All posts by MuniCourts

Memo DeVos sent Tuesday rescinds student loan borrower protections put in place by Obama administration

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos on Tuesday withdrew student loan borrower protections put in place by the Obama administration, a move that steps away from accountability and opens the door for "rogue" servicers, according to critics.

DeVos outlined the change in a memo (pdf) sent to James Runcie, the chief operating officer of Federal Student Aid (FSA), in which she laments "a lack of consistent objectives" and other "shortcomings" in the current loan processing system, which as one observer sees it, was, in fact clear, and "was built to make repaying loans easier."

The Washington Post explains the education secretary's action:

DeVos has withdrawn three memos issued by former education secretary John King and his under secretary Ted Mitchell. One of the directives, which was later updated with another memo, called on Runcie to hold companies accountable for borrowers receiving accurate, consistent and timely information about their debt. The 56-page memo called for the creation of financial incentives for targeted outreach to people at great risk of defaulting on their loans, a baseline level of service for all borrowers and a contract flexible enough to penalize servicers for poor service, among other things.

The Obama administration requested routine audits of records, systems, complaints and a compliance-review process. It also directed Runcie's team to base compensation on response time to answering calls, completing applications for income-driven repayment plans, errors made during communications, and the amount of time it takes to process payments. Another memo insisted FSA consider a company's past performance in divvying up the student loan portfolio.

"The guidelines," Cory Doctorow wrote at BoingBoing, "were enacted after the Government Accountability Office found that the Department of Education's outsourced debt-collectors were cheating borrowers and engaging in other corrupt, negligent, and criminal practices." That oursourcing refers to the fact that "the federal government pays hundreds of millions of dollars to companies such as Navient, Great Lakes, and American Education Services to manage $1.2 trillion in student loans," the Post writes.

Bloomberg writes: "With her memo, DeVos has taken control of the complex and widely derided system in which the federal government collects monthly payments from tens of millions of Americans with government-owned student loans. The CFPB [Consumer Financial Protection Bureau] said in 2015 that the manner in which student loans are collected has been marred by 'widespread failures.'"

According to MarketWatch, the Education Department "is currently in the midst of awarding a new lucrative servicing contract to a single entity," with Navient being a finalist. The CFPB sued that company in January "for systematically and illegally failing borrowers at every stage of repayment." Yet the change ordered by DeVos "could make Navient a more likely contender for that contract, government officials said," Bloomberg adds.

Student loan borrower advocates decried the changes made by DeVos.

It "will certainly increase the likelihood of default," said David Bergeron, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress who worked over three decades at the Education Department, to Bloomberg.

"Secretary DeVos—with the stroke of a pen—has reinstated the Wild West of student loans where servicers get to play by their own rules, and borrowers get fleeced," said American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten.

"Her decision rescinds the most basic protections student debtors have when dealing with servicers, like expecting their bills to be accurate and their payments to be processed on time. And she's opened the door for rogue operators such as Navient, which overcharged service members and veterans millions of dollars, to win even more lucrative government contracts. If Secretary DeVos were serious about curing America's trillion dollar student loan crisis, she would strengthen, not rescind, these protections," she continued.

The development comes less than two weeks after the Education Department said that over 550,000 borrowers who were led to believe that their loans would be forgiven after ten years of work in the public service, may in fact be on the hook for those payments.

"Instead, she is enabling and empowering bad actors. It's just another clear example of Betsy DeVos and the Trump administration putting the interests of predatory profiteers over the needs of the little guy—in this instance, the millions of people trying to go to college or acquire career skills without being crippled by debt," Weingarten said.

The change also drew condemnation from Americans for Financial Reform, a Wall Street accountability nonprofit coalition, which said it moved "the department toward less accountability and worse service for student loan borrowers."

The group continued: "In order to have accountability, there must be real consequences when servicers violate the law. Secretary DeVos's actions today moves us away from true accountability, and creates dangers for the very student loan borrowers the Department is responsible for protecting."

Free Money for College

Republished with permission under license from CommonDreams.

Police, Race

“We’re Coming for You”: Is There a Hidden Agenda to the Florida Sheriff’s Anti-Drug Message?

April 11, 2017 MuniCourts

A viral Facebook video posted by the Lake County Sheriff’s Department in Florida features the sheriff surrounded by four masked officers, their eyes hidden behind sunglasses, their torsos protected by bullet-proof vests, wearing the olive green pants of the military — not the blue of law enforcement. Many on social media have pointed out the similarities to ISIS videos, which usually show a row of masked militants issuing extreme threats to enemies. They look like some sort of para-military hit squad, and that's what Sheriff Peyton Grinnell promises they will be.

"To the dealers that are pushing this poison, I have a message for you," the sheriff warns. "We're coming for you. As a matter of fact, our undercover agents have already bought heroin from many of you… To the dealers, I say: Enjoy looking over your shoulder, constantly wondering if today is the day we come for you. Enjoy trying to sleep tonight as you wonder if tonight's the night our SWAT team blows your door off its hinges."

Since 90% of heroin users are white and white people are more likely to deal drugs, but most of those arrested for dealing drugs are black, the obvious question is; who is the sheriff's target? Lake County, Florida is 84.3% white and only 10.8% black, however, it's predictable that mostly black suspects will be targeted.

The sheriff's message presumably was designed to be reassuring for the good citizens of Lake County, but the sheriff's promise of increased para-militarized, high-intensity, middle-of-the-night drug raids is anything but, given the record of SWAT raid errors over the years.There's no shortage of news stories about police targeting the wrong house often with disastrous results.

In the Trump era, the fear that Sheriff Grinnell actions might be the first step in a new war on black people has to be considered. The election of President Trump has emboldened racist to commit overt acts. Recently a woman was denied an Airbnb rental and was specifically told it was because of her race. When the renter said she would report the racist action to Airbnb officials, the host replied: “It’s why we have Trump.”

Business, Race

Auto Insurance Industry Attacks Story about African-Americans Paying Higher Premiums

April 9, 2017 MuniCourts

An industry representative disputed findings that many disparities in auto insurance prices between minority and white neighborhoods are wider than differences in risk can explain. His analysis is flawed.

Earlier this week, ProPublica published an investigation with Consumer Reports in which they found that many minority neighborhoods pay higher car insurance premiums than white areas with the same risk. Their findings were based on analysis of insurance premiums and payouts in California, Illinois, Texas, and Missouri. They found insurers such as Allstate, Geico, and Liberty Mutual were charging premiums that were as much as 30 percent higher in zip codes where most residents are minorities than in whiter neighborhoods with similar accident costs. How to buy auto insurance.

In 2015, Consumer Reports published an article, "Car Insurance Can Cost More in African American Communities," that reached similar conclusions and reported that on average, premium rate quotes for its example driver were 70 percent higher in predominantly African American communities than in communities that are mostly white.

An industry representative disputed ProPublica's findings that many disparities in auto insurance prices between minority and white neighborhoods are wider than differences in risk can explain. His analysis is flawed. (Here are details on how they did the analysis.)

An industry trade group, the Insurance Information Institute, responded in the Insurance Journal. The piece, by James Lynch, vice president of research and information services, called ProPublic's article “inaccurate, unfair, and irresponsible.” We disagree. As they typically do with their reporting, ProPublica contacted the industry well ahead of publication and gave it an opportunity to review their data and methodology and respond to our findings.

Here is the response ProPublic and Consumer Reports sent to the Insurance Journal.

While we appreciate that Mr. Lynch and the industry may disagree with our findings and conclusions, we want to correct for readers several errors he made in describing our work. In fact, we released a detailed methodology of our study, primarily to be as transparent and forthright as possible about what we did and did not do, and about the limitations of our analysis.

Mr. Lynch writes that we concluded that “auto insurers charge unfairly high rates to people in minority and low-income communities.” In fact, we found that the disparities were not limited to low-income communities and persist even in affluent minority neighborhoods.

Mr. Lynch writes that we made a mistake by “comparing the losses of all drivers within a ZIP code to the premium charged to a single person.” This assertion does not properly characterize what we did. We compared the average premium in minority zip codes to the average premium in neighborhoods with similar accident costs and a higher proportion of white residents.

Mr. Lynch writes that insurance companies do not set rates based on race or income. Our article does not say that they do. However, as our article pointed out, companies can use such criteria as credit score and occupation, which have been shown to result in higher prices for minorities.

Mr. Lynch writes that we did not address “how auto insurers priced policies where data about the policyholders and a ZIP code’s loss costs was thin.” In fact, we analyzed in detail California’s system of allowing insurers to set rates for sparsely populated rural areas by considering risk in contiguous zip codes.

Mr. Lynch writes that we do not consider that “an auto insurer’s individual loss costs … could vary from the statewide average.” In fact, we acknowledged this point in our article as a potential limitation of our study, while noting that the internal data of one insurance company, Nationwide, showed a greater disparity than the statewide average.

Mr. Lynch also implies we only applied our analysis to a 30-year-old driver. As we acknowledged in our methodology, we could not take every variable into account. We did repeat our analysis for more than 40 driver profiles that differed by age, gender, number of drivers and number of cars. When we ran the numbers, we found consistent results.

Our methodology was developed over more than a year and reviewed by a variety of independent experts in the field (including academics, statisticians and former regulators), whose feedback we incorporated. We were transparent with the Insurance Information Institute and with the firm the trade group hired, providing all our data and even our code to ensure they could fairly respond.

We would welcome the same transparency in return. While the industry criticizes ProPublica and Consumer Reports for not using company-specific data, such as individual insurers’ losses in each zip code, it does not make this information available. If the industry would release it, we would welcome the opportunity to take a look and continue the conversation.

Republished with edits under license from ProPublica

See related post:

How to Buy Auto Insurance

Civil Rights, Police

‘No Regard for Human Rights’: Sessions Slammed for Order on Police Conduct

April 5, 2017 MuniCourts

by Nadia Prupis

Order is "a clear indication that [Sessions’] Department of Justice is moving toward abandoning its obligations to uphold federal civil rights laws through consent decrees"

Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Monday ordered a sweeping review of police accountability agreements, prompting a wave of criticism from civil and human rights groups.

Sessions' order means that the Department of Justice (DOJ) may stop using consent decrees that aimed to address police brutality and other institutional problems, or refrain from fully implementing the ones that exist. The attorney general previously opposed the agreements, which are considered a legacy of the Obama administration.

The move is "a clear indication that [Sessions’] Department of Justice is moving toward abandoning its obligations to uphold federal civil rights laws through consent decrees," said Wade Henderson, president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

"Consent decrees are a crucial tool in the Justice Department's enforcement of civil rights in a variety of areas, including addressing police misconduct. They are only issued after careful study, review, and approval by a federal judge, often after a determination that law enforcement acted in an unconstitutional manner," Henderson said. "These latest developments are particularly ironic given that in the same memo outlining a review of these vital consent decrees, Attorney General Sessions also noted that 'local law enforcement must protect and respect the civil rights of all members of the public.'"

In a memorandum dated March 31 and made public Monday, Sessions directed his staff to review whether police departments are adhering to principles put forth by the Trump administration, including one that states "the individual misdeeds of bad actors should not impugn" police officers from "keeping American communities safe."

Many saw the order as a signal that the rightwing White House would disregard recent gains in improving relations between law enforcement and communities of color, an issue that gained public traction since the 2014 Ferguson, Missouri protests.

The Obama administration ordered a comprehensive review of numerous police departments throughout the U.S., which uncovered an unsurprising epidemic of institutional racism and police brutality against people of color.

"Yesterday, the Department of Justice proved what we have known all along: Attorney General Jeff Sessions has no regard for civil and human rights," Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) said Tuesday. "The decision to target police reforms that have been negotiated with police departments with a documented history of civil rights violations is reprehensible. Let me be clear, this review marks the first step in the Trump administration's misguided 'law and order' agenda that will blunt the progress we made on police reform under President [Barack] Obama's leadership."

"We simply cannot afford to turn back the clock on reforms that prevent innocent black women and men from being gunned down in the streets," Lee said. "The time to resist is now. As a member of the Appropriations Committee, I will fight to block funding for any effort to thwart the urgent need for police reform."

The New York Times reported:

As part of its shift in emphasis, the Justice Department went to court on Monday to seek a 90-day delay in a consent decree to overhaul Baltimore's embattled police department. That request came just days before a hearing, scheduled for Thursday in the United States District Court in Baltimore, to solicit public comment on the agreement, which was reached in principle by the city and the Justice Department in the waning days of the Obama administration.

Ray Kelly, the president of the Baltimore-based No Boundaries Coalition, a citizen advocacy group, told the Times, "This has all been negotiated by the affected parties. Now we have an outside entity telling us what's best for our citizens and our community when he has no experience, no knowledge."

Baltimore was one of several cities, including Ferguson; Cleveland, Ohio; and Seattle, Washington that were part of the Obama administration's efforts to reform relations, after DOJ investigations found systemic issues. The Baltimore consent decree was reached after protests over the police killing of Freddie Gray revealed systemic racial profiling and other discriminatory tactics.

Likewise, David Rocah, senior staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Maryland, said, "Why is everyone in Baltimore ready to move forward with police reform except Donald Trump's Department of Justice? The Trump administration's move to put off a long-planned public hearing, where the court was going to hear directly from Baltimore residents about their views of the Baltimore Police Department, and the necessity of a consent decree as part of the reform process, is a slap in the face to the people of Baltimore."

"And it is a clear sign that the Trump administration is seeking to undo, and walk away from, the consent decree that is a critical part of reforming Baltimore's police department," Rocah said.

Henderson continued, "The underlying issues that consent decrees address have not disappeared. The attorney general would do well to remember that he must serve the public, and continue to use every tool at his disposal to support police practices that preserve life and protect all."

Republished with permission under license from CommonDreams

Police, Race

Black Cop gets 40 Year Sentence in death of White kid

April 3, 2017 MuniCourts

White cops kill a Black kid in a park with a toy gun, no charges. Black cops kill a white kid after a two-mile car chase involving the kid's father; sentenced to 40 years. "Black St. Louis Ex-Cop Tells the Truth About Race and Policing".

Three days after the incident, a grand jury indicted Derrick Stafford, then 32 and Norris Greenhouse Jr., then 23 with second-degree murder and attempted second-degree murder. Both officers are black.

Officers Norris Greenhouse Jr., left, and Derrick Stafford

On November 3, 2015, Christopher Few, a 25-year-old white man, lead police on a 2-mile chase in Marksville, LA after officers attempted to make a traffic stop. At some point during the chase, officers Derrick Stafford and Norris Greenhouse Jr. called for backup, and two other officers responded

The chase ended when Few hit a dead-end at the corner of Martin Luther King Drive and Taensas Street. Shots were fired by officers Stafford and Greenhouse who didn't know that Few had his six-year-old son in the vehicle with him. Both Few and his son, Jeremy Mardis, were hit. Mardis died at the scene, Few was hospitalized and has since recovered.

A jury convicted Derrick Stafford on March 24, 2017, of manslaughter and on March 31, 2017, the judge sentenced Stafford to 40 years. Norris Greenhouse will be tried separately in June.

Stafford and Greenhouse shot a total of 18 bullets into the vehicle and some have mentioned the number of bullets fired demonstrates the cops intended to kill. However, when police officers fired 137 bullets, killing Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams, unarmed black men; the judge acquitted Michael Brelo, the cop who jumped on the hood of their car shooting 15 times through the windshield.

Body cam video from Kenneth Purnell, one of the officers who did not fire his gun, captured the moment that shots were fired. Stafford and Greenhouse over reacted and carelessly cause the child's death. There was no effort by the Black community to start GoFundMe campaigns to support these cops. Had this been white cops, a black father, and son, the cops would have been put on paid administrative leave while a lengthy investigation was conducted. Most likely, it would have taken protest to bring charges, and the white officers most likely would be acquitted since the officers "reasonably feared for their lives" under the circumstance.

Local police officials and prosecutors quickly determined and announced that the video made it clear that charges needed to be filed. There was no discussion about what the video doesn't show or what happened immediately before the cops fired. I suspect a very different narrative would have been told it the cops were white and the father and son black. We would have heard how the father should have complied and stopped his vehicle. We would have heard how the father's actions were responsible for his son's death. The father might even have been charged with reckless endangerment of a child. The father would have been vilified and every negative detail about his life broadcast. There would have been vast public support for the cops who place their lives on the line every day and a GoFundMe account would have been setup for their legal fees.

The white kid's life mattered as it should, but black kid's lives should matter too. How many times have we seen a video of the actual shooting of black men when it was obvious they were not armed. We've even seen a man choked to death on video while complaining "I can't breathe", with no charges against the officers. This is the sort of obvious disparity that created the Black Lives Matter movement and sparked multiple protests around the country when the victim is black. The white community didn't need to protest for action to be taken against the black cops.

Few acknowledged drinking at a bar with his then-girlfriend shortly before the shooting but said he hadn't taken any drugs that day. Few and his fiancee Megan Dixon had an argument at a bar that evening and drove away in separate vehicles. Dixon said she saw Few pass her, followed by a marked police car with two officers. Dixon said that the police pursuit of Few may have been prompted by his running a red light or by the officers seeing an altercation she had with Few at a traffic light when he approached her car and they had words. One police vehicle reportedly received damage caused by Few reversing into it.

Killing of Terence Crutcher

Ironically, over the same weekend that Stafford was convicted of manslaughter, 60 Minutes aired "Shots Fired," about the killing of Terence Crutcher, an unarmed black man shot and killed while holding his hands up. Betty Shelby, the white female Tulsa police officer that fatally shot Crutcher, was interviewed.

A white male cop was nearby when Crutcher was shot and two additional officers were in a helicopter hoovering above, however, Shelby claimed she feared for her safety when she shot Crutcher. Even the cops in the helicopter seemed surprised Crutcher was shot rather than tased. The video below was taken from the helicopter's camera.

Shelby was placed on paid administrative leave and charged with manslaughter six days later while the investigation continued. During the 60 Minutes interview, Shelby blamed Crutcher for his own death. She said if he had only complied, he would still be alive. An online fundraiser was held for officer Shelby which included a donation from one of the officers who was named by the state as a witness.

Just as it was obvious that the black officers in Marksville overreacted, it is equally obvious that the white officer in Tulsa overreacted. We don't believe officer Shelby started her day with the intention of killing a black man, but we do believe that the fact that he was black created a bias that made her believe he was more dangerous than was reasonable.

Mr. Crutcher isn't alive to give his side of the story, but we can guess what it might have been. After seeing too many videos of unarmed black men being shot and killed, Crutcher didn't want to be one of them. Therefore, he put his hands up, walked slowly to indicate he was not a threat and put his hands on top of his vehicle, however, Crutcher was shot, just like another unarmed black man laying the ground with his hands up. Even Donald Trump had to admit that Shelby's shooting of Crutcher was not justified after viewing the video. If Shelby gets convicted, you can be certain it wont be anywhere near 40 years.

This double standard can not be allowed to stand. When justice is unbalanced, we need to take action both politically and economically. We need to stop supporting political candidates who do not work on behalf of our best interest and stop spending our money with companies who do not speak out for us.

If you don't demand your rights, don't be surprised when they are denied. If you accept being treated as a second-class citizen, why would anyone even consider upgrading you to first class?

The black community must also stop giving greater importance to the cultures and traditions others. If you didn't celebrate MLK day or Black History month by educating yourself or your children but you wore green on St. Patrick's Day, you're disrespecting yourself and your community. When you acknowledge Cinco de Mayo, but ignore Juneteenth, you dishonor your ancestor's suffering. How many people in the black community even know what Kwanzaa really is?

By all means, wear your kiss me I'm Irish button and drink Mexican beer, but show just as much pride in your own traditions and customs. When you don't respect your own custom and traditions, why should others? When a white life is lost, don't allow yourself to be drawn into the media hype that black lives that were lost were not as important and don't deserve as much attention.

Homelessness

St. Louis – A Heartless City

March 31, 2017 MuniCourts

What happened to St. Louis' moral compass? St. Louis has become a vile, corrupt, cruel, heartless, racist, and violent city. Collectively, we should be ashamed.

Next week, a group of millionaires is asking the City of St. Louis to vote for a sales tax increase to give them $60 million so they can build a soccer stadium that will further enrich them.

Three days before that election, a homeless shelter that has served St. Louis' homeless population for four decades is being forced to close.

When millionaires beg, we hold elections when the poor and homeless beg we get offended and pass ordinances to prevent them from begging. When the billionaire owner of the Rams wanted to leave St. Louis, we spent $16 million dollars trying to give him money he didn't even want.

As Rev. Larry Rice mentioned, the homeless people he serves come because they were turned away from other shelters and have nowhere else to go. The video below serves as a reminder about the basic respect we owe to one another.

I'm not a particularly religious person, the bible verse below is an additional reminder to treat each person, no matter their station in life or circumstances, with basic humanity. Matthew 25:40-45, English Standard Version (ESV).

And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers,[a] you did it to me.’
“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink,
I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’
Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’
Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’

What's Your Special Talent?

Do you have an extraordinary skill or talent? If not, you might be the next victim of heartlessness.

New and emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Autonomous Vehicles, Robotics, 3D Printing and other innovations will continue to strip away jobs. A few years ago, it was predicted that by the year 2025, half of all jobs will be eliminated by automation. Your job may not be as safe as you think.

My wife and I were both unemployed at the same time. Legal research skills helped us defend against predatory creditors and lawsuits. Otherwise, my family, years ago, could have been counted among the millions of people who became homeless during the financial crisis of 2008, which is still affecting families today. AI is now performing some functions of doctors, lawyers and other professions that were previous assumed immune from technology.

A 2015 report by the PEW Charitable Trust, “The Precious State of Family Balance Sheets,” indicates that the majority of American households (55 percent) are savings-limited, meaning they can replace less than one month of their income through liquid savings.

Low-income families are particularly unprepared for emergencies. The typical household at the bottom of the income ladder has the equivalent of less than two weeks’ worth of income in checking and savings accounts and cash at home.

Despite the studies like the PEW report, the majority of people still believe in the myths concerning homelessness: that most homeless individuals are alcoholics, drug addicts, thieves or mentally unstable. The homeless often are your former neighbors and under the right circumstances could one day be you!

Homeless Rights

Use of the law that criminalizes the homeless generally takes on one of five forms:

Restricting the public areas in which sitting or sleeping are allowed.
Removing the homeless from particular areas.
Prohibiting begging.
Selective enforcement of laws.
Selective creation of laws.

Being homeless is not a crime. People should not be penalized because of their misfortune or by exercising their basic right to survive which might include begging or sleeping outside.

The United States Supreme Court implied an aggressive begging ordinance unconstitutional in Thayer v. City of Worcester. The ordinances prohibited “aggressive begging, soliciting and panhandling in public places.” (Under the ordinances’ definition, virtually all begging would be viewed as aggressive.)

The ordinances also created twenty-foot buffer zones throughout the city that prohibited activities from handing out leaflets to selling newspapers to selling Girl Scout cookies. The zones also covered all the most desirable areas to sell a product or deliver a message.

The court declared the City of Worcester’s ordinances regarding begging, soliciting and panhandling unconstitutional in their entirety and also declared unconstitutional that part of the ordinance regarding the restriction the ordinance placed on activities on traffic islands.

St. Louis City has a similar aggressive begging ordinance 15.44, that may also be unconstitutional.

In Reed v. Town of Gilbert, the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional an attempt to ban the display of content-based outdoor signs without a permit.

Employment, Poverty

Six charts that illustrate the divide between rural and urban America

March 23, 2017 MuniCourts

Editor’s note: We’ve all heard of the great divide between life in rural and urban America. But what are the factors that contribute to these differences? We asked sociologists, economists, geographers and historians to describe the divide from different angles. The data paint a richer and sometimes surprising picture of the U.S. today.

1. Poverty is higher in rural areas

Discussions of poverty in the United States often mistakenly focus on urban areas. While urban poverty is a unique challenge, rates of poverty have historically been higher in rural than urban areas. In fact, levels of rural poverty were often double those in urban areas throughout the 1950s and 1960s.

While these rural-urban gaps have diminished markedly, substantial differences persist. In 2015, 16.7 percent of the rural population was poor, compared with 13.0 percent of the urban population overall – and 10.8 percent among those living in suburban areas outside of principal cities.

Contrary to common assumptions, substantial shares of the poor are employed. Approximately 45 percent of poor, prime-age (25-54) householders worked at least part of 2015 in rural and urban areas alike.

The link between work and poverty was different in the past. In the early 1980s, the share of the rural poor that was employed exceeded that in urban areas by more than 15 percent. Since then, more and more poor people in rural areas are also unemployed – a trend consistent with other patterns documented below.

That said, rural workers continue to benefit less from work than their urban counterparts. In 2015, 9.8 percent of rural, prime-age working householders were poor, compared with 6.8 percent of their urban counterparts. Nearly a third of the rural working poor faced extreme levels of deprivation, with family incomes below 50 percent of the poverty line, or approximately US$12,000 for a family of four.

Large shares of the rural workforce also live in economically precarious circumstances just above the poverty line. Nearly one in five rural working householders lived in families with incomes less than 150 percent of the poverty line. That’s nearly five percentage points more than among urban workers (13.5 percent).

According to recent research, rural-urban gaps in working poverty cannot be explained by rural workers’ levels of education, industry of employment or other similar factors that might affect earnings. Rural poverty – at least among workers – cannot be fully explained by the characteristics of the rural population. That means reducing rural poverty will require attention to the structure of rural economies and communities.

– Brian Thiede, Assistant Professor of Rural Sociology and Demography, Pennsylvania State University

2. Most new jobs aren’t in rural areas

It’s easy to see why many rural Americans believe the recession never ended: For them, it hasn’t.

Rural communities still haven’t recovered the jobs they lost in the recession. Census data show that the rural job market is smaller now – 4.26 percent smaller, to be exact – than it was in 2008. In these data are shuttered coal mines on the edges of rural towns and boarded-up gas stations on rural main streets. In these data are the angers, fears and frustrations of much of rural America.

This isn’t a new trend. Mechanization, environmental regulations and increased global competition have been slowly whittling away at resource extraction economies and driving jobs from rural communities for most of the 20th century. But the fact that what they’re experiencing now is simply the cold consequences of history likely brings little comfort to rural people. If anything, it only adds to their fear that what they once had is gone and it’s never coming back.

Nor is it likely that the slight increase in rural jobs since 2013 brings much comfort. As the resource extraction economy continues to shrink, most of the new jobs in rural areas are being created in the service sector. So Appalachian coal miners and Northwest loggers are now stocking shelves at the local Walmart.

The identity of rural communities used to be rooted in work. The signs at the entrances of their towns welcomed visitors to coal country or timber country. Towns named their high school mascots after the work that sustained them, like the Jordan Beetpickers in Utah or the Camas Papermakers in Washington. It used to be that, when someone first arrived at these towns, they knew what people did and that they were proud to do it.

That’s not so clear anymore. How do you communicate your communal identity when the work once at the center of that identity is gone, and calling the local high school football team the “Walmart Greeters” simply doesn’t have the same ring to it?

Looking at rural jobs data, is it so hard to understand why many rural people are nostalgic for the past and fearful for the future?

– Steven Beda, Instructor of History, University of Oregon

3. Disabilities are more common in rural areas

Disability matters in rural America. Data from the American Community Survey, an annual government poll, reveal that disability is more prevalent in rural counties than their urban counterparts.

The rate of disability increases from 11.8 percent in the most urban metropolitan counties to 15.6 percent in smaller micropolitan areas and 17.7 percent in the most rural, or noncore, counties.

While rural-urban differences in disability have been analyzed previously, researchers have had little opportunity to further explore this disparity, as updated data on rural disability were unavailable until recently. Fortunately, the census released updated new county-level disability estimates in 2014, ending a 14-year knowledge gap.

The release of these estimates has also allowed us to build a picture of geographic variations in disability across the nation. Disability rates vary significantly across the U.S. Although the national trend of higher disability rates in rural counties persists at the regional and even divisional level, it is clear that disability in rural America is not homogeneous. Rates of rural disability range from around 15 percent in the Great Plains to 21 percent in the central South.

Data reveal notable differences between rural and urban America. American Community Survey (ACS) 2011-2015 5 year estimates, Table S1810, CC BY

A variety of factors may be behind these regional and rural differences, including differences in demographics, economic patterns, health and service access and state disability policies.

While this survey provides a glimpse into the national prevalence of disability and reveals a persistent rural-urban disparity, it is important to note its limitations. Disability is the result of an interaction between an individual and his or her environment. Therefore, these data do not directly measure disability, as they measure only physical function and do not consider environmental factors such as inaccessible housing.

– Lillie Greiman and Andrew Myers, Project Directors at the Rural Institute for Inclusive Communities at the University of Montana; Christiane von Reichert, Professor of Geography, University of Montana

4. Rural areas are surprisingly entrepreneurial

The United States’ continuing economic dominance is perhaps most attributable to the very smallest elements of its economy: its entrepreneurial start-ups. Nearly 700,000 new job-creating businesses open each year. That’s almost 2,000 every day, each helping to create new market niches in the global economy.

Most people mistakenly believe these pioneering establishments occur in overwhelmingly in metropolitan areas, such as in the now-mythic start-up culture of Silicon Valley.

Yet, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, it is in fact nonmetropolitan counties that have higher rates of self-employed business proprietors than their metropolitan counterparts.

Furthermore, the more rural the county, the higher its level of entrepreneurship. Some of these counties have a farming legacy – perhaps the most entrepreneurial of occupations – but farmers represent less than one-sixth of business owners in nonmetro areas. Even for nonfarm enterprises, rural entrepreneurship rates are higher.

The reality is that rural areas have to be entrepreneurial, as industries with concentrations of wage and salary jobs are necessarily scarce.

Start-up businesses have notoriously difficult survival prospects. So it is perhaps even more surprising that relatively isolated nonmetropolitan businesses are on average more resilient than their metro cousins, despite the considerable economic advantages of urban areas, which boast a denser networks of workers, suppliers and markets. The resilience of rural start-ups is perhaps due to more cautious business practices in areas with few alternative employment options.

This resilience is also remarkably persistent over time, consistently being at least on par with metro start-ups, and regularly having survival rates up to 10 percentage points higher than in metro areas over 1990-2007.

– Stephan Weiler, Professor of Economics, Colorado State University; Tessa Conroy and Steve Deller, Professors of Economics, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Brian Thiede, Assistant Professor of Rural Sociology and Demography, Pennsylvania State University; Lillie Greiman, Research Associate, The University of Montana; Stephan Weiler, Professor of Economics, Colorado State University; Steven C. Beda, Instructor of History, University of Oregon, and Tessa Conroy, Economic Development Specialist, University of Wisconsin-Madison

This article republished with permission under license from The Conversation. Read the original article.

Homelessness, Politics, Sports

$60 Million in Public Money For a Soccer Stadium? NO!

March 22, 2017 MuniCourts

Yesterday, St. Louis MLS owners and the City of St. Louis announce charitable partnerships. How insulting! Bribing us with our own money?

If the voters approve giving millionaires $60 million dollars of public money, those millionaires will give the voters $5 million of their own money back over a 20 year period ($250,000 per year). There were allegations of corruption during the previous stadium proposal. St. Louis, if you give me $60 million, I'll give $10 million back, and actually do some good with it; how's that for a great deal?

I played soccer recreationally when I was younger, but nothing organized or for an actual team. When my family moved back into the City of St. Louis, my youngest son attended Lexington Elementary school which had a soccer program that he played in which I believe was funded by a sports or soccer foundation. I like soccer and I certainly do not have a problem with professional soccer returning to St. Louis. However, there are plenty of better ways to spend $60 million dollars than on a soccer stadium that the City would have no ownership interest in. St. Louis already owns a stadium and an arena and should maintain those properly before spending money on someone else's stadium.

The City has much more urgent problems than trying to fund a soccer stadium. The City of St. Louis has one of the highest homicide rates in the country and just recently, a man died after being shot at the Busch Stadium Metro Link stop. Public money needs to be spent on public problems.

Here's my idea for that money. Contact Habitat for Humanity, Rankin, Larry Rice and other organizations involved with the homeless. Every time I go downtown to the St. Louis Public Library, City Hall, Municipal or Circuit Court buildings, you can't help be see the tragic sight of homeless people with nothing to do and nowhere to go.

St. Louis homeless encampment downtown on Locust near 15th street.

According to the 2015 homeless census, there were more than 1,300 homeless people in St. Louis City alone. If I had not developed legal skills, I and my family might have been among them when both my wife and I lost our jobs. Computerization, artificial intelligence, and robotics will take away half of all jobs in the United States, and that estimate might be low. In the future, it won't be an immigrant taking away your job, it will be a computer or a robot. How many paychecks are you away from being homeless?

Crews of homeless can be trained with the skills to rehab city-owned homes. As those homes are rehabbed, some of the homeless people that participated in the rehab can use sweat equity earned towards rent or home ownership. For example, a rehabbed three bedroom home can house a homeless family or three single men or women each with their own room. They could continue using sweat equity to pay rent while building additional skills that will eventually lead to employment and being able to pay actual rent.

Once place in sweat equity housing, those new tenants could put those new skills to use as part of a revitalization crew. Those revitalization crews would perform maintenance projects in the neighborhoods where they are placed. Cleaning up vacant lots and properties, planting and maintaining urban gardens, assisting with repairs to the homes of elderly, disabled and low-income homeowners.

The homeless population benefits from learning and applying new skills, meaningful employment and the prospect of a decent place to live. The neighborhood benefits from having vacant city-owned property being put back into good use, neighborhood improvement projects and sources of nutritious neighborhood grown produce.

Once some of the formerly homeless individuals have been stabilized, they would receive assistance with Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) paperwork and applications to attend St. Louis Community College, Rankin or other trade schools.

This is just one example of how I would spend $60 million and how public money can and should be spent. However, public money should never be spent simply to make rich men richer. When you hear politicians fighting hard to give your tax money to rich men, you need to replace those politicians with others who fight hard to make your tax dollars enrich your community rather than individuals.

Politics, Race

Every Republican is not Your Enemy, Every Democrat is not Your Friend

March 17, 2017 MuniCourts

The first African-American candidate nominated by a political party to run for President of the United States, George Edwin Taylor, had been both a republican and democrat. Taylor belonged to a group whose motto was “Race first; then party.” As a group of people, African-Americans politically have become too predictable and are therefore taken for granted.

The three major black democratic candidates for mayor of St. Louis received more than 64% of the total votes cast. Our next mayor easily could have been black. The three black candidates that split the black vote knew that black voters are so predictable that they would not lose their support, even if they collectively cost the black community the mayor's office.

There is still one a black candidate in the mayor's race. Andrew Jones won the republican primary and will be on the ballot in April. Jones wants to debate Krewson and I want to see that debate. Before this election, I was not familiar with Krewson. Krewson only received 5% of the black vote during the primary election.The fact that she is endorsed by both Slay and the St. Louis Police Union, previously headed by Jeff Roorda, does not make me very comfortable.

Jeffrey Roorda was a Democratic member of the Missouri House of Representatives and has worked in law enforcement for seventeen years. He was a police officer in Arnold, Missouri until 2001, when he was fired for making false statements and filing false reports. Later, he became chief of police in Kimmswick, MO. He was the executive director and a business manager of the St. Louis Police Officers Association and is currently a city police union representative.

In St. Louis, some democrats are closet republicans. Republicans understand it's almost impossible for a republican candidate to win, so many republicans disguise themselves as a democrat to win. The democrats at one time were known as the party of the Ku Klux Klan who were described as the military arm of the Democratic Party and are attributed with helping white Democrats regain control of state legislatures throughout the South after the Civil War.

Malcolm X in his "Ballot or the Bullet" speech, explained how dangerous it was for Black folks to throw all their support behind a single political party.

Blacks and the Republican Party

"Heroes of the colored race" Print shows head-and-shoulders portraits of Frederick Douglass, former Republican Senators Blanche Kelso Bruce, and Hiram Rhoades Revels surrounded by scenes of African American life and portraits of Jno. R. Lynch, Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield, Ulysses S. Grant, Joseph H. Rainey, Charles E. Nash, John Brown, and Robert Smalls. 1881

Blacks were overwhelmingly republicans until Franklin D. Roosevelt's presidency during the Great Depression. Ironically, FDR's new deal legislation excluded most blacks from benefits, because of a deal made with Southern Democrats. As late as 1960 a third of all African-Americans were still republican.

The Republican party began as an anti-slavery party opposed to the Kansas–Nebraska Act, which opened Kansas and Nebraska Territory to slavery and future admission as slave states, thus implicitly repealing the prohibition on slavery in territory north of 36° 30′ latitude, which had been part of the Missouri Compromise.

Abraham Lincoln became the first Republican President and Southern states began seceding from the union resulting in the Civil War. Since President Lincoln was credited with freeing the slaves and democrats were associated with slavery, Blacks naturally supported the Republican Party.

George Wallace Effect

In 1952, George Wallace became the Circuit Judge of the Third Judicial Circuit in Alabama. Wallace became known as "the fighting little judge," a nod to his past boxing association. He gained a reputation for fairness regardless of the race of the plaintiff. It was common practice at the time for judges in the area to refer to black lawyers by their first names, while their white colleagues were addressed formally as "Mister". A Black lawyer, J. L. Chestnut said that,

"Judge George Wallace was the most liberal judge that I had ever practiced law in front of. He was the first judge in Alabama to call me 'Mister' in a courtroom."

In 1958, George Wallace ran against John Patterson in his first gubernatorial race. In that Alabama election, Wallace refused to make race an issue, and he declined the endorsement of the Ku Klux Klan. This move won Wallace the support of the NAACP. Patterson, on the other hand, embraced Klan support, and he trounced Wallace.

Wallace reportedly said after the campaign,

"I was out-niggered by John Patterson. And I'll tell you here and now, I will never be out-niggered again." … "I tried to talk about good roads and good schools and all these things that have been part of my career, and nobody listened. And then I began talking about niggers, and they stomped the floor."

In 1962 Wallace, having realized the power of race as a political tool, ran for governor again—this time as a proponent of segregation. He won by a landslide.

Civil rights protest made many white voters unsympathetic to the movement. After Republicans notice how popular democratic Governor George Wallace's racist rants were all over the country, including the North, some republicans began incorporating those same racist elements into their campaign.

Racist white democrats unhappy with Kennedy, switched to the republican party. Because of Kennedy's perceived support of black issues and Johnson pushing through the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, Black voters became almost exclusively democrat.

In 1968, when George Wallace maintained that there wasn't a dime's worth of difference between the two parties, he may not have known how right he was or why.

The republicans, using the democratic play book, started injecting racist code words rather than overt racist words into their campaigns. John Ehrlichman, President Richard Nixon's domestic policy advisor, made the following statements about the 1968 presidential election,

"The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies, the anti-war left and black people."…"We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news."

Ronald Reagan during his campaign told stories of Cadillac-driving "welfare queens" and "strapping young bucks" buying T-bone steaks with food stamps. George Bush used the infamous Willie Horton ads during his campaign and of course most recently Donald Trump reverted back to overt racist language to win. See the book, "Dog Whistle Politics" for additional information racism used to win elections.

Republicans control all the major Missouri state-level elected offices and the legislature is Republican controlled. A Black Republican mayor under these conditions stands a better chance of working with and getting concessions from the Republican-dominated state government. The republican legislature and governor might even pay closer attention to issues concerning black voters since they would want them to continue voting for other republican candidates.

Use common sense, if you know a particular group of voters will never vote for you, how seriously would you look out for their interests? The opposite is also true. When you know you have the black vote regardless, politicians can make deals without worrying much about the issues affecting the black community. Electing a republican mayor would send a chilling message to democrats that the black vote should no longer be taken for granted.

I am 51 years old and have voted for democrats all of my life. Things have actually gotten worse, it's time to consider a change. In my 51 years, a white person has sat in the Mayor's office except for eight years when Freeman Bosley Jr. and then Clarence Harmon were mayor. I saw changes and real attempts at change in North St. Louis when a Black mayor was in office.

A black mayor is more likely to have friends and relatives in North St. Louis and may care a little more about the issues that affect the black community. However, I don't want to vote for Andrew Jones simply because he's black any more than I want to vote for Krewson just because she's democrat. I want to see a debate and a real discussion about the issues.

As Phillip Agnew, with Dream Defenders stated during the PBS special "America After Ferguson"

"It's not a matter of just having a representative … that looks like you, they've got to come from the community, know the issues of the community, and then it's folks in the community that got to remind them every day that we pay your bills and where watching every single day to ensure that the platform on which we elected you on is followed and defend you when those people who seek to calibrate the system and right the system as it's been built seek to come after your for that office"

Had one of the three major black democratic candidates gotten elected, I would have been voting for a democrat this election. I am extremely disappointed with their lack of unity and vision. Those candidates were divided and conquered. Unfortunately, they couldn't unite and work together so that the black community could support and elect a black democratic candidate in the general election. If they can't work among themselves, how would they ever be able to work with a republican controlled governor and legislature?

Amazingly, St. Louis media including the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, St. Louis television stations and even the St. Louis American, a Black St. Louis' Newspaper, appear to ignore the fact that a black man is the republican candidate for mayor. Bruce Franks received more press coverage about being a write-in candidate than Andrew Jones received as an actual major party candidate. It's almost as if the press in St. Louis doesn't want to alert the black community that a black republican is in the race for mayor. Andy Karandzieff of Crown Candy received more press coverage for being a republican primary candidate than Jones has received as the republican candidate for mayor.

St. Louis, which has been dominated by democrats all of my life, has one of the highest homicide rates in the country. The entire North Side was abandoned and left to decay and St. Louis City a reputation for being one of the most racist and segregated cities in the country. How much worse off could St. Louis be under a Republican mayor?

Krewson should at least debate Jones so we can better decide if the white democratic candidate or the Black Republican candidate is the better choice. If Krewson refuses to debate Jones, take that into consideration when you vote.

Politics, Race

Will Andrew Jones become St. Louis’ Next Mayor?

March 9, 2017 MuniCourts

Andrew Jones won the March 7th, Republican primary race for mayor and is the only Black candidate still in the running for mayor.

The five black democratic candidates received a total of 67.5% of the vote. Since St. Louis is in one the most racially polarized cities in the country, having a Black republican candidate in the general election might be a game changer.

Before Andrew Jones' victory in the republican primary, I had assumed I would be voting for Larry Rice during the general election, but I am now taking a closer look at Andrew Jones. There's even indication by comments made by Jones concerning the homeless that Jones would be more willing to work together with Larry Rice than the current administration or Krewson.

Who Is Andrew Jones

You may be wondering just who is Andrew Jones? I had the same question, so here's the result of my research.

Andrew Jones is an Executive Vice President of Business Development and Marketing at Southwestern Electric, which distributes electricity from Collinsville to Effingham, Illinois. Jones was born in Cairo, IL in 1960, raised in East St. Louis and has lived in the City of St. Louis for about 30 years, currently in the Botanical Heights neighborhood.

Andrew Jones earned a BS in economics with a minor in business administration from Lincoln University (Jefferson City, MO), and two graduate degrees; an MA in International Business from Webster University, and an MBA from Washington University's Olin School of Business.

Below is a video of a February 22, 2017, primary election event held at the Sheldon Concert Hall where the St. Louis mayoral candidates participated and responded to questions.

If you would like to skip the other candidates response, Andrew Jones responds to questions or makes statements at: 7:53, 10:55, 21:23, 30:46, 34:13, 45:20, 101:10, 109:05, 111:52, 116:45, 121:21, 132:36, and 141:51 in the timeline.

Will Black voters support the White democratic primary winner who only received about 5% of the Black vote during the primary or will they break ranks and support the Black republican candidate.

I consider myself independent, however, I have voted most often for democratic candidates. Unfortunately, there haven't been many republican candidates that genuinely seemed to have the best interest of the black community at heart. We need a change in St. Louis and a Black republican mayor would certainly bring change. The one thing I know for certain, it couldn't be much worse than it is now, and St. Louis has had democratic leadership I believe for my entire life.

The fact that Krewson was endorsed by Slay and the Police Union doesn't inspire faith that things will be any different under a Krewson administration. A republican mayor might even be able to gain additional favor from the republican governor and legislature and work as partners rather than adversaries.

For more information about Andrew Jones' views, check out Building St. Louis News which published a series of questions and answers concerning a range of St. Louis issues or visit the Andrew Jones for Mayor website

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