove of information on the Web — everything from details about publically traded companies to where stimulus funds are going. You can even submit Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests online.

Take some time this week to educate yourself about the information and data available from government websites. Below are five great online tools that you can use to help hold government accountable.

FOIA Online

FOIA Online allows anyone to submit a Freedom of Information Act request online, track their request, and search past FOIA requests. Currently the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Department of Commerce, Federal Labor Regulations Authority, Merit System Protections Board, and the National Archives and Records Administration use FOIA Online.

One of the great things about FOIA Online is that you do not have to be registered to submit or search FOIA requests. This makes it incredibly easy for anyone to begin research into what is going on in different agencies and departments of the U.S. government.

Recovery.gov

Recovery.gov was established by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, commonly known as the “Stimulus,” and is managed by the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board. It shows the distribution of all Recovery funds and how each agency is spending the money. Agencies involved must submit weekly financial reports that describe how the funds allotted to them are being distributed, and those who received contracts, grants, and loan awards of Recovery funds must submit similar reports four times per year.

Recovery.gov not only allows the public to view, research, and review the information, but it offers the ability to report suspected fraud, waste or abuse that relates to the Stimulus. MORE

Money & Politics

March 12, 2013

Mary Jo White and Richard Cordray Appearing Before Senate Banking Committee

by Theresa Riley

C-SPAN coverage of Mary Jo White's appearance before the Senate Banking Committee.

Mary Jo White, President Obama’s nominee to head up the Securities Exchange Commission, appeared before the Senate Banking Committee this morning for her confirmation hearing. For those who want the play-by-play, Dealbook live-blogged the proceedings and C-SPAN is streaming it over the Internet.

According to Ben Protess of Dealbook, committee chair Sen. Tim Johnson (D-SD) cut right to the chase on the issue of the SEC’s revolving door and White’s history of working for a Wall Street law firm where she had a number of big banks as clients.

Mr. Johnson, the committee chairman, seized on Ms. White’s ties to Wall Street. “What steps will you take to address potential conflicts of interest?” he asked. MORE

Smart Charts

March 11, 2013

Global Warming Has Already Caused Unprecedented Change

by John Light

Dried sunflowers are seen in a field near the Bulgarian capital Sofia, Thursday, Aug 23, 2012 After the harshest winter in decades, the Balkans in the southeast of Europe is now facing its hottest summer and the worst drought in what officials across the region say is nearly 40 years. The record-setting average temperatures which scientists say have been steadily rising over the past years as the result of the global warming have ravaged crops, vegetable, fruit and power production in the region which is already badly hit by the global economic crisis.. (AP Photo/Valentina Petrova)

Dried sunflowers are seen in a field near the Bulgarian capital Sofia in August 2012. After the harshest winter in decades, the Balkans were facing the hottest summer and the worst drought in nearly 40 years. The record-setting average temperatures -- steadily rising over the past years as the result of the global warming -- have ravaged crops, vegetable, fruit and power production in the region which is already badly hit by the global economic crisis. (AP Photo/Valentina Petrova)

A new study published in the journal Science provides context for just how dramatic our planet’s recent warming trend is. In the last century, during which humans have been burning fossil fuels on a widespread scale, the planet’s temperatures have changed more dramatically than they had during all of recorded human history — more dramatically than they had since the last ice age ended.

“We already knew that on a global scale, Earth is warmer today than it was over much of the past 2,000 years,” said Shaun Marcott of Oregon State University, the paper’s lead author. “Now we know that it is warmer than most of the past 11,300 years.”

The planet’s gradual warming and cooling phases are largely caused by the Earth’s tilt as it orbits around the sun. During the period the OSU and Harvard University research team reconstructed, temperatures increased gradually until about 7,000 years ago, then began decreasing again. If not for human influence, Earth would be in a very cold period today. But soon after the industrial revolution happened, the planet began to warm.

Chart from the Wall Street Journal, data from Oregon State University and Harvard University

[Wall Street Journal]

News & Notes

March 10, 2013

Two New Films Address American Poverty

by Michael Shank and Greg Kaufmann

We’re proud to collaborate with The Nation in sharing insightful journalism related to income inequality in America. The following is an excerpt from Nation contributor Greg Kaufmann’s “This Week in Poverty” column.

Americans wait in line at a food bank in a scene from American Winter.

A Patriotic Fix for America’s Hunger Epidemic
By Michael Shank

“One nation, underfed.”

That’s the tagline for the new film out by Participant Productions, entitled A Place at the Table, which looks at America’s growing hunger epidemic. Participant Media, which produced Lincoln, The Help and Food Inc., does not disappoint with its latest take on what America must tackle. And in light of the March 1 sequester cuts to social programs, the film’s timing couldn’t be more appropriate.

Table’s statistics are overwhelming, but they are intended to overwhelm. Whether it’s the 50 million Americans who are living in food-insecure households (which means they are struggling with hunger), or the fact that 1-out-of-2 kids in America will, at some time in their childhood, have to rely on federal assistance for food. This is happening in the richest country in the world, and the problem is only getting worse. Under President Reagan there were 20 million Americans living with food insecurity. We’re well over double that figure now.

Table’s stories will overwhelm too. Whether it’s the 5th grader who is so hungry that she envisions her teacher as a banana and her fellow students as apples, or the single mother of two who finally gets a fulltime job only to realize that she is no longer food stamp eligible, a loss of $3-per-day that puts her family into serious food insecurity. That means her kids no longer have breakfast or lunch at daycare, and her youngest is already developmentally disabled due to improper nutrition. Lest we think she’s living large off her new job, food stamp eligibility ended once her salary passed $23,000, a figure hardly sufficient to pay for rent, utilities, insurance and transport, let alone food. (Most Americans are surprised to learn that the parents of hungry children typically have fulltime jobs.) Those who think food stamps breed dependency are wrong. As a child, raised singly by my mom after my dad died early, I too depended on food stamps. For many of us, they are critical lifelines of support while we get back on our feet. MORE

On Democracy

March 8, 2013

Jack Lew, Citigroup and the Ugland Truth

by Michael Winship

In this Aug. 3, 2012 photo, the Ugland House, the registered office for thousands of global companies, stands in George Town on Grand Cayman Island. (AP Photo/David McFadden)

Along with its sandy beaches and quality snorkeling, the Cayman Islands’ reputation as an offshore tax haven for corporations, banks and hedge funds has become so well-known its financial institutions now are featured in travel brochures as yet another tourist attraction.

So as we traveled across the Caribbean this week — including a stretch paralleling the south coast of Cuba past Guantanamo Bay and the Sierra Maestra mountains, where Castro and his revolutionaries once hid out — we made a stop in George Town on Grand Cayman Island. A short walk along the shore took us to 335 South Church Street, a location made famous by Barack Obama a few years ago and more recently, Jack Lew, during his confirmation hearings to become Secretary of the Treasury.

There you’ll find Ugland House, a five-story office building that, according to a 2008 report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), houses 18,857 corporations, about half of which have billing addresses back in the States. It’s the business world equivalent of one of those circus cars that’s packed with more clowns than you thought possible. In 2009, Obama said of Ugland House, “either this is the largest building in the world or the largest tax scam in the world.” MORE

Money & Politics

March 7, 2013

In Reversal, Organizing for Action Won’t Take Corporate Cash

by Lauren Feeney

Jim Messina, national chairman of Organizing for Action and President Obama's former campaign manager. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

Organizing for Action, the new non-profit created to promote the president’s agenda, will disclose donors and dollar amounts over $250, won’t accept corporate donations and won’t guarantee face time with the president to big donors, the organization’s chairman Jim Messina wrote Thursday on CNN.com.

“There has been some confusion about what Organizing for Action is and is not.” Messina wrote. “Organizing for Action is an issue advocacy group, not an electoral one. We’ll mobilize to support the president’s agenda, but we won’t do so on behalf of political candidates. The president has always believed that special interests have undue influence over the policymaking process, and the mission of this organization is to rebalance the power structure.” MORE

Money & Politics

March 7, 2013

Political Advertisers Flout FCC Regulations

by John Light

This undated frame grab taken from AP video shows a control room at television station WDBJ7 in Roanoke, Va. Political ads are blasting across the television airwaves in the Roanoke/Lynchburg Va. market, delighting broadcasters but making some viewers cringe. Blame Virginia's status as a swing state in the 2012 presidential race _ and the cheap air time in the Roanoke/Lynchburg television market. By the number of television households, with New York at the top, Roanoke is down the market size list at number 68. (AP Photo/AP Video)

A control room at television station WDBJ7 in Roanoke, Va. Because of Virginia's status as a swing state in the 2012 presidential race and the cheap air time in the Roanoke/Lynchburg television market, it was a hotspot for political ads during the last election cycle. By the number of television households, with New York at the top, Roanoke is down the market size list at number 68. (AP Photo/AP Video)

In the run-up to November’s election, a group called Freedom PAC spent $3.8 million, most of it to support former Florida congressman, Connie Mack, in his bid for Senate. Of that spending, $190,000 went to a Tampa, Fla. television station, WFLA. But WFLA noted that when Freedom PAC bought the ads, they “refuse[d] to sign/fill out” the mandatory disclosure forms. WFLA ran the ads anyway.

Freedom PAC did provide a form that listed a treasurer with a Kansas mailing address, but when the Sunlight Foundation, a government watchdog group, contacted the person listed, it turned out to be a representative for the wrong PAC — for a different Kansas-based Freedom PAC that had never purchased television ad time in Florida.

This is just one example of many uncovered by the Sunlight Foundation in which super PACs and politically oriented nonprofits purchase ads without disclosing the names of their board members or their executive officers to the television stations who ran the ads. That goes against the 2002 McCain-Feingold Campaign Reform Act and, in the top 50 markets, also violates FCC rules requiring that disclosure be made public through an online database. MORE

Perspectives

March 6, 2013

One Economy, Two Americas

by Hedrick Smith

A typical street scene in a neighborhood in Cleveland, Friday, Jan. 25, 2008. A report commissioned last November by the U.S. Conference of Mayors projected that 361 metropolitan areas would take an economic hit of $166 billion in 2008. Cuyahoga County, which includes Cleveland, has about 17,000 vacant foreclosed properties,roughly 4 percent of its 395,000 houses. (AP Photo/Jamie-Andrea Yanak)

Cleveland is one of the cities hit hardest by the foreclosure crisis. (AP Photo/Jamie-Andrea Yanak)

Hedrick Smith

Before you gulp down your favorite champagne to celebrate Wall Street’s new stock market highs, remember that we are two Americas: The nation’s economic divide is costing us all dearly in terms of lost jobs and growth and is fueling the angry, gridlocked politics in Washington.

As The New York Times reported Monday, corporate profits have been skyrocketing ever since 2008 -– rising an average of 20.1 percent a year for four years in a row. But out on Main Street, average household incomes have risen only 1.4 percent a year. CEOs and big investors have been hogging the profits.

And while the stock market is roaring upward thanks largely to corporate profits earned overseas, 24 million Americans are still out there hunting for full-time jobs, month after month. But our economy is not generating many new jobs. In fact, Congress has just added to unemployment. With the sequester in force, we are going to lose a net of 750,000 jobs this year, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

This disconnect between Wall Street and Main Street, between profits and wages, between the winnings of the 1% and the stagnation of the 99% — what I call “wedge economics” — has been the prevailing pattern in the American economy for the past three decades. And it has been financially killing the American middle class and stealing the American Dream from average people. MORE