Friday, October 5, 2018

Progress on Income and Poverty Continued Into 2017 But Abruptly Halted on Health Coverage, Census Data Show [feedly]

Progress on Income and Poverty Continued Into 2017 But Abruptly Halted on Health Coverage, Census Data Show
https://www.cbpp.org/research/poverty-and-inequality/progress-on-income-and-poverty-continued-into-2017-but-abruptly

ncome rose and poverty declined for the third straight year in 2017 but progress on health coverage halted and apparently began to reverse, according to Census data released September 12. One Census survey found no significant change in the share of Americans without health insurance in 2017, but a larger Census survey that is more sensitive to small changes showed the uninsured rate edged up slightly.  

 -- via my feedly newsfeed

Thursday, October 4, 2018

The USMCA is not a free trade deal. That’s because there are no free trade deals. [feedly]

The USMCA is not a free trade deal. That's because there are no free trade deals.
http://jaredbernsteinblog.com/the-usmca-is-not-a-free-trade-deal-thats-because-there-are-no-free-trade-deals/

INSIGHTS

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I'm doing my best to work through the text of the new NAFTA, now called YMCA, I mean CAMUS, no…wait…USMCA!

Trade agreements make for a dense read…here's a snippet from the Ag chapter, one of the 34 chapters, followed by "annexes" and "side letters":

"Parties recognize that under Article XI:2(a) of the GATT 1994, a Party may temporarily apply an export prohibition or restriction that is otherwise prohibited under Article XI:1 of the GATT 1994 on foodstuffs to prevent or relieve a critical shortage of foodstuffs, subject to meeting the conditions set out…"

It's just saying that in a food emergency, a party to the agreement can restrict food exports and remain in compliance, but I print that little example to make a larger point: There is no such thing as "free trade" and there are no "free trade agreements." FTAs are mythical creatures.

In the real world, agreements exist between trading partners that comprise hundreds of pages of rules by which they will engage in trade. These rules can be straightforward, like the one above, or seemingly obscure (have a look at the side letter on cheese names; as far as I know, I've never had Emmentaler cheese, but if this deal becomes law, I can enjoy it free of tariffs!).

Trade rules can favor workers, like the new language in support of independent Mexican unions, or investors, like the dispute settlement procedures that are somewhat weakened in the new agreement. It's all about who got a seat at the table when the deal was drawn up.

Before getting into some weeds on the new deal, I underscore this point so you don't confuse trade deals with trade, and especially with the trade balance (I'm talking to you, Trump). The CBO, which certainly doesn't have a protectionist thumb on the scale, recently pointed out that estimates of the impact of "trade agreements on the U.S. trade balance are very small and highly uncertain." The flows of goods, services, money, and financial assets will continue apace whether or not this deal is approved.

That doesn't mean trade deals don't matter. Instead, it means they have a lot more to do with who wins and loses from trade than whether cargo ships continue to sail the seas and trucks go back and forth across the borders of North America.

Many journalists have done nice work unpacking what's in the deal, so I'll just highlight some parts of interest.

Is this really that different a deal than the NAFTA? There are, as noted, differences, but they are not big enough for Trump to credibly claim that NAFTA was a horrible disaster while the USMCA is incredible. As noted, I don't see the deal, should it become law, changing the flows of goods, services, money, or people in ways that would change economic outcomes. New rules for Mexican auto production, including requirements for a) more production in the trade zone and b) a subset of Mexican auto workers to get paid $16 per hour (2-3 times their current wage), have led some to predict higher car prices.

It's possible, but nothing is that simple in international trade. Auto exporters trying to sell cars here in the US can forgo the duty-free benefits of the trade deal and pay the existing (WTO) auto tariff amounting to a mere 2.5 percent. And exchange rate movements can eventually swamp such price differences, especially as the $16 is not indexed to inflation.

It also must be underscored that Mexico has a lousy record of implementing and enforcing labor rights, so these changes—ones I view as clear improvements in the deal—will require close monitoring. I don't trust this administration to follow through on that.

What's good, what's bad in the deal? Some of the auto requirements just noted are intended to reduce the trade-induced wage arbitrage opportunities that have long hurt production workers exposed to export competition.

The new rules on Mexican unions are also a positive change. It's not just that these rules potentially make it easier for Mexican workers to form unions. It's that the unions could finally gain some true independence, as too often, Mexican unions have been Potemkin unions, fronts for management to impose harsh labor conditions with impunity. Again, this is where enforcement is especially crucial.

Though Canada got to keep one part of the dispute system they wanted—the one they use to fight over dumping and countervailing fees—the ISDS process (investor state dispute settlements) will be phased out for Canada and limited in Mexico. Trade expert Lori Wallach and I have discussed the serious problems with ISDS, as it provides a mechanism by which corporate rights could preempt sovereign rights at the expense of taxpayers. But before we get too excited about this change, we need to learn more about the carve-outs from the new rules. If it's too easy for favored industries to prosecute investment cases using the old NAFTA and TPP tribunals, then this change won't be meaningful.

What's bad in the new deal is the same stuff that was bad in the old one (same with TPP): protectionist measures that further belie the idea of "free trade." I'm talking here about patent and IP extensions that American lobbies like Big Pharma insist on as the price of their support (Dean Baker has some details here). Surely those complaining about higher car prices based on labor protections should be lodging the same complaints here.

Will Congress Approve the Deal?

Which Congress are you referring to? If the D's take the majority in the House, look for a whole lot of activism around improving enforcement and blocking ways for countries to get around any labor-friendly rules in the proposed deal. For one concrete example, they're want to raise that 2.5 percent tariff on auto imports to block companies from skirting the new, higher origin requirements in the USMCA.

But aside from those details—and who knows, I could see Trump and his trade rep, Bob Lighthizer, getting behind the House D's on preserving those protections—and based on what we know now, I suspect a majority in both chambers will want this deal to go through.


 -- via my feedly newsfeed

Summers on Trumpenomics

Trump hasn't prepared us for the inevitable economic slowdown  

Lawrence H. Summers is a professor at and past president of Harvard University. He was treasury secretary from 1999 to 2001 and an economic adviser to President Barack Obama from 2009 through 2010.

President Trump regularly and proudly takes credit for the U.S. economy's strong performance. And with rapid growth during the second quarter, the stock market strong, the unemployment rate back below 4 percent and the midterm elections looming, Trump's rhetoric and that of his supporters will probably escalate in coming months.

In fact, however, the president receives more of a boost from the strong economy than the other way around. This conclusion will only be reinforced if Trump's current steps toward a trade war retard U.S. economic performance, as is increasingly feared. A variety of observations are pertinent:

First, history suggests that presidential popularity rises with declining unemployment. It is reasonable to suppose that, if unemployment was at its historical average of 5.8 percent, instead of the current 3.9 percent, Trump's approval rating would fall lower than its already anemic level. As it is, he is less popular than any first-term president with an unemployment rate less than 5 percent.

Second, the acceleration of growth as we have observed is well within the normal range of growth forecast errors. Before the 2016 election, when a Trump presidency was not anticipated, consensus forecasts for the U.S. economy were 2.2 percent growth for 2017 and 2.1 percent for 2018. The actual outcome in 2017 of 2.2 percent and the current consensus forecast of 2.8 percent for 2018 do not represent a statistically significant fluctuation from the mean.

Third, it appears that growth has accelerated and exceeded expectations to a greater extent outside the United States, suggesting that whatever is driving America's growth is global, rather than something for which U.S. policy can be credited. While the United States met its expectations for 2017, other parts of the world — including China, Europe and Japan — exceeded expectations. And, looking at 2018 estimates, the U.S. growth rate improvement looks likely to lag behind the world once again.

Fourth, market evidence calls into question the idea that the United States has become a highly attractive place to invest because of Trump's policies. Net foreign direct investment in the United States was down nearly two-thirds in the first quarter of 2018 over the first quarter of 2016.

Goldman Sachs analysts have demonstrated that U.S. companies that do more business abroad have outperformed those that are more domestically focused. And there is the basic observation that, even before trade war fears took hold, the dollar had declined during the Trump presidency. 

Fifth, the underlying reason the U.S. economy is strong right now is that it has been possible to run a taut economy with unemployment below 4 percent and not face significant inflationary pressures. No one is quite sure why this is the case. It is probable that some combination of globalization, technology and the reduction of employee power as unions have weakened have changed the inflation process. It is difficult to see why Trump deserves credit for these structural changes, which have been happening for a long time.

Sixth, there is what Ben Bernanke, the former Federal Reserve chairman, has labeled the "Wile E. Coyote" issue, for the cartoon character with a penchant for heedlessly sprinting off the edge of cliffs. It may well be that an element of current success that can be attributed to Trump administration policy is borrowing prosperity from the future. This is most obvious in the case of the soybean exports that were accelerated to avoid tariffs, but it is fairly ubiquitous. 

Fiscal stimulus is like a drug with tolerance effects; to keep growth constant, deficits have to keep getting larger. Some combination of gathering foreign storm clouds, the end of growing fiscal stimulus and the delayed effect of tightening monetary policies may converge to slow or end the expansion. 

The choices this administration is making invite foreign retaliation against U.S. exporters and use up fiscal capacity — even as the economy is growing rapidly. Because of this, and because there is limited room for monetary policy, the country will not be in a position to respond strongly if a downturn comes. All the more reason, therefore, to avoid pulling demand forward. 

This is all quite dangerous. The president has taken credit for far more economic success than he deserves. He will disproportionately be blamed when the downturn comes. What follows will be a test of our democracy.

--
John Case
Harpers Ferry, WV
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Tuesday, October 2, 2018

Latest in the Stiglitz-- Summers debate

Amazon boosts minimum wage to $15 for all workers following criticism



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Amazon boosts minimum wage to $15 for all workers following criticism // washingtonpost.com - Business
https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/business/2018/10/02/amazon-announces-it-will-boost-minimum-wage-all-workers-after-facing-criticism/

Amazon has come under harsh criticism over the years for what some say are poor working conditions in its warehouses.
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Read in my feedly.com

West Virginia per capita incomes by county

West Virginia per capita and Household incomes at the Median. Rank is in set of all US Counties -- 3203


Rank County-equivalent State Per capita income Median household income Median family income Population Number of households
371 355 Jefferson West Virginia $29,605 $65,304 $77,447 54131 19889
497 476 Kanawha West Virginia $28,174 $46,085 $58,481 192311 82756
522 500 Putnam West Virginia $27,957 $54,854 $65,900 56033 21391
811 781 Berkeley West Virginia $26,264 $53,515 $61,575 105812 40447
842 811 Ohio County West Virginia $26,135 $41,025 $57,865 44156 18553
900 867 Monongalia West Virginia $25,846 $44,173 $68,101 98483 36449
1243 1199 Marshall West Virginia $24,329 $40,681 $51,779 32840 14042
1320 1274 Wood West Virginia $24,042 $42,287 $53,647 86779 35569
1427 1377 Cabell West Virginia $23,647 $38,374 $52,300 96604 40144
1512 1461 Harrison West Virginia $23,309 $43,183 $54,364 69078 27599
1524 1473 Hancock West Virginia $23,261 $38,522 $49,200 30517 12890
1537 1486 Marion West Virginia $23,229 $42,152 $53,822 56666 22593
1545 1494 Nicholas West Virginia $23,209 $40,064 $48,275 26168 10657
1611 NaN NaN West Virginia $22,966 $41,043 $52,165 1853619 741390
1659 1606 Brooke West Virginia $22,815 $42,493 $55,605 23932 9968
1733 1679 Jackson West Virginia $22,527 $40,376 $53,355 29229 11459
1788 1734 Morgan West Virginia $22,312 $36,046 $51,724 17502 7343
1918 1863 Wirt West Virginia $21,852 $34,702 $43,795 5796 2427
1923 1868 Raleigh West Virginia $21,837 $40,758 $49,936 78993 31364
1953 1897 Greenbrier West Virginia $21,720 $37,895 $48,487 35588 15409
1967 1911 Wetzel West Virginia $21,653 $37,969 $49,622 16435 6903
1975 1919 Boone West Virginia $21,627 $42,156 $54,315 24517 9559
2034 1978 Preston West Virginia $21,457 $45,413 $52,128 33666 12697
2077 2021 Pleasants West Virginia $21,312 $41,859 $57,604 7602 2747
2090 2034 Pendleton West Virginia $21,253 $34,175 $47,745 7603 3274
2112 2056 Lewis West Virginia $21,175 $36,199 $44,653 16411 6451
2121 2065 Tucker West Virginia $21,126 $37,635 $49,677 7061 3050
2182 2126 Taylor West Virginia $20,848 $39,536 $48,618 16906 6878
2211 2155 Tyler West Virginia $20,704 $39,206 $47,671 9120 3712
2231 2175 Mason West Virginia $20,622 $38,411 $44,401 27271 10609
2236 2179 Mingo West Virginia $20,609 $35,955 $47,986 26460 10827
2294 2236 Mercer West Virginia $20,391 $34,842 $44,751 62261 25641
2300 2242 Pocahontas West Virginia $20,373 $33,779 $43,975 8723 3694
2328 2270 Monroe West Virginia $20,294 $41,234 $46,707 13512 5648
2357 2299 Grant West Virginia $20,193 $41,368 $51,667 11869 4449
2418 2360 Logan West Virginia $19,901 $36,999 $47,700 36442 14699
2445 2387 Mineral West Virginia $19,788 $31,163 $48,910 28015 11180
2494 2436 Randolph West Virginia $19,595 $37,276 $48,547 29399 11163
2511 2453 Upshur West Virginia $19,498 $39,381 $49,740 24371 9011
2514 2456 Wayne West Virginia $19,497 $36,964 $46,749 42007 16555
2622 2563 Hardy West Virginia $19,032 $32,723 $43,097 13922 5020
2712 2653 Fayette West Virginia $18,685 $33,771 $42,182 45889 17250
2720 2661 Braxton West Virginia $18,635 $31,848 $43,884 14524 5780
2752 2693 Lincoln West Virginia $18,458 $35,487 $42,293 21660 8416
2768 2709 Wyoming County West Virginia $18,377 $34,454 $47,602 23479 9101
2827 2768 Calhoun West Virginia $18,053 $31,679 $41,920 7603 3141
2848 2789 Webster West Virginia $17,937 $27,645 $34,786 9073 3928
2863 2804 Barbour West Virginia $17,876 $37,327 $44,395 16655 6099
2864 2805 Gilmer West Virginia $17,870 $38,442 $49,852 8678 2590
2871 2812 Ritchie West Virginia $17,843 $35,769 $45,615 10303 4032
2888 2829 Hampshire West Virginia $17,734 $27,766 $45,831 23746 10570
2928 2868 Summers West Virginia $17,416 $33,784 $44,595 13795 5350
2938 2878 Roane West Virginia $17,341 $28,513 $38,920 14807 5975
2941 2881 Doddridge West Virginia $17,334 $34,817 $43,622 8213 2778
3019 2959 Clay West Virginia $16,740 $31,613 $42,629 9352 3435
3159 3099 McDowell West Virginia $14,093 $22,252 $30,671 21651 8229

Monday, October 1, 2018

One way to raise wages is, uh, to raise wages.


Jared Bernstein



While middle-class wages haven't grown much in inflation-adjusted terms over the past few years, that's not the case for many lower-wage workers. Recent analysis by economist Elise Gould shows, for example, that while median pay was unchanged in 2017, low pay — the 10th-percentile wage, meaning 90 percent of workers earn more — rose at a strong clip of 3.7 percent. Follow-up work by Gould shows roughly similar results through the first half of this year.

There are (at least) two explanations for this pattern. First, when the economy sniffles, disadvantaged workers catch pneumonia. That is, lower-paid workers get disproportionately hurt by labor market slack and vice versa. High earners are far less sensitive to the ups and downs of the business cycle. Low unemployment provides low-wage earners the bargaining clout they lack in slack economies.

The second explanation is even simpler: minimum wage increases. I realize it's a very big "duh" to point out that raising the pay of low-wage workers ends up … um … raising their pay, but this simple fact gets obscured in the debate over raising minimum wages.

If you follow this policy, you know that I'm of course talking about state- and city-level increases. The federal minimum wage has been stuck at a ridiculously low $7.25 for almost a decade. But since the 1990s, subnational entities have stepped up and raised the minimum wage. Some of the places are the usual suspects, such as California, New York, Massachusetts and the District. Some other places, such as Arizona and South Dakota, might surprise you (the pay floors in both states hit $10.50 and $8.85, respectively, this year). But at this point, the federal minimum wage is basically the Southern minimum wage.

In fact, the figure below shows how much faster low wages went up in states that raised their minimums. The differential for female workers is particularly large.


Source: Elise Gould, EPI

Recent analysis I've done suggests that both of these factors — higher minimum wages and low unemployment — combine for a potent one-two punch to knock out wage stagnation for low-wage workers.

Based on a data set of low wages by state over the past couple of decades, I built a simple statistical model that predicts real 10th-percentile wages, using just a few variables, including the unemployment rate and where your state minimum wage is relative to the federal rate. This approach lets us to test whether low-wage workers get bigger bumps in places with higher state-level minimums compared with the federal level.

The modeling reveals that this is, unsurprisingly, the case. In California, for example, low wages rose quickly from 2015 through 2017, up by 10 percent in real terms. My results find that their increase in the minimum wage, which went from $9 to $10 in 2016, explains about a third of those gains, while lower unemployment explains about 10 percent. The magnitude of these results is just about the same for Arizona, which significantly raised its minimum from about $8 to $10. Real low wages were up 10 percent there from 2015 through 2017, with the minimum-wage increase accounting for a third of the 10th-percentile wage gain.

On the other hand, even as unemployment fell in Texas last year to a low 4.3 percent, low wages also fell slightly, showing that low-wage workers can't always count on falling unemployment alone to help them get ahead. But had Texas raised its minimum from, say, $7.25 to $8.25, that would have more than offset the Lone Star State wage decline. Low-wage workers in Texas need the belt-and-suspenders policy of tight labor markets and higher minimum wages.

So, with apologies for repetition, the recipe for boosting the pay of low-wage workers has at least two clear ingredients: low unemployment and higher minimum wages. That's not the complete recipe, of course. Unions, job training/apprenticeships, work supports (wage subsidies, health care and housing), direct job creation in places where labor demand remains low, and an accommodative Federal Reserve all matter a lot, too. But of all of these, higher minimum wages are the most direct way to raise market wages for low-wage workers.

At this point, if not sooner, someone always raises the specter of minimum-wage increases leading to job losses among low-wage workers. There's been extensive, careful research on this question, tapping precisely the kind of regional variation that drives the model cited above. Summarizing, minimum-wage increases of the magnitudes we've seen in recent years do not generate significant job-loss effects. Even in cases where some losses occur, the benefits of the wage hike far surpass its costs, meaning low-wage workers come out ahead (they may work fewer hours but at higher pay).

I can show this using my model as well. Using state-level data on total employment, restaurant employment and fast-food employment, I ran the model with the same control variables: unemployment and the state minimum relative to the federal. In every case, the correlation was a big negative for unemployment (obviously, as lower unemployment and faster job growth are inversely correlated) but zero for the minimum wage variable.

Intrepid nerds are welcomed to go to my blog for statistical details, but rest assured, these are all common findings. What's far too uncommon is the willingness of policymakers to recognize that raising pay for low-wage workers is no mystery. They just have to shut their doors on the low-wage employer lobby and raise the minimum wage.


--
John Case
Harpers Ferry, WV
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