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    The Jobs the Pandemic May Devastate

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    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesVaccine RolloutSee Your Local RiskNew Variants TrackerAdvertisementContinue reading the main storyUpshotSupported byContinue reading the main storyThe Jobs the Pandemic May DevastateAn updated forecast by the Bureau of Labor Statistics has alarming news for people with a high school diploma or less.The 10 occupations with the largest projected declines relative to the baseline estimates include restaurant work, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.Credit…Alessandro Grassani for The New York TimesFeb. 22, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETProjecting how many people will work in hundreds of detailed occupations in 2029 is a bold exercise — even without the uncertainty of the pandemic.But labor experts within the U.S. government try to do just that. And their latest assessment of which jobs will grow over the next decade has alarming implications for jobs requiring less education — while also forecasting a boom for epidemiologists and other health-science jobs.That assessment, from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, emphasizes all the uncertainty that accompanies projections, and it stresses that these are estimates of structural changes, not forecasts of cyclical booms and busts. Long-term projections are often wrong, especially for more volatile sectors like mining and construction, but the agency’s estimates are typically well reasoned and sober.The original B.L.S. projections, made last year without taking pandemic effects into account, called for cumulative economywide job growth of 3.7 percent from 2019 to 2029. The new pandemic-informed projections cut that to 2.9 percent in the “moderate impact” pandemic outlook and 1.9 percent in the “strong impact” one.Both of these new outlooks assume more remote work and higher demand for relevant technology services; less in-person entertainment and travel; and more investment in public health than would have happened without the pandemic.In the “strong impact” projection, there would be 25 percent more epidemiologists in 2029 than the original baseline projection for 2029, the largest increase among nearly 800 detailed occupations. The 10 occupations with the biggest increase in projected employment relative to the baseline projection are all in medical, health-science and technology fields. The 10 occupations with the largest declines relative to the baseline projection include restaurant, hotel and transportation jobs.
    [embedded content]On balance, the new projections modestly speed up the occupational shifts from the original baseline projections. For instance, the pandemic is poised to accelerate the originally projected fast growth in software developer jobs, and to hasten a previously expected decline in cashier jobs.The projected employment changes because of the pandemic are concentrated in a relatively small number of sectors. Three-quarters of all jobs are in occupations where projected employment in the strong-impact scenario differs from the original baseline scenario by less than 2 percent.For the most part, the sectors originally projected to grow fastest over the next decade in the baseline projection — like nurse practitioners, home health aides and many other health care occupations — are still projected to grow fastest.The Coronavirus Outbreak More

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    How a Minimum-Wage Increase Is Being Felt in a Low-Wage City

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    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Jobs CrisisCurrent Unemployment RateWhen the Checks Run OutThe Economy in 9 ChartsThe First 6 MonthsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyHow a Minimum-Wage Increase Is Being Felt in a Low-Wage CityIs $15 an hour too much, or not enough? Fresno, Calif., may be a laboratory for a debate over the minimum wage that is heating up on the national level.Elsa Rodriguez Killion, a Fresno restaurant owner, worries that California’s rising minimum wage will force her to cut jobs.Credit…Sarahbeth Maney for The New York TimesFeb. 14, 2021, 5:05 p.m. ETEven before the pandemic, Elsa Rodriguez Killion realized that Casa Corona, her restaurant in Fresno, Calif., was going to have to change with the times.She spent money on digital marketing. She invested in technology that enabled online orders, for dishes like the restaurant’s signature chile verde. And there was something else she had to keep up with: California’s rising minimum wage.The minimum rose to $14 an hour on Jan. 1, the fifth annual increase under a 2016 law. It is set to reach $15 for most employers by next year. With price increases, Ms. Rodriguez Killion was able to absorb some of the added payroll expense. But she also cut more than 20 percent of the 160 jobs at her restaurant’s two locations in the last five years, not including those lost because of the pandemic.“Every year we have had to make hard decisions to let labor go,” said Ms. Rodriguez Killion, 47, who opened Casa Corona with her brother and sister more than 20 years ago. She worries that paring more of her work force is inevitable.On the flip side of her anxiety is the measurable difference felt by some Fresno workers, even if the higher pay is still often not enough to live comfortably.“It helps tremendously,” said Elisabeth Parra, 25, a Walmart cashier who lives with her mother. Since her pay rose to the $14 minimum last month, she said, “I’m able to help my mom more with bills.”Fresno may be a laboratory for a debate that is heating up on the national level. President Biden wants to gradually raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour, from the current $7.25, achieving a longstanding priority of the labor movement and the Democratic Party’s progressive wing.For now, at least, such a provision is part of Mr. Biden’s $1.9 trillion pandemic relief package. House Democrats, who voted in 2019 for a $15 minimum wage, intend to do so again when they send the pandemic legislation to the Senate. But chances there are clouded by parliamentary questions — and the objections of two key Democrats, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, along with Republicans.Backers have long said that increasing the minimum wage would raise the living standard of workers and help combat poverty. With more money, workers would be inclined to spend more, strengthening the economy.Opponents contend that minimum-wage increases cost jobs, particularly in struggling cities like Fresno. What’s more, they say, any broad standard, whether statewide or nationwide, does not account for local variations in the cost of living or business conditions.According to a study by the Congressional Budget Office, raising the minimum wage to $15 by 2025 would decrease employment by 1.4 million — but it would still raise 900,000 people out of poverty. The report’s conclusions were wielded by both proponents and foes of the $15 proposal.The pandemic-induced downturn has raised the stakes. Those favoring a minimum-wage increase say it is more essential than ever, especially since sectors hit hardest by the pandemic, including leisure and hospitality, have a higher proportion of low-wage workers. Critics counter that lifting the wage floor would severely harm small businesses trying to bounce back.“This is the debate that usually takes place in some academic circles,” said Antonio Avalos, the chairman of the economics department at California State University, Fresno. But the experience of Fresno, an inland city of 500,000 isolated geographically and economically from coastal metropolises like San Francisco and Los Angeles, underscores the core tension between the competing economic arguments.Fresno is the hub of an agriculture-rich area, with produce that includes almonds, pistachios, oranges and grapes. Its economy is tied directly to the agriculture industry, though its location has also made it a draw for warehouses. In recent years, Amazon and the beauty emporium Ulta Beauty both opened sprawling fulfillment centers there.Fresno’s economy is tied to agriculture, but its location has also drawn warehouses, including an Amazon distribution center.Credit…Sarahbeth Maney for The New York TimesFresno County, where more than half of the population identifies as Hispanic, has one of the state’s highest poverty rates, and one of its lowest median wages. The typical local worker in 2019, the last year for which data is available, made under $17 an hour. A quarter of workers made $12.50. Before California enacted gradual increases under its 2016 law, the minimum wage was $10, a level typical for fast-food jobs and other low-wage occupations.Some Fresno business owners saw little impact from the raises.Arthur Moye, who owns Full Circle Brewing Company, a craft brewery, has not had to reduce his staff because the wage increases had been “a slow roll,” he said. Instead, he has adjusted both the pay and the work. “We might increase expectations on the people that are here earning that higher wage,” devoting more scrutiny to job candidates and doing more to develop those they hire, he said.But others, especially restaurant owners like Ms. Rodriguez Killion, say costs are becoming untenable, especially as they contend with the pandemic’s impact.A 2019 study by the University of California, Riverside, funded by the California Restaurant Association, a trade group, found evidence that the rising minimum wage was slowing growth in the state’s restaurant industry.Kris Stuebner, an executive at Jem Restaurant Management Corporation, which operates KFC and Wendy’s franchises in Fresno, said the wage mandate had been particularly tough for restaurant operators like him, who have to allocate a percentage of their profits to things like franchise royalties and advertising fees.He has not reduced his work force, he said. But to offset the rising labor costs, he said, he has had to raise prices and look for places to save money. He formed an internal maintenance department because he could no longer afford to pay an outside company to fix issues like plumbing.“It’s this balancing act — you’ve got all these balls in the air to juggle,” he said.Several employers questioned the logic of applying a statewide minimum wage in a place like Fresno, where the cost of living is much lower than in coastal cities. In voices tinged with resentment, some describe the rising minimum wage as akin to a “payroll tax grab” by the government because payroll taxes for employers are tied to employees’ wages and rise when wages do.Some business owners also noted that they had had to raise wages for employees already making more than the minimum to keep the pay scale fair. And some mentioned indirect results: When the minimum wage increases, the price of other things, from gas to cleaning linens to produce, increases as well.Yet hiring has continued. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, restaurant employment in Fresno rose by about 7 percent from the end of 2016 to the end of 2019, before the pandemic — a slightly higher rate than in California as a whole.The minimum-wage law allows the governor to delay a planned increase for a year if the economy weakens. With the pandemic gutting their industry, restaurant owners in Fresno and elsewhere urged Gov. Gavin Newsom to do so.When he didn’t, some owners were outraged.“It’s frustrating as can be,” said Chuck Van Fleet, the owner of Vino Grille & Spirits and the president of the Fresno chapter of the California Restaurant Association. “You’ve got somebody who’s out there saying, ‘Hey, I’m trying to do what’s right for everybody.’ And the only thing he wants to do is increase wages.”At the same time, the wage increases in California have offered hope to some workers in Fresno, whose incomes have grown.Ms. Parra, the Walmart cashier, has lived almost her whole life in Fresno. She recently graduated from California State University, Fresno, with a degree in mass communications and journalism, focusing on advertising, and dreams of becoming an art director.She was making $15 an hour in a part-time job at a public relations firm before she was let go in the spring during the first coronavirus surge. She started working at Walmart in October for $13 an hour, the minimum wage last year.Jessica Ramirez makes $15.65 an hour at the Amazon warehouse in Fresno, but even with food stamps, she finds her pay barely enough to support her five children.Credit…Sarahbeth Maney for The New York TimesWhen the wage went up, Ms. Parra said, she could more easily help with rent and pay the phone and cable bills at the apartment that she shares with her mother, who makes $18.50 an hour at a heating and air-conditioning company.She noted, however, that her wages were not enough for her to live on her own. “I wouldn’t say that we’re poor, but I also wouldn’t say that we’re well off,” she said. “But because there is both of us who have incomes, we’re able to do O.K.”Mayor Jerry Dyer said there were “mixed feelings, obviously,” about the rising minimum wage. “As a mayor of a city, it’s important that we have people in our community who are making a livable wage,” he said.But Mr. Dyer, a Republican, said he also understood the pain that businesses might be feeling. “I’ve heard from businesses that if the minimum wage goes up too much, they’re not able to be competitive,” he said.“That’s the challenge that we face,” he said.One prevailing question is whether $15 is enough.In Fresno, it often isn’t. M.I.T.’s Living Wage Calculator estimates that a living wage in Fresno for a family of four, with both adults working, is $22.52 an hour. In the past year, Fresno’s median rent increased by 11 percent, to $1,260, according to Apartment List’s National Rent Report, among the greatest increases in the country.For 40 hours a week, Jessica Ramirez, 26, makes $15.65 an hour at the Amazon warehouse in Fresno. She is the primary breadwinner for herself, her partner and her five children, but even with food stamps and occasional gig work, she said, her wage is barely enough for them to get by.Ms. Ramirezsaid she was renting a three-bedroom house for $1,350 a month — roughly half of what she makes.She wants to go to college, but even more, she wants a better life for her children. “I’m their provider,” she said. “I have to give them a home. That’s what they need — a home.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Minimum Wage Hike Would Help Poverty but Cost Jobs, Budget Office Says

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    AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyMinimum Wage Hike Would Help Poverty but Cost Jobs, Budget Office SaysThe Congressional Budget Office said raising the federal minimum wage to $15 would also increase the deficit, potentially helping the proposal’s prospects of being included in relief legislation.Protesters in Chicago last month called for the minimum wage to be increased to $15 an hour. Congress last passed an increase in 2007. Credit…Scott Olson/Getty ImagesFeb. 8, 2021, 7:43 p.m. ETWASHINGTON — Raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour — a proposal included in the package of relief measures being pushed by President Biden — would add $54 billion to the budget deficit over the next decade, the Congressional Budget Office concluded on Monday.Normally, a prediction of increased debt might harm the plan’s political chances. But proponents of the wage hike seized on the forecast as evidence that the hotly contested proposal could survive a procedural challenge under the Senate’s arcane rules.Democrats are trying to add the measure to a $1.9 trillion pandemic relief package that is advancing through a process called budget reconciliation, which requires a simple majority rather than the 60-vote margin to overcome a filibuster. But reconciliation is reserved for matters with a significant budgetary effect.Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent, said the forecast of an increased deficit showed that the measure passed the test. Raising the federal minimum wage to $15 “would have a direct and substantial impact on the federal budget,” he said in a statement. “What that means is we can clearly raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour under the rules.”Critics of the plan noted a different element of the report: its forecast that raising the minimum wage to $15 would eliminate 1.4 million jobs by the time the increase takes full effect.“Conservatives have been saying for a while that a recession is absolutely the wrong time to increase the minimum wage, even if it’s slowly phased in,” said Brian Riedl, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. “The economy’s just too fragile.”He also contested Mr. Sanders’s argument that the study raised the odds that a wage increase could survive Senate rules. The study found the measure would affect private-sector wages much more than it would raise the deficit — $333 billion versus $54 billion — showing its effect on the deficit was incidental, Mr. Riedl said.“I doubt the parliamentarian will determine that this is primarily a budgetary reform rather than an economic reform with a secondary budget effect,” he said.The rules say the budgetary effects cannot be “merely incidental” but do not define the phrase. While Mr. Sanders called $54 billion substantial, Mr. Riedl said it was about half of 1 percent of the projected 10-year deficit.Congress last passed a minimum-wage increase in 2007. The current federal minimum, $7.25 an hour, is about 29 percent below its 1968 peak when adjusted for inflation, according to the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. David Cooper, an economic analyst at the institute, said 29 states and the District of Columbia have higher minimums, and seven states plus the District of Columbia were phasing in the $15-an-hour threshold.Progressives see the wage increase as a central weapon for fighting poverty and inequality, while conservatives often warn it will reduce jobs.The report in essence said both sides were right. It found a $15 minimum wage would offer raises to 27 million people and lift 900,000 people above the poverty line, but it would also cost 1.4 million jobs.Mr. Cooper disputed the jobs forecast, arguing that it was out of line with recent studies that showed increases in the minimum wage had produced little or no effect on employment. “C.B.O. seems to be going in the opposite direction,” he said.Progressives like Mr. Sanders have been arguing that an increased minimum wage would reduce federal spending because fewer people would need safety-net programs like food stamps or Medicaid. But the budget office warned that those savings would be more than offset by the higher costs of delivering services like medical care, as employers raised their workers’ pay — a finding Mr. Sanders continued to reject, citing other studies.On balance, the report said the changes would benefit labor over capital.“They assume that there is income transferred from workers at the top of the income distribution to workers at the bottom,” Mr. Cooper said. “Therefore, they implicitly say that the minimum wage is a tool for fighting inequality. That’s probably the most explicit they’ve ever been on that point.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    ‘We Are Forgotten’: Grocery Workers Hope for Higher Pay and Vaccinations

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    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesSee Your Local RiskVaccine InformationCalifornia Anti-Vaccine ProtestsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main story‘We Are Forgotten’: Grocery Workers Hope for Higher Pay and VaccinationsBooming business during the pandemic hasn’t always meant better wages, and they have largely been left off vaccine priority lists.Workers protesting outside the Food 4 Less in Long Beach, Calif. Kroger plans to close the store after the city required “hero pay” for grocery workers.Credit…Maggie Shannon for The New York TimesSapna Maheshwari and Feb. 8, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETIt has been an exhausting 10 months for Toni Ward Sockwell, an assistant manager at Cash Saver, a grocery chain, in Guthrie, Okla. She has been helping to oversee about 40 anxious employees during a deadly pandemic, vigilantly disinfecting counters at the store and worrying about passing the coronavirus to her elderly mother while dropping off produce.News of the vaccines initially boosted her spirits, but her optimism faded as she learned that grocery store workers in Oklahoma would not be eligible for them until spring.“When they said we were Phase 3, I wanted to laugh,” Ms. Sockwell, 45, said. “We’re around just as many sick people as we are around nonsick people, just like health care workers, because we are always going to be open to supply food to the public.“Health care workers are heroes in my eyes,” she added. “But we are forgotten.”The race to distribute vaccines and the emergence of more contagious variants of Covid-19 have put a renewed spotlight on the plight of grocery workers in the United States. The industry has boomed in the past year as Americans have stayed home and avoided restaurants. But in most cases, that has not translated into extra pay for its workers. After Long Beach, Calif., mandated hazard pay for grocery workers, the grocery giant Kroger responded last week by saying it would close two locations.And now, even as experts warn people to minimize time spent in grocery stores because of new coronavirus variants, The New York Times found only 13 states that had started specifically vaccinating those workers.“Grocers are known to have these very thin margins, which they do, but they have been very profitable during the pandemic,” said Molly Kinder, a fellow at the Brookings Institution who has researched retailers’ pay during the pandemic. “Employers by and large, with only a few exceptions like Trader Joe’s and Costco, ended hazard pay months and months ago.”She added, “If you look at how the virus has gone since then, it’s so much more deadly now.”“We’re around just as many sick people as we are around nonsick people,” Toni Ward Sockwell said of grocery store workers like her. Credit…Nick Oxford for The New York TimesBrookings found that while 13 of the largest retail and grocery companies in the United States earned $17.7 billion more in the first three quarters of 2020 than they did a year earlier, most stopped offering extra compensation to their associates in the early summer. At the same time, some opted to buy back shares and gave big sums to executives.The tension is especially high on the West Coast, where cities like Los Angeles and Seattle have moved forward with mandates that require hazard pay for essential grocery workers — and are now facing threats of store closures and even an end to food bank donations from grocers.Bertha Ayala, who works at a Food 4 Less store in Long Beach, was ecstatic after the city enacted an ordinance last month requiring her store, which is owned by Kroger, to pay its workers an additional $4 per hour of “hero pay” to compensate them for the risks they face.“I love my job,” Ms. Ayala said. “But it has been very stressful.” She said the extra pay was welcome considering the high cost of living in Southern California and as a validation of her sacrifices in going to work.But only days after the additional money started flowing to Ms. Ayala and her colleagues, supervisors told the staff last week that Kroger was shutting down the store because of the hero pay requirement. Kroger also said it was closing a second store in Long Beach. The employees’ union said it had not been told whether Kroger would move the workers to other locations.Bertha Ayala, who works at the Food 4 Less in Long Beach, said the job “has been very stressful.”Credit…Maggie Shannon for The New York Times“Kroger is sending a message, more than anything else,” said Andrea Zinder, president of Local 324 of the United Food and Commercial Workers, which represents about 160 employees at the two stores. “They are trying to intimidate workers and communities: If you pass these types of ordinances, there will be consequences.”The Coronavirus Outbreak More

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    A Look at What’s in Biden’s $1.9 Trillion Stimulus Plan

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    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesA Future With CoronavirusVaccine InformationF.A.Q.TimelineAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyA Look at What’s in Biden’s $1.9 Trillion Stimulus PlanThe president-elect is rolling out a large spending package aimed at helping battle the virus and alleviate the economic toll it has taken.President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. planned to lay out plans on Thursday for efforts to combat the coronavirus and address its economic toll.Credit…Kriston Jae Bethel for The New York TimesJan. 14, 2021Updated 7:24 p.m. ETThe incoming Biden administration unveiled a $1.9 trillion stimulus plan on Thursday that offered a wish list of spending measures meant to help both people and the economy recover from the coronavirus pandemic, from state and local aid and more generous unemployment benefits to mass vaccinations.Below, we run through a few of the biggest provisions, how they would work and what they might mean for the United States economy as it struggles through a winter of surging coronavirus cases and partial state and local lockdowns.Let’s put that headline number in context.That $1.9 trillion figure is a lot of money, to put it mildly. Congress passed a $900 billion relief program in December, and its package in March was also about $2 trillion. By way of comparison, the major financial crisis spending package — the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 — clocked in around $800 billion.The administration is looking for $1,400 checks.President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. is trying to make good on Democrats’ promise to send more money to households in the form of one-time checks. Its proposal would send out $1,400 per person for those under certain income thresholds, topping off the $600 checks that came as part of the December relief package.It also wants an unemployment insurance supplement of $400 a week.Mr. Biden is asking Congress to extend emergency unemployment insurance programs through the end of September — they are set to expire in mid-March — while providing “a $400 per week unemployment insurance supplement to help hard-hit workers.”That amount is higher than what lawmakers included in the December stimulus, which provided a $300 supplement for 11 weeks, but it is lower than the $600 weekly benefit included in the first package in March.Schools could get money to reopen.The administration says it wants to make “the necessary investments to meet the president-elect’s goal of safely reopening a majority” of kindergarten-to-eighth-grade schools within Mr. Biden’s first 100 days in office.Administration officials are suggesting $170 billion for schools, supplemented by additional state and local funds. About $130 billion of that would go toward reopening, while much of the rest of the money would go to help colleges dealing with the shift to distance learning and other pandemic-tied problems.The minimum wage could rise.After holding steady at $7.25 for more than a decade, the federal minimum wage would rise to $15 per hour under the proposal, which would also end the tipped minimum wage and sub-minimum wage for people with disabilities. Many states and localities have already raised their own wage floors. It is not clear how quickly the higher wage would phase in.Research from the Congressional Budget Office in 2019 suggested that raising the wage to $15 nationally could increase pay for tens of millions of workers, though potentially at some cost to jobs — perhaps 1.3 million people who would otherwise work would not be, in part because employers would reduce payroll.The Coronavirus Outbreak More

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    Fed Officials Debated Rate Liftoff in 2015, Offering Lessons for Today

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    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Jobs CrisisCurrent Unemployment RateThe First Six MonthsPermanent LayoffsWhen a $600 Lifeline EndedAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyFed Officials Debated Rate Liftoff in 2015, Offering Lessons for TodayThe Federal Reserve raised rates from near zero in 2015. The discussion back then — and developments since — will inform their future policy.The Federal Reserve Board building in Washington. The central bank raised rates in 2015 as the unemployment rate dropped.Credit…Ting Shen for The New York TimesJan. 8, 2021Updated 2:24 p.m. ETThe Federal Reserve lifted interest rates from near zero in 2015 after years of holding them at rock bottom following the 2008 global financial crisis. Transcripts from their policy discussions, released Friday, show just how fraught that decision was.The debate that played out then is especially relevant now, when the central bank has again slashed interest rates practically to zero, this time to fight the pandemic-induced economic downturn. The concerns that officials voiced over lifting rates in 2015 — that inflation would not pick up, and that the labor market had further to heal — proved prescient in ways that will inform policy setting in the years to come.The Fed, under Chair Janet L. Yellen, raised its policy rate in 2015 as the unemployment rate dropped. Officials worried that if they waited too long to nudge borrowing costs higher, they would stoke an economic overheating that would push inflation higher and prove hard to contain.The logic, at the time, was that monetary policy works with “long and variable” lags, and that it was better to start to gently normalize policy before rapid price gains actually showed up.But even back then, not everyone on the Fed’s rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee was comfortable with the plan. When the decision to lift interest rates came in December, Governor Lael Brainard seemed to question it — arguing that the labor market still had room to expand and that inflation was coming in short of the committee’s 2 percent goal. She ultimately voted for the decision alongside Ms. Yellen and her fellow policymakers.“The recent price data give little hint that this undershooting of our target will end any time soon,” Ms. Brainard said of inflation at the time, according to the transcript. That, paired with risks from a slowdown overseas, made her place “somewhat greater weight on the possible regret associated with tightening too early than on the possible regret associated with waiting a little longer.”In explaining that she would vote for the increase anyway, Ms. Brainard said she placed “a very high premium on ensuring the credibility of monetary policy” and appreciated the thoughtful process Ms. Yellen and the staff had undergone in planning to change the policy. She suggested in 2019 that moving rates up in 2015 was a mistake, and that “a better alternative would have been to delay liftoff until we had achieved our targets.”Stanley Fischer, the vice chairman at the time, laid out a concise explanation of why the committee was moving.“Why move now?” he said. “First, as the chair has emphasized, our actions become effective with a lag. Second, there are some signs of accumulating financial stability problems. And, third, the signal we will be sending will reinforce the fact that our economic situation is continuing to normalize.”Jerome H. Powell, then a Fed governor and now the chair, said at the time that remaining room for labor market gains was “probably modest” but highly uncertain, and that the participation rate — which measures people working or looking for work — might rebound.“I’m not in any hurry to conclude that the current low level of participation reflects immutable structural factors,” Mr. Powell said. “I think it’s likely to be necessary for the economy to run above trend for some time to ensure that inflation does reach our 2 percent target.”The more reluctant stances aged comparatively well. In the time since then, many economists and analysts have viewed the Fed’s pre-emptive rate increases as possibly premature. The unemployment rate continued to drop for years, but as more workers entered the job market, wages increased only moderately. Price gains remained stable, and actually a bit softer than Fed officials were hoping.As a result, the Fed has reassessed how it sets monetary policy. Mr. Powell said last year that he and his colleagues would now focus on “shortfalls” from full employment — worrying only if the job market is coming in weak, not if it’s coming in strong, as long as inflation is contained.They no longer plan to raise interest rates to fend off inflation before it shows up, officials have said, paving the way for longer periods of lower rates.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    27 Places Raising the Minimum Wage to $15 an Hour

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    AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyOnce a Fringe Idea, the $15 Minimum Wage Is Making Big GainsThe new year brings another round of increases, nearly a decade after workers started campaigning for higher pay.Demonstrators calling for a $15 minimum hourly wage outside a Marriott hotel in Des Moines in 2016. Credit…Gabriella Demczuk for The New York TimesDec. 31, 2020, 5:34 p.m. ETIt started in 2012 with a group of protesters outside a McDonald’s demanding a $15 minimum wage — an idea that even many liberal lawmakers considered outlandish. In the years since, their fight has gained traction across the country, including in conservative states with low union membership and generally weak labor laws.On Friday, 20 states and 32 cities and counties will raise their minimum wage. In 27 of these places, the pay floor will reach or exceed $15 an hour, according to a report released on Thursday by the National Employment Law Project, which supports minimum-wage increases. The movement’s strength — a ballot measure to increase the minimum wage in Florida to $15 by 2026 was passed in November — could put renewed pressure on Congress to increase the federal minimum wage from $7.25 per hour, where it has been since 2009. President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. has endorsed $15 an hour at the federal level and other changes sought by labor groups, like ending the practice of a lower minimum wage for workers like restaurant workers who receive tips.But even without congressional action, labor activists said they would keep pushing their campaign at the state and local levels. By 2026, 42 percent of Americans will work in a location with a minimum wage of at least $15 an hour, according to an Economic Policy Institute estimate cited in the NELP report.“These wages going up in a record number of states is the result of years of advocacy by workers and years of marching on the streets and organizing their fellow workers and their communities,” said Yannet Lathrop, a researcher and policy analyst for the group.The wage rates are increasing as workers struggle amid a recession caused by the coronavirus pandemic that has left millions unemployed.“The Covid crisis has really exacerbated inequalities across society,” said Greg Daco, chief U.S. economist for Oxford Economics. “This has given more strength to these movements that try to ensure that everyone benefits from a strong labor market in the form a sustainable salary.”Workers during the pandemic have been subject to furloughs, pay cuts and decreased hours. Low-wage service workers have not had the option of working from home, and the customer-facing nature of their jobs puts them at greater risk for contracting the virus. Many retailers gave workers raises — or “hero pay” — at the beginning of the pandemic, only to quietly end the practice in the summer, even as the virus continued to surge in many states.“The coronavirus pandemic has pushed a lot of working families into deep poverty,” said Anthony Advincula, director of communications for Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, a nonprofit focused on improving wages and working conditions. “So this minimum wage increase will be a huge welcome boost for low-wage workers, especially in the restaurant industry.”Mary Kay Henry, international president of the Service Employees International Union, said the labor movement would make getting even more workers to $15 an hour or more a priority in 2021.“There’s millions more workers who need to have more money in their pockets,” she said, adding that the election of Mr. Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris would bolster the effort. “We have an incredible opportunity.”Because many hourly service workers are Black, Hispanic, Native American and Asian, people of color stand to gain the most from minimum-wage increases. A 2018 study from the Economic Policy Institute found that workers of color are far more likely to be paid poverty-level wages than white workers.“It’s the single most dramatic action to create racial equality,” Ms. Henry said.Some economists say lifting the minimum wage will benefit the economy and could be an important part of the recovery from the pandemic recession. That is partly because lower-income workers typically spend most of the money they earn, and that spending primarily takes place where they live and work.Kate Bahn, director of labor market policy at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, said that after the 2007-9 recession, growth was anemic for years as pay stagnated and the job market slowly clawed its way back.A shopkeeper in Los Angeles waited for customers. Business groups say increasing the minimum wage can hurt small businesses, already beleaguered by the coronavirus pandemic.Credit…Philip Cheung for The New York Times“There’s been a broader acknowledgment that the lackluster wage growth we’ve seen in the past 30 years and since the Great Recession reflects structural imbalances in the economy, and structural inequality,” Ms. Bahn said.Many business groups counter that increasing the minimum wage will hurt small businesses, already beleaguered by the pandemic. More than 110,000 restaurants have closed permanently or for the long term during the pandemic, according to the National Restaurant Association.Increasing the minimum wage could lead employers to lay off some workers in order to pay others more, said David Neumark, an economics professor at the University of California, Irvine.“There’s a ton of research that says increasing minimum wages can cause some job loss,” he said. “Plenty workers are helped, but some are hurt.”A 2019 Congressional Budget Office study found that a $15 federal minimum wage would increase pay for 17 million workers who earned less than that and potentially another 10 million workers who earned slightly more. According to the study’s median estimate, it would cause 1.3 million other workers to lose their jobs.In New York, State Senate Republicans had urged Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, a Democrat, to halt increases that went into effect on Thursday, arguing that they could amount to “the final straw” for some small businesses.While increases to the minimum wage beyond a certain point could lead to job losses, Ms. Bahn of the Washington Center for Equitable Growth argued that “we are nowhere near that point.”Economic research has found that recent minimum-wage increases have not had caused huge job losses. In a 2019 study, researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found that wages had increased sharply for leisure and hospitality workers in New York counties bordering Pennsylvania, which had a lower minimum, while employment growth continued. In many cases, higher minimum wages are rolled out over several years to give businesses time to adapt.Regardless of whether there is federal action, more state ballot initiatives will seek to raise the minimum wage, said Arindrajit Dube, an economics professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.“At a basic level, people think that this is an issue of fairness,” Mr. Dube said. “There’s broad-based support for the idea that people who are working should get a living wage.”Jeanna Smialek More

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    Walter E. Williams, 84, Dies; Conservative Economist on Black Issues

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    AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyWalter E. Williams, 84, Dies; Conservative Economist on Black IssuesSkeptical of antipoverty programs, he was a scholar who reached a wide public through a newspaper column and books, and as a fill-in for Rush Limbaugh.Walter E. Williams speaking in 1982 at a conference at the United Nations Plaza Hotel in New York. A scholar and author, he reached a wide audience through lectures, a newspaper column and broadcast appearances.Credit…Craig Terry, via Manhattan InstituteBy More