Now is still a good time to raise the minimum wage [feedly]

Now is still a good time to raise the minimum wage
https://www.epi.org/blog/now-is-still-a-good-time-to-raise-the-minimum-wage/

With minimum wages set to rise next week in Nevada, Oregon, Illinois, and the District of Columbia—as well as in Chicago, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and 12 other smaller cities and counties—it's not surprising that business groups that always oppose higher minimum wages are calling for states and cities to put scheduled increases on hold in light of the coronavirus pandemic. There is no question that the pandemic has created unprecedented challenges for state and local economies, but the case for raising wages for low-wage workers hasn't changed. If anything, current conditions make it even more important for governments to strengthen pay standards, especially those that help low-income households.

The number one problem for businesses right now isn't excessive labor costs, it's a lack of demand. The federal government's failure to quickly implement large-scale testing, contact tracing, and containment programs in the early days of the coronavirus' spread forced most state and local governments to effectively put their economies into hibernation—limiting business activity to slow the spread of the virus. As cities and states reopen their economies, the central challenge for businesses and economic policymakers will be restoring consumer demand and making regular economic activity safe in the face of continued legitimate concern over the virus.

From a general macroeconomic perspective, raising the minimum wage in a period of depressed consumer demand is smart policy. Minimum wage hikes put extra dollars in the pockets of people who are highly likely to spend every additional cent they receive, often just to make ends meet. Workers who benefit from an increased minimum wage disproportionately come from low-income households that spend a larger share of their income than business owners, corporate shareholders, and higher-income households, who are likely to save at least some portion of the dollars that finance a minimum wage hike. As a result, raising the minimum wage boosts overall consumer demand, with research showing that past raises have spurred greater household buying, notably on dining out and automobiles. (Such findings are a good reminder that relatively small increases in a worker's paycheck might be all that is needed for them to qualify for an auto loan or a mortgage.)

Because a higher minimum wage lifts up lower-income households—although some middle-income households benefit too—it is likely to have a stronger effect than many—possibly even most—other recession response measures state and local policymakers might consider. Tax breaks or deferrals, rent subsidies, expanded lending programs, and other business-oriented relief measures all can help firms weather a downturn, but they're not going to drive additional spending in the same way that a minimum wage hike does.

It's understandable why, in a downturn, some policymakers would be concerned about the additional cost to businesses from raising the minimum wage, but expenses from a minimum wage hike are far more easily absorbed than other common business expenses. For example, if a store's rent goes up, they might be able to raise prices to offset the added expense, but there is no reason why a landlord raising the rent would mean that the store's clientele suddenly have more money to spend. However, if a local minimum wage hike drives a business to modestly raise its prices, at least the store owners know that workers throughout the local economy are receiving larger paychecks. This is one reason why decades of research have shown that businesses are generally able to absorb higher minimum wages without any meaningful negative impact on jobs.

If policymakers are genuinely concerned about aiding local small businesses, they should target support to help them adapt to the crisis and lessen non-labor expenses that are typically a larger share of operating costs anyway. For most small businesses, commercial rents are often their largest expense. The optimal policy response then would be to let minimum wage hikes go forward—helping struggling low-income workers and boosting consumer demand—and simultaneously consider some small business subsidies, such as tax deferrals, rent subsidies, special lending programs, or other supports that help these businesses ride out the pandemic. Governments might also help businesses adopt socially-distant operating practices, such as expanding availability of outdoor seating space for restaurants or providing free personal protective equipment (PPE).

Finally, it's worth noting that in current labor market conditions—when unemployment is high and workers don't have many job options available to them—employers' wage-setting power is even more pronounced. In other words, workers have even less bargaining power than usual to try to push for a raise, which is one reason why many workers categorized as "essential" have been required to work without any additional compensation for the added risk they face on the job.

In a state like Virginia, which has already delayed the minimum wage increase originally passed by the legislature, more than one in five "essential" workers have incomes at or near the poverty line. Raising the minimum wage at a time like this can help push wage levels to a more reasonable equilibrium, providing low-wage workers—who are far less likely to be able to telework—with some added compensation at a time when many are being asked to shoulder greater risk on the job. Indeed, higher minimum wages disproportionately benefit women workers and workers of color, both of whom are disproportionately represented in frontline industries and "essential" jobs.

 -- via my feedly newsfeed

EPI: Trump’s ban on temporary work visas is an attempt to scapegoat immigrants during an economic collapse

Trump's ban on temporary work visas is an attempt to scapegoat immigrants during an economic collapse: Real reform would improve wages and working conditions
https://www.epi.org/blog/trumps-ban-on-temporary-work-visas-is-an-attempt-to-scapegoat-immigrants-during-an-economic-collapse-real-reform-would-improve-wages-and-working-conditions/

President Trump has issued a new proclamation "Suspending Entry of Aliens Who Present a Risk to the U.S. Labor Market Following the Coronavirus Outbreak," that will halt the issuance of certain major categories of nonimmigrant (i.e. temporary) work visas until the end of 2020, and calls for a number of rule changes with respect to work visas and work authorization. (A presidential proclamation is essentially the same as an executive order.) This follows his April proclamation that would suspend a third of immigrant visas from being issued (immigrant visas are also known as "green cards," which confer foreign residents with lawful permanent resident status that can eventually lead to citizenship). The language in the April proclamation, which was initially valid for 60 days, also directed federal agencies to examine nonimmigrant work visas; this new proclamation appears to be the result of that effort. Trump's new proclamation extends the duration of the April proclamation banning certain green cards until the end of 2020.

Trump's June 2020 proclamation will suspend the issuance of new temporary work visas to migrants and their family members if they are applying from abroad, between now and December 31, 2020, but does not appear to suspend the issuance of visa statuses for those applying from within the United States. The impacted visa classifications are the H-1B for occupations requiring a college degree, H-2B for low-wage jobs outside of agriculture, L-1 for intracompany transferees and personnel with specialized knowledge, and some of the major programs that authorize employment in the J-1 Exchange Visitor Program, specifically the J-1 Intern, Trainee, Teacher, Camp Counselor, Au Pair, and Summer Work Travel programs.

While most of these visa classifications are issued to applicants at consulates abroad and are therefore suspended, the H-1B is an exception. In 2019, 60% of new H-1Bs were issued to migrants who were already present in the United States, often on a student visa. Therefore, the H-1B program will be less impacted in terms of a reduction in visas. (It may even result in a higher share of foreign graduates of U.S. universities being granted H-1B status, since they'll be applying from within the country.)

The proclamation contains exceptions for migrant workers whose work will support the food supply chain or serve the national interest by being either critical to defense, law enforcement, diplomacy, or national security; if they're involved with the provision of COVID-19 medical care or research; or if their work is otherwise necessary to facilitate the economic recovery of the United States.

In addition, the proclamation calls for the Department of Labor (DOL) to promulgate rules to ensure that current migrant workers in the country with EB-2 or EB-3 green cards, or current H-1B visa holders, do not disadvantage U.S. workers—though it did not provide specific information on what they're considering in that regard. The proclamation also calls on the State Department and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to collect additional biometric information from visa applicants, it prohibits DHS from issuing employment authorization documents to migrants in the United States if they are subject to a final order of removal or if they've been convicted of a criminal offense, and it directs DHS to consider promulgating regulations on H-1B that would result in an "efficient allocation" of visas, which likely means prioritizing the issuance of visas by the highest wage offers, as some government officials have recently hinted at. (A very similar order on the allocation of H-1B visas was issued in section 5(b) of Trump's Buy American, Hire American (BAHA) executive order in 2017, but has yet to be acted upon.)

There's no denying that work visa programs desperately need to be reformed in order to be fairer to the 1.6 million temporary migrant workers who are currently employed with nonimmigrant visas, and to U.S. workers. There's plenty of evidencethat temporary migrant workers can be legally underpaid and are often exploited, in part because their visas are almost always tied to one employer who owns and controls their status. That visa status is what determines the worker's right to remain in the country; if they lose their job, they lose their visa and become deportable. Visa program rules also make it easy for employers to avoid hiring U.S. workers in favor of temporary migrants, and even replace them. There is very little oversight of temporary work visa programs; in fact, most of the programs have no rules in place at all to protect migrants after they arrive in the United States, and in the programs that have rules, there's little enforcement, and frequent and extreme violators of these rules are often allowed to continue hiring. And most temporary migrant workers—despite the contributions they make—never have a chance to become permanent residents or naturalized citizens.

Nevertheless, temporary work visas are one of the few existing pathways for migrants to contribute to the United States economically, socially, and culturally—which is why every administration should prioritize reforming visa programs in ways that uplift labor standards for all and ensure migrants are paid and treated fairly, and allow them to have a chance to quickly adjust to permanent resident status. But is this proclamation an honest attempt to fix U.S. temporary work visa programs? Undoubtedly, the answer is no.

Instead of offering thoughtful reforms, it slaps a blanket ban on a handful of visa programs. And it does so during a time when almost no temporary visas are being issued. In case the administration hasn't noticed, the immigration system is already shut down, almost entirely, as a result of the pandemic, except for temporary migrant workers employed in agriculture with H-2A visas, which are not mentioned in the proclamation. We have yet to see any signs of when regular visa processing will resume at consulates abroad. Considering the number of new coronavirus infections continues to increase rapidly in the United States and abroad, it's difficult to imagine the immigration system opening back up anytime soon. Would any of the banned visas have been issued in these programs before the end of the year absent this proclamation? I'm not convinced they would have, and at least one prominent immigration lawyer also holds that view.

Even before taking office, Trump was claiming he would fix temporary work visa programs, noting in an address as president-elect that he would direct DOL to investigate visa abuses. Trump later issued the BAHA Executive Order in 2017, which called on federal agencies to improve the H-1B visa program. But so far, nothing of substance has been done to raise wages for temporary migrant workers in visa programs, or to improve conditions for the U.S. workers that are employed alongside them in similar jobs. Instead—despite the absence of new rules or worker protections—before the pandemic, the number of visas issued in the programs where most abuses occur was actually increasing.

There are also no long-term, meaningful changes proposed to fix the H-1B or H-2B visa programs. None are proposed either for the J-1 or L-1 visa programs, or the Optional Practical training program, all of which have no wage rules, no annual numerical limits (except for J-1 Summer Work Travel), and no oversight or enforcement by DOL to protect labor standards. Many of the solutions are simple and enjoy bipartisan support, but it doesn't appear that the Trump administration is engaging seriously with those ideas. For example, a real and meaningful reform of the H-1B and L-1 visa programs would require enacting the bipartisan H-1B and L-1 Visa Reform Act, which was recently reintroduced in the House and Senate by a bipartisan group of legislators, but Trump has never indicated if he supports the bill.

In light of all this, the new proclamation looks to be mostly symbolic and is likely a political tactic to blame immigrants for high unemployment, despite that fact that they had nothing to do with causing it. The economy has lost more than 30 millionjobs because of the pandemic and federal lawmakers' failure to provide adequate support to keep workers on payrolls, failure to provide aid to state and local governments whose tax revenues have plummeted, and failure to implement public health measures that would allow the economy to reopen successfully. The proclamation is ultimately a distraction from the real problems in our economy and a blatant attempt to divide working people based on race and status.

Since he didn't try to reform work visa programs during the first three and a half years of his administration, there's good reason to be skeptical that Trump will suddenly decide to improve conditions for workers with just five months left before the general election. The fact that on the same day as the proclamation, DHS posted the text of a final regulation that will make it nearly impossible for asylum-seekers to be able to work lawfully while their claims of persecution are adjudicated, which can take years—forcing them to either starve and become homeless or work unlawfully in order to survive—should tell you all you need to know about how little Trump cares about workers and labor standards.

Furthermore, Trump's DOL has been M.I.A during the pandemic by failing to issue an Emergency Temporary Standard for workplace safety or take any significant enforcement actions to protect workers—including in industries like agriculturewhere hundreds of thousands of temporary migrant workers are employed, or in meatpacking plants where 40% of workers are immigrants. DOL's absence has been so conspicuous that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is being investigated for it.

In sum, the practical impact of Trump's proclamation on temporary work visas appears to be minimal—for now. But the ultimate message inherent in Trump's two immigration proclamations on green cards and temporary work visas has been communicated loud and clear: immigrants can and will be used as scapegoats to distract from the administration's failings.

 -- via my feedly newsfeed

A Plague of Willful Ignorance [feedly]

A Plague of Willful Ignorance

Paul Krugman
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/22/opinion/coronavirus-trump.html

text only

Trump supporters mostly ignored the guidelines for coronavirus safety at the rally in Tulsa, Okla., on Saturday.Credit...Christopher Lee for The New York Times

In the early 20th century the American South was ravaged by pellagra, a nasty disease that produced the "four Ds" — dermatitis, diarrhea, dementia and death. At first, pellagra's nature was uncertain, but by 1915 Dr. Joseph Goldberger, a Hungarian immigrant employed by the federal government, had conclusively shown that it was caused by nutritional deficiencies associated with poverty, and especially with a corn-based diet.

However, for decades many Southern citizens and politicians refused to accept this diagnosis, declaring either that the epidemic was a fiction created by Northerners to insult the South or that the nutritional theory was an attack on Southern culture. And deaths from pellagra continued to climb.

Sound familiar?

We've known for months what it takes to bring Covid-19 under control. You need a period of severe lockdown to reduce the disease's prevalence. Only then can you reopen the economy — while maintaining social distancing as needed — and even then you need a regime of widespread testing, tracing and isolation of potentially infected individuals to keep the virus suppressed.

Most advanced countries have gone down this route. A few countries, like New Zealand and South Korea, have largely or completely defeated the coronavirus. The European Union, comparable in population and diversity to the United States, continues to record new cases of Covid-19, but at a far slower rate than at the pandemic's peak in late March and early April.



But the United States is exceptional, in a very bad way. Our rate of new cases never declined all that much, because falling infection rates in the New York area were offset by flat or rising infections in the South and the West. Now cases are on the rise nationally and surging in such states as Arizona, Texas and Florida.

And no, reported infections aren't rising just because we're doing more testing; contra Donald Trump, we can't solve this problem just by testing less. Other indicators, like the percentage of tests coming back positive and hospitalization rates, show that the Covid-19 surge is real.

It's true that deaths are still falling for the nation as a whole, although they're rising in some states. This reflects some combination of the way that deaths lag infections, better precautions for the elderly, who are the most vulnerable, and better treatment as doctors learn more about the disease.

But we're still losing around 600 Americans per day — that is, we're experiencing the equivalent of six 9/11s every month. And many people who aren't killed by Covid-19 are nonetheless debilitated by the illness, sometimes permanently.

Why are we doing so badly? A lot of the answer is that many state governments have rushed to return to business as usual even though only a handful of states meet federal criteria for even the initial phase of reopening. Epidemiologists warned that premature reopening would lead to a new wave of infections — and they were right.


Beyond that, in America, and only in America, basic health precautions have been caught up in a culture war. Most obviously, not wearing a face mask, and hence gratuitously endangering other people, has become a political symbol: Trump has suggested that some people wear masks only to signal disapproval of him, and many Americans have decided that requiring masks in indoor spaces is an assault on their freedom.

As a result, social distancing has become partisan: self-identified Republicans do less of it than self-identified Democrats. We all saw how this plays out in Tulsa, where a large (if smaller than expected) crowd gathered, mostly without masks, in an indoor setting custom-designed to spread the coronavirus.

And the next Trump rally, on Tuesday, will take place in Arizona, where Covid-19 is exploding, but where the Republican governor not only refuses to require mask-wearing but refused until a few days ago to allow local governments to impose their own rules.

The moral of this story is that America's uniquely poor response to the coronavirus isn't just the result of bad leadership at the top — although tens of thousands of lives would have been saved if we had a president who would deal with problems instead of trying to wish them away.

We're also doing badly because, as the example of pellagra shows, there's a longstanding anti-science, anti-expertise streak in American culture — the same streak that makes us uniquely unwilling to accept the reality of evolution or acknowledge the threat of climate change.

We aren't a nation of know-nothings; many, probably most Americans are willing to listen to experts and act responsibly. But there's a belligerent faction within our society that refuses to acknowledge inconvenient or uncomfortable facts, preferring to believe that experts are somehow conspiring against them.


Trump hasn't just failed to rise to the policy challenge posed by Covid-19. He has, with his words and actions — notably his refusal to wear a mask — encouraged and empowered America's anti-rational streak.

And this rejection of expertise, science and responsibility in general is killing us.

Trump supporters mostly ignored the guidelines for coronavirus safety at the rally in Tulsa, Okla., on Saturday.Credit...Christopher Lee for The New York Times

In the early 20th century the American South was ravaged by pellagra, a nasty disease that produced the "four Ds" — dermatitis, diarrhea, dementia and death. At first, pellagra's nature was uncertain, but by 1915 Dr. Joseph Goldberger, a Hungarian immigrant employed by the federal government, had conclusively shown that it was caused by nutritional deficiencies associated with poverty, and especially with a corn-based diet.

However, for decades many Southern citizens and politicians refused to accept this diagnosis, declaring either that the epidemic was a fiction created by Northerners to insult the South or that the nutritional theory was an attack on Southern culture. And deaths from pellagra continued to climb.

Sound familiar?

We've known for months what it takes to bring Covid-19 under control. You need a period of severe lockdown to reduce the disease's prevalence. Only then can you reopen the economy — while maintaining social distancing as needed — and even then you need a regime of widespread testing, tracing and isolation of potentially infected individuals to keep the virus suppressed.

Most advanced countries have gone down this route. A few countries, like New Zealand and South Korea, have largely or completely defeated the coronavirus. The European Union, comparable in population and diversity to the United States, continues to record new cases of Covid-19, but at a far slower rate than at the pandemic's peak in late March and early April.

But the United States is exceptional, in a very bad way. Our rate of new cases never declined all that much, because falling infection rates in the New York area were offset by flat or rising infections in the South and the West. Now cases are on the rise nationally and surging in such states as Arizona, Texas and Florida.

And no, reported infections aren't rising just because we're doing more testing; contra Donald Trump, we can't solve this problem just by testing less. Other indicators, like the percentage of tests coming back positive and hospitalization rates, show that the Covid-19 surge is real.

It's true that deaths are still falling for the nation as a whole, although they're rising in some states. This reflects some combination of the way that deaths lag infections, better precautions for the elderly, who are the most vulnerable, and better treatment as doctors learn more about the disease.

But we're still losing around 600 Americans per day — that is, we're experiencing the equivalent of six 9/11s every month. And many people who aren't killed by Covid-19 are nonetheless debilitated by the illness, sometimes permanently.

Why are we doing so badly? A lot of the answer is that many state governments have rushed to return to business as usual even though only a handful of states meet federal criteria for even the initial phase of reopening. Epidemiologists warned that premature reopening would lead to a new wave of infections — and they were right.


Beyond that, in America, and only in America, basic health precautions have been caught up in a culture war. Most obviously, not wearing a face mask, and hence gratuitously endangering other people, has become a political symbol: Trump has suggested that some people wear masks only to signal disapproval of him, and many Americans have decided that requiring masks in indoor spaces is an assault on their freedom.

As a result, social distancing has become partisan: self-identified Republicans do less of it than self-identified Democrats. We all saw how this plays out in Tulsa, where a large (if smaller than expected) crowd gathered, mostly without masks, in an indoor setting custom-designed to spread the coronavirus.

And the next Trump rally, on Tuesday, will take place in Arizona, where Covid-19 is exploding, but where the Republican governor not only refuses to require mask-wearing but refused until a few days ago to allow local governments to impose their own rules.

The moral of this story is that America's uniquely poor response to the coronavirus isn't just the result of bad leadership at the top — although tens of thousands of lives would have been saved if we had a president who would deal with problems instead of trying to wish them away.

We're also doing badly because, as the example of pellagra shows, there's a longstanding anti-science, anti-expertise streak in American culture — the same streak that makes us uniquely unwilling to accept the reality of evolution or acknowledge the threat of climate change.

We aren't a nation of know-nothings; many, probably most Americans are willing to listen to experts and act responsibly. But there's a belligerent faction within our society that refuses to acknowledge inconvenient or uncomfortable facts, preferring to believe that experts are somehow conspiring against them.



Trump hasn't just failed to rise to the policy challenge posed by Covid-19. He has, with his words and actions — notably his refusal to wear a mask — encouraged and empowered America's anti-rational streak.

And this rejection of expertise, science and responsibility in general is killing us.


 -- via my feedly newsfeed

Plastic Dilemma: A Brief Essay on a Big Problem [feedly]

Plastic Dilemma: A Brief Essay on a Big Problem
https://www.globalpolicyjournal.com/blog/23/06/2020/plastic-dilemma-brief-essay-big-problem

In the wake of COVID-19 Scott L. Montgomery sketches the outlines of the world's plastic problem, providing some of its key details, and also some of the major challenges faced in dealing with it effectively.

In the midst of the global COVID-19 pandemic, massive changes in energy use have happened. Transport and oil demand have fallen, in some places dramatically. Many say this is temporary. China's oil use has nearly recovered, while other countries are relaxing restrictions. Some say car sales will die, others that electric vehicles will come alive, still others that airlines will be years in convalescence. Uncertainty reigns nearly everywhere. Not, however, in a domain of oil use often overlooked in climate discussions yet that is set to soar.

Overlooked, Not Hidden

Oil demand by the petrochemical industry has grown almost without pause since the late 1960s. Just this year, a massive new port opened in Texas nearly doubling US exports in the sector. The industry is the most energy-intensive in existence, and its core products—a wide variety of materials gathered under the title "plastics"—has increased in volume seven-fold over the last four decades, from 50 million tonnes in 1980 to 359 million tonnes in 2018.

The gods and mortals of chemical invention have been busy. New types of plastic and new applications for them have been a constant and a core part of growth. Such work has contributed directly to new consumer products from cellphones and laptops to CT scans and electric cars. In this sense, petroleum has come to penetrate societies worldwide far more than any other single resource besides air or water. To date, precious little in the realm of petrochemicals has come from non-fossil feedstocks, like biomass.

Plastic waste has drawn huge attention for necessary reasons. On the macro level, it forms choking masses in the oceans and ugly heaps in landfills everywhere, providing images that seem to threaten the interring of Earth's entire surface. At a micro level, it is everywhere—air, land, water, rain, snow, food, drink, bodies. That it returns to haunt our own interior seems a form of revenge, except that the same is true for so many other species too. Some plastic is naturally degradable, with the timing for this ranging from years to centuries. Yet in many cases, the products include toxins that themselves are more resistant. In all cases, however, waste is a product of use, therefore production, driven by demand.

Plastics begin with the production of several starting materials made from oil and, to a lesser extent, natural gas. Most important among these materials are the chemicals ethylene (C2H4) and propylene (C3H6), with the former responsible for a greater range of products. Both are produced mainly from oil. In 2019, the global market for ethylene was $222.1 billion, but annual revenues for finished products were well over three times as much. Since 2015, the ethylene market has grown at a compound annual rate of 5.25%. Expansion is forecast to continue at a somewhat lower pace of around 4%-4.5%, which would mean world production doubling by the mid-late 2030s. This closely tracks the overall rise in plastics production, which has greatly outpaced many other sectors of global industry, including aluminum, steel, and cement, since the 1990s.

Growth in Demand

Much of this growth is due to rising demand for products made from ethylene's main derivative, polyethylene. As its name suggests, this is created by linking ethylene units together into chains, which can vary in length from a few dozen to millions of units. Such huge variety supports a nearly equal diversity of plastic materials whose density, strength, durability, thermal conductivity, and other properties encourage applications in every sector of the modern economy. This means from industry and commerce to agriculture and construction, including electronics, solar panels, wind turbine rotors, toys, sports and medical equipment, cosmetics, eyewear, fabrics, insulation, yoga pants, packaging, and a great deal more (note: agrochemicals, fertilizers and pesticides, are not produced from ethylene but from other starting materials like ammonia, toluene, and benzene). At higher densities and strength, these plastics can even replace steel, e.g. in bone joint replacements. They are also specifically designed for unique projects that range from thin films in scientific research to body armor, airplane wings, and building materials.

In blunt but realistic terms, there is no area of modern life where plastics haven't found use. Reasons for this are many but have a great deal to do with the immensely diverse and adaptive capabilities offered by this realm of human invention. It is neither an accident nor an oversight that plastic is used today to make cars lighter, safer, and more fuel efficient and to have a key part in every kind of "clean" technology, from lithium-ion batteries to LEDs (and, as noted above, renewable energy technologies as well). It is a point to be noted. Ridding the world of plastics does not appear a realistic option, any more than blithe acceptance of the waste problem.

Global demand for plastic worldwide, meanwhile, has been geographically shifting. According to recent analyses, such demand until the last decade was largely concentrated in Europe and North America. It has more recently moved to Asia and is expanding elsewhere. Wealthy nations currently make much greater use of plastic materials than developing countries, yet those with strong economic growth are rapidly catching up. Present and future demand growth are estimated to be highest in nations with rising incomes and a rapidly swelling middle class. This includes nations like China, India, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Chile, and Peru, among others. Demand has also been growing in sub-Saharan Africa, which is likely to a major new center of use by mid-century.

Expanding plastic use correlates quite closely with more modern lifestyles and also technological development. This is especially true in areas like electronics, private vehicles, new housing, advanced medical care, and consumer goods in general. Over time, that is, plastic has come to progressively replace wood, metal, glass, and stone, which are heavier, less resilient, and often more expensive. Another important change furthering plastic demand has been food packaging, as populations with more income expand their diet from exclusively local foodstuffs to more diverse, transported, and increasingly imported items.

Regarding oil, this suggests a big change might be in the wind. Analysts today speak regularly about a coming peak in oil demand. Some say it may have already arrived with the pandemic. Either way, it will be aided by near-term increases in transport fuel economy and the spread of electric vehicles. Such a scenario would mean that oil's real future lies with chemicals, not fuels. Would this be a good thing? In one sense, yes. The world wouldn't be burning so much petroleum. But like so much else in the energy domain, the final answer is not so clear.

Double Role of Oil

Ethylene is mainly produced from oil. Petrochemicals account for as much as 14% of global oil demand, a major amount, due to the double use of oil as a raw material for ethylene and a fuel for the combustion-related reactions that produce it. Indeed, 14% is no trickle, especially when considering forecasts showing this level could double in the next 2-3 decades. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), petrochemicals "are rapidly becoming the largest driver of global oil demand." Between now and 2030, they are expected to increase the need for oil more than any other use sector.

Two major feedstocks from oil are especially important for making ethylene: naphtha, a fairly light hydrocarbon (C5-6H6-12) produced during crude oil refining; and ethane (C2H6) , a secondary component in natural gas and one of several Natural Gas Liquids (NGL; such gases also include butane, propane, and pentane, among some others). Naphtha has been increasingly generated by new refineries located in the Middle East and Northeast Asia. China, however, has been replacing some of its oil-derived naphtha with that from coal, which it has in abundance.

North America, on the other hand, is the world's largest ethane producer. This feedstock was previously in limited supply but has exploded in abundance due to NGLs coming from the surge in shale oil and gas due to the fracking revolution. As it is cheaper to make ethylene from ethane, the US is becoming a highly competitive exporter, and hundreds of $billion has gone toward investing in new petrochemical facilities to become operational over the next 10-15 years. Here, there are real problems of pollution and impacts on nearby populations. It is not without reason or despair that a portion of the lower Mississippi River south of Baton Rouge is well-known as Cancer Alley. In this area, where more than 200 industrial facilities already exist, Shell and the Taiwanese company Formosa have applied to build two of the largest petrochemical plants in this area's history, at $6 billion in the first case and $9.4 billion in the second.

Both of these projects will include "crackers." This kind of facility is the most energy intensive (fuel consuming) part of a petrochemical complex. It includes a row of furnaces that heat the naphtha or ethane (or other feedstock) in the presence of steam to a temperature of 750-850 deg. C, where chemical bonds break, or "crack," yielding new molecules, including ethylene. Cracking furnaces use significant amounts of water for steam, which prevents the formation of carbon-rich deposits, or coke, from the reaction. They also burn large amounts of hydrocarbon fuel, liquid or gas, giving oil a double role as a source of both feedstock and fuel.

The combustion process and steam reaction, together with flaring of unwanted gas fractions, create emissions of CO2 nitrous oxides (NOx), and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Improvements in efficiency and other technological aspects have reduced such emissions, but release of CO2 remains high. In 2018-19, carbon emissions were around 0.9 gigatonnes (Gt), a figure projected to rise rapidly with expanding plastics demand unless methods of carbon capture and storage are introduced. Were this figure to double by the 2030s, as forecast, it would approximately equal the CO2 emissions from the entire aviation sector (pre-pandemic). Were it to triple, it would exceed the 2.4 Gt of all medium- and heavy-duty trucks.

At present, oil is playing yet another part in the advance of petrochemicals. This has to do with its low price and large over-supply on the global market. Part of this is due to the astounding surge in U.S. production, again due to shale development, but it has also been built by rises in output from Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Russia. The result—which has been true during the pandemic—is to make naphtha and oil-derived NGL especially cheap. These lower costs coupled with demand growth described above have given companies much reason to invest in new plants. As many as 470 projects are at various stages in 2020, with the largest number in the Asia-Pacific (mostly China), U.S., Russia, and the Middle East (Saudi Arabia, Egypt), but others in Africa (Nigeria), Latin America (Brazil), and Western Europe (Netherlands). Some in the industry (and many observers) are worried that all this new investment will create excess capacity and bring a price crash. Readers here, however, might find such massive expansion daunting for other reasons.

Waste Not, Want More

With the above realities understood, it makes sense to deal more directly with the waste problem. There's little doubt that this represents a young elephant now in the room that threatens to grow up fast. There is some good news here however, and some other news.

On the good side, the petrochemical industry has come to appreciate the power of imagery. This includes a stretch of beach heaped with containers, tubes, and plastic nets; a dead pelican its belly burst open with colorful lids and lighters; or a mountainous landfill of bottles and bags crawled over by birds and half-clad boys. The industry understands such views give it a dark halo in the public eye. If discussion at a recent Global Plastics Summit be any indication, industry leaders know things have to change. As described by one observer, ideas of a "circular economy" with "attention towards environmental concerns has created significant challenges and opportunities…across the globe."

Then there are the key facts, the "other news," summarized in two important studies. The first is an oft-mentioned paper in Nature, revealing that the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (largest in existence), located between the U.S. mainland and Hawaii, is roughly 1.6 million km2 in size, i.e. France, Spain, Germany, and the UK combined. While some portion may break down under the combined effect of sunlight and saltwater, the i product will be microparticles suspended in the water column and deposited on the sea floor, thereby gaining a higher probability of becoming part of food webs. The second study appeared in Science and calculated that only about 9% of all plastic produced by 2015 had been recycled. Another 12% had been incinerated, adding to toxic fumes and carbon emissions and the remaining 79% sent to landfills or litter.

The Science study is troubling for several reasons. Common claims are that 20% - 25% of all plastic is recycled in advanced countries (more in Europe!). In many Western cities, we have grown happily accustomed to seeing green-colored garbage trucks come to collect our urban waste, including plastic items, every week. But, in fact, this is often a mask. Up to half of plastic waste collected by recycle programs ends up being sold to developing countries—particularly China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, Bangladesh, and Turkey, where it is mostly put into landfills or incinerated. Further behind the scenes, moreover, lies a black market trade in plastic waste, one that has been greatly expanded since China stopped accepting most foreign plastic waste in 2018, reportedly because it can no longer do this while dealing with the rising volume of its own waste. China's precedent has been partly followed by other countries, like Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam. This has meant the shifting of waste to poorer nations, like Cambodia, Laos, and Ethiopia. In all of these places, environmental rules tend to be fewer and much less enforced than in wealthy nations.

Observations and Conclusions

In view of the above facts and realities, there are a number of points that can be made about the status of the world's plastic dilemma at present.

1. The current mantra of "reduce, reuse, and recycle" tends to place responsibility on the consumer, so will not solve the problem. Yet it does highlight the "circular economy" idea, which seeks to keep materials and products in use, restricting creation of waste. 

 

2. Bans against certain plastics (e.g. single-use bags) can be helpful though not a solution. If widespread and combined with regulation, bans may pressure companies to reduce such forms. Calling for less plastic overall, however, is unlikely to succeed given the scale of rising demand in developing countries.  

 

3. Reuse is a sensible and feasible element to control waste in some forms, e.g. containers and bottles. Industry must be involved to better design these forms for safe, repeated use. This requires incentives and, possibly, regulations.  

 

4. Most plastic cannot be recycled using mainstream technology. This is true for any plastic contaminated by food, dyes, glue, glass, or other substances (most packaging, sports equipment, toys, etc.). Due to low oil prices, recycling facilities have struggled in most wealthy nations and have not greatly affected the plastic waste stream.

 

5. Molecular ("advanced") recycling reduces plastic back to its original feedstock (e.g. ethylene) and is viewed by many in industry as essential to dealing with waste. Such recycling, utilizing present and emerging technologies, faces a number of challenges—technical, logistical, economic—that keep it from large-scale use.  

 

6. Use of bio- or "renewable" feedstocks represent a possible solution for certain plastics, able to reduce both waste and emissions. So-called "green plastics" currently have limitations, such as less durability (2-5 year shelf life) and higher cost. They cannot now replace petro-plastics but are advancing and, by 2019, were  3% of the global market.  

 

7. There exists an important, unresolved debate between burying waste to sequester its carbon and incinerating it to generate electricity or district heating. If the first option does little for the waste dilemma, the second can release dioxins and makes climate sense only with carbon capture & storage (CCS), currently non-commercial. Europe reportedly incinerates 42% of its plastic waste, the U.S. 12.5%

 

8. Though the petrochemical industry does understand the waste and emissions problems, it seems to lack the needed incentives to make major changes and pursue opportunities that would improve sustainability. This is partly because the industry remains highly fragmented, unguided by consistent or international standards, and reluctant to take on new areas of cost that might impact competitiveness.

 

9. The company or companies that do successfully evolve toward more sustainable production of plastics stand to gain an enormous competitive edge. A key part of this involves transforming waste into raw material, thereby lowering demand for virgin plastic, reducing emissions, and advancing the circular economy.

 

10. Solving the waste problem will require much R&D investment. Though current thinking would leave this to industry, there are strong arguments for public-private partnership. The problem affects people and the natural world directly. Good stewardship of the environment and climate is fully shared by government and industry.

These conclusions are far from the final word on this pressing subject. I have tried, instead, to sketch the outlines of the problem, some of its key details, and also some of the major challenges faced in dealing with it effectively. I have left out important realities, those dealing with the political dimensions, industry culture, the realm of accusations and claims-making, and more. There's no doubt that the struggles and battles being fought here reflect those in other areas of fossil fuel use. But they are different, too, in that the reality of all the materials and products gathered under the word "plastic" are now commensurate with daily life in modern societies everywhere. The transformations needed here are as profound as any needed in the face of growing climate impacts.

 

 

Scott L. Montgomery is an author, geoscientist, and affiliate faculty member in the Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington, Seattle. He has 25 years' experience in the energy industry, where he worked on projects in many parts of the world. His many technical publications include papers, monographs, articles, and textbooks, mainly focused on cutting edge hydrocarbon plays, technologies, related impacts and issues.

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Workers are striking during the coronavirus: Labor law must be reformed to strengthen this fundamental right [feedly]

Workers are striking during the coronavirus: Labor law must be reformed to strengthen this fundamental right
https://www.epi.org/blog/thousands-of-workers-have-gone-on-strike-during-the-coronavirus-labor-law-must-be-reformed-to-strengthen-this-fundamental-right/

The coronavirus pandemic has revealed much about work in the United States: There have been countless examples of workers speaking out against unsafe work conditions and demanding personal protective equipment (PPE) to try and stay healthy and safe on the job. We also have seen that essential workers are often not paid commensurate with the critical nature of their work. Few U.S. workers have access to paid sick time or paid leave of any kind. And, when workers have advocated for health and safety protections or wage increase, they have often been retaliated against, and even fired for doing so. As a result, many workers have decided to strike in an effort to have their voices heard.

Even before the pandemic, data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) showed an upsurge in major strike activity in 2018 and 2019, marking a 35-year high for the number of workers involved in a major work stoppage over a two-year period. Further, 2019 recorded the greatest number of work stoppages involving 20,000 or more workers since at least 1993, when the BLS started providing data that made it possible to track work stoppages by size. In fact, after decades of decline, strike activity surged in 2018, with 485,200 workers involved in major work stoppages—a nearly twenty-fold increase from 25,300 workers in 2017. The surge in strike activity continued in 2019, with 425,500 workers involved in major work stoppages. On average in 2018 and in 2019, 455,400 workers were involved in major work stoppages—the largest two-year average in 35 years.

What is the right to strike and who has it?

Most private-sector workers in the United States are guaranteed the right to strike under Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). Section 7 of the Act grants workers the right "to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection." This allows private-sector workers to engage in concerted activities such as strikes, regardless of whether the worker is in a union or covered by a collective bargaining contract. However, those in a union are better situated to engage in a long-term strike through strike funds. There is no federal law that gives public-sector workers the right to strike, but a dozen states grant public-sector workers the right to strike.

In general, there are two types of strikes: economic strikes and unfair labor practice strikes. In an economic strike, workers withhold their labor as leverage when bargaining for better pay and working conditions. While workers in economic strikes retain their status as employees and cannot be discharged, their employer has the right to permanently replace them. In an unfair labor practice strike, workers withhold their labor to protest their employer engaging in activities that they regard as a violation of labor law. Workers in an unfair labor practice strike cannot legally be discharged or permanently replaced.

However, not all strikes are protected under the law. For example, it is currently unlawful for workers to be involved in "secondary" strikes, which are strikes aimed at an employer other than the primary employer (for example, when workers from one company strike in solidarity with another company's workers). If a strike is deemed an "intermittent strike"—when workers strike on-and-off over a period of time—it is not protected as a lawful strike by the NLRA. In general, a strike is also unlawful if the collective bargaining agreement between a union and the employer is in effect and has a "no-strike, no-lockout" clause.

What data do we have on strikes?

Unfortunately, there are major data limitations around strikes. As a result, it is impossible to know the full extent of strike activity throughout the U.S. The main government source for strike data is the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data on major work stoppages. However, BLS data only include information on work stoppages involving 1,000 or more workers that last at least one full shift. Unfortunately, comprehensive data on work stoppages that involve fewer than 1,000 workers, or that last less than one full shift, are not readily available from BLS or other sources.

The BLS's monthly data on work stoppages do not capture any strikes directly related to the coronavirus pandemic. However, it is evident essential workers are going on strike as seen in the recent walkouts organized by Amazon, Instacart, and Target workers as well as the dozens of strikes organized by fast food and delivery workers. Consequently, there is a large gap in knowledge about the true extent of strikes that occur during the coronavirus pandemic and beyond.  

Based on the very limited data available, the resurgence of strike activity in recent years has given over a million workers an active role in demanding improvements in their pay and working conditions. Essential workers during the coronavirus pandemic are continuing this trend by demanding better pay and safer working conditions from their employers. However, without comprehensive data, it's impossible to understand the scope of how many workers are utilizing their fundamental right to strike. This knowledge gap makes it difficult for policymakers to adequately address the needs for workers in the United States, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics should be provided funding to gather comprehensive data on worker strikes. But even with the limited knowledge we have, it's evident that strikes are an effective tool to improve the pay and working conditions of working people. Therefore, strengthening the right to strike for workers needs to be at the heart of labor law reform going forward.

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Expert Focus: Leading Black scholars on U.S. economic inequality and growth [feedly]

Expert Focus: Leading Black scholars on U.S. economic inequality and growth
https://equitablegrowth.org/expert-focus-leading-black-scholars-on-u-s-economic-inequality-and-growth/

Equitable Growth is committed to building a community of scholars working to understand whether and how inequality affects broadly shared growth and stability. To that end, we have created the monthly series, "Expert Focus." This series will highlight scholars in the Equitable Growth network and beyond who are at the frontier of social science research. We encourage you to learn more about both the researchers featured below and our broader network of experts.

Understanding the historic and persistent role that structural racism plays in driving wealth and income inequality, particularly for Black Americans, is central to addressing the health and stability of the U.S. economy. In this installment of "Expert Focus," we highlight Black scholars whose cutting-edge research draws on the respective roles of history, power, and institutions in shaping economic behavior and trends. Though by no means an exhaustive list, the scholars highlighted here have influenced our understanding of the roots of racial inequities facing Black Americans and how to address those inequities through policy and research initiatives.

Ultimately, it is the collective responsibility of Equitable Growth and other policy and research organizations to actively confront our own biases and practices that reinforce anti-Blackness, as well as commit to addressing racism in economic and social institutions.

William A. Darity, Jr.

Duke University

William A. Darity, Jr., a member of the Washington Center for Equitable Growth's Research Advisory Board, is the Samuel DuBois Cook professor of public policy, African and African American studies, and economics, and the founder and director of the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity at Duke University. Darity is the founder of stratification economics, an approach to economics that focuses on economic disparities between persons, groups, and regions, and the structure of social hierarchy. In an interview with Equitable Growth, he discusses the importance of stratification economics in understanding U.S. economic growth and inequality. He has been a leading figure on changing the way economics discusses poverty and inequality, as well as the current policy debate on reparations for Black descendants of enslaved Americans. He recently published From Here to Equality, co-authored with Kirsten Mullen, which focuses on reparations and the inequalities borne from systemic racism. In addition, his recent work on the relationship between incarceration and credit scores helps connect structural racism in law enforcement to Black wealth accumulation.

Dania V. Francis

University of Massachusetts Boston

Dania V. Francis, an assistant professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts Boston, studies racial and socioeconomic disparities in education, wealth accumulation, and labor markets. In an essay for Vision 2020: Evidence for a stronger economy, Francis tackles the critical issue of how to design and carry out a reparations program in the United States that would help close the racial wealth divide and address discrimination, which she also touched on during Equitable Growth's Vision 2020 conference last fall. Additionally, in a recent article with Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman, who is also featured below, Francis highlights the racial inequalities within the economics profession itself and outlines much-needed initial steps to address anti-Black racism.

Trevon D. Logan

The Ohio State University

Trevon D. Logan is the Hazel C. Youngberg Trustees distinguished professor of economics at The Ohio State University, a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and an Equitable Growth grantee. He specializes in economic history, economic demography, and applied microeconomics. His research in economic history concerns the development of measures of living standards that can be used to directly asses the question of how human well-being has changed over time. In his Vision 2020 essay, co-written with Equitable Growth grantee Bradley Hardy, Logan examines the historic links among intergenerational economic mobility, race, and the Black-White divide in income and wealth. They highlight recent research showing that school segregation, disinvestment from public goods, and divergent levels of investment in education since the 1950s have combined to create a nexus of low mobility for Black Americans. These and other policy decisions that persist today in terms of housing, education, and health continue to disadvantage Black Americans and limit the potential for overall U.S. economic growth.

Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman and Fanta Traore

The Sadie Collective

The team at the Sadie Collective organized its second annual conference in February 2020, named in honor of Dr. Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander, the first African American to receive a Ph.D. in economics and the second Black woman to receive a doctoral degree in the United States. Fueling this effort is a new generation of Black women pursuing doctorates and careers in economics, finance, data science, and public policy. As the share of Black women awarded doctorates in economics is declining, groups such as the Sadie Collective—co-founded by Opoku-Agyeman and Traore, a senior research assistant at the Federal Reserve Board—provide crucial support to help Black women thrive in fields where they are woefully underrepresented and where they can sometimes feel out of place. This year's conference featured conversations with Equitable Growth Steering Committee member Janet Yellen and Research Advisory Board member Lisa Cook. Recently, the Sadie Collective Community authored a powerful open letter to economic and policy institutions in the face of #BlackLivesMatter protests across the country. Also, listen to Opoku-Agyeman and Traore describe the Sadie Collective and their experience as Black women in economics here.

Jhacova Williams

Economic Policy Institute

Jhacova Williams is an economist for the Economic Policy Institute's Program on Race, Ethnicity, and the Economy. At PREE, she explores the role of structural racism in shaping racial economic disparities in labor markets, housing, criminal justice, higher education, voting, and other areas that have a direct impact on economic outcomes. Prior to joining EPI, Williams served as an assistant professor at Clemson University. Williams' research focuses on southern culture and the extent to which historical events have impacted the political behavior and economic outcomes of southern Black Americans. Her recent working paper, which examines the negative relationship between Confederate symbols and local labor market conditions for Black people, is helping to improve how we identify and measure the specific impacts of racism through research.

Equitable Growth is building a network of experts across disciplines and at various stages in their career who can exchange ideas and ensure that research on inequality and broadly shared growth is relevant, accessible, and informative to both the policymaking process and future research agendas. Explore the ways you can connect with our network or take advantage of the support we offer here.

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