Teachers Wonder, Why the Scorn
by Trip Gabriel
The New York Times
The jabs Erin Parker has heard about her job have stunned her. Oh you pathetic teachers, read the online comments and placards of counterdemonstrators. You are glorified baby sitters who leave work at 3 p.m. You deserve minimum wage.
“You feel punched in the stomach,” said Ms. Parker, a high school science teacher in Madison, Wis., where public employees’ two-week occupation of the State Capitol has stalled but not deterred the governor’s plan to try to strip them of bargaining rights.
Ms. Parker, a second-year teacher making $36,000, fears that under the proposed legislation class sizes would rise and higher contributions to her benefits would knock her out of the middle class.
“I love teaching, but I have $26,000 of student debt,” she said. “I’m 30 years old, and I can’t save up enough for a down payment” for a house. Nor does she own a car. She is making plans to move to Colorado, where she could afford to keep teaching by living with her parents.
Around the country, many teachers see demands to cut their income, benefits and say in how schools are run through collective bargaining as attacks not just on their livelihoods, but on their value to society.
Even in a country that is of two minds about teachers — Americans glowingly recall the ones who changed their lives, but think the job with its summers off is cushy — education experts say teachers have rarely been the targets of such scorn from politicians and voters.
Republican lawmakers in half a dozen states are pressing to unwind tenure and seniority protections in place for more than 50 years. Gov. Chris Christie’s dressing down of New Jersey teachers in town-hall-style meetings, accusing them of greed, has touched a populist vein and made him a national star.
Mayors are threatening mass layoffs, including in New York City and in Providence, R.I., where all 1,926 teachers were told last week they would lose their jobs — a largely symbolic gesture since most will be hired back.
Some experts question whether teaching, with its already high attrition rate — more than 25 percent leave in the first three years — will attract high-quality recruits in the future.
“It’s hard to feel good about yourself when your governor and other people are telling you you’re doing a lousy job,” said Steve Derion, 32, who teaches American history in Manahawkin, N.J. “I’m sure there were worse times to be a teacher in our history — I know they had very little rights — but it feels like we’re going back toward that direction.”
To Read the Rest of the Article
Showing posts with label Income. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Income. Show all posts
Thursday, March 03, 2011
Wednesday, March 02, 2011
Feministing: Yes, women still earn 75% as much as men
Yes, women still earn 75% as much as men
By Maya
Feministing
Have you been repeating the stat that women earn only 75% as much as their male counterparts for years but secretly wondered if it could possibly still be true? Well, according to a report released yesterday by the White House, it still is! Which is pretty damn sad.
Described as the most comprehensive federal report on the status of women in the U.S. since 1963, the report mainly provides a statistical snapshot–filled with many a nice graph!–of a lot of facts you probably already know.
* Women (and men) are getting married later than ever before
* Women are delaying having children longer, having fewer of them, or sometimes not having them at all
* Women still typically do more housework than men
* Women are more likely to be victims of some crimes such as stalking and domestic violence
* Women are more likely than men to suffer from depression and chronic health problems
* Women are more likely to live in poverty than men
And that pesky pay gap! 75 cents to the dollar. At all levels of educational attainment. (And for Black and Hispanic women that’s 71% and 62% respectively.) A stat that persists despite the fact that women have not only caught up with men in education but have now surged past them. These days, young women are actually more likely than young men to have college or graduate degrees.
To Access the Report, Charts and Read the Rest of this Post
By Maya
Feministing
Have you been repeating the stat that women earn only 75% as much as their male counterparts for years but secretly wondered if it could possibly still be true? Well, according to a report released yesterday by the White House, it still is! Which is pretty damn sad.
Described as the most comprehensive federal report on the status of women in the U.S. since 1963, the report mainly provides a statistical snapshot–filled with many a nice graph!–of a lot of facts you probably already know.
* Women (and men) are getting married later than ever before
* Women are delaying having children longer, having fewer of them, or sometimes not having them at all
* Women still typically do more housework than men
* Women are more likely to be victims of some crimes such as stalking and domestic violence
* Women are more likely than men to suffer from depression and chronic health problems
* Women are more likely to live in poverty than men
And that pesky pay gap! 75 cents to the dollar. At all levels of educational attainment. (And for Black and Hispanic women that’s 71% and 62% respectively.) A stat that persists despite the fact that women have not only caught up with men in education but have now surged past them. These days, young women are actually more likely than young men to have college or graduate degrees.
To Access the Report, Charts and Read the Rest of this Post
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Reuters: Government Study says most corporations pay no U.S. income taxes
Study says most corporations pay no U.S. income taxes
Reuters
Most U.S. and foreign corporations doing business in the United States avoid paying any federal income taxes, despite trillions of dollars worth of sales, a government study released on Tuesday said.
The Government Accountability Office said 72 percent of all foreign corporations and about 57 percent of U.S. companies doing business in the United States paid no federal income taxes for at least one year between 1998 and 2005.
More than half of foreign companies and about 42 percent of U.S. companies paid no U.S. income taxes for two or more years in that period, the report said.
During that time corporate sales in the United States totaled $2.5 trillion, according to Democratic Sens. Carl Levin of Michigan and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, who requested the GAO study.
The report did not name any companies. The GAO said corporations escaped paying federal income taxes for a variety of reasons including operating losses, tax credits and an ability to use transactions within the company to shift income to low tax countries.
With the U.S. budget deficit this year running close to the record $413 billion that was set in 2004 and projected to hit a record $486 billion next year, lawmakers are looking to plug holes in the U.S. tax code and generate more revenues.
Dorgan in a statement called the report "a shocking indictment of the current tax system." Levin said it made clear that "too many corporations are using tax trickery to send their profits overseas and avoid paying their fair share in the United States."
The study showed about 28 percent of large foreign corporations, those with more than $250 million in assets, doing business in the United States paid no federal income taxes in 2005 despite $372 billion in gross receipts, the senators said. About 25 percent of the largest U.S. companies paid no federal income taxes in 2005 despite $1.1 trillion in gross sales that year, they said.
Link
Reuters
Most U.S. and foreign corporations doing business in the United States avoid paying any federal income taxes, despite trillions of dollars worth of sales, a government study released on Tuesday said.
The Government Accountability Office said 72 percent of all foreign corporations and about 57 percent of U.S. companies doing business in the United States paid no federal income taxes for at least one year between 1998 and 2005.
More than half of foreign companies and about 42 percent of U.S. companies paid no U.S. income taxes for two or more years in that period, the report said.
During that time corporate sales in the United States totaled $2.5 trillion, according to Democratic Sens. Carl Levin of Michigan and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, who requested the GAO study.
The report did not name any companies. The GAO said corporations escaped paying federal income taxes for a variety of reasons including operating losses, tax credits and an ability to use transactions within the company to shift income to low tax countries.
With the U.S. budget deficit this year running close to the record $413 billion that was set in 2004 and projected to hit a record $486 billion next year, lawmakers are looking to plug holes in the U.S. tax code and generate more revenues.
Dorgan in a statement called the report "a shocking indictment of the current tax system." Levin said it made clear that "too many corporations are using tax trickery to send their profits overseas and avoid paying their fair share in the United States."
The study showed about 28 percent of large foreign corporations, those with more than $250 million in assets, doing business in the United States paid no federal income taxes in 2005 despite $372 billion in gross receipts, the senators said. About 25 percent of the largest U.S. companies paid no federal income taxes in 2005 despite $1.1 trillion in gross sales that year, they said.
Link
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Timothy Noah: The United States of Inequality
The United States of Inequality: Trying to understand income inequality, the most profound change in American society in your lifetime.
By Timothy Noah
Slate
In the late 1970s, a half-century trend toward growing income equality reversed itself. Ever since, U.S. incomes have grown more unequal. Middle-class incomes stagnated while the top 1 percent's share of national income climbed to 24 percent. Middle-income workers no longer benefit from productivity increases, and upward mobility, long the saving grace of the American economy, has faltered. Why is this happening? In the following 10-part series, Slate's Timothy Noah weighs eight possible causes of what Princeton economist Paul Krugman has labeled the Great Divergence. This 30-year trend "may represent the most significant change in American society in your lifetime," Noah writes, "and it's not a change for the better."
To Read the Series of Essays
By Timothy Noah
Slate
In the late 1970s, a half-century trend toward growing income equality reversed itself. Ever since, U.S. incomes have grown more unequal. Middle-class incomes stagnated while the top 1 percent's share of national income climbed to 24 percent. Middle-income workers no longer benefit from productivity increases, and upward mobility, long the saving grace of the American economy, has faltered. Why is this happening? In the following 10-part series, Slate's Timothy Noah weighs eight possible causes of what Princeton economist Paul Krugman has labeled the Great Divergence. This 30-year trend "may represent the most significant change in American society in your lifetime," Noah writes, "and it's not a change for the better."
To Read the Series of Essays
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