Countering Layoffs, Lessons From The First Week Of The CARES Act: The Coronavirus Workplace Series
(This is the fourth in a series on the impacts of the coronavirus on employment and the workplace. The first three are here.) Government and private sector businesses are moving so rapidly during the first week of the $2 trillion CARES Act, that we can already draw some lessons going forward. This is so especially […]
The Unprecedented Employer Subsidies This Week To Avoid Layoffs: The Coronavirus Workplace Series
(This is the third in a series on the impacts of the coronavirus on employment and the workplace. The first two are here and here). The federal Stimulus, approved last Friday, includes unprecedented financial incentives for employers to retain employees or bring back employees laid off after March 1, 2020. Whether they succeed or not […]
Remote Work and Best Practices: The Coronavirus Workplace Series
(This is the second in a series on the impacts of the coronavirus on employment and the workplace. The first is here.) In the old economy (three weeks ago), remote work was a growing but still limited part of the workforce. Only around 5.3% of American employees worked primarily from home in 2018. Within the past […]
Mayor Mike Bloomberg and Strengthening California’s Middle Class
Many California economists and workforce practitioners know of employment initiatives launched by Mike Bloomberg, when he was Mayor of New York, 2002-2013. However, beyond the economists and practitioners, these initiatives have not received the attention they deserve. With the California primary approaching, it is worth taking a look at a few of them: the results […]
The Shooting in Corona, California
On Sunday afternoon, June 14, 2019, at a crowded Costco store in Corona, California, an off-duty policy officer, Salvador Sanchez, shot and killed Kenneth French, a 32 year old man who was non-verbal and described by family as severely developmentally disabled. According to witnesses, French had become agitated and pushed Sanchez to the ground, while […]
Disability Services Reach the Crossroads in California
The Sonoma Developmental Center (pictured), which once housed 3200 children and adults with disabilities, closed at the end of 2018, among the last in the state hospital system. Over the past fifty years, a community-based system has gradually replaced the state hospitals, promising fuller inclusion. The California Department of Developmental Services (DDS) oversees a vast […]
A Contrarian (And Promising) Jobs Strategy for the Homeless
For more than fifty years, Peter Cove, the founder of America Works, has dedicated himself to finding jobs for welfare recipients, ex-offenders and other low income Americans. During most of this time he has stood apart from and often battled the liberal establishment of social welfare advocates, academics, and elected officials. In the past few […]
Gavin Newsom’s Future of Work, and Ours
Since his days as a San Francisco Supervisor in the late 1990s, Gavin Newsom has spoken and written about the interplay between technology, government, and employment: how technology is changing the types and structure of jobs, how it can improve government services, how it can generate greater citizen participation.\ Earlier this month, Newsom, now Governor […]
Cher and the Limits of Social Resources
As Cher is well-known in California’s disabilities and mental health communities as advocate and benefactor, it was not surprising that earlier this month she would send a tweet to her large Twitter following regarding homeless services in Los Angeles: “I understand helping struggling immigrants, but my city (Los Angeles) isn’t taking care of its own. […]
Should a MacArthur “Genius” Lecture Us About the Poor?
(This is a longer version of an article that appeared recently in Forbes. It draws on the approaches of the Catholic Worker and Dorothy Day, pictured below.) What authenticity should we expect from persons who want to lecture us about compassion, welfare and poverty? Should we not expect them to help individual poor persons they […]