From the CBPP: The Impact of Medicaid Work Requirements on Children

When parents have health insurance, their children are more likely to be insured. That’s a big reason why the ACA’s expansion of Medicaid for parents significantly increased children’s health coverage, helping drive the uninsured rate for children to a historic low of 4.5 percent in 2016. But a new Trump Administration policy lets states take Medicaid coverage away from people who fail to work. This policy threatens gains in health coverage and access to care for parents and their children. Not only does Medicaid help parents of children, but it also helps schools. In a recent survey of 1,000 school superintendents, 57 percent of districts reporting said that they’d have trouble meeting special education mandates without Medicaid funding. Medicaid helps children in their families and in school. Harsh new work requirements and threats to Medicaid funding could take away this crucial support. Read: How Medicaid Work Requirements Will Harm Children   Download the PDF (2pp) Read: Medicaid Continues to Help Schools Help Children

From AFR: 2017 Voting Record: Where They Stand on Financial Reform

2017 Voting Record: Where They Stand on Financial Reform

The AFR Advocacy Fund has released its voting record for 2017, the first year of the 115th Congress. “Where They Stand on Financial Reform” (linked and attached) tracks more than 55 votes—including both legislation and nominations—that gave House members and Senators a choice: They could decide to stand up for consumers, borrowers, investors and the safety, transparency, and accountability of the financial system. Or they could take the side of big banks and other powerful financial industry interests.

The report includes summaries of each bill, amendment, resolution, or confirmation decision, and tables of the relevant House and Senate votes with the measures presented side by side, making it easy to see how a particular House member or Senator voted on the full complement of issues, and who voted for or against any particular measure.

Taken together, these votes show a disturbing readiness, on the part of many of those currently serving in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate, to do the financial industry’s bidding without regard for harm to families and communities. Other members of Congress have, by contrast, resisted the industry’s pressure and consistently stood up for the public interest, but they have been outvoted time and again.

While many dangerous bills advanced in 2017, only two of the legislative measures covered in this report — a massive tax-cut bill with large favors for Wall Street, and a resolution overturning a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau rule on forced arbitration — passed into law. But more bad bills are likely to make their way into law in 2018. S 2155, a package of financial deregulation measures, including some of those covered here, has already passed the Senate. We are continuing to monitor every financial regulatory bill voted on in either chamber that poses a threat to the public. 

“A decade after the 2008 financial crisis, Wall Street and the stock market are booming while wage gains remain elusive for most American workers, and wealth gaps continue to grow, contributing to a decades-long trend of widening inequality,” the report says. “And yet, even as fresh scandals continue to underscore the danger of letting banks and financial companies write their own rules, majorities of both chambers of Congress have taken up Wall Street’s call for renewed deregulation, throwing their weight behind a seemingly endless series of proposals to roll back post-crisis reforms and weaken the agencies responsible for enforcing them. To judge by the measures that  a majority of lawmakers have authored, sponsored, and voted for, their agenda is to generate bigger immediate rewards for banks, financial companies, and their executives, no matter the dangers and costs for borrowers, homeowners, investors, or the overall economy.”

In a final section of the report, we list lawmakers of both parties who have voted particularly often to support the financial industry lobby and its policy wish list.

Response from Senator Heidi Heitkamp regarding SNAP to the North Dakota Economic Security and Prosperity Alliance

Please find at the link below the response NDESPA received from Senator Heidi Heitkamp regarding SNAP.

Letter from Senator Heitkamp regarding SNAP

From ND AFL-CIO: Weekly Update

Red River Valley Commemorates Dr. King's Labor

Moorhead Mayor Williams, Dilworth Mayor Olson, West Fargo Mayor Mattern, Fargo Mayor Mahoney, Grand Forks Mayor Brown and East Grand Forks Mayor Gander proclaimed April 4th, 2018 "The Day of Dignity and Respect for All American Workers" in honor of the work for economic and racial justice that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was doing in Memphis, standing in solidarity with Memphis sanitation workers, when he was assassinated 50 years ago to the day.

Educators drown Statehouse in sea of red, rallying in support for school funding plan

Kimberly Schneweis returned to the Statehouse for the second time this year to urge lawmakers Saturday to quit dragging their feet and pass legislation to benefit public school children.

The Hays Middle School visual art teacher was among wave after wave of educators wearing red shirts who gathered outside Senate and House chambers after departing a Topeka conference for members of the National Education Association in Kansas.

Collective Action on the Rise in America

Statement by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka in solidarity with teachers across the country:

Real change happens when regular people loudly and unapologetically join together to make it happen. This collective action—the foundation of the labor movement—is being put on full display by our nation’s teachers. The country is taking notice. It’s powerful. It’s making a difference. And the entire labor movement is growing stronger because of it.

When working people dutifully play by the rules and still can’t get ahead, they’re going to upend those rules. That’s exactly what’s happening today. Teachers, from West Virginia and Kentucky to Oklahoma and Arizona, are fighting to overturn a rigged system that has left them behind for decades. They’re inspiring a resurgence of collective action among all working people who are hungry for real change to improve our lives.

The 12.5 million members of the AFL-CIO are proud to stand with all those marching to secure a brighter future for our teachers, students and families.

Al Jaeger won't run for re-election after 25-year career as North Dakota secretary of state

The North Dakota secretary of state will not run in the primary election, setting the stage to end his 25-year career and opening up the race to a new state elections head.

Al Jaeger waved to the crowd with his family Sunday at the Alerus Center in Grand Forks as state GOP Chairman Rick Berg announced he would abide by the decision of the delegates, who endorsed Mandan businessman Will Gardner 679-438 votes.

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Fargo-Moorhead Workers Memorial Day

Join the Northern Plains United Labor Council for their annual WORKERS MEMORIAL DAY, Thursday, April 26th at the Fargo-Moorhead Labor Temple (3002 1st Ave North, Fargo, N)

4:30 PM
Basic First Aid and CPR Training
Provided by local union firefighters.

6:00 PM
Workers Memorial Program
We remember those who died on the job during
the last year in North Dakota and Minnesota.

6:30 PM
Dinner
Taco bar and refreshments served.
Contact Terry Jones at 701-388-0602 for more information

Mobile Messaging for North Dakota Workers!

We are happy to introduce a new tool in the fight for workers' rights in North Dakota!
Text NDLABOR to 235246 to join our new mobile messaging service and stay up-to-date on upcoming actions and events for working people!

Support the Restoring Overtime Pay Act

The Trump administration has abandoned the Obama administration’s overtime update and the millions of working people who would have seen a pay increase under this rule. Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.) recently introduced the Restoring Overtime Pay Act, which would put overtime protections back in place for millions of working people.

Fill out the form to add your name in support of the Restoring Overtime Pay Act.

From CBPP: Report: Strengthening Child Tax Credit Would Reduce Poverty, Improve Opportunity

Report: Strengthening Child Tax Credit Would Reduce Poverty, Improve Opportunity

April 5, 2018 at 9:45 AM

by Emily Horton

https://www.cbpp.org/blog/report-strengthening-child-tax-credit-would-reduce-poverty-improve-opportunity

A new paper released by the U.S. Partnership on Mobility from Poverty proposes improvements to the Child Tax Credit (CTC) to enable more children in low-income working families to qualify for the full credit — highlighting research on the positive effects of investing in low-income children, particularly the youngest and poorest children. Several CBPP staff are among the co-authors of the report, “Improving the Child Tax Credit for Very Low-Income Families.”
The CTC is an important income support for working families with children, worth up to $2,000 per child under age 17. But roughly 27 million children under 17 live in families that don’t earn enough to qualify for the full credit — or, in many cases, even a partial credit. For example, a single mother with two children working full time at the minimum wage is eligible for $900 per child, less than half the full credit (see chart). To get the full credit, she’d need to earn at least $30,000 a year – more than twice what a full-time, minimum-wage job pays.

Excluding the poorest children from the full CTC runs counter to a substantial body of research showing that raising the incomes of low-income children can deliver significant benefits to children’s economic mobility and opportunity later in life.
The paper’s core proposal therefore proposes several CTC improvements:

• For all families, phasing in the credit beginning with the first dollar of a family’s earnings rather than only after a family earns $2,500, as under current law.
• For all families, eliminating the $1,400-per-child cap on the amount of the credit that families can receive as a refund if their credit exceeds their federal income tax liability.
• For families with children under age 6, phasing in the credit more quickly as family earnings rise — at a rate of 50 cents per added dollar of earnings rather than the current 15 cents. As the paper explains, targeting investments in young low-income children makes sense not only because families with young children are likelier to be poor than other families, but also because the positive effects of investing in low-income children are clearest for the youngest and poorest children.

Together, these changes would make families with more than 17 million children under age 17 newly eligible for the full credit, or nearly two-thirds of the 27 million children now partially or entirely left out. The changes would also lift 1.2 million people out of poverty, including 400,000 children under age 6, and reduce the severity of poverty for many times that number. The plan would cost roughly $12 billion a year.
Lawmakers from both parties have made similar proposals. Republican Senators Marco Rubio and Mike Lee proposed the first two of these changes, while various Democratic members of Congress, including Rep. Rosa DeLauro and Senators Michael Bennet and Sherrod Brown, offered proposals similar to the third.
The paper also outlines a more ambitious proposal, which would build on the core proposal by extending the $2,000-per-child CTC to all children under age 6 in low-income families, regardless of how little a parent may earn. This broader expansion would make families with more than 19 million children under 17 newly eligible for the full credit. It would cost roughly $2 billion a year more than the core proposal.
Improving the CTC for low-income families, with a stronger credit for low-income families with young children, would also take a significant step toward ultimately allowing all low-income children, including those in families without earnings, to get the CTC’s full benefits. Various commissions and experts, including the bipartisan National Commission on Children in 1991, have recommended this change, sometimes called “full refundability.”
The full paper is here, and a summary is here.

From ND AFL-CIO: Weekly Update

Spending Bill Protects Tipped Workers From Sharing With The Boss A bipartisan bill Congress passed this week spells out how the federal government will spend $1.3 trillion. It also allocates some smaller amounts: the money customers leave behind as tips in restaurants, nail salons and other businesses. Strategic Tariffs Against China Are Critical Part of Trade Reform to Create More Jobs and Better Pay AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka issued the following statement after President Donald Trump’s China enforcement announcement this afternoon: For years, China has employed a variety of strategies to steal our intellectual property and bully its way into acquiring critical U.S. advances in technology. Discussions and strongly worded letters have not stopped the IP theft or unfair tactics. Tariffs, investment restrictions and a WTO case might. Tariffs aren’t an end goal, but an important tool to end trade practices that kill American jobs and drive down American pay. While we will be reviewing the full Section 301 report in the coming days to ensure these proposed tariffs appropriately target the industries that have lost production, wages and jobs to predatory intellectual property violations, we agree that now is the time to act. In coordination with allies and as part of comprehensive trade reform, these tariffs will put needed pressure on China to play fair. In isolation, this enforcement effort won’t be enough to fulfill the president’s promise to boost manufacturing, stop outsourcing or raise wages. These actions must be combined with investments in our communities and working people, smart rules to prevent big banks from crashing our economy again, and renegotiated trade deals—starting with NAFTA—that end special privileges for global companies, protect worker freedoms, and promote a fair and sustainable economy for all of us. 107 Years ago, The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire Set the Stage for Comprehensive Labor Reform Every March 25, organized labor observes a grisly anniversary that lit the torch for a better life for all working men and women. The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire of 1911 claimed the lives of 146 workers, many of them young immigrant women who were trapped in the top three floors of the New York factory. The owners had locked the fire escape exit doors to keep the workers from taking breaks or stealing supplies. Many of the workers jumped to their deaths. Others burned or asphyxiated to death. Five ND newspapers will charge fee to publish political endorsement letters FARGO—North Dakota-based newspapers owned by Forum Communications Co. will begin charging for political endorsement letters to the editor beginning April 1. Many newspapers nationwide started this practice years ago as well as the FCC-owned Alexandria Echo Press in Minnesota. In recent months, FCC-owned RiverTown Multimedia newspapers in southeastern Minnesota and western Wisconsin also began charging for such letters. Mobile Messaging for North Dakota Workers! We are happy to introduce a new tool in the fight for workers' rights in North Dakota! Text NDLABOR to 235246 to join our new mobile messaging service and stay up-to-date on upcoming actions and events for working people!

From EPI: Overtime Rule Sign-On - Restoring Overtime Pay Act

The overtime rules that allow working families to earn a fair wage are out of date—eroding to the point where they cover only a fraction of the people they were designed to protect. In 2016, the Department of Labor attempted to strengthen these regulations by giving more working people the right to overtime pay when they work more than 40 hours a week. Unfortunately, this long-overdue update was blocked in the courts by business interests, and on October 31, 2017, the Trump administration made clear in legal proceedings that it would not defend the updated rule. The result will be over a billion dollars in lost wages each year, and millions of working people left with weakened protections—or none at all. As of yesterday, April 1, 2018, working people will have lost $500 million in potential wages since Trump abandoned the overtime pay rule.[1] Now, Senators Sherrod Brown and Patty Murray and Representatives Mark Takano and Bobby Scott have introduced the Restoring Overtime Pay Act, which would raise the salary threshold under which salaried workers are guaranteed overtime pay from $23,660 to $48,412―increasing overtime protections for millions of working people. Stand with the EPI Policy Center and our partners and become a co-signer of the Restoring Overtime Pay Act today!  Back in 1975, the Labor Department set the salary level for overtime exemption at the equivalent of well over $50,000 in today’s dollars―high enough to cover more than 60 percent of full-time salaried workers. Today, it has eroded to the point where less than 7 percent of full-time salaried workers are eligible for overtime protections based on their pay. This legislation would restore that coverage to over 30 percent, ensuring that fewer people are left working long hours without seeing a dime of extra pay. The Restoring Overtime Pay Act would set the threshold at $48,412 and update every three years to maintain its value as wages and prices rise. In the absence of any real action from the Trump administration, it’s critical that Congress act to raise the wages of working people. Become a co-signer of the Restoring Overtime Pay Act today to extend overtime eligibility to millions of working people and strengthen the rights of millions more.  Donald Trump and Republican lawmakers have taken billions of dollars out of the pockets of working people and worked to strip basic protections away from low- and middle-income families. Together, we’re standing up for working people and demanding an economy that works for everyone, not just the wealthy few. Thank you, Heidi Shierholz Senior Economist and Director of Policy, EPI Policy Center [1] https://www.epi.org/multimedia/overtime-pay-cut/