This can't be good news

From the Economic Policy Institute:

In 2006, public school teachers earned 15.1% lower weekly earnings than other employees with comparable education credentials and experience earned. In 1996, this wage disadvantage was only 4.3% (see Chart). Although the wage disadvantage for both male and female teachers has grown substantially over the last 10 years, in 2006 the gap was far larger among males (25.5%) than females (10.5%).

The view from the other side of the desk

One-time planner, now professor, Patrick Condon writes in his new book Design Charrettes for Sustainable Communities:

The author once served as director of community development and planning for the small city of Westfield, Massachusetts. I clearly remember looking at the telephone on my desk and hoping it wouldn't ring. In my experience, the phone rang only when someone out there beyond my office walls was angry and had enlisted a city councillor, or maybe the mayor, to bring their dissatisfaction to my attention. I remember thinking it ironic that I was so clearly being rewarded for doing nothing. When I did nothing, the phone stayed silent. It rang only when I actually did my job -- angry phone calls came in only when I actually did some planning. This insight is crucial: the extremely stressful context within which senior city staff must survive is a huge impediment to change. Any model for advancing sustainability in North America must...develop processes that do not exacerbate those stresses. {25}

Bob Park's border solution

The ever vigilant University of Maryland physicist Bob Park:

The history of the world is a story of fences that failed: the Great Wall of China, the Red Sea, the Berlin Wall, Robert McNamara’s electronic wall dividing Vietnam, followed by the horror of Agent Orange. Securing the 2,000 mile border [with Mexico] was expected to cost $7.6B; the estimate will now go up. But desperate people will find a way in spite of obstacles. By contrast, the border with Canada remains unsecured. Why would Canadians want to come here? About 200,000 illegal immigrants enter from Mexico each year. For $7.6B we could pay them $38,000 each to stay in Mexico. We would all be better off.

Um, except for the incentive effects, Bob. Still, it's got to be a more productive line of thought than just using the issue to stir up hatred in an effort to elect Republicans.

Curiously, it seems at one point Abraham Lincoln had some similar thoughts about the costs of buying slaves' freedom vs. continuing the Civil War. (H/t Sam Smith)

Statistical Abstract #1

Who needs to read anything else? I bet one could maintain a blog for months, if not a full year, just by wandering around in the 2008 Statistical Abstract of the United States. (Hat tip to the indispensable and long-lived Scout Report for the reminder.)

I'll start with Table 104 (PDF), "Age-Adjusted Death Rates by Sex, Race, and Hispanic Origin, 1960-2004." In 1960, the age-adjusted death rate per 100,000 people was 1311 for whites and 1578 for blacks. As of 2004, the figures were 786 and 1027.

This is another case of overall improvement without much improvement in equality. If you follow the trends, black people in 2004 had achieved the death rate that white people had back in 1980.

This difference isn't trivial, and it tracks many others. Discussion of black-white racial issues -- when it occurs, which isn't often enough -- can start with this established fact, as opposed to most whites' bland assumption that those issues are all in the past.

Foster care works -- group homes don't

University of Illinois researchers have good data showing that

Kids (mostly adolescents) who enter group home placements are about two-and-a-half times more likely to enter the juvenile-justice system relative to similar kids, with similar backgrounds, who are served in foster-home settings.

Details here.

Stupid state politician tricks

Nicholas Johnson at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities explains why a miniature version of the federal economic stimulus project won't do states any good, and may well do harm:

Unlike the federal government, which can run a deficit to cover the cost of its stimulus package, 49 of the 50 states are required by constitution or statute to balance their operating budgets .... states cannot simply enact new expenditures or tax cuts to be financed by increased borrowing. A reduction in revenue typically must be accompanied by a reduction in the spending that otherwise could occur.

Since roughly four-fifths of all state spending comes in just four areas — education, health care, transportation, and public safety — it is likely that tax cuts would come at the expense of one or more of those services.

Cutting services to pay for “stimulus” tax cuts would not only harm the people who depend on those services, but also negate the stimulative impact on the economy. Recipients of the tax cut would have a bit more money to spend. But the recipients of state expenditure dollars, including public employees and contractors (e.g., teachers, construction workers, and health-care workers), would have less to spend. In terms of aggregate economic impact, the result likely would be a wash.

Indeed, such a tradeoff could actually hurt the economy. The lost jobs and income resulting from the spending cuts would outweigh the stimulus from the tax cuts if recipients save their tax cut or spend it out of state rather than injecting it into the local economy. This might occur, for example, if the recipients are multi-state corporations or relatively well-off individuals.

I find this mode of argument -- that tax cuts can do good in some circumstances and not others -- far more persuasive than arguments from those who assume that tax cuts, or tax increases, are always the answer.

"Emergency influx of immigrants"? WTF?

Lewis Seiler and Dan Hamburg in the San Francisco Chronicle, 4 Feb:

Since 9/11, and seemingly without the notice of most Americans, the federal government has assumed the authority to institute martial law, arrest a wide swath of dissidents (citizen and noncitizen alike), and detain people without legal or constitutional recourse in the event of "an emergency influx of immigrants in the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs."

Beginning in 1999, the government has entered into a series of single-bid contracts with Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) to build detention camps at undisclosed locations within the United States. The government has also contracted with several companies to build thousands of railcars, some reportedly equipped with shackles, ostensibly to transport detainees....

The Military Commissions Act of 2006, rammed through Congress just before the 2006 midterm elections, allows for the indefinite imprisonment of anyone who donates money to a charity that turns up on a list of "terrorist" organizations, or who speaks out against the government's policies. The law calls for secret trials for citizens and noncitizens alike.

Read the whole thing.