The unemployment rate ticked up, and that's okay

The U.S. Department of Labor released establishment and household employment estimates for May this morning, which indicated that the country gained 175,000 jobs on a seasonally adjusted basis but that the unemployment rate ticked up slightly from 7.5 to 7.6 percent.

The payroll jobs figure is modestly good news and is consistent with the slow and uneven growth in the economy. As in previous months, the loss of jobs from government austerity continues to be a drag on job growth. The sequestered federal government shed 14,000 jobs in May (on top of 31,000 jobs lost in the previous two months); state governments dropped another 2,000 employees. Job growth in the goods producing sector (manufacturing, construction, and mining) was flat. Over the last year, goods producers have only added 250,000 jobs, while service providers have added nearly 2 million.

There is also some good news in the higher unemployment rate. The number of unemployed people rose by 101,000 on a seasonally adjusted basis, which seems bad until you consider that the increase was due to a surge in the number of people who entered the labor force and were looking for work. The survey data indicate that 420,000 people joined the labor force in May.

Killer taxes on the poor

As North Carolina Republicans prepare to steam-roll their sweeping, regressive tax changes through the House and Senate, it's worth considering the terrible harm that could result.

In their 2011 book, Taxing the Poor: Doing Damage to the Truly Disadvantaged, Katherine Newman, a Professor and Dean at Johns Hopkins University, and Rourke O'Brien, a graduate student at Princeton University, found that increasing the regressivity of state and local taxes--as NC Republicans are proposing--led to to

• higher mortality rates--"for every $100 increase in taxes on the poor, the mortality rates increased by 6.6 per 100,000" (p. 102),
• increased violent and property crime rates--"the same dollar increase in taxes is associated with an increase in the state property crime rate of 78.3 per 100,000" and "an increase in the state violent crime rate of 12.3 per 100,000" (p. 103),
• lower high school completion rates--"for every $100 increase in taxes on the poor...the state high school completion rate decreases by 0.26 percentage points" (p. 103), and
• greater proportions of out-of-wedlock births--"a $100 increase in taxes on the poor is associated with a 0.07 percentage point increase in the percentage of births to unmarried mothers" (pp. 103-4).

Newman and O'Brien's estimated multivariate statistical models that accounted for the ethic make-up of states, poverty rates, GDP, unemployment, government expenditures and revenues, and inequality; thus, they controlled for indirect effects of the tax system on these other outcomes. For instance, states with regressive tax systems also tend to have lower expenditures and revenues; the effects that Newman and O'Brien found would be on top of any expenditure effects.

Also, the researchers considered changes within states in these outcomes and in tax regressivity over time; thus, their analyses accounted for unique permanent characteristics of the states, like the health or legal systems, that could give rise to spurious correlations.

Newman and O'Brien also looked specifically at grocery taxes (one of the taxes that would be raised under the Senate leadership's plan). Besides the harmful effects listed above, Newman and O'Brien found that higher food taxes led to increased rates of obesity, as poor people substituted from high-cost healthy foods to lower-cost unhealthy foods.

Rank-and-file Republicans who profess to respect life, be tough on crime, and promote family values would do well to consider the deaths, crimes, high school drop-outs, out-of-wedlock births, and worse health that their leaders' tax policies will deliver.

Paying the wealthy on the backs of poor and middle-class families

The North Carolina legislature is now considering three different tax schemes that each increase taxes on poor and middle-class families while lowering taxes for corporations and the wealthiest families.

All three plans would expand the sales tax base and increase tax revenues from consumption. This would increase taxes for everyone but would disproportionately affect poor and middle-class households because they spend a higher proportion of their income on consumption.

All three plans lower taxes on corporate profits. Currently NC's corporate tax rate is close to the median for the country, and the proportion of tax revenue that comes from corporate income is similarly near the middle for the country.

All three plans also adopt flat proportional taxes on personal income that slash tax rates for households that receive more than $100,000 but also make changes that could make more of lower-income and elderly households' income taxable.

Two of the plans also eliminate taxes on multi-million dollar estates. Those same two plans would also require further cuts to government services, which would fall disproportionately on the poor.

Poor and middle-class households have suffered the most from the economic downturn. The Pew Research Center reports that from 2009 to 2011, households in the top 7 percent of the wealth distribution saw their wealth increase by 28 percent, while all other households saw their wealth decline by 4 percent. The Census Bureau reports that the share of income going to the top 20 percent of households passed 51 percent in 2011, up from about 50 percent at the start of the recession. Increasing the tax burden for poor and middle-income households compounds this misery.

Any tax reform is going to increase taxes for some people while reducing them for others. However, there are ways to reform and simplify taxes that are less harmful to the poor. For example, an expansion of the sales tax base could be coupled reductions in the sales tax rate. Reductions in personal income tax deductions and exemptions could be coupled with reductions in all rates, leaving the progressivity of income taxes in place.

NC Republicans hurting most to benefit a few

You have to ask yourself, who exactly does North Carolina's Republican legislature represent? They certainly don't represent the majority of NC households, if their grossly misnamed Tax Fairness Act is any guide.

The News & Observer got its hands on an analysis by the the legislature's Fiscal Research Division, which shows that even though the plan will reduce revenues overall, it will nevertheless result in higher taxes for most NC households.

The majority of taxpayers likely would see a tax increase after the plan is fully implemented, according to early long-term projections from legislative fiscal researchers who analyzed the potential legislation – not a tax break as Senate Republican leaders suggested when announcing the plan this week.

A taxpayer with a federal adjusted gross income below $51,000 could pay an average $100 to $200 more in the 2017 tax year. Based on current tax brackets, 2.3 million taxpayers would fit that category, according to the analysis, while 1.8 million taxpayers could expect an average $300 to $3,000 tax cut that year.

Enormous tax cuts for the wealthy few will be financed by higher taxes and slashed protections for the middle- and low-income majority.

Put simply, Sen. Phil Berger and the Republicans have simply stopped caring about who is hurt by their reactionary rampage through Raleigh.

What a difference a month makes

Last month's moaning and groaning about slowing job growth will and should be quickly forgotten. The latest national jobs report shows that the job market continues to improve.

This morning the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) made its preliminary estimate that non-farm jobs increased by 165,000 in April on a seasonally-adjusted basis. As importantly, the BLS also reported that last month's preliminary estimate of job growth (the source of the aforementioned moaning and groaning) undershot the mark by 50,000 jobs -- instead of adding 88,000 jobs in March, the BLS now estimates that the U.S. gained 138,000 jobs. The BLS revised February's growth number even more from 268,000 to 332,000. The figures for March and April are still subject to revision, so there's a good chance that the final growth figures will be stronger still.

The headline seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate continued to inch down, reaching 7.5 percent. The most encouraging thing in the unemployment figures was that the lower unemployment rate resulted from growth in both the number of workers and the number of people in the labor force.

The economy is still battling strong headwinds, especially from the expiration of stimulus tax breaks and the decrease in spending from the sequester. Some of these headwinds show up in the job numbers themselves. Overall job growth occurred despite the loss of 11,000 public sector jobs last month. Overall, the public sector has shed 89,000 jobs since last year.

It's gratifying that the rest of the job market continues to plod forward, even under such trying circumstances.

Another accidental shooting

CNN is reporting another accidental shooting tragedy.

A Kentucky mother stepped outside of her home just for a few minutes, but it was long enough for her 5-year-old son to accidentally shoot his 2-year-old sister with the .22-caliber rifle he got for his birthday, state officials said.

Little Caroline Starks died Tuesday in Burkesville, in southern Kentucky, according to Cumberland County Coroner Gary White.

"The little Crickett rifle is a single-shot rifle and it has a child safety," White said of the weapon. "It's just a tragic situation."

It's hard to comprehend how a rifle, even the "little" Crickett rifle, would be appropriate for a 5-year-old. But Crickett marketing materials (pictures are shown below) encourage putting guns in the hands of even younger children.



The company also has testimonials that encourage giving the guns to small children. Two examples

Thank you for supporting the next generation of recreational shooters. My 4 1/2 year old daughter thought the "pink one" was far superior to a black synthetic stock,who am i to argue? I never would have thought that a pink rifle would be sitting in the rack in the gun room.

Just wanted to drop you a note, to let you know what a great product you offer. I just recently bought two Crickett .22's, one pink and one black. They are exceptionally accurate, and just the right size for my 5 and 7 year olds. They are awesome and we couldn't be happier. Thanks So Much!!!!!"

More than 1 million shot in the U.S. in the last decade

A disturbing coda to the figures on gunshot injuries and fatalities that I posted on Saturday.

The post focused on trends in U.S. shootings and how they have increased over the last decade. The post only briefly touched on the enormous scale of the carnage.

If you add the figures together, they indicate that more than one million people were shot in the U.S. in the last decade (2002-11) for which numbers are available. About 310,000 of these shootings were fatal.

One million people exceeds the combined populations of Charlotte and Winston-Salem.

310,000 people exceeds the population of Greensboro.

Put another way, if a service was held to read the names of each of the decade's million-plus U.S. shooting victims, the speakers took just three seconds per name, and the speakers read continuously day and night, it would take more than a month to read the names. While the last decade's victims were being remembered, more than 10,000 additional people in the U.S. would be shot.

The increasing chances of being shot

Americans' risks of being shot by a gun were higher in 2011 than a decade earlier.

The figure below shows figures from the Centers for Disease Control WISQARS database supplemented with preliminary mortality data for 2011 on people in the U.S. who either suffered a non-fatal firearms injury (the blue bars) or were killed by a firearm (the red bars). The sum of the figures indicates the total number of people who were shot.



In 2011, just over 106,000 people were shot in the U.S., or about one out of every 2,940 Americans. Just over 32,000 of these shooting injuries were fatal. A decade earlier just under 93,000 people were shot (about one out of every 3,080 Americans) with just under 30,000 fatalities. When you adjust for the increase in the population and average the changes across all 11 years, the chances of being shot rose by 0.8% per year.

Nearly two-thirds of these shootings were assaults and homicides; figures appear below. In 2011, there were just under 67,000 firearms assaults and homicides compared to just over 52,000 a decade earlier. Adjusting for population growth and averaging changes across years, the chances of an American suffering a homicide or an assault injury at the end of a gun climbed by 1.7% per year.



Accidental shootings were down over the decade, falling from 18,500 in 2001 to 15,500 in 2011. Adjusting for population size and averaging the changes over the decade, the chances of being accidentally shot fell by 2.3% per year. While the gun accident figure might seem encouraging, it is worth considering that the chances of being accidentally cut or stabbed fell even more (2.6% per year).

More guns, more shootings, more misery.

Toughest milk monitor this side of the Pecos

The Charlotte Observer reports more evidence that the flood of guns puts all of us at risk.

A 7-year-old brought was taken into custody after allegedly bringing a gun to school Thursday, the Alexander County Sheriff’s Office says.

Sheriff Chris Bowman says the gun was seized around midday by staff members at Sugar Loaf Elementary School, on N.C. 16 a few miles north of Taylorsville. Students told teachers about the gun, authorities say.

Thank goodness the school staff was able to secure the gun before a bigger tragedy unfolded.

McCrony Capitalism

North Carolina's prohibition against corporate political contributions to state candidates are abundantly clear, "No candidate, political committee, political party, or treasurer shall accept any contribution made by any corporation, foreign or domestic, regardless of whether such corporation does business in the State of North Carolina, or made by any business entity, labor union, professional association, or insurance company."

Nevertheless, as much as $235,000 in funds from an electronic sweepstakes software company, International Internet Technologies, may have made its way into the 2012 NC state elections, including into donations that were mailed and hand-delivered by the lobbying firm that employed then-candidate McCrory and that included the business card of Senate majority leader Phil Berger's former deputy chief of staff.

These are the same funds that are tied to the indicted sweepstakes operator, Chase Burns, who is alleged to have participated in running a veterans charity as a means of hiding sweepstakes profits from the the IRS.

Despite Burns' large contributions and his enlistment of the lobbying firm that employed McCrory, the governor has denied meeting with him or other electronic sweepstakes lobbyists. However, the governor's spokesperson is now parsing that comment, saying "the governor was clearly referring to Chase Burns, Florida clients and no one else in his answers."

The Democratic chairman and ranking Republican member of the State Elections Board think that the matter should be investigated. Such an investigation could involve subpoenas and requirements to testify under oath. However, Republican-initiated legislation might conveniently knock them off the board.

Altogether, Gov. McCrory received over $82,000 in contributions from sweepstakes operators, including Burns; House Speaker Thom Tillis received over $87,000; and Senate Leader Phil Berger received $60,000. Despite this, the governor and legislative leaders don't indicate seeing any conflict of interest in fiddling with the State Elections Board.

Were the contributions illegally made? Were they illegally accepted? Were they illegally coordinated? If the governor didn't meet with Burns or other "Florida clients," which lobbyists or operators did he meet with and what did they discuss?

Don't look for the governor or his McCronies to provide answers or facilitate an investigation.

ad more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2013/04/23/3999392/sweepstakes-donors-checks-to-nc.html#storylink=cpy

Guns do kill people

Gun apologists are fond of saying that "guns don't kill people -- people kill people." How then to explain this story from the Charlotte Observer.

Nearly two years after a Charlotte teenager died and two others were wounded in a mysterious shooting in eastern North Carolina, the Columbus County district attorney has determined a gun malfunction is to blame.

The bullet that struck and killed Jasmine Thar, a 16-year-old Ardrey Kell High student, over Christmas break in 2011 was fired from a rifle that accidentally discharged, District Attorney Jonathan David said in a Monday news conference with Thar’s family.

The story goes on to describe a well-known defect in the model of rifle that would have cost "pennies per gun" to fix.

The gun lobby's strategy of putting more dangerous and malfunctioning guns into the hands of more people increases the odds of these tragedies.

Jasmine Thar never had a chance, and arming her, her friends, or anyone else wouldn't have helped.

What could possibly go wrong?

Greensboro's year started with a gun tragedy. On the morning of January 7, as her family was preparing for work and school, Sandra Palmer shot her 14-year-old middle-school son five times, killing him, and shot her live-in boyfriend and her 18-year-old daughter multiple times. The boyfriend escaped to get help when Palmer's first gun jammed. Palmer grabbed a second gun and turned it on herself, ending her own life.

This morning's News & Record reports that Palmer obtained the gun permit from our friendly sheriff's office two days before the slaughter, despite:

• suffering from a history of psychiatric problems,
• being on five separate medications for psychiatric and emotional issues, and
• suffering through a host of financial hardships, including the recent loss of her job, a recent bankruptcy, and the ongoing foreclosure of her house.

Palmer did not disclose any of these problems on her permit application, and even if she had, none of them would have disqualified her. This litany of problems didn't even raise a speed bump along the path to a gun purchase.

Sandra Palmer might not have technically been crazy, but irresponsible policies that quickly put a gun in the hands of someone with her problems and circumstances surely are.

Sen. Hagan lost my vote today

Senator Hagan (aka "Kowardly Kay") lost my vote today by repeatedly standing with the gun lobby and against sensible gun safety and a majority of her constituents. Kowardly Kay

• Voted against the Lautenberg amendment to restrict large capacity ammunition feeding devices.
• Voted against the Feinsten amendment to restrict assault weapons.
• Voted for the Cornyn amendment to require states to accept every other state's concealed weapons permits and allow a "race to the bottom" for gun safety.
• Voted for the Burr amendment to make it easier for crazy people to get guns.

Kowardly Kay had earlier voted in favor of the Inhofe amendment to prevent the United States from entering into the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty.

So you have a job

The Great Recession has taken a toll on the labor market. Unemployment remains stubbornly high; job creation and job-holding rates have been tepid. As if this isn't enough terrible news, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has released a new report on poverty among workers up through 2011. The results are sobering.

In 2011, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, about 46.2 million people, or 15.0 percent of the nation’s population, lived below the official poverty level. Although the poor were primarily children and adults who had not participated in the labor force during the year, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 10.4 million individuals were among the “working poor” in 2011; this measure was little changed from 2010.

The BLS definition of working poor includes all adults 16 and over who were working or looking for work for at least half the year. Thus, the total is affected by the number of unemployed. However, 40 percent of the working poor were adults who usually worked full-time and were in the labor force for the entire year.

As with other poverty statistics, poverty rates among the working poor are higher for blacks, Hispanics, women, and people with less education.

A primary culprit in poverty among workers is extremely low wage rates. The BLS defines "low earnings" as weekly earnings that are less than what a person working 40 hours per week at the average inflation-adjusted minimum wage from 1967-1987; in 2011, the threshold was $331 per week. The BLS found that two-thirds of full-time working poor adults had wages that were lower than this.

Sadly, these are exactly the people and families that North Carolina's Republican legislature have targeted in their spending plans. Starting in July, workers who lose their jobs will see the amounts and duration of their unemployment compensation cut. Low-income workers in NC will also see a reduced earned income tax credit this year. And the Republicans have decided to turn down federal funds to extend Medicaid benefits to these families. Republicans may also soon shift more of the tax burden toward the working poor.

Outcomes for many workers have been miserable for the last few years. Shamefully, NC's legislature and governor are compounding that misery.

Guns don't kill people; 4 year-olds with guns kill people

Two heart-rending stories in the last few days show the tragic consequences of a country that is awash in guns.

A 6-year-old New Jersey boy has died after being shot in the head by a 4-year-old playmate as their parents stood in the yard nearby, a local police chief said.

..."The 4-year-old ... retrieved a rifle within the house, a .22-caliber rifle, came outside," Mastronardy told reporters earlier Tuesday. "... A shot went out and the 6-year-old was struck in the head."

The news report continues

This eastern New Jersey incident follows another fatal shooting days ago that also involved a 4-year-old boy, this time in Tennessee.

Josephine Fanning had gone into a bedroom, along with the boy, where her husband -- Wilson County Sheriff's Deputy Daniel Fanning -- was showing a relative some of the lawman's guns.

At some point, the boy picked up a loaded pistol from a bed and shot Josephine Fanning dead, said Tennessee Bureau of Investigation spokeswoman Kristin Helm.

Two lives lost; two others, scarred. Tragic, senseless, needless.

Supersize me

The Washington Post reports on yummy consequences of growing carbon emissions.

It is the dawn of the super crab.

Crabs are bulking up on carbon pollution that pours out of power plants, factories and vehicles and settles in the oceans, turning the tough crustaceans into even more fearsome predators.

Yummier still...

The problem extends beyond crabs and the Chesapeake Bay. Lobsters and shrimp are also bulking up on carbon dioxide along the Atlantic coast.

The downside is that carbon hurts the development of oysters and coral.

Immodest budget proposals

Public budgets are about priorities--they indicate where the government will back up its words with actual resources.

Gov. McCrory's proposed budget shows that North Carolina's land and water resources are not a priority.

Land for Tomorrow, a coalition of a number of NC conservation groups, reports that annual funding for the state's four conservation trust funds was slashed from $172.1 million in 2007 to $34.5 million in 2011. The Governor's proposed budget would reduce funding further to $28.2 million in the coming fiscal year. The budget does not include funding for some trust funds in the following year and removes dedicated funding sources for two trust funds.

The governor's budget amounts to less than $3 per NC resident--hardly a priority.

Wish Ed were here to blog about this

What a perverse tribute to Ed Cone. The News-Record has written a story about the 11-year run of his blog and hidden it behind their pay wall.

Traveled halfway around the world for this?

Just when I was starting to miss (recover from) some of the political back and forth back home, I came across this.



It's sort of like the comment section on Ed Cone's blog but with Aussie accents.

"Southernomics" in NC with a vengeance

Michael Lind at Salon.com provides an insightful summary of the "southern" (read conservative) political economic strategy to disempower workers.

The purpose of the age-old economic development strategy of the Southern states has never been to allow them to compete with other states or countries on the basis of superior innovation or living standards.  Instead, for generations Southern economic policymakers have sought to secure a lucrative second-tier role for the South in the national and world economies, as a supplier of commodities like cotton and oil and gas and a source of cheap labor for footloose corporations.  This strategy of specializing in commodities and cheap labor is intended to enrich the Southern oligarchy.  It doesn’t enrich the majority of Southerners, white, black or brown, but it is not intended to.

... The essence of the Southern economic model is not low taxation, but a lack of bargaining power by Southern workers of all races. Bargaining power at the bottom of the income scale is created by tight labor markets; unions; minimum wage laws combined with unemployment insurance; and social insurance, such as Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid.

With the state's centrist to moderately conservative Democrats being replaced by radically conservative Republicans, North Carolina is seeing this strategy played out a vengeance.