The Digital Dispatch

From NOEBIE.net

Class War

The Rigged Game: New Report on Inequality

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The Economic Policy Institute has published a new report on income inequality in the United States. Here’s a quick summary of the findings.

Income inequality has risen in every state since the 1970s and in many states is up in the post–Great Recession era. In 24 states, the top 1 percent captured at least half of all income growth between 2009 and 2013, and in 15 of those states, the top 1 percent captured all income growth. In another 10 states, top 1 percent incomes grew in the double digits, while bottom 99 percent incomes fell. For the United States overall, the top 1 percent captured 85.1 percent of total income growth between 2009 and 2013. In 2013 the top 1 percent of families nationally made 25.3 times as much as the bottom 99 percent.

It’s important to understand that none of this is happening by accident, nor by the hand of God, nor even because of the effects of an impartial marketplace. The ruling class decides who will win and who will lose. So it’s no wonder who wins and who loses.

Read the full report: Income inequality in the U.S. by state, metropolitan area, and county | Economic Policy Institute

Teamster Pension Cuts in the Works

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teamster-pension-cuts

The Detroit News reports on a public hearing held yesterday to allow comment on proposed benefit cuts to the Central States Pension Fund, one of the largest Teamster retirement funds.

One retiree spoke bluntly to reporters about prospects for himself, and for people being vested in the plan in the future.

“If they get this plan passed, who would want to join Teamsters when they just screwed 100,000 retirees?” said Fred Bora. “It’s going to have a bigger fallout. It’s really going to go down hill. We’re still going to get the short end of the stick.”

The fund is being reorganized under the Multi-employer Pension Reform Act of 2014, which was signed into law by President Obama. Obama’s appointee to oversee the cuts, Kenneth Feinberg, noted after the hearing that he had authority to impose the reorganization plan over any and all objections.

The trustees of many multi-employer funds used money from those funds to lobby for the Act, against the better interests of the rank and file union members and retirees they purport to serve.

Under the plan being considered, retirees could lose up to 70% of their monthly benefits, at a time when their employers (such as UPS) are reporting record profits. A typical pensioner would go from $3000 a month to $1200 a month in benefits.

Read more on the public hearing: Hundreds speak out on proposed Teamster benefit cuts

Read more at Teamsters for a Democratic Union: Treasury to Hold Town Hall Meetings

Solutions Ignored in Illinois Budget Battle

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125 leaders and policy wonks from 63 non-profit, community organizing and labor organizations came together on June 29 to deliberate over a series of proposals for revenue solutions to Illinois’s budget shortfall. Simon Swartzman reports for In These Times that some of the most obvious solutions (with revenues totaling as much as $9 billion) are not even being considered in Springfield.

Those assembled heard several revenue proposals. The first focused on tax hikes aimed on wealthy individuals, including a proposed progressive income tax (estimated at raising up to $2.4 billion for the state), a commuter tax ($300 million) and a luxury sales tax (between $553 million and almost $2 billion, depending on services taxed). A second proposal focused on corporate accountability, including a proposed end to corporate tax loopholes ($334 million), raising corporate income taxes ($770 million), a fee for “bad businesses” that pay low wages ($2.2 billion), a moratorium on corporate handouts and subsidies ($564 million) and reforming Chicago’s tax increment financing program ($457 million in annual revenue in the city). Proposed banking and financial industry reforms included a financial transaction tax and an end to predatory deals with banks for public financing such as the interest rate swaps Bank of America has arranged with the Chicago Public Schools.

Source: “We Need to Stop Being Nice”: IL Labor, Community Activists Push Progressive Budget Crisis Solutions – Working In These Times

Scott Walker’s Grab Bag

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Alice Olllstein reports from Madison for Think Progress.

In the ensuing scramble, Governor Walker and his allies in the statehouse used the 4th of July holiday weekend to insert several more controversial provisions into the massive document, which local press called “a grab bag of pet projects.” Walker and Republican lawmakers have already been forced to retreat on one of them: a gutting of the state’s open records law that would have barred reporters and the public from accessing the documents that reveal how laws are written, including drafts and e-mails between state lawmakers. But the other additions remain, including provisions that censor information about police shootings, scrap factory workers’ right to one day off per week, and completely eliminate the state’s 100-year-old definition of a living wage.

Read the Report: Scott Walker Tries To Use A Back Door To Get Rid Of Wisconsin’s Living Wage Law | ThinkProgress