The Walking Dead: WV legislature version

 I had to stop watching “The Walking Dead” television show a few years ago. It reminded me too much of real life.

I’m not saying that dead and decomposing people are literally shuffling around eating the living and turning those who get bitten by them into fellow flesh-eating walkers. Not yet anyway, although not much surprises me lately.

But it is the case that harmful policies and ideas that should long ago have been decently buried are shuffling around with considerable alacrity in the Legislature. And they do bite.

One such walker is Senate Bill 59, which would cut down on unemployment insurance for workers who lose their jobs from no fault of their own. A similar bill was defeated and buried last year, but it’s returned from the crypt. As was the case last year, the bill passed the Senate. Last year, fortunately, it died in the House of Delegates. This year, its fate is up for grabs.

The short version is that the bill would increase the number of hoops that people who have lost their jobs or been laid off need to jump through to get a fraction of their usual earnings, possibly threatening their ability to access this lifeline for their families.

If that weren’t bad enough, it also reduces the eligibility period for receiving unemployment insurance from 26 weeks to as little as 12, depending on the state unemployment average.

That’s another problem. West Virginia is a very economically diverse state, with unemployment, poverty and other measures of economic well-being (or the lack of it) varying widely from county to county. A statewide index would basically shackle the majority of rural counties to employment conditions that prevail in more urban and prosperous areas.

Not to pick on Monongalia County, but it’s in a different economic universe than counties like McDowell, Mingo, Logan, Wyoming, Calhoun, Clay, Wirt, etc. Mon and other counties with more economic options shouldn’t set the pace for the entire state.

Further, people laid off from well-paying jobs, such as mining or manufacturing, often take longer to find comparable work with their skill set because of local market conditions.

Let’s play it out a little further. Imagine a machinist or electrician laid off with a reduced term of eligibility. They might well take a job paying much less than a living wage that doesn’t take advantage of their knowledge or skills, while knocking someone else out of a job at the lower end of the market. When employment conditions improve, they’ll drop the old job like a hot potato, simply creating more churning and turnover for their new employer.

The ultimate effect would be to drive down wages for all workers, not to mention cause an economic loss to local economies. Unemployment benefits get spent really quickly on the basics.

These benefits also help ward off other social problems. Research on child well-being shows that economic supports in hard times increase the “protective factors” for kids and families. Every additional $1,000 spent by states on benefits is associated with a reduction in child maltreatment reports, less substantiated child maltreatment and fewer kids in foster care.

A recent study published in Demography, Duke University’s research journal, even found that “the harmful effects of job loss on opioid overdose mortality decline with increasing state unemployment insurance benefit levels. These findings suggest that social policy in the form of income transfers played a crucial role in disrupting the link between job loss and opioid overdose mortality.”

According to the authors, there is “a growing body of evidence that [unemployment insurance] may mitigate the harmful effects of job loss on physical, mental, and behavioral health outcomes. They concluded that “cuts to social welfare benefits such as [unemployment insurance] have second-order effects on outcomes such as health that extend well beyond basic financial needs.”

All of which is to say that being poor and unemployed isn’t nearly as much fun as some rich people seem to think.

To be fair, sometimes well-meaning people confuse unemployed workers with those not in the labor force and think cutting unemployment insurance will boost labor force participation. They are actually two different populations. The labor force consists of all workers, including those who recently lost jobs through no fault of their own.

If the intent is to boost labor market participation, rather than just stick it to families that hit a rough spot, there are better ways to do that, some of which have been proposed as bills in this session. One obvious step in the right direction would be increasing state investments in child care, which can cost more than a college education and typically hit at a time when a family’s earning capacity hasn’t reached full bloom.

Another would be to support policies such as a Medicaid buy-in that would help lower wage workers keep health benefits if they have a chance to get a raise. Or West Virginia could join the number of states that offer refundable child tax credits or earned income tax credits.

Incredibly, while some state lawmakers support cutting assistance for the jobless, others have called for setting aside $500 million in American Rescue Plan money intended to help families and communities with the damage done by COVID to give away as corporate handouts to mostly out-of-state corporations.

It’s a question of priorities. Are we going to stand beside a coal miner’s daughter whose dad gets a layoff notice from the mine, or are we going to turn our back on them?

(This ran as a column/op-ed in the Charleston Gazette-Mail.)

Some people really do want it all

 Lately I’ve concluded that some people really do want it all.

For evidence, we don’t have to look much farther than the legislature, where some bills under consideration would strip away some of the few remaining protections for working people, especially some of the working people that politicians pretend to care for: workers in mining, manufacturing, and construction. Those are the kind of jobs that promote stable families and communities.

Senate Bills 2 and 3 would harm workers and their families by reducing and radically restructuring the unemployment insurance (UI) system. SB 2 would cut eligibility for UI from 26 weeks to 12 in most cases. SB 3 would increase the amount of paperwork, bureaucracy and hoops unemployed people would have to jump through.

The overall effect would be to drive down wages for everyone by making it harder for people to find jobs that pay a living wage.

This is a classic case of a solution in search of a problem. The state unemployment rate is at a historic low of 3.7 percent.

 In a January press release, Governor Justice, with the apparent approval of Babydog, said “When you think about what we’ve accomplished over the past three months with our unemployment rate, it’s unbelievable…We shattered the all-time record. Then we came back and did it again the next month. And now we’ve shattered it all over again this month.”

The state’s unemployment fund is as good as it’s ever been. As a result, premiums paid by employers into the fund have been reduced.

If the bills are passed that main outcome would be a further weakening the position of workers in the labor market in the interest of those who want to pay the lowest possible wage at a time when inequality is at record levels…which goes back to the some-people-want-it-all thing.

But those bills aren’t the only games in town. House Bill 4394 would make it harder for workers and/or their families who are injured or killed on the job from seeking compensation. Specifically, the bill deals with the issue of deliberate intent, which makes employers liable if they know of unsafe working conditions but take no action to correct them.

Nationwide, workplace hazards kill, injure, and/or disable more than 100,000 workers each year. In 2019, for example, 5,333 workers died on the job from traumatic injuries. Many more die from occupational diseases.

It’s hard for even a cynic like me to fathom how this could pass in West Virginia, where we can measure out our lives with industrial accidents and disasters. 

Without even trying to exercise my memory, which isn’t what it used to be, I can recall the Freedom Industries water crisis that affected around 300,000 people, the Upper Big Branch mine explosion that killed 29 miners, the Sago mine disaster that killed 12, the Aracoma mine fire in Logan County where two miners died, the Willow Island tower collapse in Pleasants County that killed 51 construction workers, the Pittston Coal Buffalo Creek disaster that killed 125, and the Farmington mine disaster that killed 78.

That doesn’t even cover the untold thousands here whose lives were shortened or made miserable by Black Lung and other work-related diseases and injuries.

I mean, really.

This gruesome record reminds me of a line from a labor song about just this issue: “If blood be the price of your cursed wealth, good God, we have paid it in full.”

On a less dramatic note, another bill that could hurt workers and their families is House Bill 4007, which would reduce and ultimately phase out the state income tax, which is the only tax in the state that doesn’t fall hardest on those with lower incomes. The biggest beneficiaries are the wealthiest. 

Even Adam Smith, author of the 1776 Wealth of Nations, a celebration of emerging capitalism, would not approve. In his classic, he wrote that “The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state.”

This would ultimately result in making our tax system even more regressive by increasing consumption taxes on poor and working people or else result in cuts to programs that invest in health, economic opportunities, education and training, public safety, etc. for communities, seniors, kids and families. Or some combination thereof.

So yes, some people really do want it all. 

The only question is, are they going to get it?

(This ran as an op-ed in the Charleston Gazette-Mail.)

Annals of arrogance

This is rich. Paul Ryan, an Ayn Rand Kool-Aid imbiber who claims to be a Catholic and pretends to care about the poor, decides to lecture Pope Francis about the folly of the pontiff's economic views. I guess maybe next he should also try to teach Jesus, the Hebrew prophets, and possibly God Almighty about the folly of their ways...

Shoddy gods

By way of wikipedia, The Worship of Mammon, 1909, by Evelyn De Morgan.

Lots of people take up blogging in order to rant. For the most part, I didn't and generally try to keep Goat Rope relatively rant-free or at least keep the impulse under control.

Ordinarily, I go for a fairly serene tone here, with reflections on some ethereal topic followed by links and comments about current events. I'd prefer to be blogging about Beowulf now. However, I feel the need to rant today.

It occurs to me that of all the causes to which people have thrown their lives away or surrendered their ideals, integrity and _____ (fill in the appropriate body parts), the most pathetic is to utterly surrender one's human autonomy to the service of plutocracy and grovel at the feet of it. I'm sure it's a good gig for those who can take it, but it is one utterly devoid of honor.

Of course, people need economic resources to survive and thrive. That's what the fight is about. And in pursuing those things, we all have to do things we'd rather not. But here as elsewhere there is a line that sometimes gets crossed.

I can understand the appeal of many of the lesser gods humans have served, whether these are viewed as mere symbolic personifications or real persons. Aphrodite, Ares, Artemis, Hermes, Isis, and even violent ones like Kali and Tlaloc may have their limited place in the scheme of things. But surely Mammon is the shoddiest idol of all.

I have much more sympathy for those who sin in the service of some love or passion for an individual, a group or an ideal than those who choose greed for the filthy lucre or servility to those who command it.

(Regarding the applications of the above rant, which are Legion, as Bob Marley sang, "Who the cap fit, let them wear it.")

KOCHED RED HANDED. Here's more on the Koch crank call to Wisconsin's governor about billionaire backed union busting.

AND, WHILE WE'RE AT IT, a friend pointed out to me today that the aforementioned Wisconsin governor in his conversation with an imagined Koch didn't really talk about the state budget. Wasn't that what all this was supposed to be about? But, as Paul Krugman argues, in reality it's a classic case of applying what Naomi Klein called the shock doctrine.

A MODEST PROPOSAL. Here's an idea for West Virginia: set aside a portion of severance tax revenues to create a trust fund that could be used to promote job creation once extractive industries decline.

HOWEVER, rather than bold endeavours, it looks like the WV legislature is scaling back legislation to regulate the Marcellus Shale gas boom.

A LITTLE GOOD NEWS. The West Virginia CHIP (Children's Health Insurance) board voted yesterday to raise eligibility for the program to 300 percent of the federal poverty level. Previously, benefits were capped at 250 percent. As I understand it, this will cover around an additional 800+ children when fully implemented, although the news article linked above uses a slightly lower figure.

A LITTLE NOT SO AWFUL NEWS. Jobless claims dropped more than expected last week.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED