This weekend Craig countered a Wall Street Journal article that falsely claimed the minimum wage increase is the main factor leading to increased youth unemployment. Unfortunately, Republicans in Arizona are running with this false argument in an attempt to drastically reduce the minimum wage for young adults.

This attempt is AZ House Bill 2639:

Legislation approved by the House Commerce Committee would set the minimum wage for anyone younger than 22 at 75 percent of what those 22 and older are required to be paid. With the state minimum wage at $7.25 an hour, that translates to $5.44.

Rep. Laurin Hendrix, the author of the bill, makes the following argument about how this is good for young people:

But that’s not all. Hendrix said once they have jobs — even jobs that don’t pay the full minimum wage — it will “get them in the habit of going to work and developing a work ethic that will be useful to them later in their lives.”

Translation: we are going to get these kids in the lifelong habit of working their asses off for scraps.

This measure is the handiwork of Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform, and Barry Aarons, one of Norquist’s lobbyists, was the only one to testify in favor of the bill.

In 2006 Arizona voters approved the creation of a state minimum wage tied to inflation despite the attempts of Norquist’s organization.

Even if the state legislature fails to pass this discriminatory policy, it won’t yet be dead:

Hendrix does have a backup plan. He convinced committee members to also approve HCR2043, which would send the question to voters in November.

The Young Democrats of Arizona sent out an action alert to their membership encouraging members to take action against the GOP effort:

Subject: Make Less Money?

That’s exactly what will happen if the Republican legislature has its way. House Bill 2639; introduced by a Republican Representative from Gilbert may be up for a vote next week. This Bill if passed and signed by Republican Governor Jan Brewer will cut the minimum wage for workers under the age of 22 by 25%.

Yes, this is a serious proposal. Republicans in the state legislature don’t think its hard enough for young Arizonans to pay their bills already.

Take action!

There is still time. You can make a difference, and hopefully stop this law from passing. Here is what you can do:

1. Write a letter to the editor of a local paper. We need to get the message out. Too many times bad legislation gets through because people don’t realize what is happening.

2. Call your legislators and make sure they know you oppose this bill.

3. Sign up to join a small group to meet with legislators. Legislators take meetings with lobbyists all the time; now they need to hear from everyday Arizonans!

Together we can make a difference. Take action today!

This measure, if passed, would be devastating to young Arizonans attempting to work their way through college as they face huge tuition and fee increases and even worse for those students entering the workforce immediately after high school.

• 0 Comments

Organized by the Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival, HeadCount and the NRDC Action Fund, the Best of Bonnaroo collaboration marks the first time free music has been used to prompt Americans to contact their elected officials.

The Best of Bonnaroo compilation of 17 different live performances from the festival is available for free at www.Musicforaction.org. Before downloading the music, visitors are asked to email their Senators, the President, or their local newspapers about climate change.

“This generation has an opportunity to be remembered as one that confronted environmental challenges and took responsibility for the future,” said Jack Johnson, whose song “Inaudible Melodies” can be heard on the compilation. “With that opportunity comes the responsibility to speak out.”

America is closer than ever to passing its first federal climate change-related legislation, but many hurdles remain. The House of Representatives approved an energy bill last June that would reduce emissions of heat-trapping gases and encourage the development of green jobs. President Barack Obama then told world leaders that the U.S. will reduce carbon emissions by 17 percent over the next 10 years (compared to 2005 levels). However, there has been little movement in the Senate, leaving one crucial step incomplete. Literally the whole planet is waiting to see what the U.S. will decide, as India and China are not likely to act without the U.S. doing the same.

With climate change legislation now at a critical juncture, several organizations teamed up to use the gift of music to inspire citizens into action. HeadCount – a nonpartisan civic engagement organization best known for registering voters at concerts – conceived the idea as a way to point new voters toward being informed and active citizens. The NRDC Action Fund – an advocacy group committed to passing legislation that jump-starts the clean energy economy and reduces pollution – stepped in with resources, research, strategic guidance and a base of 250,000 supporters.

“The musicians we work with are very passionate about this topic and have great power to drive change,” said HeadCount’s Executive Director Andy Bernstein. “Their music will serve as a soundtrack for action.”

“Forging a clean energy future means healthier kids, a safer world, and more jobs,” said Heather Taylor-Miesle, director of the NRDC Action Fund. “This is our moment to demand that Congress put us on the path to a clean energy future by beginning to address climate change. We are excited about the opportunity to work with musicians and new activists throughout the country to make it happen.”

Here is the full track list for the Best of Bonnaroo download compilation:

Wilco – Bull Black Nova
Pearl Jam – Animal
Jack Johnson – Inaudible Melodies
Dave Mathews Band – Rapunzel
Death Cab for Cutie – Cath…
Ani DiFranco – Fuel
Phish – Kill Devil Falls
Gov’t Mule – Banks of the Deep End
O.A.R. – Delicate Few
moe. – Not Coming Down
Raphael Saadiq -100 Yard Dash
Bob Weir & RatDog – Throwing Stones
The Disco Biscuits – And The Ladies Were the Rest of the Night
The Decemberists – The Wanting Comes in Waves/Repaid
My Morning Jacket – Oh! Sweet Nuthin’
Guster – Happier
Phil Lesh and Friends – Box of Rain

Visit Musicforaction.org to take action for climate change and download the free compilation!

• 0 Comments

One of the big conservative talking points attempting to lure the youth vote is that the current health care bill would include a mandate to purchase health insurance without increasing affordability.

What they fail to mention is that it has been the GOP and a few conservative Democrats that have stripped away those things that would have made insurance more affordable.

It’s like someone sold you a bicycle and John Boehner jumps out and smashes it with a hammer, only to say “can you believe that guy sold you a broken bicycle?”

And what are these conservatives who are apparently so concerned about the plight of young Americans doing for us? Shutting down the Senate for 12 hours.

• 0 Comments

Director of the Student Association for Vote Empowerment Matthew Segal appeared on the morning show on CNN to discuss the President’s new jobs program and meaningful ways in which we can impact the staggering youth unemployment.

• 0 Comments

Operation FREE has trained almost 300 Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans, mostly Millennials, as advocates for clean energy and taking action to stop climate change.

• 0 Comments

Aqua Shock: The Water Crisis in America by Susan J. Marks provides an analysis of the emerging water crisis in America by looking at its causes, governing structures, and potential solutions.

The United States uses approximately 408 billion gallons of water every day, 345 billion gallons of that usage being freshwater. The largest usage of water in the United States by far — 195.5 billion gallons — is for energy production. When most people think about water they tend to focus solely on drinking water and household usage, yet domestic use ranks a distant third behind agriculture with 46.9 billion gallons per day. Water is used in every aspect of our civilization and is a critical component of every supply chain. Droughts have an enormous economic impact on the country, costing between $6-8 billion annually in losses.

Dr. Peter Gleick sums up the global water crisis:

The easiest way to describe the world water problem is that a billion people don’t have access to safe drinking, and 2.5 billion don’t have access to adequate sanitation services, which leads to 2 million or so preventable deaths every year from water-related diseases.

Most people know that the amount of water on Earth does not change. However, water’s movement, form, purity, and pollution sources are all dynamic. One of the major causes of the change of these qualities is climate change. Increased global temperatures have reduced snowfall in many mountain areas of the United States, with melting snowpack being the main resource for summer water. Climate change also affects storm frequency, intensity, and drought.

According to Joseph Dellapenna of Villanova University “the root of the water crisis historically is not so much population growth but change in the way we use water, change in per-capita water demand.” The Clean Water Act was able to actually decrease the gallons of water used per person per day from 1980-2000 by limiting water discharge for industries and power plants, causing these industries to research and implement new ways to reuse water. The success of the Clean Water Act shows that good legislation and smart planning can go a long way in improving America’s water situation.

Unfortunately, our water infrastructure and urban planning have been contributing to the problem instead of improving our efficiency. Most of the water infrastructure in the United States is antiquated: storm sewers and drainage systems leak large amounts of freshwater, paving large areas in cities and suburbs prevents water from soaking back into the ground to replenish aquifers, and leaky pipes waste 7 billion gallons of clean drinking water every day. Poor planning has caused even areas with high precipitation to have water shortages because of these factors.

Water infrastructure development and maintenance has been at a stand-still since the 1980s. The country has not built a major water storage system since Reagan was President, and our dams, aqueducts, and storage systems were designed for a different climate than we currently experience. Old pipes can allow contaminants into the water supply, and while water treatment facilities are normally able to kill bacteria and parasites, these antiquated systems are not well-enough equipped to deal with modern pollutants: pesticides, industrial chemicals, and pharmaceuticals. The NRDC estimates that more than 7 million Americans get sick from contaminated water annually.

People tend to turn to bottled water as an alternative to tap, believing that it makes them safer. Unfortunately this is both not the case and leads to the usage of even more water. Bottled water isn’t safety tested as often as tap water, and most bottled water is from taps and public reservoirs anyway. The real problem is that the amount of water used to make the plastic bottles and in the gasoline fuel to transport those bottles. Instead of demanding we improve our water infrastructure, people purchase bottled water which actually causes greater depletion of our water reserves.

Improving our water infrastructure and urban design would go a long way into securing our water supplies through the 21st century. Porous pavement, water-friendly landscaping, rain gardens, and vegetated swales would help rain water soak into the ground to replenish aquifers. Reducing nonpoint source pollution, which is recognized as the primary threat to American water quality, would prevent fresh water from being ruined. Fixing those leaky pipes and leaching storage systems would prevent the waste of billions of gallons of water.

This has become a problem that we as a country have put off until tomorrow, and today we are faced with expensive repairs that scare politicians. Cost estimates for the replacement of drinking and wastewater infrastructure range from $485 billion to $1.2 trillion over the next 20 years. So far the United States has only allocated $945 million for such projects, which was included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act earlier this year. From any estimate that only covers a sliver of the necessary repair.

According to Marks, “the biggest obstacle to solving the nation’s water problems is refusing to admit they exist.”

Aqua Shock also includes some informative chapters about water laws, the people who control water, the cost of water, and whether our water can be saved. The book definitely does its job in informing the reader about our water problems and water policy, and would be valuable to anyone that is interested in conserving resources and developing our country’s infrastructure for the 21st century.

• 1 Comment

Today is Blog Action Day and this time it is dedicated to the issue of climate change. Instead of writing a post about climate change I decided to find some of the better creative commons photographs from Flickr that illustrate the damage that is being done to the planet due to fossil fuel emissions. For more information about young people and the fight against climate change check out the Energy Action Coalition.

Photo by Tim Norris

Photo by Earth Lab

Photo by Adam Peleg

Photo by Earth Lab

Photo by davesag

• 0 Comments

Last week 22-year-old Kimberly Young lost her life because of our broken health care system. She contracted H1N1 flu, a virus that should not be fatal to the young and healthy when treated, yet it took her life because she was uninsured and worried about being able to pay for treatment:

Kimberly became ill about two weeks ago, but didn’t seek care initially because she didn’t have health insurance and was worried about the cost, according to Brent Mowery, her friend and former roommate.

“That’s the most tragic part about it. If she had insurance, she would have gone to the doctor,” Mowery said.

Many politicians and the media seem hell-bent on portraying young Americans as kids who think they are invincible. We may be young, but we know we are not invincible. We have seen our friends severely injured in car accidents, contract illnesses, and get cancer. We have seen sickness. We have seen death. We have seen lives shattered because they are buried in health care debt before those adult lives even began.

We are not being called invincible because we don’t think anything can happen to us. We are being called invincible because it helps those who are older than us that deny us health insurance reform rationalize the devastating effect it has on us. Young people don’t choose to be uninsured because they think they are invincible, the issue is that health insurance is not accessible to young people at an affordable rate.

Kimberly Young wasn’t the first young American to die needlessly in our health insurance morass, and unless real health insurance reform with a public option is passed, she certainly won’t be the last.

• 0 Comments

I received the above reminder yesterday about why we need health insurance reform and a strong public option. Blue Cross/Blue Shield decided it needed to raid my quarterly insurance premiums by $111: almost an additional $450 a year.

So my options are to pay an additional $500 for a $500 deductible, or to pay around the same I have been and drop to a $1,000 deductible.

The sad thing is that BC/BS hasn’t had to pay out a single dime for me since 2006. Nothing. Not a check up, not anything. From 2007 to today I have paid $6,171 for nothing. Which also means I am just paying them to pad their executive salaries and pay Sen. Baucus to write a bill that helps their industry and not the American people.

This is a reminder that while you may like your health coverage right now, it is not going to be the same in the future without real health insurance reform. It might be in a year or two, or it could be right now (like me).

Stand up and take a pledge to act in support of health insurance reform at yda.org/healthpledge. Your health benefits depend on it.

• 0 Comments

The Commonwealth Fund, a non-partisan health care think tank, has put out some great material on health insurance reform as it relates to young Americans.

Their new pdf supplement for journalists includes a section on young adults:

WHAT PROBLEMS DO YOUNG ADULTS FACE IN OBTAINING COVERAGE, AND HOW WOULD COMPREHENSIVE HEALTH REFORM HELP THEM?

More than 13 million adults ages 19 to 29 lacked insurance coverage in 2007. Commonwealth Fund analysis shows that even though young adults are only 17 percent of the under-65 population, they comprise nearly 30 percent of the nonelderly uninsured.

Many young people become uninsured when they turn 19 and are no longer covered under their parents’ insurance. By far, the young adults most at risk of lacking coverage are those from low-income households. About 22 percent of adults ages 19 to 29 live in households with incomes below 100 percent of the federal poverty level, but almost two-fifths (39%) of the 13.2 million young adults who are uninsured live in households with incomes below the poverty level.

For the many young adults who hold low-wage or temporary jobs that don’t include benefits, affordable coverage is not easily available. During their early working years, young people frequently go without coverage until they get jobs with better benefits. Yet Commonwealth Fund research shows that gaps in coverage can have important health and economic consequences for young adults and their families.

Comprehensive health reform could extend affordable coverage not only to the 13 million young adults who currently are uninsured but also to the millions more who undergo coverage transitions during their early working years. Young adults could remain covered under their parents’ policies until age 26. Those with incomes up to 150 percent of poverty level could receive coverage under Medicaid or CHIP. A portable public health insurance plan within a national health insurance exchange would provide a continuous source of coverage for young people who make frequent job changes.

The Commonwealth Fund’s currently featured podcast is about keeping young Americans insured. You can download the mp3 here.

You should also check out their report Rite of Passage? Why Young Adults Become Uninsured and How New Policies Can Help, 2009 Update.

• 2 Comments