Tag Archives: jobs

Labor Rights

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Whose rights are they, anyway?

Last Thursday, a California First Appellate District court upheld a State district court’s order that Uber and Lyft must reclassify their gig drivers as actual employees and so must add to their labor costs with benefits, paid leave of various sorts, payroll taxes, and so on. Never mind that this will reduce gig-oriented companies’ ability to recover from the State’s Wuhan Virus-related lockdowns and cost thousands of Californians access to additional income.

The time is fast approaching when it’ll be most useful for Uber, Lyft, and other gig-oriented businesses to leave California altogether.

It gets worse. As Uber noted in part,

…rideshare drivers will be prevented from continuing to work as independent contractors….

Indeed. The California court’s order (and AB5, the State statute that originally levied the classification requirement) go far beyond restricting gig-oriented businesses.

They’re attacks on gig workers themselves by denying them control over their own labor and the price and other parameters under which they’re willing to market their labor. The ruling and the statute convert those who wish to work in California into labor wards of the State’s government.

Almost like they’re State plantation laborers. But it’s all good, though; it’s for the workers’ own good.

The court’s opinion can be read here.

Some Jobs Data

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…from Stephen Moore via his Fox News op-ed. They compare the job creation performance of ex-President Barack Obama’s (D) and then-Vice President and current Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Joe Biden’s eight-year administration with the three years of performance of President Donald Trump’s administration prior to the current Wuhan Virus situation.

Manufacturing
Obama: -192,000—that’s jobs lost
Trump: 475,000—that’s jobs gained

Mining
Obama: -112,000
Trump: 63,000

Construction
Obama: 280,000
Trump: 746,000

Biden wants to “help” this growth along by dumping $4 trillion of new taxes and rescinded current tax cuts on our economy, on our jobs engine.

Biden wants to potentiate his tax “help” with vast new regulation.

Biden wants to add further to his “help” program by trashing our economy’s ability to generate reliable and cheap energy and replacing that sector with the Green New Deal that the new center left of his Party insists on emplacing.

Our economy can’t afford Biden’s help.

The Biden Tax Plan

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…will be a disaster for our economy.  Here are some examples of the damage Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Joe Biden’s tax plan will inflict.

Earnings reductions are directly translatable into jobs reductions—higher unemployment.

And this bit of cynicism from “a campaign employee” that’s all too typical of Biden himself:

There is no reason that an economic plan that asks everyone to pay their fair share while doing more to reach full-employment quicker with more jobs and stronger growth should not help everyone from essential workers to investors.

Notice that: the campaign, along with Biden and his—I am the Democratic Party—Party, steadfastly refuse to say what their fair share is, besides more.

Some Prosperity Data

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Courtesy of the Census Bureau, via Just the News and The Wall Street Journal. These data concern the last year.

  • median household income rose to more than $68,700 just over the last year, a 6.8% year-on-year rise
  • black median household income rose to $66,500—up 7.9%
  • Hispanic median household income rose to $56,100—up 7.1%
  • women median income rose to $47,300—up 3%
  • poverty rate fell to 10.5%
  • child poverty rate fell to 14.1%

These are all highs (or lows) over the last several decades, and the sizes of the changes are historically large, also.

Over the last three-ish years, median household income has increased by 9%. That’s associated with a decrease in income inequality, including a small decrease in the share of income held by the top 20% over the same period paired with a bottom quintile increase of 2.4%.

Notice how all of this coincides with the pre-Wuhan Virus situation unemployment rates—at historic lows for our general population and for blacks and Hispanics in particular—along with rising labor force participation rate, which remains low, but it’s climbing from the historic lows achieved during the prior administration’s eight years.

One major factor little commented on in the NLMSM is the effect on prosperity and income inequality of folks in the bottom quintile actually having a job and an income—especially minority folks.

Which administration is it, again, that’s been in charge?

Couple Critical Errors

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…in an otherwise well-intended and worthy effort. California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) wants to make it possible for prison inmates who have been trained in firefighting and have place[d] themselves in danger assisting firefighters to defend the life and property of Californians to join fire departments after they’ve been released from prison.

Long-time readers of my blog know that I am a firm believer in rehabilitation and redemption, and this move would open one path to each of those.

There are a couple of tweaks, though, that are necessary for making this a truly effective move. One is this: Newsom has signed into law

legislation allowing inmate firefighters to get their criminal records dismissed so they can qualify for civilian firefighting jobs after they are released.
…
The dismissal opens the door for model inmate firefighters to qualify for paramedic certification, a requirement for civilian fire departments. Currently, those with convictions are barred by state law from becoming an EMT.

I don’t agree, generally, with expunging criminal records when the crimes were committed by adults. In this sort of case, though, it would be appropriate to seal an (ex-)felon’s record so he can apply to a fire department.

A better option, however, would be to alter the State’s law regarding EMT eligibility to permit ex-felons otherwise trained as firefighters (even if trained while in prison) to become EMTs for the purpose of joining a fire department as a firefighter. (And, if that works out after some number of years of empirical observation, expanding the eligibility of ex-felons to become EMTs more generally.)

The other is one of mindset.

Inmates who have stood on the frontlines, battling historic fires should not be denied the right to later become a professional firefighter[.]

Rather, inmates who have stood on the frontlines, battling historic fires should not be denied the opportunity to later become a professional firefighter. No one has a right to any particular job, or career, or avocation. All of us do have a right to opportunity.