"However, the inequality between cities with the highest and lower poverty rates narrows considerably over this 18-year period. Here we observe a narrowing of both the ratio of crime rates as well as the absolute difference. Expressed as a ratio, the 1990 violent crime rate among the cities in the top poverty decile was 15.8 times the rate for the cities in the lowest poverty decile. By 2008, the ratio falls to 11.9. When expressed in levels, in 1990 the violent crime rate in the cities in the upper decile for poverty rates exceeds the violent crime rate in cities in the lowest decile for poverty rates by 1,860 incidents per 100,000. By 2008, the absolute difference in violent crime rates shrinks to 941 per 100,000. We see comparable narrowing in the differences between poorer and less-poor cities in property crime rates. ... "It remains true that one of the common penalties for being poor in the United States is that you are more likely to live in a neighborhood with a much higher crime rate. But as overall rates of crime have fallen, the inequality of greater vulnerability to crime has diminished.
"Many of the same low-income predominantly African American communities have disproportionately experienced both the welcome reduction in inequality for crime victims and the less-welcome rise in inequality due to changes in criminal justice sanctioning. While it is tempting to consider whether these two changes in inequality can be weighed and balanced against each other, it seems to us that this temptation should be resisted on both theoretical and practical grounds. On theoretical grounds, the case for reducing inequality of any type is always rooted in claims about fairness and justice. In some situations, several different claims about inequality can be combined into a single scale—for example, when such claims can be monetized or measured in terms of income. But the inequality of the suffering of crime victims is fundamentally different from the inequality of disproportionate criminal justice sanctioning, and cannot be compared on the same scale. In practical terms, while higher rates of incarceration and other criminal justice sanctions may have had some effect in reducing crime back in the 1970s and through the 1980s, there is little evidence to believe that the higher rates have caused the reduction in crime in the last two decades. Thus, it is reasonable to pursue multiple policy goals, both seeking additional reductions in crime and in the continuing inequality of crime victimization and simultaneously seeking to reduce inequality of criminal justice sanctioning. If such policies are carried out sensibly, both kinds of inequality can be reduced without a meaningful tradeoff arising between them."______________
Medicaid is a highly efficient program (see figure below), delivering health coverage to 70 million low-income persons while conveying many ancillary benefits on its beneficiaries, as Hannah Katch and I point out in the NYT oped.
So, of course, Republicans want to lay waste to it. They were blocked from doing so through their ACA repeal, they did a bit of it in their tax plan, and now they're going after Medicaid through the waiver process (which skirts Congress), by adding a work requirement. As Hannah and I stress, you can't feed or house your family on health coverage, so the incentive to work is already built into the program, which is why most able-bodied beneficiaries already work.
At any rate, it's going to take action at the state level to block this latest attack.
Turning to other current events, I wrote about jittery bond markets yesterday, trying to emphasize that heating is not overheating. We should expect to see inflation and interest rates on the rise, given how low they've been and the stage we're at in the expansion. Though granted, the Fed must try to look around corners, I don't see much evidence of real resource constraints building up.
Yet, bond rates spiked when the core CPI came out this AM at 0.3% over the month instead of 0.2%. Note that yr/yr core CPI came in at 1.8%, which, given that the CPI runs ~30bps hotter than core PCE, is much like the growth rate of the core PCE, which last come in at 1.5% (Nov/Nov). Both are well below the Fed's target rate.
As the next figure shows, breakeven rates, a measure of inflation expectations measured as the spread between rates on 10-yr TIPS and 10-yr Treasuries, have spiked a bit in recent days, as has the 10-year yield. But they're only back to levels from about a year ago, and, as noted, CPI core inflation itself remains well below target (which is 2.3-2.5 for core CPI).
This all comes down to a few key questions:
Q: Are resource constraints building in the economy?
A: Not that you'd see in inflation (realized or expected), interest rates, or wage growth. As for employment, the jobless rate is low but employment rates may have room to run.
Q: Have the benefits of the recovery reached deeply enough into all corners of the country?
A: It's getting there, but wage growth is under-performing and there are areas where the job market has not yet firmed up.
Perhaps most importantly:
Q: Are the risks to the Fed hitting the growth brakes symmetric or asymmetric?
A: They are asymmetric. Since inflation has been below target for years on end, achieving the Fed's 2% target, on average, requires some period of being above the target rate. Similarly, the least advantaged don't catch a buzz from the recovery until we hit and stay at chock-full employment. Both of these factors point to the likelihood of greater damage from pushing back too hard on growth right now than from maintaining a largely accommodative stance.
The night before his assassination in April 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King spoke before a group of striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee as they prepared for a march for civil rights, union recognition, and economic justice. The movement behind the strike started earlier that year, when two Memphis garbage collectors, Echol Cole and Robert Walker, were sucked in by a malfunctioning compactor mechanism on a garbage truck and crushed to death. On the same day, when a heavy rainstorm hit, the city sent 22 black sewer workers home without pay while their white supervisors were retained with a full-day's pay. 12 days later, more than 1,100 black men from the Memphis Department of Public Works went on strike, demanding recognition of their union, better safety standards, and a decent wage. The sanitation workers were led by garbage-collector-turned-union-organizer, T. O. Jones, and supported by the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).
Memphis Mayor Henry Loeb fought to break the workers' strike, and "refused to take dilapidated trucks out of service or pay overtime when men were forced to work late-night shifts. Sanitation workers earned wages so low that many were on welfare and hundreds relied on food stamps to feed their families." As Michael K. Honey writes in Going Down Jericho Road: The Memphis Strike, Martin Luther King's Last Campaign, one of the things Loeb was most fervent about opposing was the dues-checkoff provisions that the sanitation workers wanted in their union contract. The workers on strike in Memphis knew that a dues checkoff—whereby union members voluntarily authorize the employer to make regular deductions from an employee's wages to pay their union dues—was crucial to the union's survival, especially given that Tennessee had passed a so-called "right-to-work" law, which allowed nonunion members to refuse to pay their fair share of dues but still collect the same benefits as union members. Loeb surely knew that the powers conferred to workers in the union contract—including an increase in black sanitation workers' wages, protections for black workers from race-based employment discrimination, and a procedure for the black sanitation workers to file grievances against their white supervisors—would become wholly ineffective if the union could not collect dues to support its basic operations. More than once, the city had offered to settle the strike on the condition that dues checkoff be prohibited from their contract—but workers persisted, knowing that the "dues checkoff remained crucial, for without it, the union would not survive." One of the cofounders of the Community on the Move for Equality, Reverend Malcom Blackburn, even embodied dues checkoff in his call to action.
Our Henry, who art in City Hall,
Hard-headed be thy name.
Thy kingdom C.O.M.E.
Our will be done,
In Memphis, as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our Dues Checkoff,
And forgive us our boycott,
As we forgive those who spray MACE against us.
As lead us not into shame,
But deliver us from LOEB!
For OURS is justice, jobs, and dignity,
Forever and ever. Amen. FREEDOM!
—"Sanitation Workers' Prayer,"
Recited by Reverend Malcom Blackburn
The day after King arrived in Memphis the night of April 3, 1968, to speak to the group of sanitation workers, he was shot and killed stepping out of his room at the Lorraine Motel. On April 8, Coretta Scott King, the Southern Christian Leaderships Conference, and union leaders led approximately 42,000 people on a silent march through Memphis in Dr. King's honor, demanding that Loeb recognize the sanitation workers' requests. On April 16, the city finally recognized the sanitation workers' union and negotiated a contract, which included a dues checkoff.
Now, fifty years after Martin Luther King's efforts to help the sanitation workers gain union recognition, corporate interests are still fighting to undercut public-sector unions by crippling their financial support. On February 28, 2018, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a case called Janus v. AFSCME. Just as the funding for the sanitation workers union was at issue in their battle over a dues-checkoff provision in their contract, the financial stability of public-sector unions at issue in the Janus case.
Janus v. AFSCME could profoundly affect the ability of public-sector workers to improve their wages and working conditions. The case threatens the right of the majority of workers, through their democratically elected union, to bargain a contract with their public employer that requires every employee covered by the contract to pay their fair share of the costs of negotiating it, administering it, and enforcing it. The Supreme Court decided this issue forty years ago in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education and it has been the law of the land since.
Janus is nothing more than the latest attack on workers' rights to organize and bargain collectively. The Supreme Court considered this issue in its 2016-2017 term in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, which resulted in a 4-4 split decision upholding a lower court decision that permits public employee unions to assess fees on non-members who benefit from collective bargaining and union representation and who unions are required to represent. In any other circumstance, it would be outrageous to demand the benefits of a common enterprise without paying one's fair share. Union representation is no different. Eliminating fair share fees protects people who want to get something for nothing and as a result, starves unions. It is also profoundly undemocratic to elevate the objections of a minority over the democratically determined choices of the majority of workers.
This principle is what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was fighting for on the day he was killed, and it is what's at stake in Janus. The decision in this case will determine the future of effective unions, democratic decision making in the workplace, and the preservation of good, middle class jobs in public employment.
Trump's pardon of Joe Arpaio, former Sheriff of Maricopa County in Arizona, was a major set-back for immigrant and human rights activists who fought to remove him from office in 2016. The pardon gives a pass for elected officials and police to violate the civil rights of Latinos, primarily low-wage working-class Mexicans. Trump's critics explain the pardon by pointing to the President's history of racial discrimination. For Trump supporters, the pardon is a logical piece of his "Make America Great Again" campaign, which he announced with these now-familiar claims about Mexican immigrants: "When Mexico sends it people, they're not sending the best. . . . they're sending people that have lots of problems and they're bringing those problems. They're bringing drugs, they're bringing crime. They're rapists and some, I assume, are good people, but I speak to border guards and they're telling us what we're getting." Arpaio's description of his raids as "crime suppression sweeps" echoes this claim, but the court ruled that he had violated the Fourteenth Amendment. Instead of arresting criminals with outstanding warrants, the raids arrested day laborers and other low-wage workers. Targeting workers in immigration law enforcement and in legislations, such as Arizona's anti-immigrant SB 1070, is so obvious that industries relying on these workers have joined civil rights organizations in filing lawsuits to stop the rampant racial profiling of Latino workers.
To understand the impact of Trump's pardon of Joe Arpaio, we have to remember that the foundation for claiming that Mexican immigrants are criminals – rapist and drug dealer – was solidified in the legislation passed after the Oklahoma bombing to deter terrorism, which blurred the distinctions between "alien immigrant" and "criminal." In previous laws, being an "alien immigrant" was an administrative violation attached to one's status upon entering the U.S. without documentation. This category included people who had overstayed their visas or had expired green cards, as well as some other noncriminal circumstances. "Criminal aliens" referred to immigrants engaged in illegal behavior. AEDPA broadened the definition of "aggravated felony" for alien immigrants to include less serious convictions. The third category of alien immigrants are persons the state identifies as posing a grave risk to national security and are deportable as terrorists. By blurring the distinction between undocumented workers and criminals, the 1995 Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) provided Arpaio the opportunity to enter center stage in the immigration debate.
Arpaio's reputation as the "toughest sheriff" was not solely based on establishing a tent prison in the Arizona desert, banning coffee and cooked meals, or restoring chain gangs, but he first pushed the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office (MCSO) toward immigration law enforcement by offering ICE county resources to hold suspected "alien immigrants" and "criminal immigrants" until deportation. The formal partnership between ICE and MCSO allowed local law enforcement to engage in immigration law enforcement. MCSO was not only among the first local police forces to sign a contract with ICE; its agreement was one of the most expansive in the country. Along with obtaining military equipment to set up command centers during immigration raids, the MCSO, along with a volunteer posse, prioritized immigration law enforcement over local responsibilities.
Photo by Patrick Breen, The Arizona Republic
Maricopa County sheriff's deputies targeted Latinos during traffic stops on the presumption that they had entered the country illegally. This highly selective policing of Latinos cast a wide net, but it primarily targeted day laborers, and it resulted in some arrests of immigrants without documentation and even a few with minor offences. Businesses known to hire Mexican workers were targeted by following drivers to and from work. These raids were publicly reported as "crime suppression sweeps" but generally focused on law abiding alien immigrants. Selective stops of only persons appearing to be of Mexican ancestry reflected popular belief that Mexicans and other dark Latinos are immigrants, not citizens. The MCSO built on this problematic assumption by establishing a hotline for residents to report undocumented immigrants and criminals engaged in trafficking. Arpaio encouraged community support of his immigration law enforcement with ads like this: "HELP SHERIFF JOE ARPAIO FIGHT ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION & TRAFFICKING CALL 602.876.4145 WITH TIPS ON ILLEGAL ALIENS."
A class action lawsuit, Ortega Melendres vs. Arpario, finally ended Arpaio's career. Plaintiffs in the case identified a wide-range of MCSO policing practices in raids conducted between 2007-2008 that violated the agreement with ICE, such as using pretextual and unfounded stops, racially motived questioning, searches and other mistreatment, and often baseless arrests of Latinos. Deputies and members of the volunteer posse abused the unchecked discretion Sheriff Arpaio gave them, which established the conditions for these violations. In general, Arpaio condoned and participated in circulating racist commentary about Latinos, creating a general cultural of bias in the sheriff's office. U.S. District Judge G. Murray ruled that practices based on race violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
In 2011, Judge Snow issued a preliminary injunction against MCSO prohibiting further illegally targeting of Latinos. In 2013, the judge mandated changes to eliminate misconduct and future violations of the community's constitutional rights by the MCSO. Arpaio violated court orders to audio and video record all traffic stops, increase training and monitoring employees, and maintain comprehensive records.
Court monitoring found that Arpaio ignored the order and had not stopped enforcing immigration enforcement. Judge Snow found him in contempt of court and scheduled sentencing for October, 2017. Even though Arpaio was unlikely to do jail time, Trump pardoned him on August 25th.
Over his 24 years as sheriff, Arpaio was accused of numerous practices of police misconduct, mistreatment of prisoners, abuse of power, misuse of funds, failure to investigate sex crimes, unlawful enforcement of immigration laws, and election law violations. Over 2,700 law suits, concerning violations at the county's prisons alone, were filed against Arpaio in federal and county courts. The cost of paying law suits fell on the shoulders of hard working taxpayers in Maricopa County. The pardon is not only another step in normalizing xenophobia and hate in immigration law enforcement and a move toward Making America White Again, it also serves to enforce the vulnerability of undocumented workers.
Mary Romero
Mary Romero is a Professor of Justice and Social Inquiry at Arizona State University and President-Elect of the American Sociological Association. She has published articles on race, immigration, and law, and her most recent book is Introducing Intersectionality (Polity Press, 2017).
