Is being sick more than just an illness?

Natalie Waits

 Written by: Gregory Wallace

CNN Money

December 6, 2013

Sick days: A luxury many hourly workers don’t have

                Sickness is the state of being ill.  Some illnesses you can push through with no problem, others you have to stay home due to risk of spreading or maybe because you can’t even leave the bathroom, but what happens to these workers who stay home due to illness?  Up until now workers who work many hours a day do not get paid when they are home sick, but several cities are trying to change that.

                New York City’s mayor-elect, Bill de Blasio, says that is top priority will be to trying to expand the new sick leave law when he takes office in January.  Beginning in April, New York City will require companies with 20 or more employees to provide up to five days of paid sick leave.  The existing law will eventually require companies with 15 or more employees to provide paid sick leave, but Blasio wishes to make it apply to companies with 5 or more employees.   As of right now, the new law will only allow 1 million workers to be granted paid sick leave, but Blasio’s addition will allow 384,000 more workers to be eligible for the paid sick leave plan. 

As always there will be people who aren’t happy about this new plan, employers of the low-wage workers are the main ones that are fighting against this.  They don’t want to shell out the extra money that they should already be giving them.  They don’t want to see this law go any further.  Andrew Rigie, executive director of the New York City Hospitality Alliance, said the version set to take effect next year "offers appropriate employee protections." His group represents restaurants, bars, hotels and similar venues. 

Councilman James Gennaro is also another fighting against the law, stating that “it is costly and unnecessary.”  "Typically, businesses in these sectors handle illness with an informal barter system, where employees can exchange shifts when they or a family member are ill. This is not something that the government can effectively regulate," Gennaro wrote in a 2012 op-ed published in The New York Post. The bill's "one size fits all" method won't work, Gennaro said. 

Supporters are finding every single bright side to this plan to help make it pass.  For instance, it would be less expensive, according to A Better Balance, than increasing employee wages by 25 cents an hour. 

This sounds like an effective and important law to pass.  Workers should get paid even when they are sick, because they can’t control when they are sick, it just happens.  

“What shutdown? Job growth strong in October”

Natalie Waits

P.5 Economics

“What shutdown? Job growth strong in October”

Annalyn Kurtz

November 8, 2013

“What shutdown? Job growth strong in October”

                We all know that the government had about a two week shutdown, jobs were lost and the economy was “stabilized”, but even though the government had closed its doors for 16 days, the job growth in October surged.  The U.S. economy added 204,000 jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That was well above economists' expectations.  Economists assumed weak job growth due to uncertainties created by the budget battles in Washington. 

                The federal government shut down on Oct. 1, after Congress failed to agree on a budget for fiscal 2014.  This left about 800,000 people jobless.  Wall Street began to talk again about when the Federal Reserve should start slowing its stimulus program after they had realized how strong the numbers were.  The Fed has been buying $85 billion in bonds each month since September 2012, in an effort to strengthen the job market. The Fed will next meet at the end of December, and the strong jobs report could mean officials will consider reducing their monthly bond purchases sooner rather than later.

                Overall, the economy has still not recovered all of the jobs lost in the Great Recession.  About 448,000 out of work federal workers were counted as being on temporary absence, and the next jobs report, due on December 6, will probably show that these people were back in work during the month of November.  Meanwhile, only 62.8% of Americans over age 16 either had a job or looked for one, the lowest it has been since March of 1978.  Heidi Shierholz, an economist with the Economic Policy Institute, estimates roughly six million workers are missing from the labor force, and if these workers started looking for work again, the unemployment rate would be closer to 11%, instead of 7.35 as it is right now. 

                But now I bet you are asking yourself, “Where did all those jobs come from?” Retailers added 44,000 jobs, professional and business services also added 44,000 jobs, restaurants and bars hired 29,000 workers and manufacturers added 12,000 jobs.  Looking at these numbers, do you think the government shut down did any good for our nation? If things didn’t change and in some cases the job numbers surged, what does this show? It shows that our nation can function through the bad, good and governmentless. 

Government Spending

Natalie Waits

Econ P.5

“U.S. Spending Cuts Seen as Key in Slowing Growth”

Nelson D. Schwartz

Posted on May 2, 2013

                On May 2, 2013, a shaking article was posted on “the New York times” website entitled, “U.S Spending Cuts Seen as Key in Slowing Growth.”  Government spending has been that topic in my economics classes this past week, how government spending affects us and our surroundings.  The way the government spends its money is crucial to our environment and the way we live out our daily lives.  Government spending can be both effective and ineffective.  Depends on the government I suppose.

                In a small military contractor business in Michigan, the workforce has already been reduced by 1/3 due to government spending cuts, but it’s not enough.  If the government continues the way it is more jobs with go in the coming months.  The pressure Mr. Kelly (the chief executive of the small business) felt is one reason markets were and are iffy about what the Labor Department’s latest report on unemployment and job creation revealed about the economy on May 3rd.  After a strong start to the year, government spending has had negative effects and it’s starting to show in the growth.

                The government spending is directly effecting our growth as a nation.  Without the impact of federal cuts and higher taxes, it is estimated that the annual economic growth would be close to 4 percent, above the 2.5 percent pace she is expecting in 2013.  But it is estimated that the economy would not fall back far enough to go into recession or experience a pronounced rise in unemployment.  “We’re not in a free fall, but it highlights the difficult nature of this recovery.”

                Government spending directly affects the way we live and the way we work as a society.  The government can affect us directly or indirectly, this article was an example of a way government spending directly affects our economy.  Mr. Kelly’s company is getting hit directly from government spending, ““We’re trying to sell the company. It’s sad because our technology is the next generation for the military.” Why should government spending affect so much of our economy?  New ways need to be brought up about how to change this for the better.   

The government wants its money back.

Natalie Waits

Here’s your unemployment check.  Now pay it back.

CNN Money

Annalyn Kurtz

October 18, 2013

                Due to the government shut down thousands of government employees were left jobless, bringing in no sort of income.  How do you support a family when you aren’t making any money? Thousands of those government employees filed for unemployment benefits for those weeks they were left without pay.  During the first week of the government shut down, seventy thousand federal employees filed for unemployment benefits.  With a total of 20,000 claims in Maryland, 16,000 claims in Washington D.C., 7,600 claims in Pennsylvania, and 6,000 claims in Virginia there are still claims to be processed  even after the government has reopened.

                So how much money do the once unemployed government workers need to give back?  Why should they have to give back any of it?  After all, it was the government’s mistake.  It’s unclear just how much money was overpaid.  Since then, the DC Department of Employment Services has instructed the bank to cancel the transactions that have not gone through yet.  As of now,  the DC Department of Employments Services paid $500,000, a total of 1,700 payments.  “If they have not actually taken any money out, we will then send them a notice and reverse the payment,” said Lisa Mallory, directory of the agency.  “If they have accessed the funds already, we will tell them the amount that needs to be repaid.”  They will have 60 days to repay the money without interest, but some states were able to avoid the overpayment problem with just luck. 

                This isn’t right in my opinion.  The DC Department of Employment Services made a mistake, they can’t just make all those people pay back all of the money.  Pennsylvania has a waiting period before the checks go out, which in this case was October 25^th, and since the government opened back up before that they don’t have to pay overpayment fees.  Not everyone is as lucky as Pennsylvania.  This is not the first time the unemployed workers have had to pay back the money they received from the DC Department of Employment Services, during the government shutdowns of 1995 and 1996 this problem occurred as well.  They claim that these payments that needed to be returned are minimal, but what about the employees with families that needed that extra money? What are they going to do?

Is the government shutdown doing more harm than good?

Natalie Waits

CNN Money

“Stock Markets await U.S debt, shutdown solution”

By: Gregory Wallace

Stock markets await U.S debt, shutdown and solution

                As stock markets wait for their solution from Washington the fact that it is week 2 of the government shut down is not helping.  October 17^th in the deadline that Jack Lew (Treasury Secretary) warned could bring a U.S default.  Last week, markets soared on the hopes of a potential deal to avoid the debt ceiling and reopen the partially-shuttered federal government.  The government shut down is affecting the stocks and our debt rate.  It’s not just the U.S markets that are watching this closely either.  International Monetay Fund head reported in an interview with CNN that the government shut down will affect banks worldwide. 

                The Dow gained 1% last week, they got a 320-point jump on Thursday, the index’s largest point gain since December of 2011.  The S&P 500 also gained close to 1%, while the Nasdaq slipped a little.  As stated in the opening paragraph, this government shut down is going to affect banks worldwide.  “They are very anxious to see this crisis resolved, because they know it’s going to impact their economy.”  Those words were spoken by International Monetary Fund head Christine Lagarde.  I had no idea that this government could affect other things worldwide.  This government shut down just is not helping anybody.  I saw the saddest picture on the internet of a kid dresses up and wanting to go to the zoo, but could not because of the government shut down.  This needs to end soon.              

                It is as simple as this Record profits? Stock slides.  Loss? Stock up.  This is what people pay close attention to but have not been able to due to the government shut down causing the report not to be created.  The stocks and other banks worldwide are being affected by this shutdown, so why are we doing it? Is it going to do us more harm than good?

Jobs Report held hostage

Government Postpones Jobs Report Amid Shut Down

by: Annayln Kurtz

October 3, 2013

CNN Money

                We all know the government shut down, it’s not the elephant in the room anymore, since then we’ve had slight changes in the way things work.  For example, at school the lunches are free, the lunch ladies say it’s because of the government shutdown, but to me this makes sense but my next example doesn’t.  Last week I went to the new vending machine, I punched in the number and I received my drink for free, I asked and they said it was cause of the government shut down.  Now why are the vending machines free?

                The article I read was about the government shut down and the jobs report.  The article was called “Government postpones jobs report amid shutdown” by Annalyn Kurtz on October 3, 2013 through CNN Money. 

                The government announced that they were going to release the jobs report on Friday, October 4 and confirmed that on Thursday, but it never happened.  People who are looking for jobs read this report religiously to see if they can get a job, but they didn’t.  Citing a "lapse in funding" amid the government shutdown, Department of Labor spokesman Stephan Barr said the report has not yet been rescheduled for release at a later date.  The jobs report has been delayed only once before, during the government shutdown of 1996.  Independent economists were expecting the new data to show the unemployment rate remained at 7.3% in September. They were also predicting the economy added 183,000 jobs last month, up slightly from 169,000 jobs in August.  The report was very important this month because the Federal Reserve monitors this data to decide when to slow its stimulus program.

                The bureau claims that due to the shutdown, they don’t have the man power to compile this report, but what about all the people who don’t have jobs? What are they going to do?  Sit and wait?  I think that even though we are having a government shutdown they should still send out the report, they promised the people this every month and that is what they should get. 

                I just hope this government shutdown doesn’t last too long and that the people of America get their jobs report.  I personally don't get why we are having a government shutdown and don't think we should have one.  

Government Shut down??

The government is planning on having a “government shutdown” starting in the up-coming months.  The government shutdown is a situation in which the government stops providing all but "essential" services.  This happened once before in 1955, under the presidency of Bill Clinton.  During the shutdown, Clinton’s approval ratings fell significantly.  The public blamed him for the bad things that had happened, but his approval ratings ended up rising to the highest they had been since the election.  Positive impacts of the government shutdown included the balanced-budget deal in 1997 and the first four consecutive balanced budgets since the 1920s, so why is the government not revealing the projected outcomes of this government shut down?

                This government shut down will be run by President Barrack Obama.  This government shutdown will not be the same as the one in 1995; we are a different country with different economic struggles.  In our economics class I’m learning more and more about the different aspects of economy, not just “economics is about money”.  Thinking about this “government shutdown”, I’m not really sure how it’s going to help our economy.  When we learned about the economic goals of the United States, we learned about full employment.  Full employment is when our economy has reached 95 percent employment.  How can we maintain that goal if we have a government shut down? Wouldn’t people lose their jobs due to this government shut down? 

                In the article I was reading, Groshen, the Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner, says that they would release the jobs data if the White House budget office authorizes it, so why won’t they release it?   The government has not labeled the release of economic data as essential and necessary to produce in a shutdown.  Nearly all of the agency’s 2,400 employees will be part of the government-wide furloughs.  The Labor Department said it is prepared to release its weekly unemployment data, as scheduled on Thursday.

Someone posted a “spoiler note” in the comments of this article saying,” Spoiler alert...more jobs created...90% will be part time. This economy is roaring back!”  This comment caused great controversy on the webpage.  If that were to happen, the public would be forever grateful, let’s just hope that that is what happens. 

                I’m not really completely sure about what the “government shut down” is going to bring for us, but I’m anxious to find out how it effects our economy, hopefully in a good way.  

Do we all really pay taxes? Or do some people get special treatment?

“Beanie Babies creator pinched for tax evasion”

By: James O’Toole

September 18, 2013

CNN

Do we all really pay taxes? Or do some people get special treatment?

                Taxes, by definition, are a compulsory contribution to state revenue, levied by the government on workers' income and business profits or added to the cost of some goods, services, and transactions.  People pay taxes on everything.  We pay taxes on food, clothing, gas, and housing, but does everyone have to pay taxes?  Do those filthy rich movie stars and business people have to pay taxes like we do?  Some people wouldn’t think so… why not?! They make a whole lot of money, it’s their special treatment.  The truth is that all persons are supposed to pay taxes, supposed being the key word in this sentence.  Some people try to get away with not paying their taxes such as Ty Warner.

                Ty Warner is the owner and founder of TY Inc., which hit it big in the 1990’s when Beanie Babies became some of the nation’s hottest toys and collector’s items.  Prosecutors say Warner stashed over $93 million in an account with UBS bank in Switzerland. Ty Warner is accused of failing to pay $885,300 in taxes from 2002.  That is $88,530 a year that he didn’t pay.  On top of all of that he is being charged a civil penalty of $53.5 million for failing to report the account.  That was part of his plea agreement.

                Gary Shapiro is the U.S. attorney in for Northern District of Illinois.  He claims that Warner went to great lengths to hide this income in the Swiss Bank.  He states, “Regardless of wealth, everyone must pay taxes on all of their income, not just the amount they choose to report.”  That answers the question I stated in the first paragraph. 

The traditional tax evasion charge carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. 

                Even though we don’t see Beanie Babies in the stores as often anymore, Ty Warner has an estimated net worth at $26 billion.  This just goes to show that no matter how rich you are you still have to pay taxes.  Taxing is an issue all around the country, but we all become equal when it comes to paying them.   There was even a classic life lesson imbedded in this story! Honesty is the best policy! 

Peru's Economic Battle

As a Boom Slows, Peru Grows Uneasy

By. William Neuman

Published: August 19, 2013

The New York Times

                It feels great to have something going the way you planned, that’s how Peru felt from 2002-2012.  Peru’s economy was booming.   Peru was “full of imported items like television sets and brand-name clothing bound for the growing number of malls that serve this country’s burgeoning middle class.”  That would relate to the term supply and demand, from what we have been learning in class.  Also, the shopping malls were filled with people spending their money on items they wanted.   The people of Peru, being the consumers, are what kept the economy strong. 

                A main reason why the economy got better was because the population sky-rocketed.  During the time period of 2002-2012, the economy grew an average of 6.4% a year.  That made Peru one of the world’s star economies. 

                What we may not know about the economy is that if one countries economy downfalls it can affect other countries as well.  When China’s economy hit a slowdown it affected Peru’s economy as well.  Sadly, Peru’s economy started on a downward spiral, apparel and agricultural products plunge at the same time imports were surging.  The economy is getting to a point to where they only estimated it to grow 5%, instead of 6.4%.  That’s a far drop. 

                Growing 6.4% for an entire decade and then suddenly changes isn’t good for Peru.  Nobody likes change.  Last week, my schedule got changed and two of my classes were switched.  My schedule got changed right when I started to get comfortable with the class.  I had to change into a new class with different students and in one case, a different teacher.  Just imagine how Peru felt when their economy dropped, prices went up and not as many things were being imported. 

                Mr. Humala, after his annual Independence Day speech, told the people of Peru “the world is going through a tremendous economic crisis, and the crisis has come to Peru.”  He promised to bring the benefits of Peru’s economic growth to the millions who have been left out.  He wants to comfort the people during this time of need.  As stated in the article, the people’s trust is thin.  Many in the business community were relieved that he had not made major changes in the economic policy.  The people just want to make sure they will have economic stability.

                This article showcased many of the economic terms that we have been covering in class.  I felt as if this were a good article to present for the first blog post.