By Randy LoBasso

– Yesterday, we were all delighted to read a Bureau of Labor Statistics report which showed that Philadelphia’s unemployment rate had dropped to its lowest point since December 2008, prompting City Hall to issue a press release patting itself on the back.

“Today’s news is yet more evidence that Philadelphia is recovering from the effects of the Great Recession, that companies are investing, confidence in our city is strong, and that Philadelphians are getting back to work,” said Mayor Nutter in the release.

More good news: The number of employed Philadelphians is at its highest point “for a February” since 2009. The number of unemployed Philadelphians is at its lowest point since December 2008. And, to top things off, “the drop in the unemployment rate can be attributed to employment gains and not a drop in the labor force, since both the number of employed and the actual labor force grew between January 2014 and February 2014.”

What they’re saying is true. Philadelphia’s unemployment rate is going down, and over the last two months, the labor force has gone up. This is nothing at which to shake a fist! But it’s far from the whole story. Philly’s labor force and number of employed people is up now, but has been on the downturn in general for a while now.

Unemployment numbers, in their most media-quoted form, exist as a rate. The rate of unemployment is the number of people employed compared to the number of people who consider themselves part of the labor market — as in, people actively looking for work, or working.

Part of the happiness surrounding this report is regarding the fact that both the number of employed people and the number of people in the labor market jumped from the previous month. That said, while we went from 646,200 in January to 646,940 in February, that force is still smaller than it has been through much of the recovery.

February’s labor force of 646,940 is smaller than every other month going back to February 2012—with one exception: February 2013, which was 646,725.

One highlight that’s pretty weird is how the city is excited about the number of employed Philadelphians is at its highest point “for a February” since 2009.

For a February we’re doing well, but there were more Philadelphians employed in, say, June and July 2013 than there are today. The labor force was also a lot bigger.

While the number of Philadelphians living in the city has steadily increased over the last ten years (we’ve gained 63,718 people since 2004), the labor force has only grown by about half that—33,613 people.

And while Philly’s rate of 8.3 percent is low-ish, that rate is still lagging behind three of the four other largest cities in the U.S.

Source: http://blogs.philadelphiaweekly.com/phillynow/2014/04/10/philly-recession-is-complicated/

By The PA. AFL-CIO

– President Rick Bloomingdale and Secretary-Treasurer Frank Snyder welcomed attendees to the 41st Constitutional Convention of the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO Stating – We hope that you have an enjoyable and productive convention as we set the course for our State Federation for the next two years.

The theme of our convention is “Strength In Unity.” There is no greater force in this state, nor on this planet, than us standing together in strength and in unity for the common good.

Over the past two years we have stood together and have stopped some of the worst attacks on our unions and on working families that we have ever faced. Good jobs, decent pensions, educational opportunities for our children, our right to vote, and our collective bargaining rights have all been under attack by anti-worker groups and their political supporters.

We have learned that by standing together we can meet the challenges and turn these attacks into opportunities to build more strength for workers. It is our responsibility to continue leading the charge towards good jobs, decent wages, and prosperity for all workers.

This convention provides us with the opportunity to establish an agenda that puts Pennsylvania back to work, restores the middle class, and fulfills America’s promise of greatness for all citizens.

This can be a historic election year for all of us. By joining together we can end the attacks on workers, end the distractive and divisive politics, and begin focusing on the real issues that need to be addressed: investing in workers, investing in our communities and in our schools – rebuilding the strength of our economy and our state. By joining together we can put our state back on solid ground toward sustained economic recovery and growth for all, and not just the wealthy. This is an opportunity of a lifetime we can’t afford to miss and it begins today!

This will be a very busy convention for all of us, but it won’t be all work. We are holding several activities and events for the enjoyment of our delegates and guests. The proceeds from the Work and Family Breakfast and the Silent Auction will help support the Greater Pittsburgh Food Bank. The COPE Entertainment Night and the COPE Honorees Dinner will help support our COPE activities and programs.

Source: http://www.paaflcio.org/?p=3843

– Consortium for Building Energy Innovation, Formally Known As Energy Efficiency Hub, Has Helped Nation’s Businesses Become Energy Efficient / Program Has Made Reforms to Increase Effectiveness, Expand Impact in Southeastern Pennsylvania, Country

Washington, DC- Today, U.S. Senator Bob Casey (D-PA) sent a letter to the Senate Appropriations Committee urging that funding for a leading Philadelphia energy efficiency project, the Consortium for Building Energy Innovation, be continued in the fiscal year 2015 (FY2015) budget. The Consortium for Building Energy Innovation, formally known as the Energy Efficiency Hub (EEB), has created jobs in Southeastern Pennsylvania and become a national model for energy efficiency while undergoing reforms to increase the program’s effectiveness. In FY14 the program received $10 million.

“I’m urging the Appropriations Committee to continue investment in this program that has promoted job growth in Southeastern Pennsylvania while serving as a national model for energy efficiency,” Senator Casey said. “Investing in this initiative will help businesses across the country reduce their costs by becoming more energy efficient. I’m hopeful that the Appropriations Committee will continue to support this effort so the Consortium for Building Energy Innovation can continue to innovate and make a nationwide impact.”

The full text of Senator Casey’s letter can be seen below:

The Honorable Barbara Mikulski
ChairwomanRanking Member
Senate Committee on Appropriations

The Honorable Richard Shelby
Vice Chairman
Senate Committee on Appropriations

The Honorable Dianne Feinstein
Chairwoman
Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development

The Honorable Lamar Alexander
Ranking Member
Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development

Dear Chairwomen, Vice Chairman, and Ranking Member:

As the Subcommittee begins its work on the fiscal year 2015 Energy and Water and Appropriations bill, I would like to express my strong support for the Consortium for Building Energy Innovation.

Over the last several months, the energy efficient buildings systems research project at the Philadelphia Navy Yard has undergone significant changes in management and scope. The Consortium for Building Energy Innovation has new leadership and has worked in tandem with the Department’s Energy’s Building Technology Office to develop mutually agreed upon goals and objectives, narrowing the focus of work to demonstrating technical solutions to retrofit small and medium-sized commercial buildings and transitioning those solutions to market. In addition, the Consortium management team has incorporated many suggestions from internal and external peer reviews to strengthen operations.

The new streamlined Consortium is comprised of 14 organizations including major research universities and global industrial firms from across the nation includes 80 researchers and graduate students actively working to develop and demonstrate energy efficient strategies for retrofit. Funding in FY 2015 funding will facilitate:

Demonstration of high efficiency technologies and design tools at real-world retrofit sites owned by private and public entities with national scalability.
Collaborations with DOE Laboratories to develop and demonstrate strategies for deployment of the DOE technology portfolio in small and medium scale buildings.
Development and refinement of retrofit tools built on DOE supported open source models and tailored to small and medium size buildings.
Utilization of expertise and new building space at Consortium headquarters to provide building operator training and certification programs, building energy benchmarking, and technical advising including energy auditing tools and evaluation of alternative integrated technologies.
Expansion upon the more than 400 building industry professionals currently using Consortium research results.

As you know, this program received $10 million in FY 2014. I have been in direct contact with Secretary Moniz about continuation of funding for this initiative and the Department included $10 million for the Consortium for Building Energy Innovation in its FY 2015 budget request. I strongly urge the subcommittee to include the full $10 million for this important program in FY 2015.

Thank you for consideration of my views.

Sincerely,

Robert P. Casey, Jr.
United States Senator

Press Contact John Rizzo 202-228-6367

Source: http://www.casey.senate.gov/newsroom/releases/casey-pushes-key-senate-committee-to-maintain-investment-in-philadelphia-energy-project-that-has-created-jobs-in-region-become-national-model-for-energy-efficiency

By Laura Clawson

– President Barack Obama is marking Equal Pay Day by announcing two executive orders strengthening equal pay protections at federal contractors. One of the orders will prohibit employer retaliation against workers who inquire about or share pay information, making it easier for women to find out if they are being discriminated against, and the other will call for the Labor Department to collect pay information from federal contractors, with the data including race and gender to make it easier to identify employers who discriminate.

Like Obama’s executive order raising the minimum wage for federal contract workers, these measures extend to federal contractors some of the protections in bills congressional Republicans have blocked. In this case, these orders are provisions from the Paycheck Fairness Act; it would be much better if Congress would pass the Paycheck Fairness Act and apply them to all American businesses, but some is better than none, and none is what we’ll get from John Boehner’s House. (This is also a logic it would be nice to see the president apply to an executive order extending protections for LGBT workers to federal contractors.)

People who don’t want to see equal pay predictably sneered at these measures, though since they don’t typically want to admit that they oppose equal pay, they like to pretend that their opposition is about something else. For instance:

“Even while the government just collects data, employers will be encouraged to see their compensation decisions through he eyes of a government bureaucrat,” said Sabrina Schaeffer, the executive director of the Independent Women’s Forum, which opposes the executive orders. The orders, she said, “will do nothing to promote fairness and certainly wont help more women to get a paycheck.”

Yes, employers will be encouraged to see their compensation decisions through the eyes of a government bureaucrat who’s trying to ensure equal compensation. If they look at their data and see glaring discrepancies, maybe they’ll try to fix it before the government steps in to push them to do so. The objection “ooh, scary, the government will try to push your boss to not discriminate against you” may have less resonance for the average American worker than Schaeffer hopes. But it’s totally par for the Republican course of caring much more about the employer’s right to discriminate than about the worker’s right not to be discriminated against.

The Senate also plans a vote on the Paycheck Fairness Act to mark Equal Pay Day, but again, Republicans will prevent it from getting a House vote even if they don’t filibuster it in the Senate. Equal Pay Day marks the date in 2014 when the average woman catches up with the average man’s 2013 income.

Source: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/04/08/1290476/-Obama-taking-executive-action-to-expand-equal-pay-protections

By Molly Young

– The U.S. Senate on Monday passed a bill to extend long-term unemployment benefits, more than three months after the aid expired.

Senate lawmakers voted 59-38 to renew the benefits through May, and cover retroactive payments back to the program’s Dec. 28 expiration.

Still, the measure faces opposition among some House of Representatives’ ranking members, who have said the extension does not do enough to create jobs.

Monday’s vote in the Senate arrived weeks after the bipartisan deal to extend the aid first emerged among a group of 10 Senators, including Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore.

Both Merkley and Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., voted in favor of the five-month extension.

The recession-era program was meant to help the long-term unemployed get by as they continued to look for work. State-funded benefits often only last for six months. But the economic downturn meant it often took people much longer than that to find a job.

The federal aid covered extra weeks of payments starting in 2008. Congress most recently extended the benefits for another year at the start of 2013. But lawmakers have disagreed on whether to extend the benefits program again, for another year.

Merkley, in a recent interview with The Oregonian, said the extension would provide a necessary bridge for those facing unemployment and help people avoid a financial chasm. “What we’re doing is we’re stabilizing families, and we’re stabilizing communities,” Merkley said.

As the Congressional debate spills into its fourth month, more and more jobseekers are affected by the ultimate outcome.

Analysts estimate that more than 2 million people have missed out on weekly checks they may have received if the recession-era program was still in place. That count includes roughly 30,000 workers in Oregon, where 1 in 3 jobseekers has been out of work for six months or more.

Supporters of the extension cite that statistic, which mirrors the national rate. Critics of extending the aid contend the economy has improved to a point where it’s no longer necessary.

One in 10 workers were unemployed at the height of the recession in 2009. Today, roughly 1 in 15 are unemployed.

The measure passed a string of procedural votes last week in the Senate before passing the final hurdle Monday.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, has said the extension would be difficult to roll out, let alone spur job growth.

Yet Democrats and a handful of Republicans are pressing that the bill be considered in the House.
Supporters, though, face a road block in the calendar. Congress leaves at the end of the week for a two-week break.

Source: http://www.oregonlive.com/money/index.ssf/2014/04/unemployment_extension_deal_passes_in_the_senate.html