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The Dome does not get it

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But Steve Bailey does. Not because he mentions Pioneer’s work in yesterday’s column on business costs and unemployment insurance (UI), but because he is the one reporter who understands that the freeze on UI does absolutely nothing to reduce the cost of UI. As Bailey summarizes: Freezing the rate is a little like skipping a credit card payment – eventually the bill comes due. As with your credit card, the way to cut your bill is to cut your spending. Bailey noted earlier in his piece that the Legislature, cowed by labor, has shown no appetite about doing anything about the underlying costs. Right you are, again, Mr. Bailey. The UI rate freeze was passed without a roll-call vote to […]

Chinatown bus

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I know there have been, let’s call it, some issues with the Chinatown bus service. I liked when it was called Sunshine Tours, or similar. Sure, there are more comfortable (and some, ahem!, safer) ways of going to NY. But my daughter, Teruha, and I used to like going to NY, with the styrofoam coolers of eels, scampi and fish heads in the aisles. Were those scampi? Were they what the Italians call aragostelle (whip lobsters)? For a picture of the February esoteric culinary reference, see below, for a great place to eat them see here, and for an unorthodox recipe see here). Then there are the passengers, for example, the Chinese women of a “certain age”, as the French […]

Concentrating poverty in our cities

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The Globe reports in “Warehouse for the Poor” that Holyoke and other cities in Western Massachusetts are serving as destination cities for the poor and homeless, who are nudged there by the state agencies. Holyoke’s homeless shelters can accommodate four times the number of families per capita than homeless shelters in Boston. And when shelters are full in other places, the state Department of Transitional Assistance sends homeless families to shelters with open spots, often in Holyoke. Last year, 40 families from the Boston metropolitan area were referred to Holyoke, Sullivan said. “Our goal is to place families as close to the local office as possible, based on the availability of units,” said Alison Goodwin, a spokeswoman for the state […]

Milwaukee Voucher Students Have Diploma Edge

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Thanks to the folks at the Rhode Island Statewide Coalition for passing on word of a study reported in Ed Week. Perhaps you will remember a series of stories a few months back on on a study of Milwaukee’s “school choice” program. The study supposedly stated that parents did not use the choice opportunity significantly. Slight problem with that study and the reporting: The survey did NOT include parents in the Milwaukee choice program… Hmm, golly, reporters getting a story wrong. Shocked. Yes, shocked. Well, EdWeek gets this one right in an article entitled “Milwaukee Voucher Students Have Diploma Edge.” Students who participate in Milwaukee’s private-school-voucher program graduate from high school at significantly higher rates than those who attend regular […]

Progressive idea? Regressive in practice

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That health care benefits are provided through employers for the most part as a pre-tax benefit is the most regressive kind of tax policy around. Let me get this straight: I work and therefore can pay taxes, and I get my health care benefits, which are really a form of compensation, free of tax. But then there are people who are without a job temporarily (or worse) or work for a company that does not sponsor their health care, and that person has to pay taxes on the coverage they purchase? So the folks who are better off get health care pre-tax and the employer can deduct the cost, but folks who purchase their own coverage have to buy it […]