Go to the source

Good research to help you cut through the b.s.

By Will Collette

Or insane, as the case may be

As the saying goes, we’re all entitled to our own opinions, but not to our own facts. There’s just too much misinformation and, frankly, bullshit flying around in public discourse these days. I spend a lot of my time trying to dig behind the sound bites to find out more than the headlines.

I’ve been saving up a collection of some especially interesting reports that I recommend to you as helpful in being more informed about the issues we all argue about.

Let’s start with a biggie that’s been rocking the nation….

Is Medicare going broke and do we have to start cutting benefits and raising premiums to save it?

Republicans want to kill Medicare to save it

The short answer is no. However, those of us in the post-World War II Baby Boomer generation are signing up for Medicare in numbers that are scaring some politicians. We are also more likely to live longer than earlier generations and that also puts a bit of a crimp in the calculations.

But there is an amazingly simple fix that would put Medicare on an almost immediate and long-term sound financial footing: lift the wage cap. Right now, all earned income above $113,700 is exempt from Medicare tax even though it is statistically probable that higher wage earners are likely to live longer and thus use more Medicare services than lower wage workers. 

If that cap was substantially raised, or even better, entirely eliminated, it would end any concerns about Medicare funding for at least 65 years with no change in benefits or eligibility. Read more by clicking here.

Why is Rhode Island always at or near the bottom in all those surveys about being business-friendly?

The simple answer is that most of those business surveys you read or hear about are done with a bias. It’s not an accident that states like North Dakota, Texas and Alabama get ranked high while states like Rhode Island, New York and California rank near the bottom. 

These surveys use “push-polling” techniques to shape the results to meet their premise that it’s a bad thing if a state cares about worker rights, environmental protection and progressive taxation. Click here to read a detailed analysis of how those polls really work.

Is Obamacare going to crush Rhode Island’s economy? How are we going to afford adding a whole bunch of new people to Medicaid?

An example of ill-informed nonsense

According to the conservative, business-funded, RI Public Expenditure Council, the feds are going to pump $3.152 BILLION (yes, billion) in federal matching funds into the RI economy as a result of the Medicaid expansion provision of the Affordable Health Care Act. 

We’re looking at as many as 70,000 uninsured Rhode Islanders being able to finally get good health care coverage. This group is almost entirely composed of working families. Injecting that much money into the state’s economy will be a terrific shot in the arm, plus it will mean people will be healthier and more productive. And it’s the right thing to do. Click here to read RIPEC’s full report.

Rhode Island’s got pretty good labor laws, right? How common is it for a worker to get ripped off on his or her wages?

Amazingly common. For the first time, there is some detailed research to back it up. Done by the Schmidt Labor Center at URI for Fuerza Laboral, this report goes in depth on the whole panoply of schemes employers use to pay less than they are supposed to. 

These range from simply not paying (and sometimes disappearing) to misclassifying workers as “independent contractors” to taking illegal deductions, shorting workers on their hours worked, paying under the table, requiring workers to change their time logs so they don’t get overtime and so on. Almost everyone who has ever worked for a living has probably experienced “wage theft” at least once.

Despite Rhode Island’s reputation as a bastion of worker rights, the state Department of Labor and Training is woefully weak and ridiculously understaffed to deal with wage theft. They are completely unable to keep up with the complaints they receive from ripped off workers and rarely bust a dishonest employer. 

By sharp contrast, in Massachusetts, wage and hour laws are enforced by the Commonwealth’s Attorney General. Massachusetts puts a lot more into going after wage theft. AG Martha Coakley rarely lets a month go by without announcing several successful prosecutions.

We don’t have a problem with childhood poverty here in Charlestown, do we? Aren’t most of Charlestown's residents well-off retirees?

No, and even though I’ve written about this before, I think Charlestown residents ought to look closer at the real numbers and not just rely on the perception. Charlestown has 1,506 children out of its population of 7,827 compared to 1,386 who are 65 or older. Kids Count RI produced a 176-page long analysis that compares the children in RI cities and towns in a wide range of categories. Click here for the full report.

Some of the statistics are chilling. For example, Charlestown is tied for 25^th place (with East Providence and Johnston) for the rate of child abuse in our community. According to Kids Count, 11.3 out of every 1000 Charlestown kids have been abused. Only a dozen Rhode Island municipalities have worse rates of child abuse than Charlestown.

Child abuse is often tied to high unemployment (Charlestown’s annual average is 11.4%), under-employment, financial problems such as problems paying for housing and health care and other factors. 

Unemployment and underemployment cause a variety of serious problems for communities beyond the fact that people aren’t earning any income. Click here to read an outstanding report on those effects.

It will take you a while to download and read all of these reports, but I assure you, you’ll be better informed if you do. And by all means, go ahead and read reports and studies that come to different conclusions. Just do your best to make fair comparisons about their credibility.