By The Kaiser Family Foundation

The nation’s low-wage workers face a particular kind of bind.
They tend to work in service industries – such as the restaurant, hospitality and retail sectors – that are especially at risk for loss of income during the COVID-19 pandemic, or in jobs such as health care workers, grocery store workers and delivery drivers, where they may continue to work but face a higher risk of contracting the disease.
According to a new KFF analysis, over 25 million nonelderly adults worked in low-wage jobs in 2018, putting them among the bottom 20 percent of earners. Such workers will have limited ability to absorb income declines or afford health care costs, finds the analysis, which examines the characteristics of such workers and the implications of the pandemic for their jobs, health, and financial security.

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Posted on April 30, 2020

By Charles Seife/Undark

The ancients had a surefire way to cut through the fear and unpredictability of an epidemic: A quick visit to an oracle would reveal the nature and course of the disease, and even the cure. After the afflicted citizens followed instructions to sacrifice a youth, recover some old bones, fashion some hemorrhoid-shaped statues out of gold, or whatever else the priests recommended, the plague would be lifted, and life would go back to normal – or so, at least, the thinking went.
Modern-day humans look to scientists rather than sibyls to answer questions about the natural world. But this means that we have to sacrifice the speed and certainty of oracles for the slow, uncertain bumbling of scientific progress. This is the one sacrifice that science requires us to make, and it’s what gives scientists their power to understand the natural world in a way that oracles and priests never could. Yet, during the coronavirus crisis, it seems to be hurting us in ways we never expected.

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Posted on April 28, 2020

By Reform for Illinois

No one knows what the coronavirus crisis will bring in November. While medical innovations could dim the threat of COVID-19, experts say the epidemic could persist or reignite, making an ordinary in-person election unsafe.
In the shadow of chaos in Wisconsin and the tragic death of an Illinois poll worker from COVID-19, preparing for every eventuality is imperative. That’s why Reform for Illinois, along with its partners the League of Women Voters IL, the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, and the Better Government Association, is advocating for legislation providing for every Illinois registered voter to receive a postage paid ballot in November.
Sending a ballot is the only way to guarantee that everyone has the option of voting safely on Election Day, even if in-person voting must be restricted for public health reasons.

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Posted on April 24, 2020

By The World Surf League

“On January 28th, 1969, crude oil and gas erupted from a platform off the coast of Santa Barbara, California. Alarm over the disaster reverberated around the world, energizing the nascent environmental movement and leading to a slew of legislative changes.”

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Posted on April 23, 2020

By Chicago ADAPT

Disability rights advocates from ADAPT and their allies in the Alliance for Community Services are launching an effort to get Governor Pritzker to reduce the dangerous overconcentration of people in institutions, while addressing safety risks faced by consumers and workers.
“The governor has taken some important positive steps in this crisis, but people with disabilities, especially those stuck in unacceptably dangerous institutions, again, seem to be last to be taken into consideration,” said Chicago ADAPT Co-Coordinator Noah Ohashi. “Long-term care institutions, like detention centers and prisons, are COVID petri dishes, and the state should accelerate de-institutionalization, while ensuring people with disabilities (PWDs) – in both institutions and on their own, as well as frontline caregivers, have safe, decent environments.”
Despite the obvious hazard facing nursing facility residents and staff, and the benefit to decentralizing PWDs, court-ordered programs to transition PWDs to independent living have been put on hold, rather than sped up, and ombudsmen are barred from inspecting facilities.

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Posted on April 21, 2020

By Michael Grabell/ProPublica

As news emerged that the novel coronavirus was infecting hundreds of workers in meatpacking plants, Gregoria Rivas began worrying that her chicken-processing facility in North Carolina wasn’t doing enough to protect workers like her from the virus.
There was no social distancing, she said. Everywhere she went at the Case Farms plant, there were dozens of workers crowded into a small space. In the locker room, where everyone put on their uniforms. On the cutting line, where she spent eight hours slicing chicken breasts. In the cafeteria during lunch. Even at break time, when workers lined up to use the bathroom.
“I tried to bring my own face mask that I had bought at the pharmacy, but they wouldn’t let me wear it,” said Rivas, 31. “When they wouldn’t let me wear my own mask, I went to the nurse’s station at the plant, and they said there were no masks available.”

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Posted on April 17, 2020

By Jessica Corbett/Common Dreams

Democratic lawmakers and progressive critics expressed outrage Tuesday after a nonpartisan congressional body found that nearly 82% of benefits from a Republican tax provision in the most recent coronavirus relief package will go to the nation’s millionaires and billionaires and cost taxpayers an estimated $90 billion this year alone.
The finding came in a new Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) analysis released by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) detailing the expected impact of the GOP provision, which was part of the $2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act signed into law by President Donald Trump last month.

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Posted on April 15, 2020

By Sandy Brian Hager and Joseph Baines/The Conversation

The coronavirus pandemic is rocking financial markets, disrupting supply chains and sharply reducing consumer spending. The crisis is hitting the likes of airlines and high street retailers particularly hard, and is decimating many small businesses. Unfortunately, this is proving devastating for millions of precarious and low-income workers across the world.
Many governments have announced fiscal stimulus packages, including tax relief, to individuals and business. Such measures are welcome, but our new research suggests that they should be understood against broader shifts in the tax regime which leave society less able to withstand the pandemic.
As we show by looking at American companies, these shifts reinforce inequality not only between large and small firms but also between high- and low-income households. The result is a fraying social fabric through which the coronavirus can spread rapidly.

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Posted on April 12, 2020

By Julián Aguilar/The Texas Tribune
The federal government wasted millions in taxpayer dollars on food, supplies and personnel during a brief reopening of a West Texas immigration detention facility last year, a government watchdog reported Thursday.
The findings from the Government Accountability Office focus on expenditures from August to December to operate the tent encampment at Tornillo, a rural community in eastern El Paso County. The facility was reopened to hold single adults amid a spike in apprehensions of undocumented immigrants at the Texas-Mexico border. It was previously used in 2018 to detain undocumented immigrant children.
Over those five months, the federal government spent about $66 million to operate the facility, which was built to hold as many as 2,500 detainees. But it never held more than 70 people, and the average daily population for the first three months was 28 people, according to the report.

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Posted on April 10, 2020

What Kind Of Society Are We?

1. In Midst Of Covid-19 Crisis, More Than 1,400 Students Urge University Of Chicago To Halve Tuition; Hundreds Prepare To Strike.
From: UChicago for Fair Tuition.
Students across all undergraduate and graduate divisions at the University of Chicago are coming together to urge the University to institute a 50% reduction in tuition and elimination of fees for as long as the coronavirus crisis continues.
The newly established group, UChicago for Fair Tuition, is also urging the University to eliminate advanced residency tuition for doctoral students.

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Posted on April 9, 2020