October, 25 2016, 12:00am EDT
Low Wages and Student Debt Break the Promise of Prosperity
To make ends meet, a single adult with student loan debt needs to be paid more than $17 per hour in most states
WASHINGTON
Some 43 million people in the United States have student loan debt. Yet, that significant expense is left out of traditional cost of living or living wage calculations. Considering that a monthly student loan payment is about the same as a car payment or groceries, and is often more than health insurance or utilities, it's a critical factor in family budgets.
Tuesday, People's Action Institute releasedWaiting for the Payoff: How Low Wages and Student Debt Keep Prosperity Out of Reach. The report calculates how much a single worker must be paid hourly, working full-time, to make ends meet. There is also a second calculation, adding in the monthly student loan expense.
Nationwide, adding in the median monthly student debt payment to the cost of living increases the single adult living wage to more than $16 per hour in every state, and to more than $17 per hour in most states.
Waiting for the Payoff includes numbers nationally, and for each of the 50 states and Washington, D.C. for both the single adult living wage and student debt living wage.
* Traditional Single Adult Living Wage and Student Debt Living Wage by State
* Single Adult Living Wage and Current Minimum Wage by State
* Median Student Debt and Monthly Payment for Graduates by State
"In the past, the promise of a college degree was a more prosperous life - certainly you could expect to be able to make ends meet. But that promise has been broken," said LeeAnn Hall, co-executive director of People's Action Institute. "College graduates, especially women and people of color, are struggling with low wages and high student loan debt that doesn't allow them to support themselves, much less their families.
"We need better wages and affordable higher education for everyone if we are all going to prosper and move our country forward together," said Hall.
Waiting for the Payoff shows that a $15 an hour minimum wage is a modest demand - the minimum wage in every state falls far short of an actual living wage. In Alabama, the $7.25 minimum wage is 47 percent of the $15.49 needed to make ends meet - without student debt. In California, the $10 minimum wage is just half of the $19.90 it takes for a single adult to get by. Add in student debt and a worker needs $21.05 to stay afloat in California.
"Higher education is lauded as the great equalizer and a solution to the growing income gap. But wages, even for those with a college degree, have not kept pace and have even declined in many occupations," said Allyson Fredericksen, deputy director of research and author of the report.
"Student debt especially impacts students of color, who are more likely to borrow money for college. Then they are hit again in the job market where women and people of color, even with bachelor's degrees, are paid less than white men with the same level of education," said Fredericksen.
The Job Gap Economic Prosperity Series of reports have been produced since 1999 by the Alliance for a Just Society. Last summer the Alliance merged with several other organizations and is now People's Action Institute.
Allyson Fredericksen continues as the lead researcher and author of the report series.
Please join Fredericksen in a discussion of the report by phone on Tuesday.
What: Telephone conference call to discuss "Waiting for the Payoff"
Who: Allyson Fredericksen, author and researcher for People's Action Institute
When: Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2016
Time: 2 p.m. Eastern/ 1 p.m. Central/ 11 a.m. Pacific
Call-in Number: (515) 604-9000 passcode: 639371#
What is a living wage? A living wage allows people to meet their basic needs, without public assistance, and provides them some ability to deal with emergencies and plan ahead. It is not a poverty or survival wage. In this report, living wages are calculated on the basis of family budgets for several household types. Family budgets include basic necessities such as food, housing, utilities, transportation, health care, child care, clothing and other personal items, savings, and state and federal taxes. This assumes full-time work at 40 hours per week, for 52 weeks per year.
People's Action builds the power of poor and working people, in rural, suburban, and urban areas to win change through issue campaigns and elections.
LATEST NEWS
Critics Say Biden Plan to Cut Drug Costs Too Friendly to Big Pharma
"Federal agencies have shown themselves reluctant to act against unreasonable prices, and this new proposal may give them permission to continue to do nothing," said one expert.
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While welcoming the White House's willingness to tackle pharmaceutical companies' patent abuse and high prescription drug prices, progressive critics argued Thursday that U.S. President Joe Biden must do more to challenge Big Pharma's monopoly power.
The White House on Thursday announced "new actions to promote competition in healthcare and support lowering prescription drug costs for American families, including the release of a proposed framework for agencies on the exercise of march-in rights on taxpayer-funded drugs and other inventions."
Under the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980—legislation meant to promote the commercialization and public availability of government-funded inventions—federal agencies reserve the right to "march in" and authorize price-lowering generic alternatives to patented medications developed with public funding.
The federal government has never invoked march-in rights, which are staunchly opposed by the pharmaceutical and other industries and interests.
"American taxpayers pay more for research than any country in the world: Hundreds of billions of dollars on research relevant to developing new drugs through the [National Institutes of Health] and other agencies," White House domestic policy adviser Neera Tanden said at a Thursday press briefing, according toThe Hill.
"But at the same time, pharmaceutical companies charge Americans two to three times—and sometimes even more than that—for the same drugs than what they can charge in other countries," she added.
The White House said Thursday that the Department of Commerce and Department of Health and Human Services "released a proposed framework for agencies on the exercise of march-in rights that specifies for the first time that price can be a factor in determining that a drug or other taxpayer-funded invention is not accessible to the public."
The issue of greedy pharmaceutical companies charging exorbitant prices for publicly funded drugs took center stage during the Covid-19 pandemic, when corporations reaped record profits selling vaccines and other treatments developed fully or partly with taxpayer money.
U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee Chair Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)—a leading congressional critic of Big Pharma greed—called Thursday's announcement "a step forward in the right direction."
Sanders continued:
But, in my view, much more must be done. The American people are sick and tired of seeing hundreds of billions of their tax dollars going to the research and development of new treatments and cures only to end up paying, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. In my view, the administration should reinstate and expand the reasonable pricing clause to require the pharmaceutical industry to charge affordable prices for new prescription drugs developed with taxpayer support. It should also move to substantially lower the price of the prostate cancer drug Xtandi by allowing companies to manufacture generic versions of this treatment. This is a drug that was invented with taxpayer dollars by scientists at UCLA and can be purchased in Canada for one-fifth [of] the U.S. price.
In March, patient advocates blasted the Biden administration's refusal to compel Pfizer to lower Xtandi's price, even though the lifesaving prostate cancer drug—which has a nearly $190,000 annual price tag—was developed completely with public funds.
Peter Maybarduk, director of the Access to Medicines program at the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, said: "March-in can be, should be, a powerful tool to support fair pricing and access to publicly funded medicines, as President Biden importantly suggests. Unfortunately, the administration's march-in policy is far more limited than the statute allows."
"It should be quickly revised to recommend use of march-in wherever publicly funded medicines are unreasonably priced," he continued. "Where most drug prices already are egregious and force rationing, few drugs will seem 'extremely' priced by comparison. Federal agencies have shown themselves reluctant to act against unreasonable prices, and this new proposal may give them permission to continue to do nothing."
"Unfortunately, the administration's march-in policy is far more limited than the statute allows."
"The examples the announcement offers evade the main and important use case: Where drug corporations abuse their monopoly power to charge exorbitant prices, ignore the government contribution to [research and development], and charge Americans more than people in other countries," Maybarduk asserted.
"The final guidelines must be adjusted so they explicitly cover these scenarios and establish commonsense criteria for what constitutes an unreasonable price," he added. "Falling short risks doing nothing to lower the prices of taxpayer-funded medicines for patients, and instead perpetuating an unacceptable status quo. Americans have a right to expect not to be price gouged for medicines they paid for in the first place."
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Including the extension in a must-pass bill, said one critic, "would perpetuate staggering abuses of Americans' privacy, including wrongfully spying on protestors, politicians, journalists, and thousands of others."
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Privacy rights advocates this week are sounding the alarm about a bipartisan congressional effort to imminently force through an extension of warrantless government surveillance powers despite public outrage over a well-documented history of misuse.
Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) is set to expire at the end of the year unless it is reauthorized by Congress. The law only permits warrantless surveillance targeting foreigners located outside the United States, but Americans' data is also collected, and court documents have exposed "chilling" abuse, especially at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
While the FBI has implemented some reforms, for years—but particularly in the months leading up to the looming expiration—campaigners have pressured lawmakers to refuse to reauthorize Section 702 or to only do so with serious changes.
"Congressional leaders should not betray the broad, bipartisan support for surveillance reform by jamming Section 702 into the NDAA."
"To extend warrantless surveillance is to extend the racial profiling of everyday Americans. It's for this reason that we can't tolerate the reauthorization of FISA Section 702—and neither should Congress," AAPI Victory Alliance declared Thursday.
AAPI Victory Alliance is among 92 civil rights and racial justice groups that wrote to federal lawmakers late last month arguing that "including in must-pass legislation any extension would sell out the communities that have been most often wrongfully targeted by these agencies and warrantless spying powers generally."
The Biden administration has been pushing for a Section 702 extension without sweeping reforms. FBI Director Christopher Wray claimed in congressional testimony on Tuesday that "loss of this vital provision, or its reauthorization in a narrowed form, would raise profound risks. For the FBI in particular, either outcome could mean substantially impairing, or in some cases entirely eliminating, our ability to find and disrupt many of the most serious security threats."
On Wednesday evening, U.S. House Armed Services Committee Chair Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) filed the conference report of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2024. The bipartisan compromise includes a temporary extension, which the Electronic Privacy Information Center called "a shocking attempt to entrench a controversial and sweeping surveillance authority that Congress is actively working to reform."
Sean Vitka, policy director of Demand Progress, agreed that "congressional leaders should not betray the broad, bipartisan support for surveillance reform by jamming Section 702 into the NDAA. It would perpetuate staggering abuses of Americans' privacy, including wrongfully spying on protestors, politicians, journalists, and thousands of others."
The NDAA report came just hours after the House Judiciary Committee voted 35-2 to advance the Protect Liberty and End Warrantless Surveillance Act (H.R. 6570)—which Jake Laperruque, deputy director of the Center for Democracy & Technology's Security and Surveillance Project, called "the strongest surveillance reform passed out of committee since the original FISA bill 45 years ago."
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On Thursday, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence passed the FISA Reform and Reauthorization Act, which features an eight-year extension—and, as Roll Callreported, "would require the FBI to get a probable cause warrant only before using a U.S. person term for the purpose of searching for evidence of a crime, a provision that privacy advocates argue only encompasses a small fraction of the searches."
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) wrote Thursday in a letter to colleagues that he plans to bring both panels' bills "to the floor under a special rule that provides members a fair opportunity to vote in favor of their preferred measure" next week.
Johnson said that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) have committed to working "in good faith on a final reform bill that can be passed in both chambers," which the pair confirmed in a joint statement.
"To provide the necessary time to facilitate the reform process in a manner that will not conflict with our existing appropriations
deadlines and other conflicts, the NDAA conference agreement necessarily includes a short-term extension of the 702 authorities through April 19 of next year," the speaker added, as Schumer moved to set up an NDAA vote next week.
Elizabeth Goitein, senior director of the Brennan Center for Justice's Liberty & National Security Program, was among the rights advocates and lawmakers who highlighted that "it purports to be a 'short-term' reauthorization until April 19, 2024, but make no mistake: leaders are actually extending this abuse-ridden authority INTO APRIL 2025."
"It purports to be a 'short-term' reauthorization until April 19, 2024, but make no mistake: leaders are actually extending this abuse-ridden authority INTO APRIL 2025."
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"The court's April 2023 authorization will thus greenlight surveillance into April 2024," she said. "So why are congressional leaders doing this? Because that four-month extension, in practice, will be a *16-month extension.* Between now and April 19, the administration will go back to the FISA Court and get ANOTHER one-year authorization which means the [government] gets a total of 16 extra months to continue conducting warrantless backdoor searches for Americans' communications."
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Reproductive rights groups expressed relief Thursday that one woman in Texas was permitted to get abortion care after a Travis County judge granted a temporary restraining order to circumvent the state's pro-forced pregnancy laws, but said it was "unforgivable that she was forced to go to court" to request urgent medical care.
The Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) filed a lawsuit against the state last week on behalf of Kate Cox, a Dallas resident, who had just learned at 20 weeks pregnant that her fetus had the fatal diagnosis of trisomy 18, as well as a spinal abnormality and other health issues.
Cox's case is the first in which a pregnant plaintiff has asked a court for an emergency abortion since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022.
In court this week, Cox's lawyer, CRR senior staff attorney Molly Duane, told Judge Maya Guerra Gamble that Cox had had to go to the emergency room with cramping and fluid loss in the two days since she filed the lawsuit.
Since learning of the fetal diagnosis last week, Cox has sought emergency medical care four times due to her symptoms but doctors have been unable to provide her with legal abortion care due to the ban that took effect two months after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.
Before Thursday, Cox's only options under Texas law were to have a Caesarean section after carrying the pregnancy to term—even as her health grew worse—or to have labor induced in the case of the fetal heartbeat stopping.
"Due to Kate's medical history," said CRR, "her OB-GYNs warned her that continuing to carry the pregnancy could jeopardize her health and future fertility."
Advocates including Duane and author Jessica Valenti expressed outrage at the arguments presented by the state—which, notedSlate journalist Mark Joseph Stern, "will likely appeal to try to block Cox's abortion."
Jonathan Stone, the lawyer representing Texas, told Gamble that "the only party that's going to suffer an immediate and irreparable harm in this case if the court enters a TRO [temporary restraining order] is the state," because the government would not be able to make its case in a regular hearing.
"The abortion once performed is permanent and cannot be undone," Stone said. "The plaintiffs are going to obtain permanent relief in this case through this TRO application without any evidence being considered by this court and in full-blown evidentiary hearing."
The state also claimed that Cox was not at a particular risk for life-threatening complications, despite her doctors' advice.
"These arguments are frankly stunning," said Duane. "The state goes as far to characterize her claims as 'a frivolous assertion of harm.'"
Cox's lawyers added that "the harm to Ms. Cox's life, health, and fertility are very much also permanent and cannot be undone."
Cox "should never have had to fight in court for her life, her health, and her future," said U.S. Rep. Katherine Clark (D-Mass.). "This is the result of the GOP war on reproductive freedom. And it must be stopped."
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said after Gamble's ruling was announced that while the TRO "purports" to allow an abortion to proceed, it "will not insulate hospitals, doctors, or anyone else from civil and criminal liability for violating Texas' abortion laws."
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