Day 5 – Immigration Q & A

Do immigrants increase the crime rate?
Research has shown that immigrant communities do not increase the crime rate and that immigrants commit fewer crimes than native born Americans.

Do immigrants take jobs away from Americans?
A study produced by the Pew Hispanic Center reveals that “Rapid increases in the foreign-born population at the state level are not associated with negative effects on the employment of native-born workers.”

Are immigrants are a drain on the United States economy?
The immigrant community is not a drain on the U.S. economy but, in fact, proves to be a net benefit.  Research reported by both the CATO Institute and the President’s Council of Economic Advisors reveals that the average immigrant pays a net 80,000 dollars more in taxes than they collect in government services.

Longer answers to these and other questions can be found at http://www.justiceforimmigrants.org/myths.shtml

Workers' wages

In testimony this week before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, Bishop Stephen E. Blaire, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, said that a discussion of workers' wages is a good starting point for fixing the U.S. economy.

Bishop Blaire cited statistics from the Congressional Budget Office, which reported last year that the average income of the wealthiest one percent of Americans has increased 275 percent over the last 30 years. The income of the poorest 20 percent, on average, increased by less than 20 percent, despite an increase in worker productivity over the same time.

Bishop Blaire quoted Catholic teaching from Popes Leo XIII, John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis, on the rights and dignity of workers. "A just wage confirms the dignity of the worker," said Bishop Blaire. "And conversely, a wage that does not even allow a worker to support a family or meet basic human needs tears her down and demeans her dignity. The worker becomes just another commodity."

More information on the hearing and Bishop Blaire's testimony is available online.

The rich get richer . . .

An analysis of newly released data from the Census Bureau shows the current truth of that old saying, "The rich get richer and the poor get poorer."

During the first two years of the nation’s economic recovery, the mean net worth of households in the upper 7% of the wealth distribution rose by an estimated 28%, while the mean net worth of households in the lower 93% dropped by 4%, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of newly released Census Bureau data.

From 2009 to 2011, the mean wealth of the 8 million households in the more affluent group rose to an estimated $3,173,895 from an estimated $2,476,244, while the mean wealth of the 111 million households in the less affluent group fell to an estimated $133,817 from an estimated $139,896.

These wide variances were driven by the fact that the stock and bond market rallied during the 2009 to 2011 period while the housing market remained flat.

The rest of the report is here.

Bishops to prepare message on work and the economy

Catholic News Service reports that the U.S. bishops have approved a proposal to draft a statement on work and the economy "as a way to raise the profile of growing poverty and the struggles unemployed people are experiencing."

Titled "Catholic Reflections on Work, Poverty and a Broken Economy," the message would advance the bishops' priority of human life and dignity to demonstrate the new evangelization in action, explained Bishop Stephen E. Blaire of Stockton, Calif., chairman of the Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development.

The bishops voted 171-26 during their spring meeting in Atlanta to move ahead with a draft of the document. It is expected to be ready in time for a final vote at the bishops' fall meeting in November.

The message would be a follow-up to a Sept. 15, 2011, letter by Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York, president of the U.S. bishops' conference, in which he urged bishops and priests across the country to preach about "the terrible toll the current economic turmoil is taking on families and communities."

That letter was sent at the urging of the bishops' Administrative Committee, which directs the work of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops between general assemblies. The committee "wanted something more than a public statement," the cardinal said in the letter.

The rest of the article is here.

God and the economy

How your view of God shapes your view of the economy. Fascinating.

Paul Froese, a sociology professor at Baylor University and a research fellow at the Institute for Studies of Religion, writes:

In 2005, I, along with a team of researchers at Baylor, began surveying American religious beliefs, values and behaviors. Last fall, our third installment of the Baylor Religion Survey was released. Our combined research, which included polling from Gallup and dozens of detailed one-on-one interviews, suggests that value and economic concerns are becoming increasingly hard to disentangle. In fact, for many white evangelicals, religious and economic spheres are conceptualized as two sides of the same coin. They describe their worldview as one in which the spiritual and the material are mutually dependent and interactive. And the popularity of this worldview cuts across social class.

This compatibility of social and economic concerns has become apparent, of course, in the Tea Party movement. While Tea Partiers were initially cast as die-hard fiscal conservatives, the movement’s pious rhetoric—along with subsequent polling data—indicated that religious concerns were central to its popularity. Ultimately, the Tea Party movement revealed the extent to which religious and economic beliefs meld in the minds of many frustrated Americans.

To put this more concretely, approximately 31 percent of Americans, many of whom are white evangelical men, believe that God is steering the United States economy, thus fusing their religious and economic interests. These individuals believe in what I call an “Authoritative God.” An Authoritative God is thought to be actively engaged in daily activities and historical outcomes. For those with an Authoritative God, value concerns are synonymous with economic concerns because God has a guiding hand in both. Around two-thirds of believers in an Authoritative God conjoin their theology with free-market economics, creating a new religious-economic idealism. Nearly one-fifth of American voters hold this viewpoint, signaling that it can be a major political force.

Religious-economic idealism is the belief that the free-market works because God is guiding it. (Its adherents are, of course, not your typical laissez-faire, Ayn Rand devotees.) The popularity of this ideology explains two supposed paradoxes. First, it indicates why some religious working-class Americans have embraced the GOP. It is not that these individuals ignore their class interests, but rather that they believe issues of abortion and gay marriage are linked to whether God is willing to help solve both social ills and their economic woes.

Second, the fact that income does not predict whether an American believes in an Authoritative God indicates that this is not a class-based ideology. Instead, it is a cosmic worldview, which appeals across economic divides. Most clearly, it benefits the wealthy because conservative economic policies tend to favor them. But wealthy Americans with an Authoritative God can also have a religious-like devotion to their economic conservatism. In this way, their economic pragmatism transforms into a type of religious dogmatism. And dogmatism does not bend to changing circumstances and outcomes, so that we can expect believers in religious-economic idealism to cling to laissez-faire policies even when they appear not to work.

In sum, religious-economic idealism makes economic and cultural issues fully compatible, which may be a blessing and a curse for the Republican Party. It blesses the GOP with strong support from individuals who may be personally disadvantaged by their economic strategies, but also curses them with an unforgiving and inflexible constituency if political compromise becomes a necessity of governing. In a universe where God decrees no government intervention, any deviation or compromise from the free market is heresy.

What these findings do not explain is why someone who thinks God controls the American economy is necessarily a fiscal conservative. Couldn’t an Authoritative God want a socialist-style controlled economy under the tutelage of a pious chief economist? In Europe, I have found that belief in an Authoritative God is not at all associated with economic conservatism, and in Latvia and the Slovak Republic it even predicts a socialist ideology. Depending on where you are in the world, an Authoritative God is not always a capitalist.

You can read more here.

Strategies for a New Economy

The New Economics Institute is convening Strategies for a New Economy, a conference June 8-10th at Bard College, located in Annandale-on-Hudson.

It will gather together what are often diverse and scattered efforts to reshape our economic system, place them under one tent, and raise the flag to announce that transitioning to a new economy will mean engaging politicians, researchers, media, educators, citizen activists, business leaders, financial experts, scientists, union workers, cultural leaders, advocates for the disenfranchised, and youth -- all working together to achieve a common goal.

The three-day conference will include over 60 workshops, plenary gatherings, and participatory strategizing sessions organized in 10 theme areas (see below). "Strategies for a New Economy" will highlight best research and best practice under each theme and ultimately demonstrate that a decentralized, sustainable, cooperative economy is already taking shape, offering a strategy for action.

Details about registration and workshops was available here.