LOVELAND MAGAZINE

News and Events from the Loveland, Ohio Area

Without fear or favor
Since 2004

Tag: economic security

  • What’s at stake for Ohio families as the monthly child tax credit payment ends?

    What’s at stake for Ohio families as the monthly child tax credit payment ends?

    Commentary by Will Petrik – Ohio Capital Journal

    As we start the new year, parents are planning for the future and working hard to provide their kids a great quality of life. They’re facing challenges head on, including a surging pandemic, school closures and at-home schooling, and fewer affordable child care options.

    No child should go to bed hungry, and no parent should worry about keeping a roof over their head. But many of the same politicians who refuse to make the wealthy and corporations pay their fair share have failed to prioritize the stability, economic security, and dignity of children and families.

    The latest census data show an estimated 811,000 adults in Ohio didn’t have enough food to eat in the last week. An estimated 2.4 million adults had difficulty paying for usual household expenses in the last seven days. On top of that, Jan. 15 was the first time over 1.2 million families in Ohio didn’t get the monthly child tax credit payment since July 2021, because the Senate didn’t pass the Build Back Better legislation before the end of last year.

    The monthly payments provided many Ohio families relief from stress by helping them pay for the basics such as food, rent, clothing, phone, internet, and educational expenses. It helped more families get enough to eat and fewer adults with children reported having trouble paying for basic household expenses.

    The child tax credit helped Sophia Whitehouse, from central Ohio, start her own business providing mental health services to children. Before the child tax credit, it was nearly impossible to balance her work and care for her children.

    “The child tax credit has been a tremendous help paying for preschool and child care for my two kids under 5,” Ms. Whitehouse said. She said that losing the credit means she will have to sacrifice time dedicated to serving the community’s mental health needs, which will hurt her family’s income. “I will not be able to work as much, because I won’t have child care,” she said.

    Jason Carter and his wife live in Cincinnati. They had a baby girl at the end of July 2020. The monthly child tax credit payments provided a sense of peace for Mr. Carter and his wife because it was a chunk of money they didn’t have to stress about every month. “It helps us to survive, to plan and have hope for an improved quality of life in the future,” he said.

    Along with thousands of other Ohioans, Carter was laid off during the pandemic. He found a new job, but said it pays half as much. The child tax credit helped the Carters make up the difference. Now that payments have stopped, Mr. Carter said they could be forced to put some of their plans on hold, such as buying a new home.

    “This is a dream my wife and I have talked about for years, he said. “Now that we have our baby girl, we want to provide a home for her to grow up in, have a yard for her to run around in, to be happy, and to invest in ourselves. Without the child tax credit, the future we have dreamed about doesn’t seem as solid. It’s something that worries us. We’ve been working so hard to improve our quality of life. Now they throw another roadblock at us. How am I supposed to achieve the American dream?”

    https://youtube.com/watch?v=pNwZf7K4WrE%3Ffeature%3Doembed

    By letting 2021 end without passing the Build Back Better Act, certain Senators have pulled the rug out from under the Whitehouse family, the Carters, and millions of families across the country. Just as parents are facing increasing heating and food costs, they are losing the monthly child tax credit, which has provided Ohio families with an average of $442 a month since July of last year.

    “How am I supposed to achieve the American dream?”
     Source: U.S. Department of Treasury, “Advance Child Tax Credit Payments Disbursed each Month, by State,” accessed on January 10, July, August, September, October, November, and December https://bit.ly/2XGh9Gv

    The Senate must deliver for families. They must pass Build Back Better and make sure the expanded child tax credit is included in the legislation. Until they do, families will miss out on monthly tax credit payments that made a real difference in their lives.

    For Mr. Carter, Ms. Whitehouse, and millions of other parents and families across Ohio and the nation, there’s so much at stake. This is about security, opportunity, and parents’ dreams for the future. Our nation has the resources to provide stability and security for all families, but we now need the political will.

  • Sherrod Brown: Trick after trick to pay people less

    Sherrod Brown: Trick after trick to pay people less

    “If even a global pandemic will not get corporations to rethink their exploitative business model, it’s time to stop letting them run the economy.”

    By: U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown

    In the early months of this pandemic, as businesses and feel-good news stories hailed America’s workers as the heroes of our time, I published an open letter to America’s corporate leaders, imploring them to live up to their ad campaigns and invest in the workers who make their businesses successful. I wrote: If you truly believe that workers are essential to your companies, then treat them that way.

    All that has changed are that corporate profits have gone up.

    Since then, CEOs have not been beating down my door to discuss renewed efforts to invest in their workers. It has been six months, and all that has changed are that corporate profits have gone up, hazard pay has disappeared, and more workers have died. Since the pandemic started, hundreds of thousands of American workers have died of COVID-19 after contracting the virus on the job.

    Even as small businesses have shuttered in communities all over the country, profits for the largest retail companies have soared during the pandemic. Workers’ pay, predictably, has not. The Brookings Institution studied the 13 biggest retailers in the country and found that their earnings have shot up 39% compared with last year, and stock prices are up 33%. But wages have only gone up by about $1 an hour. 

    Trick after trick to pay people less 

    Amazon’s quarterly profits increased by close to a staggering 200%. Yet it rolled back its still-meager $2-per-hour raise in June, and announced a one-time bonus of just $300 per worker. Yes, you read that correctly — not $3,000, but $300, from a company that brought in $280 billion in revenue last year. 

    The company also has no plans to change its broader business model built on exploiting workers, largely workers of color and women, and busting unions. Amazon makes ample use of contractors, including what it calls “Amazon Flex” drivers — and as with other “gig economy” jobs, “flex” is just corporate PR speak for denying workers their rights as employees. 

    Of course Amazon is far from alone in its treatment of workers, nor is this problem new. For decades, corporations have used trick after trick to pay workers less and deny them health care, retirement savings, paid leave and basic job security. We’ve seen the results of this corporate business model that treats workers as expendable: Profits go up, CEO pay soars, and stock buybacks explode. And the middle class shrinks. 

    Profits go up, CEO pay soars, and stock buybacks explode. And the middle class shrinks.

    If even a global pandemic, where America’s workers have been on the front lines, will not get corporations to rethink their exploitative business model, it’s time to stop letting them run the economy. They had their chance. They failed. If corporate America won’t deliver for its workers, then government and unions must.

    In this presidential election, American voters made it clear they’ve had enough of the current system, where Wall Street runs the show. Joe Biden ran a campaign appealing directly to what he called the backbone of our country: hardworking people who get their money from a paycheck, not the stock market. And he won a commanding victory — over 81 million Americans gave him a 7-million-vote margin, more votes than any other presidential candidate in U.S. history, and a mandate for change. 

    It’s time for us to deliver results.

    An economy that reflects our values

    We can’t go back to business as usual before the pandemic, when it wasn’t working for a whole lot of people. If we are to build back better, we must create a new system centered on the dignity of work.

    In my open letter in June, I laid out actions corporations could take on their own, like raising base pay to $15 an hour. Since many of them refuse, we must raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. Workers are still not safe on the job, so President-elect Biden must immediately issue an OSHA Emergency Temporary Standard forcing corporations to protect their workers from contracting or spreading the virus in the workplace and strengthen overall enforcement, so workers don’t have to worry about getting injured or becoming ill just for doing their job. 

    Many companies still deny their employees paid sick days, even during a pandemic.

    Many companies still deny their employees paid sick days, even during a pandemic, so we must pass a national paid family leave plan. Corporations are expanding rather than ending the exploitative “independent contractor” business model, so we must use the law to make them treat their workers as the true employees that they are. Corporations continue to coerce workers out of forming unions, so we must pass the PRO Act to guarantee workers a voice in their workplace.

    We can deliver on every measure of economic security I outlined in June, with or without corporate CEOs’ blessing. The economy isn’t physics — it’s not governed by scientific laws outside our control. It’s made up of people making choices about our values and what kind of society we want to live in.

    We have the power to change how the economy works, so it rewards work instead of greed. We can create more jobs at middle class wages. We can give people power over their lives and schedules. We can expand economic security and opportunity for everyone. Americans voted for this change, and we will not wait for corporations to reform themselves on their own. They never have. They never will. It’s up to the rest of us create a country where all work has dignity.