The blog of the Frances Perkins Center

“The people are what matter to government, and a government should aim to give all the people under its jurisdiction the best possible life.”
–Frances Perkins, Secretary of Labor, 1933 – 1945

Help extend unemployment insurance for millions of Americans

Unemployment Insurance is one of the programs that Frances Perkins fought for. BanksterUSA is asking people to call their senators tomorrow to extend Unemployment Insurance benefits.

Here’s their press release:

——————————————————————————————-

A National Day of Action on Unemployment Insurance, February 10th

This week will be a critical one for millions of Americans on Unemployment Insurance (UI). Although job loss is slowing, the economy is still not producing any new jobs and UI benefits will end for one million Americans on February 28th if Congress does not take immediate action. Four million more Americans will lose the benefits in the months that follow. The impact will be devastating on families and communities, as foreclosures driven by unemployment accelerate and as small businesses lose billions in revenue from paying customers. That’s because every $1 of unemployment insurance benefits that is spent results in $1.69 in economic stimulus in the community

Wednesday, February 10th will be a National Day of Action to Save the UI program. Tell Congress to extend UI benefits until the end of 2010. You can sent a note to your member of Congress at BanksterUSA. Alternatively, if you click on this link for Jobs4AmericaNow and input your phone number, you will be called at that number and connected to one of your Senators. Thanks for lending a helping hand!

————————————————————————————

Bankster is a project of the nonpartisan Center for Media and Democracy.

Sometimes sarcasm says it best…

Congressman Paul Ryan

Michael Lind, in today’s Salon article, The GOP’s bad old ideas, rightly skewers the suggestions of Congressman Paul Ryan, the Republican’s leader on the House Budget Committee, regarding Social Security:

In domestic policy, Paul Ryan, R-Wis., the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee, recently unveiled an alternative budget that would deal with the long-term deficit problem (about half of which was caused by Bush’s and the Republican Congress’s wars and tax cuts) by privatizing Social Security and turning Medicare into a voucher system.

As Michael Myers’ Doctor Evil might say: …….R….r……r…..right.

That’s what Americans are demanding, Rep. Ryan. Millions of Americans are not content to have lost much or all of their 401K and other private retirement savings in the stock market in the last decade, with nothing but Social Security remaining to rescue them in their retirement years. No, Americans are angry because they weren’t allowed to lose all of their Social Security money, as well, in the stock market. Clearly they are angry because Wall Street brokers aren’t able to rake in commissions from middle-class and working-class retirees by flipping stocks bought with diverted Social Security funds. The bailouts to Wall Street were not enough. We need to give the rent-seeking bankers the vast funds of Social Security as well and let them charge us fees for “managing” it with the legendary expertise we all know and admire.

I hope Ryan isn’t previewing the Republicans’ position on Social Security reform. I can’t believe this stand would be good for their party. I know it wouldn’t be good for the country.

Kirstin Downey says, “Statistics mask real economic pain”

Were you cheered by the reported drop in the jobless rate yesterday? In Fredericksburg.com, Frances Perkins Center board member Kirstin Downey reflected on the drop of 0.3 percent. While you should read the entire article, let me share a few highlights:

But the fact is that private-sector employment actually looks worse than durinig the Great Depression. If you compare the numbers with 1933, more than a third of U.S. workers are jobless today. And government officials don’t seem willing to face the situation.

In 1933, 25% of the working population meant 12.8 million people were out of work in a workforce of about 51 million. That included senior citizens, because only about 10% of older people had pensions in those years before Social Security.

Now, the federal government says we have an estimated 14.8 million unemployed, out of a work force of about 154 million. But that number is artificially lower than in the Great Depression because 33 million senior citizens are on Social Security — and not seeking jobs as they were then. An additional 7.4 million adults receive disability payments under Social Security, and some would also have been seeking work in 1933.

But that’s not all. We have a far larger standing military than in 1933 — about 1 percent of the work force, or 1.4 million men and women.

Another 1.6 million people are in jails and prisons, a near-record amount, and again a larger percentage of able-bodied U.S. residents than in 1933. They are excluded from the statistics today.

In other words, 43.4 million people are paid for government employment in the military, or supported through government programs. If added to the jobless numbers, it equals about 58 million people.

She goes on to discuss the fact that economic conditions are worsening for a large number of people. “On Thursday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 480,000 additional people filed for unemployment insurance last week. That’s 10.4 million people now on unemployment, up from 7.2 million in December 2008.”

Comparing today to the 1930s, she points out that:

The big difference now is that despair is masked. Social Security and the expansions of unemployment insurance mean that people are able to keep the wolf from the door. The bread lines of the 1930s are food banks.

We can all thank Frances Perkins and her New Deal colleagues for the programs that are keeping so many of us from outright destitution. But she cautions that “the American people are so angry at their leaders. They know that many of the government statistics are often just statistical sleight-of-hand.” Her article shows just how dire the crisis is–it’s truly as bad as it feels to us.

[Kirstin Downey, a former economics reporter at The Washington Post, is the author of “The Woman Behind the New Deal: The Life and Legacy of Frances Perkins, Social Security, Unemployment Compensation and the Minimum Wage,” out this month as an Anchor trade paperback.]

Imperfect healthcare bill compared to 1935 Social Security Act

In a blog post today at the New Yorker, Henrik Hertzberg pointed to a Politico article by Bruce Schulman, “House should grit teeth, pass Senate bill” in which Schulman describes how far short of its original goals the 1935 Social Security Act fell, yet how influential its impact since then has been.

Of course, the final product scaled down all FDR’s original ambitions. It excluded agriculture, domestics and small shops with fewer than 10 workers — a decision ensuring that African-Americans, large numbers of whom toiled as farm workers and domestics, would be without protection. It took three decades of gradual expansion before Social Security covered every worker — a long, hard slog.

[...]

By the time the last compromise was made, Perkins expressed the disillusionment of many reformers. The thing,” she lamented, had been “chiseled down to a conservative pattern.”

[...]

Even with the compromises present at its creation, FDR, Perkins remembered, considered Social Security “the cornerstone” of his legacy. President Barack Obama and the Congress might well remember that model.

Thanks to Bruce Schulman for putting political compromise–particularly as it relates to major reform efforts–into perspective, and thanks to Henrik Hertzberg for bringing Schulman’s article to our attention.

Remarks and Stories from January 14th Event

Please click on the image to open the video. Then look for the "play" arrow to start the video.

This video includes remarks made after the reception and before the showing of the film at our Jan. 14th event in New York City. Speakers are Christopher Breiseth, friend of Frances Perkins, former president of the Roosevelt Institute, and advisor to the Frances Perkins Center; Brian Kennedy, friend of Frances Perkins and Chris Breiseth; Tomlin Perkins Coggeshall, chair of the board of the Frances Perkins Center; Barbara Burt, executive director of the Frances Perkins Center; Ruth Acker, president of the Women’s City Club of New York; Rob Shetterly, artist and creator of a new portrait of Frances Perkins; and Karenna Gore Schiff and Catherine Corman, discussing their film, Lighting the Way: Frances Perkins.

Panel Discussion from Jan. 14: “Strengthening Social Security in the 21st Century”

Please click on the image to open the video. Then look for the "play" arrow to start the video.

From our January 14th event in New York City, the 2nd panel and wrap-up comments.

“Strengthening Social Security in the 21st Century”
Moderator: Professor Susan Feiner of the University of Southern Maine and member of the Frances Perkins Center board.

Panelists: Nancy Altman, author of The Battle for Social Security; Dr. Maya Rockeymoore, CEO of the Global Policy Solutions and co-editor of Strengthening Community: Social Insurance in a Diverse America; and Professor Eric Kingson from Syracuse University, and co-editor of Social Security in the 21st Century.

Closing comments are by Dr. Lynn Parramore of the Roosevelt Institute and editor of New Deal 2.0.

Panel Discussion from Jan. 14: “The Birth of Social Security and the Transformation of America”

Please click on the image to play the video. Look for the arrow in the lower left corner to start the video.

The 1st panel from our January 14th event in New York City, “The Birth of Social Security and the Transformation of America”

Moderator: Dr. Christopher Breiseth, former president of the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute and current member of the Advisory Committee of the Frances Perkins Center

Panelists: Kirstin Downey, author of The Woman Behind the New Deal and board member at the Frances Perkins Center; Adam Cohen of the New York Times and author of Nothing to Fear; and Larry DeWitt, public historian at the Social Security Administration and principal editor of Social Security: A Documentary History.

Personal account of our New York City event on January 14th

[Written by Tomlin Perkins Coggeshall, the board chair of the Frances Perkins Center. For more information about the event, along with photos and videos, go to: http://www.francesperkinscenter.org/hc-event1-14-10.html.]

Well, it all started last summer at the Frances Perkins Center’s first annual garden party at The Brick House in Newcastle, Maine (home of the Frances Perkins Center). We had invited friends from far and wide and were delighted and happily surprised when Karenna Gore Schiff and her friend Catherine Ann Corman turned out to be among them! Karenna had mentioned that she was working on a film about FP (based on the story in her biography, Lighting the Way: Nine Women Who Changed Modern America) with Catherine. Karenna said that she and Catherine planned to have their new film ready around the turn of the year and one thing led to another as soon as they got to talking with Barb Burt, the Center’s executive director.

Very soon, we had a major event planned for January 14th, in New York at the Harvard Club, which evolved into an afternoon and evening consisting of two panel discussions, a reception, remarks, and the premiere of the new film on FP. You can see a PDF of the program here: Jan14_Program Front.

The months passed quickly and we soon became aware, with mounting trepidation, that we had planned an event in the middle of the winter in New York City, a place where winter can mean business! We all prayed and FP may have been pulling strings again because the weather could not have been nicer. About 160 people came, including a very special surprise guest, Karenna’s father, Vice President Al Gore. His presence was a huge honor for all involved and gave the entire affair a good helping of extra excitement and all-around buzz.

After a perfect simple lunch at the club, the event swat team consisting of Barb Burt, Tomlin Coggeshall, board members Christopher Rice, Betty Wilson, and Sarah Peskin, and some great volunteers, Casey Maliszewski and Emily Wazlak, both Mount Holyoke students, and Heidi Overbeck and Jorge Ruiz from the Women’s City Club of New York, began final preparations for people to begin arriving and registering. Name badges were assembled, programs were collated, seats were set up, video people were testing and adjusting the projection equipment, other video people were setting up to record the panel discussions which turned out to be extremely relevant and incisive. All was coming together very well, a testament in no small part to expert management of the whole affair by Barb Burt, the Center’s executive director, par excellance.

Two rooms were used, one for the “theater” where the panel discussions would take place and a second room, separated from the first by to gigantic mahogany pocket doors at the back of the “theater” room. They opened onto a somewhat smaller room where there were low tables with chairs for authors to sign books, high cocktail tables for guests to talk around, and a cash bar for those who wanted a little fortification. All of it steeped in Harvard Club ambiance and crimson, plenty of old world charm and elegance.

Thanks to Barb’s foresight in having the panel discussions taped, we can share those with anyone interested. Both panels were on Social Security, the first on “The Birth of Social Security and the Transformation of America” and the second on “Strengthening Social Security in the 21st Century.”

After the panel discussions ended, we opened those great doors and had a very nice party. A new portrait of FP was set up on an easel in this room for guests to admire. It had been painted and brought down by car from Maine by artist Rob Shetterly, who has a series he calls “American Who Tell the Truth” and has added FP’s portrait to his series. During the reception, quite unexpectedly, Vice President Gore strode into the room and began chatting with people who he met or who came up to say hello. It was wonderful to see him there and truly was an honor for all.

The reception ended about 7:30pm and the group migrated back through those mahogany doors to settle back into their seats for the premiere of Karenna and Catherine’s new film. Tomlin Coggeshall, FP’s grandson, offered a few words of welcome then invited Christopher Breiseth to share a memory or two of FP which he obligingly did in his delightful way, Chris, in turn, introduced Brian Kennedy (a Telluride House resident for four of the five years that FP lived so happily and comfortably there being so lovingly taken care of). Brian gladly shared some fond memories, and then Barb Burt gave us an overview of the Center’s accomplishments and plans as she introduced Ruth Acker, president of the Women’s City Club of New York, and Rob Shetterly, the Maine artist who brought his portrait of FP down from Maine.

After Rob finished speaking, Barb introduced Karenna and Catherine, who gave us a good understanding of the process and background on their film. They mentioned that their film was in a draft form and and invited comment from the audience. The film imparted a clear sense of FP’s complicated and varied life and career through narration by Karenna with chapter titles and a series of wonderful black and white photos.

So, to recap a recap, on January 14, 2010, we enjoyed wonderful afternoon and evening of…

Panel discussions, a reception with many friends, old and new, some remarks by some, viewing a new portrait of FP by Maine artist Rob Shetterly, and the premiere public showing of a new film on FP by Karenna Gore Schiff and Catherine Ann Corman.

Senator Byrd’s letter opposing the fast-track commission amendment

Press release — “Say NO to the Fast-Track Commission”

This morning we received this notice from colleagues worried about the fast-track commission.

“Say NO to the Fast-Track Commission”
National Call-In Day – January 19, 2010 – # 1.800.998.0180

Contact: Anne Bollinger
Phone: 202.719.0725
Visit: www.socialsecuritymatters.org

WASHINGTON, DC – On Tuesday, January 19, 2010 OWL, AFSCME Retirees, AFT Program on Retirement and Retirees, Alliance for Retired Americans, American Association of University Women, Generations United, National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, National Senior Citizens Law Center, NOW, Pension Right Center, Wider Opportunities for Women (WOW) and several other national organizations are calling on their members to flood the Senate with phone calls against the Conrad-Gregg Fast Track Commission proposal.

Senators Conrad (D-ND) and Gregg (R-NH) have come up with a special fast-track commission that they say will cure America’s budget problems, and they are holding up other legislation until the Senate votes on their proposal.  Debate begins on January 20th.

“It is clear from their press release that Senators Conrad and Gregg have painted a big red target on Social Security and Medicare,” Senator Baucus (D-MT) warned. “That’s what this commission is all about. It’s a big roll of the dice for Social Security and Medicare.”

This type of fast-track commission is undemocratic and takes power away from Congress to make decisions about Social Security.  Social Security does not contribute to the national debt; it is insurance that workers have earned through their hard work.

Social Security is fundamental to the economic security of all Americans, particularly women, seniors, minorities, the disabled children who lose a parent, people who lose a spouse, and veterans.

“The average Social Security recipient receives $13,860 annually, less if you are a woman.  The fact that Senators Conrad and Gregg think the way to fix budget shortfalls is to make seniors poorer is shocking and laughable – first, because Social Security doesn’t contribute in any way to the national deficit, and second, because essentially Congress has allowed $150 billion in Wall Street bonuses,” stated, Ashley Carson, OWL Executive Director.  ”Robbing grandma to reward Wall Street fat cats is not sound economics.”

###

The number for the call-in day is 1.800.998.0180 and has been generously provided by the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare who has been a leader on this issue and whose members have been making calls already.