The decline in unions has hurt nonunion workers too
News Intro Text
Economic Policy Institute • Lawrence Mishel • September 1, 2016
News Item Content
<p><a href="http://www.epi.org/">Economic Policy Institute</a> • Lawrence Mishel • September 1, 2016</p>
<p>Between 1979 and 2013, the share of private sector workers in a union has fallen from about 34 percent to 11 percent among men, and from 16 percent to 6 percent among women. The decline in unions has not only hurt workers who would be in those unions, but it has hurt nonunion workers’ wages as well.</p>
<div>
<p>This decline in union density has eroded wages for nonunion workers at every level of education and experience, costing billions in lost wages. For the 32.9 million full-time nonunion private sector women and 40.2 million full-time private sector men, there is a $133 billion loss in annual wages because of weakened unions.</p>
<p>Unions keep wages high for nonunion workers for several reasons: union agreements set wage standards and a strong union presence prompts managers to keep wages high in order to prevent workers from organizing or their employees from leaving. Moreover, unions set industry-wide norms, influencing what is seen as a “moral economy.”</p>
<p>Working class men have felt the decline in unionization the hardest. Specifically, nonunion men lacking a college degree would have earned 8 percent, or $3,016 annually, more in 2013 if unions had remained as strong as they were in 1979.</p>
<p>The effects of union decline on the wages of nonunion women are not as substantial because women were not as heavily represented in unionized private sector jobs. However, women’s wages would be 2 to 3 percent higher if unions had stayed at their 1979 levels.</p>
</div>
<p><a href="http://www.epi.org/publication/the-decline-in-unions-has-hurt-nonunion-workers-too/?mc_cid=1aa5d3deb3&mc_eid=7b9221669f">MORE>></a></p>
<p>Between 1979 and 2013, the share of private sector workers in a union has fallen from about 34 percent to 11 percent among men, and from 16 percent to 6 percent among women. The decline in unions has not only hurt workers who would be in those unions, but it has hurt nonunion workers’ wages as well.</p>
<div>
<p>This decline in union density has eroded wages for nonunion workers at every level of education and experience, costing billions in lost wages. For the 32.9 million full-time nonunion private sector women and 40.2 million full-time private sector men, there is a $133 billion loss in annual wages because of weakened unions.</p>
<p>Unions keep wages high for nonunion workers for several reasons: union agreements set wage standards and a strong union presence prompts managers to keep wages high in order to prevent workers from organizing or their employees from leaving. Moreover, unions set industry-wide norms, influencing what is seen as a “moral economy.”</p>
<p>Working class men have felt the decline in unionization the hardest. Specifically, nonunion men lacking a college degree would have earned 8 percent, or $3,016 annually, more in 2013 if unions had remained as strong as they were in 1979.</p>
<p>The effects of union decline on the wages of nonunion women are not as substantial because women were not as heavily represented in unionized private sector jobs. However, women’s wages would be 2 to 3 percent higher if unions had stayed at their 1979 levels.</p>
</div>
<p><a href="http://www.epi.org/publication/the-decline-in-unions-has-hurt-nonunion-workers-too/?mc_cid=1aa5d3deb3&mc_eid=7b9221669f">MORE>></a></p>
Date
Shaping Civil Discourse
News Intro Text
The founding charism of the Society of Jesus is to serve as agents of reconciliation; this gift should serve as a summons to each of us. How do we respond?
News Item Content
<p><a href="http://jesuitscentralsouthern.org/">US Central and Southern Province of the Society of Jesus </a></p>
<p> </p>
<p>The founding charism of the Society of Jesus is to serve as agents of reconciliation; this gift should serve as a summons to each of us. How do we respond? Especially in a time of so much disunity and violence, in an election year filled with strident voices, how do we create a space of civil discourse that allows for true democratic dialogue?</p>
<p>How do we let the foundational principles of our faith inform the ways we ponder and speak to one another about the grave challenges we face?</p>
<p>Thankfully, there are resources for civil discourse. In the sidebar on the right, you will find a letter from Fr. Provincial Ronald A. Mercier to the members of this province. In addition, there is a list of resources, with guidelines for Catholics and Catholic institutions on how to hold engage respectfully and appropriately.</p>
<p>Finally, we in the USA Central and Southern Province have designed an Ignatian-inspired prayer and dialogue process to help Jesuit communities and those in Jesuit works – including faculty, staff, volunteers (JVC, IVC, ASC), parishioners, students – reflect on how they can be bridge builders AND bearers of good news in this time of political and moral division. It attempts to model the components needed for constructive dialogue with people who have opposing opinions on issues, platforms, and – yes – even candidates.</p>
<p>Although it can be used at any time, the upcoming elections and the divisive climate they have created are an opportunity to reflect on, practice and deepen our ministry of reconciliation in a specific context. The process can be used in different adaptations – in 3-4 separate sessions, as a short retreat or afternoon/evening of reflection, or as material for theology, social studies, or civics classes.</p>
<p>Materials include both facilitators’ and participants’ guides. It is not a guide for having a political discussion on opinions about political candidates or parties, but rather a guide to deepen our response to the call of the Jesuit documents – and the call of Christ himself – to be reconcilers in the world.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href="http://jesuitscentralsouthern.org/civildiscourse?DTN=DTN-20160830015321">MORE>></a></p>
<div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>The founding charism of the Society of Jesus is to serve as agents of reconciliation; this gift should serve as a summons to each of us. How do we respond? Especially in a time of so much disunity and violence, in an election year filled with strident voices, how do we create a space of civil discourse that allows for true democratic dialogue?</p>
<p>How do we let the foundational principles of our faith inform the ways we ponder and speak to one another about the grave challenges we face?</p>
<p>Thankfully, there are resources for civil discourse. In the sidebar on the right, you will find a letter from Fr. Provincial Ronald A. Mercier to the members of this province. In addition, there is a list of resources, with guidelines for Catholics and Catholic institutions on how to hold engage respectfully and appropriately.</p>
<p>Finally, we in the USA Central and Southern Province have designed an Ignatian-inspired prayer and dialogue process to help Jesuit communities and those in Jesuit works – including faculty, staff, volunteers (JVC, IVC, ASC), parishioners, students – reflect on how they can be bridge builders AND bearers of good news in this time of political and moral division. It attempts to model the components needed for constructive dialogue with people who have opposing opinions on issues, platforms, and – yes – even candidates.</p>
<p>Although it can be used at any time, the upcoming elections and the divisive climate they have created are an opportunity to reflect on, practice and deepen our ministry of reconciliation in a specific context. The process can be used in different adaptations – in 3-4 separate sessions, as a short retreat or afternoon/evening of reflection, or as material for theology, social studies, or civics classes.</p>
<p>Materials include both facilitators’ and participants’ guides. It is not a guide for having a political discussion on opinions about political candidates or parties, but rather a guide to deepen our response to the call of the Jesuit documents – and the call of Christ himself – to be reconcilers in the world.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href="http://jesuitscentralsouthern.org/civildiscourse?DTN=DTN-20160830015321">MORE>></a></p>
<div>
</div>
Date
Still Separate, Still Unequal
News Intro Text
White Catholics and the perduring sin of racism
News Item Content
<p>Michael Pasquier, <a href="http://americamagazine.org/"><em>America Magazine </em></a></p>
<p>Two years ago, at the age of 7, my daughter developed an interest in the biographies of famous people. We started with a children’s book about Amelia Earhart, followed by Walt Disney and Anne Frank. Next up was Rosa Parks. The book opened with Parks as a girl growing up in rural Alabama, watching white kids ride buses to white schools while she and her black friends walked to black schools. The moral of the story was clear: Racism is bad. When we finished the book, my daughter said to me, “I go to a segregated school.” It wasn’t a question. It was a statement of fact.</p>
<p>My children attend a Catholic elementary school in Baton Rouge, La. My spouse and I send our children there for obvious reasons. It’s connected to our parish. It’s seven blocks away from our house. We both attended Catholic schools as children. My mother taught at Catholic schools. My wife works in the parish office.</p>
<p>What can I say? We’re Catholic.</p>
<p>We’re also white.</p>
<p>In describing her school as segregated, my daughter was simply calling it as she saw it. The children she encountered every day—in the classroom and on the playground and at birthday parties—were white. I couldn’t disagree with her, but I tried to explain why. I said things like, “Most Catholics in the school district are white, and only people who live in the district can go to the school,” and “Most of the people who go to our church are white, and only the people who go to our church can go to the school.” Remember, she was 7. So she replied, “Well, that’s too bad.”</p>
<p><a href="http://americamagazine.org/issue/still-separate-still-unequal">MORE>></a></p>
<p>Two years ago, at the age of 7, my daughter developed an interest in the biographies of famous people. We started with a children’s book about Amelia Earhart, followed by Walt Disney and Anne Frank. Next up was Rosa Parks. The book opened with Parks as a girl growing up in rural Alabama, watching white kids ride buses to white schools while she and her black friends walked to black schools. The moral of the story was clear: Racism is bad. When we finished the book, my daughter said to me, “I go to a segregated school.” It wasn’t a question. It was a statement of fact.</p>
<p>My children attend a Catholic elementary school in Baton Rouge, La. My spouse and I send our children there for obvious reasons. It’s connected to our parish. It’s seven blocks away from our house. We both attended Catholic schools as children. My mother taught at Catholic schools. My wife works in the parish office.</p>
<p>What can I say? We’re Catholic.</p>
<p>We’re also white.</p>
<p>In describing her school as segregated, my daughter was simply calling it as she saw it. The children she encountered every day—in the classroom and on the playground and at birthday parties—were white. I couldn’t disagree with her, but I tried to explain why. I said things like, “Most Catholics in the school district are white, and only people who live in the district can go to the school,” and “Most of the people who go to our church are white, and only the people who go to our church can go to the school.” Remember, she was 7. So she replied, “Well, that’s too bad.”</p>
<p><a href="http://americamagazine.org/issue/still-separate-still-unequal">MORE>></a></p>
Date
Labor Day Statement
News Intro Text
Most Reverend Thomas G. Wenski, Archbishop of Miami
Chairman of the Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development
Chairman of the Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development
News Item Content
<div>
<strong>Most Reverend Thomas G. Wenski</strong></div>
<div>
<strong>Archbishop of Miami</strong></div>
<div>
<strong>Chairman of the Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development</strong></div>
<div>
<strong>United States Conference of Catholic Bishops</strong></div>
<div>
<strong>September 5, 2016</strong></div>
<div>
</div>
<p>In every age, O Lord, you have been our refuge.</p>
<p>– Psalm 90:1</p>
<p>This Labor Day, we draw our attention to our sisters and brothers who face twin crises—deep trials in both the world of work and the state of the family. These challenging times can pull us toward despair and all the many dangers that come with it. Into this reality, the Church shares a word of hope, directing hearts and minds to the dignity of each human person and the sanctity of work itself, which is given by God. She seeks to replace desperation and isolation with human concern and true solidarity, reaffirming the trust in a good and gracious God who knows what we need before we ask him (Mt. 6:8).</p>
<p><strong>A World of Work in Disarray</strong></p>
<p>We behold signs that have become too familiar in the years following the Great Recession: stagnant wages, industry leaving towns and cities behind, and the sharp decline in the rate of private-sector organized labor, which fell by more than two-thirds between 1973 and 2009 down to 7%. Millions of families still find themselves living in poverty, unable to work their way out. Poverty rates among children are alarmingly high, with almost 40 percent of American children spending at least one year in poverty before they turn eighteen. Although this reality is felt nation-wide, this year new research has emerged showing the acute pain of middle and rural America in the wake of the departure of industry. Once the center of labor and the promise of family-sustaining wages, research shows these communities collapsing today, substance abuse on the rise, and an increase in the number of broken families.</p>
<p><strong>Family in Crisis</strong></p>
<p>The family is bent under the weight of these economic pressures and related cultural problems. Pope Francis, at the conclusion of his address to Congress last September, spoke of the consequences for families:</p>
<p>How essential the family has been to the building of this country! And how worthy it remains of oursupport and encouragement! . . . In particular, I would like to call attention to those family members who are the most vulnerable, the young. For many of them, a future filled with countless possibilities beckons, yet so many others seem disoriented and aimless, trapped in a hopeless maze of violence, abuse and despair. Their problems are our problems. We cannot avoid them. We need to face them together, to talk about them and to seek effective solutions rather than getting bogged down in discussions. At the risk of oversimplifying, we might say that we live in a culture which pressures young people not to start a family, because they lack possibilities for the future. Yet this same culture presents others with so many options that they too are dissuaded from starting a family.[1]</p>
<p>Economic and political forces have led to increasingly lowered economic prospects for Americans without access to higher education, which is having a direct impact on family health and stability. For example, over half of parents between the ages of 26 and 31 now have children outside of a marriage, and research shows a major factor is the lack of middle-skill jobs – careers by which someone can sustain a family above the poverty line without a college degree – in regions with high income inequality. Divorce rates and the rate of single-parent households break down along similar educational and economic lines. Financial concerns and breakdowns in family life can lead to a sense of hopelessness and despair. The Rust Belt region now appears to have the highest concentration in the nation of drug-related deaths, including from overdoses of heroin and prescription drugs. </p>
<p><a href="https://jsri.loyno.edu/sites/loyno.edu.jsri/files/Labor day statement-Wenski-2016-cst.pdf">FULL STATEMENT>></a></p>
<strong>Most Reverend Thomas G. Wenski</strong></div>
<div>
<strong>Archbishop of Miami</strong></div>
<div>
<strong>Chairman of the Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development</strong></div>
<div>
<strong>United States Conference of Catholic Bishops</strong></div>
<div>
<strong>September 5, 2016</strong></div>
<div>
</div>
<p>In every age, O Lord, you have been our refuge.</p>
<p>– Psalm 90:1</p>
<p>This Labor Day, we draw our attention to our sisters and brothers who face twin crises—deep trials in both the world of work and the state of the family. These challenging times can pull us toward despair and all the many dangers that come with it. Into this reality, the Church shares a word of hope, directing hearts and minds to the dignity of each human person and the sanctity of work itself, which is given by God. She seeks to replace desperation and isolation with human concern and true solidarity, reaffirming the trust in a good and gracious God who knows what we need before we ask him (Mt. 6:8).</p>
<p><strong>A World of Work in Disarray</strong></p>
<p>We behold signs that have become too familiar in the years following the Great Recession: stagnant wages, industry leaving towns and cities behind, and the sharp decline in the rate of private-sector organized labor, which fell by more than two-thirds between 1973 and 2009 down to 7%. Millions of families still find themselves living in poverty, unable to work their way out. Poverty rates among children are alarmingly high, with almost 40 percent of American children spending at least one year in poverty before they turn eighteen. Although this reality is felt nation-wide, this year new research has emerged showing the acute pain of middle and rural America in the wake of the departure of industry. Once the center of labor and the promise of family-sustaining wages, research shows these communities collapsing today, substance abuse on the rise, and an increase in the number of broken families.</p>
<p><strong>Family in Crisis</strong></p>
<p>The family is bent under the weight of these economic pressures and related cultural problems. Pope Francis, at the conclusion of his address to Congress last September, spoke of the consequences for families:</p>
<p>How essential the family has been to the building of this country! And how worthy it remains of oursupport and encouragement! . . . In particular, I would like to call attention to those family members who are the most vulnerable, the young. For many of them, a future filled with countless possibilities beckons, yet so many others seem disoriented and aimless, trapped in a hopeless maze of violence, abuse and despair. Their problems are our problems. We cannot avoid them. We need to face them together, to talk about them and to seek effective solutions rather than getting bogged down in discussions. At the risk of oversimplifying, we might say that we live in a culture which pressures young people not to start a family, because they lack possibilities for the future. Yet this same culture presents others with so many options that they too are dissuaded from starting a family.[1]</p>
<p>Economic and political forces have led to increasingly lowered economic prospects for Americans without access to higher education, which is having a direct impact on family health and stability. For example, over half of parents between the ages of 26 and 31 now have children outside of a marriage, and research shows a major factor is the lack of middle-skill jobs – careers by which someone can sustain a family above the poverty line without a college degree – in regions with high income inequality. Divorce rates and the rate of single-parent households break down along similar educational and economic lines. Financial concerns and breakdowns in family life can lead to a sense of hopelessness and despair. The Rust Belt region now appears to have the highest concentration in the nation of drug-related deaths, including from overdoses of heroin and prescription drugs. </p>
<p><a href="https://jsri.loyno.edu/sites/loyno.edu.jsri/files/Labor day statement-Wenski-2016-cst.pdf">FULL STATEMENT>></a></p>
Date
JSRI to sponsor FREE movie screening and panel discussion
News Intro Text
"The Return" - Wednesday, August 31 7:00 PM - Nunemaker Auditorium
News Item Content
<p><img alt="" src="https://jsri.loyno.edu/sites/loyno.edu.jsri/files/The Return .jpg" style="width: 700px; height: 500px;" /></p>
Date
The Legacy of Lynching, On Death Row
News Intro Text
[The New Yorker, August 22, 2016]
News Item Content
<p><a href="http://www.newyorker.com/">By Jeffery Toobin, The New Yorker </a></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span>In 1989, a twenty-nine-year-old African-American civil-rights lawyer named Bryan Stevenson moved to Montgomery, Alabama, and founded an organization that became the Equal Justice Initiative. It guarantees legal representation to every inmate on the state’s death row. Over the decades, it has handled hundreds of capital cases, and has spared a hundred and twenty-five offenders from execution. In recent years, Stevenson has also argued the appeals of prisoners around the country who were convicted of various crimes as juveniles and given long sentences or life in prison. One was Joe Sullivan, who was thirteen when he was charged in a sexual battery in Pensacola, Florida. Sullivan’s original trial, in 1989, established that he and two older boys had burglarized the home of a woman named Lena Bruner on a morning when no one was there. That afternoon, Bruner was sexually assaulted in the home by someone whose face she never saw. The older boys implicated Sullivan, and he was convicted. They served brief sentences. Sullivan was sentenced to life in prison, with no possibility of parole.</span></p>
<p><font color="#121212" face="Adobe Caslon, Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif"><span><a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/08/22/bryan-stevenson-and-the-legacy-of-lynching">MORE</a>>></span></font></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span>In 1989, a twenty-nine-year-old African-American civil-rights lawyer named Bryan Stevenson moved to Montgomery, Alabama, and founded an organization that became the Equal Justice Initiative. It guarantees legal representation to every inmate on the state’s death row. Over the decades, it has handled hundreds of capital cases, and has spared a hundred and twenty-five offenders from execution. In recent years, Stevenson has also argued the appeals of prisoners around the country who were convicted of various crimes as juveniles and given long sentences or life in prison. One was Joe Sullivan, who was thirteen when he was charged in a sexual battery in Pensacola, Florida. Sullivan’s original trial, in 1989, established that he and two older boys had burglarized the home of a woman named Lena Bruner on a morning when no one was there. That afternoon, Bruner was sexually assaulted in the home by someone whose face she never saw. The older boys implicated Sullivan, and he was convicted. They served brief sentences. Sullivan was sentenced to life in prison, with no possibility of parole.</span></p>
<p><font color="#121212" face="Adobe Caslon, Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif"><span><a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/08/22/bryan-stevenson-and-the-legacy-of-lynching">MORE</a>>></span></font></p>
Date
Justice Department says it will end use of private prisons
News Intro Text
[The Washington Post, August 18, 2016]
News Item Content
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; font-family: Georgia; line-height: 1.8em; margin: 0px auto 18px; max-width: 100%; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;">BY Matt Zapotosky, The Washington Post </p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; font-family: Georgia; line-height: 1.8em; margin: 0px auto 18px; max-width: 100%; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;">The Justice Department plans to end its use of private prisons after officials concluded the facilities are both less safe and less effective at providing correctional services than those run by the government.</p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; font-family: Georgia; line-height: 1.8em; margin: 0px auto 18px; max-width: 100%; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;">Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates announced the decision on Thursday in a memo that instructs officials to either decline to renew the contracts for private prison operators when they expire or “substantially reduce” the contracts’ scope. The goal, Yates wrote, is “reducing — and ultimately ending — our use of privately operated prisons.”</p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; font-family: Georgia; line-height: 1.8em; margin: 0px auto 18px; max-width: 100%; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;">“They simply do not provide the same level of correctional services, programs, and resources; they do not save substantially on costs; and as noted in a recent report by the Department’s Office of Inspector General, they do not maintain the same level of safety and security,” Yates wrote.</p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; font-family: Georgia; line-height: 1.8em; margin: 0px auto 18px; max-width: 100%; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;"> </p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; font-family: Georgia; line-height: 1.8em; margin: 0px auto 18px; max-width: 100%; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;"><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/08/18/justice-department-says-it-will-end-use-of-private-prisons/?utm_term=.86832bac22a8">MORE>></a></p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; font-family: Georgia; line-height: 1.8em; margin: 0px auto 18px; max-width: 100%; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;">The Justice Department plans to end its use of private prisons after officials concluded the facilities are both less safe and less effective at providing correctional services than those run by the government.</p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; font-family: Georgia; line-height: 1.8em; margin: 0px auto 18px; max-width: 100%; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;">Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates announced the decision on Thursday in a memo that instructs officials to either decline to renew the contracts for private prison operators when they expire or “substantially reduce” the contracts’ scope. The goal, Yates wrote, is “reducing — and ultimately ending — our use of privately operated prisons.”</p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; font-family: Georgia; line-height: 1.8em; margin: 0px auto 18px; max-width: 100%; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;">“They simply do not provide the same level of correctional services, programs, and resources; they do not save substantially on costs; and as noted in a recent report by the Department’s Office of Inspector General, they do not maintain the same level of safety and security,” Yates wrote.</p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; font-family: Georgia; line-height: 1.8em; margin: 0px auto 18px; max-width: 100%; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;"> </p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; font-family: Georgia; line-height: 1.8em; margin: 0px auto 18px; max-width: 100%; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;"><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/08/18/justice-department-says-it-will-end-use-of-private-prisons/?utm_term=.86832bac22a8">MORE>></a></p>
Date
Payday Loans’ Potentially Predatory Replacement
News Intro Text
As lenders respond to impending regulations by pushing different products, many fear that borrowers won’t be protected.
News Item Content
<p><a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/08/what-will-replace-payday-loans/495656/">GILLIAN B. WHITE AUG 12, 2016 </a></p>
<p>Dangerous, high-cost lending isn’t going away anytime soon.</p>
<p>While some have heralded the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s long-awaited payday-lending regulations as significant progress toward the end of predatory lending practices, other, similar products have, as predicted, started to take their place.</p>
<p>One of the biggest criticisms of the traditional payday-loan structure was that it required a large, lump-sum payment of principal plus interest. If—or more often, when—borrowers were unable to find the cash to pay back their very short-term loans with interest that reached the triple digits, these loans would be rolled into yet another short-term, lump-sum loan. And so the cycle went.</p>
<p>An uptick in what are called installment loans is the payday industry’s answer to that criticism—or, more precisely, the regulations that that criticism led to. Instead of making a lump-sum payment, installment-loan borrowers take out loans that are paid off a bit at a time, over a longer period of time. Installment loans are nothing new, and the same lenders who once predominantly peddled payday loans have been trying their hand at installment loans for some time, too. But now, they may try to make them a significantly larger share of their business. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that in 2015, lenders provided nearly $25 billion in installment loans to people with credit scores below 600. That’s 78 percent higher than the year before.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/08/what-will-replace-payday-loans/495656/">MORE>></a></p>
<p>Dangerous, high-cost lending isn’t going away anytime soon.</p>
<p>While some have heralded the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s long-awaited payday-lending regulations as significant progress toward the end of predatory lending practices, other, similar products have, as predicted, started to take their place.</p>
<p>One of the biggest criticisms of the traditional payday-loan structure was that it required a large, lump-sum payment of principal plus interest. If—or more often, when—borrowers were unable to find the cash to pay back their very short-term loans with interest that reached the triple digits, these loans would be rolled into yet another short-term, lump-sum loan. And so the cycle went.</p>
<p>An uptick in what are called installment loans is the payday industry’s answer to that criticism—or, more precisely, the regulations that that criticism led to. Instead of making a lump-sum payment, installment-loan borrowers take out loans that are paid off a bit at a time, over a longer period of time. Installment loans are nothing new, and the same lenders who once predominantly peddled payday loans have been trying their hand at installment loans for some time, too. But now, they may try to make them a significantly larger share of their business. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that in 2015, lenders provided nearly $25 billion in installment loans to people with credit scores below 600. That’s 78 percent higher than the year before.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/08/what-will-replace-payday-loans/495656/">MORE>></a></p>
Date
Editorial: Poor policy
News Intro Text
Failure to expand Medicaid is unconscionable.
News Item Content
<p><a href="http://www.houstonchronicle.com/"><em>Houston Chronicle</em></a> August 14, 2016</p>
<p>If our neighbors east of the Sabine are looking healthier these days, there's a reason. Since changing governors in January, more than 265,000 Louisianans without health insurance now can visit a doctor for checkups, schedule long-delayed screenings, make a dental appointment and guarantee their kids are getting the preventive care they need to thrive. That's because the new governor, John Bel Edwards, signed an executive order on his second day in office that made Louisiana the 31st state to expand Medicaid health insurance.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/Editorial-Poor-policy-9142109.php">MORE>></a></p>
<p>If our neighbors east of the Sabine are looking healthier these days, there's a reason. Since changing governors in January, more than 265,000 Louisianans without health insurance now can visit a doctor for checkups, schedule long-delayed screenings, make a dental appointment and guarantee their kids are getting the preventive care they need to thrive. That's because the new governor, John Bel Edwards, signed an executive order on his second day in office that made Louisiana the 31st state to expand Medicaid health insurance.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/Editorial-Poor-policy-9142109.php">MORE>></a></p>
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In U.S. Jails, a Constitutional Clash Over Air-Conditioning
News Intro Text
[New York Times, August 15, 2016]
News Item Content
<div>
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/16/us/in-us-jails-a-constitutional-clash-over-air-conditioning.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0">By ALAN BLINDER</a></div>
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</div>
<p>JENNINGS, La. — The air inside the Jefferson Davis Parish jail was hot and musty. Prisoners, often awakened by the morning heat, hoped for cooling rain after nightfall. And ice, one inmate recalled, brought fleeting relief in the cell she called a “sweatbox.”</p>
<p>Even though summer temperatures routinely roar past 100 degrees here, the jail, like scores of other jails and prisons across the country, has no air-conditioning.</p>
<p>“It’s hot,” Heidi Bourque, who was locked up this month for theft, said of the jail as she sat in her home, where the glowing red digits of the living room thermostat showed the temperature as a chilling 62. “It’s miserable.”</p>
<p>Her complaints are unlikely to move local residents, who approved funding to build a new jail after local leaders promised two years ago that it would not pamper inmates with air-conditioning. But they speak to a broader debate about the threshold for when extreme temperatures become cruel and unusual punishment.</p>
<p>Judges from Arizona to Mississippi to Wisconsin have declared over the years that the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution forbids incarceration in decidedly hot or cold temperatures. Still, prison reform activists encounter deep resistance in their quest to cool the nation’s cellblocks.</p>
<p>“It’s almost impossible for courts to deny the constitutional violation because extreme heat undoubtedly exposes individuals to substantial risk of serious harm,” said Mercedes Montagnes, a lawyer for three inmates with health issues who challenged conditions on Louisiana’s death row. “Now what we’re grappling with is the remedy.”</p>
<p>Officials offer a range of justifications for the absence of air-conditioning and for their reliance on cold showers, plentiful liquids and fans to help prisoners manage in the heat. Some contend that cooling systems are prohibitively expensive to install, particularly in older facilities.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/16/us/in-us-jails-a-constitutional-clash-over-air-conditioning.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0">MORE>></a></p>
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/16/us/in-us-jails-a-constitutional-clash-over-air-conditioning.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0">By ALAN BLINDER</a></div>
<div>
</div>
<p>JENNINGS, La. — The air inside the Jefferson Davis Parish jail was hot and musty. Prisoners, often awakened by the morning heat, hoped for cooling rain after nightfall. And ice, one inmate recalled, brought fleeting relief in the cell she called a “sweatbox.”</p>
<p>Even though summer temperatures routinely roar past 100 degrees here, the jail, like scores of other jails and prisons across the country, has no air-conditioning.</p>
<p>“It’s hot,” Heidi Bourque, who was locked up this month for theft, said of the jail as she sat in her home, where the glowing red digits of the living room thermostat showed the temperature as a chilling 62. “It’s miserable.”</p>
<p>Her complaints are unlikely to move local residents, who approved funding to build a new jail after local leaders promised two years ago that it would not pamper inmates with air-conditioning. But they speak to a broader debate about the threshold for when extreme temperatures become cruel and unusual punishment.</p>
<p>Judges from Arizona to Mississippi to Wisconsin have declared over the years that the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution forbids incarceration in decidedly hot or cold temperatures. Still, prison reform activists encounter deep resistance in their quest to cool the nation’s cellblocks.</p>
<p>“It’s almost impossible for courts to deny the constitutional violation because extreme heat undoubtedly exposes individuals to substantial risk of serious harm,” said Mercedes Montagnes, a lawyer for three inmates with health issues who challenged conditions on Louisiana’s death row. “Now what we’re grappling with is the remedy.”</p>
<p>Officials offer a range of justifications for the absence of air-conditioning and for their reliance on cold showers, plentiful liquids and fans to help prisoners manage in the heat. Some contend that cooling systems are prohibitively expensive to install, particularly in older facilities.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/16/us/in-us-jails-a-constitutional-clash-over-air-conditioning.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0">MORE>></a></p>
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