It will restore the Clinton-Gingrich welfare reforms that made it more profitable to work than not work.
the measure of budget success for the Trump administration is not how much federal assistance is given out, but how many people leave government dependency and join the private labor force as full-fledged workers.
.. the best of government intentions have actually backfired by reducing incentives to work and earn.
.. The expansion of food stamps, welfare, health-insurance subsidies, unemployment assistance, and disability assistance have led to unintended consequences and perverse after-tax incentives, such that it pays more to stay on assistance then to go to work. At the working-poor margin, taking a job may rob you of Obamacare subsidies. So better off not to work.
.. Mulligan estimated that the marginal tax rate — the extra taxes paid and subsidies foregone as the result of working — had increased from 40 percent to 48 percent.
.. increase federal Medicaid spending from $378 billion today to $524 billion in 2027. That ain’t a cut either. It’s an increase.
.. Adding up each and every new year between now and 2027, the federal government will spend about $55 trillion. Do we think that’s enough? And the Trump budget would curb that by about 7 percent, or roughly $4 trillion. That’s all that’s happening.
Contradictions: Engagement in the Clouds
He envisions a future where, when a business needs something done, “they issue the work order to the labor cloud and someone picks up the work order and gets it done.” This allows the business “to get the work done without thinking about the kind of relationship they have with the worker.”
Obviously, no sane manager should expect “engagement” from the denizens of the “labor cloud”, any more than they can from the growing chunk of the population working for low pay in permanent-part-time mode. See? Contradiction!
Everything We Knew About Sweatshops Was Wrong
As the economist Joan Robinson said, “The misery of being exploited by capitalists is nothing compared to the misery of not being exploited at all.”
.. Unlike agriculture or informal market selling, these factories pay a steady wage, and if workers gained skills valued by the market, they might earn higher wages.
.. The factories seemed professional and clean. Whenever a new factory line opened, we saw long rows of applicants — mostly young, unmarried women.
.. By the end of a year only a third of the people who had landed an industrial job were still employed in the industrial sector at all.
.. the factory jobs carried dangerous risks. Serious injuries and disabilities were nearly double among those who took the factory jobs, rising to 7 percent from about 4 percent. This risk rose with every month they stayed. The people we interviewed told us about exposure to chemical fumes and repetitive stress injuries.
.. Why were people lining up for hazardous jobs? Partly it was because they did not appreciate the risks, or how hard the work was, until they started. Others anticipated the risks but used factory work as a safety net when times were tough. The people who stayed longer had few alternatives.
.. In 1913, the Ford Motor Company recorded turnover rates of over 300 percent. Pay was poor and the work hard, and workers left in droves. Many of the modern management strategies we think are about factory efficiency started as attempts to lower this turnover.
.. For poor countries to develop, we simply do not know of any alternative to industrialization. The sooner that happens, the sooner the world will end extreme poverty.
Workers endured long hours, low pay at Chinese factory used by Ivanka Trump’s clothing-maker
Workers at a factory in China used by the company that makes clothing for Ivanka Trump’s fashion line and other brands worked nearly 60 hours a week to earn wages of little more than $62 a week, according to a factory audit released Monday.
.. contractor, G-III Apparel Group, which has held the exclusive license to make the Ivanka Trump brand’s $158 dresses, $79 blouses
.. Its release also comes as the president’s daughter has sought to cast herself as both a champion of workplace issues and a defender of her father’s “buy American, hire American” agenda. Trump, whose book “Women Who Work” debuts next week, was in Germany on Tuesday for public discussions about global entrepreneurship and empowerment.
.. Chinese factories are by far the dominant suppliers for Ivanka clothes, though G-III also works with manufacturers across Vietnam, Bangladesh and South America. G-III factories overseas have shipped more than 110 tons of Ivanka-brand blouses, skirts, dresses and other garments to the United States since October, shipping data shows.
.. The clothing line licensed by President Trump’s private business is also almost entirely made in foreign factories.
.. The factory’s workers made between 1,879 and 2,088 yuan a month, or roughly $255 to $283, which would be below minimum wage in some parts of China.
.. Fewer than a third of the factory’s workers were offered legally mandated coverage under China’s “social insurance” benefits, including a pension and medical, maternity, unemployment and work-related injury insurance, inspectors found.
.. But it did not commit to increasing worker pay and at times pushed back against recommendations that could improve workplace safety.
.. sales of Trump’s brand have boomed in the months since her father began his pursuit of the White House. Net sales for her clothing collection soared by $17.9 million in the year that ended Jan. 31, G-III data shows.