Brief #131 – Economic Policy
By Rosalind Gottfried
Wages are increasing significantly in all sectors. As workers have gradually rejoined the labor force, taking their time even as federal subsidies to unemployment benefits ended, starting wages and service work especially have seen large increases. Wages increased 4.9% between October 2020 and October 2021.
Brief #129 – Environment Policy
By Todd J. Broadman
With President Biden’s COP26 climate pledge as backdrop, his administration has been issuing oil leases at a record pace. Biden said that climate change is “the challenge of our collective lifetimes, an existential threat to human existence as we know it. And every day we delay the cost of inaction increases.” His pledge is to cut U.S. emissions by up to 51% over the next nine years. At the end of October, the administration had approved 3,091 new drilling permits on public lands at a rate of 332 per month, outpacing the Trump administration’s 300 permits per month in fiscal years 2018-2020.
Brief #130 – Economic Policy
By Rosalind Gottfried
After persistent bickering Senators Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer reached a procedural agreement allowing the Senate to pass an increase in the debt ceiling with a simple majority. This bill passed Thursday and is likely to quickly lead to an increase in the debt ceiling of 2-2.5 trillion dollars, which will cover the government’s debt payments through next year’s election.
Brief #178 – Civil Rights
By Rodney A. Maggay
In 1973 the United States Supreme Court decided the landmark case Roe v. Wade. That case ruled that a woman’s choice to have an abortion is protected by the U.S. Constitution. The basis of the ruling by the Court was that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides a “right to privacy” which includes the choice to have an abortion. The case then laid out a balancing test that focused on each of the three trimesters of a woman’s pregnancy.
Brief #104 – Health & Gender Author Taylor J Smith Brief Title: States Launch Assaults on the Rights of the Transgender Community: Part I May 1, 2021 More than 100 bills that threaten the rights of transgender people have been introduced across thirty-three states...
Brief #32 – Elections & Politics
By Abran C
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is looking to create the state’s own private civilian military force that would operate outside of federal control. The announcement came during a broader plan to increase funding to Florida’s National Guard. This additional $3.5 million tax payer funded plan calls for a new state-run force that would be added in addition to the already existing Florida National Guard and state police.
Brief #125 – Health & Gender Policy
By S Bhimji
Over the weekend, the world learned about another heavily mutated coronavirus variant named Omicron. First detected in South Africa, Omicron has now been detected in many nations. While not much is known about it, experts suggest that it could be more infectious than the delta variant.
Brief #31 – Elections and Politics
By Erika Shannon
There have been many changes on our nation’s home front since the January 6th insurrection in the U.S. Capitol; and some of these changes are being made to ensure that events like that will never occur again, on either side. Chairperson Bennie Thompson and his US House Select Committee panel have been investigating the events that transpired on January 6th with one mission in mind: preserve the democratic process. There have been endless subpoenas, documents submitted, and interviews, so what is still to come in this lengthy process?
Of course, there are the matters of getting people to cooperate who have been unwilling to do so. This includes people like former president Donald Trump and his closest cohorts, such as Steve Bannon and Mark Meadows. Earlier this month, Bannon was hit with a federal indictment and charged with two counts of contempt of Congress. This came after he refused to provide testimony or documents to the January 6th Select Committee. His defiance is seen as extreme due to the fact that he was not willing to even appear before investigators under subpoena, even if to assert other alleged privileges. It is seen as a move that may prompt others to follow suit and do their best to derail the investigation.
Brief #131 – Immigration Policy
By Kathryn Baron
The US needs roughly 10 million people to work low-wage and high-skilled workers to comfortably sustain the economy. Only 8.4 million Americans are actively seeking work in this stage of the pandemic; workers are resigning in record numbers and the number of Americans returning to low-wage industries are persistently low. On average, the US accepts roughly 1 million immigrants and 75% of those immigrants actively contribute to the American labor force. In 2020, the US only admit 263,000 immigrants.
Brief #61 – Education Policy
By Lynn Waldsmith
Global warming is, above all else, a looming crisis for children.
With extreme weather events such as heat waves and wildfires expected to rise in frequency, intensity and duration under global warming, it should come as no surprise that younger generations will face many more such events over their lifetimes compared to their parents and grandparents. In fact, a new survey published in Science magazine predicts children born in 2020 could face seven times more climate disasters than those born in 1960.