vox--2020-12-08--Better data, better maps: How Biden could make huge strides on environmental justice

President-elect Joe Biden campaigned on the most ambitious environmental justice plan ever offered by the nominee of a major political party .
His Build Back Better agenda included a commitment to invest 40 percent of his $ 2 trillion clean energy plan into communities living on the front lines of poverty and pollution .
At the same time , his running mate , Sen. Kamala Harris of California , co-authored the Climate Equity Act with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez ( D-NY ) , outlining ways the next administration can operationalize environmental justice across the agencies .
After a summer of historic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 26 million people take to the streets to take a stand against racial injustice in policing , it ’ s almost certain that the incoming Biden administration will take bold action to address the intersecting crises of environmental pollution and racial inequality .
But this mandate for anti-racist policy raises a question : How , in the first place , will a Biden administration identify the most polluted and impoverished communities across the country ?
And if Democrats were to gain control of the Senate in the Georgia runoffs , thus being in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ $ 2 trillion climate and infrastructure plans that commit 40 percent of public spending to front-line communities — an investment that would total $ 800 billion — how would federal agencies charged with carrying out those policies prioritize communities for spending ?
To target and support the communities most burdened by environmental injustice , the Biden administration will need to revamp and iterate on existing equity mapping and screening initiatives while learning from effective models in the states .
While they might seem esoteric , data and maps are likely an essential starting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ degradation and racial inequality .
“ Data drives policy , and the lack of data drives policy ” Environmental justice — the idea that environmental benefits and burdens are distributed unequally throughout society , often along racial , gender , and class lines — deeply shapes communities across the United States .
The environmental justice movement primarily emerged out of the struggle for civil rights and the research of Bob Bullard , PhD , whose pioneering work showed how pollution maps onto racial divisions at the neighborhood level .
After decades on the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — environmental movement , environmental justice began attracting national attention in the 1980s and 1990s .
In 1994 , President Bill Clinton signed the first executive order to “ Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income Populations.
” One of the main consequences of this executive order was to create screening tools that compile indicators of pollution and inequity like EJView and EJGat that , under the Obama administration , evolved into the Environmental Protection Agency ’ s EJSCREEN , a mapping tool that compiles data from across the US to identify @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
A tool like EJSCREEN can help policymakers allocate resources and target regulations to the communities that need them most .
But EJSCREEN has been mostly neglected by the Trump administration , which proposed a 71 percent cut to the EPA ’ s environmental justice program in its 2021 budget .
And the tool could use some work .
State data in EJSCREEN is inconsistent , making it difficult at times to get comparable snapshots of communities in different regions , according to Mustafa Santiago Ali , a former senior adviser for environmental @ @ @ @ @ @ @ also integrate more data sets , particularly on public health , Ali said .
He acknowledged that this would be especially consequential during the pandemic .
( A recent Harvard University study found that people who live in areas with higher air pollution are more likely to die from the coronavirus . )
Ali emphasized that impacted communities should have a strong say in which data specifically is and is not included .
EJSCREEN is also hard to use , which means it ’ s difficult for policymakers , journalists , and advocates @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ It doesn ’ t do what it ’ s meant to do .
If you ’ re thinking about pollution burdens , you need to see the whole picture , and EJSCREEN doesn ’ t let you do that easily , ” said Mijin Cha , assistant professor of urban and environmental policy at Occidental College .
“ The problem is not that the data isn ’ t there — the bigger issue is that it is unusable.
” Here is a screenshot of the mapping tool ’ s view of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Arizona , New Mexico , Utah , and Colorado — the area in red , more or less : But EJSCREEN does not allow users to map multiple data sets at a time .
Here is the same map of the Navajo Nation , this time with the low-income data set mapped .
( Note that users can not map income and racial data simultaneously . )
Finally , here is the same area mapped by proximity to superfund sites .
( Note , again , that it ’ s not possible @ @ @ @ @ @ @ like race and income . )
EJSCREEN was launched after the Obama administration passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 .
Ali , who worked in the administration at the time , said that an effective equity mapping tool like it would have been immensely helpful , and could have helped policymakers screen investments to ensure they were targeting the areas of greatest need .
“ Imagine if they had a tool that would have given them snapshots of the country in talking about investments that could be happening , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and the lack of data drives policy.
” California shows how better environmental justice data can shape policy To begin addressing this challenge , policymakers can look to the states for guidance .
Washington , Maryland , and New York have all developed , or are developing , data collection , mapping , and scoring tools to address environmental injustice .
The most sophisticated of these state-level models can be found in California , where a mapping and screening tool called CalEnviroScreen helps the state identify communities for prioritized climate investments .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ overhaul EJSCREEN or to create a cross-agency equity mapping initiative based on the California model .
CalEnviroScreen , like the Clinton executive order that first created federal screening tools , is a product of the environmental justice movement ’ s success .
The tool was created in the wake of the state ’ s fight over cap and trade , which environmental justice groups opposed on the grounds that a cap-and-trade model allows big corporate polluters to pay a small fee and simply continue damaging low-income communities of color .
After passing a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bargained with the environmental justice movement .
Now 35 percent of revenues from cap-and-trade are reinvested in the state ’ s poorest and most polluted neighborhoods .
To identify those neighborhoods , the state created CalEnviroScreen .
The current iteration of CalEnviroScreen , the third generation of the tool , collects data on 20 indicators and uses them to identify disadvantaged communities for targeted investments .
Here ’ s a screenshot of the tool focused on Oakland , California , the hometown of one of the authors ( Julian ) .
Note that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ based on pollution burdens and population characteristics .
In this map , the historically Black and redlined neighborhoods of East Oakland appear in red , indicating a higher score and greater incidence of environmental injustice .
“ California has been able to map EJ communities , ” said Mari Rose Taruc , former co-chair of the California Environmental Justice Advisory Committee .
“ Let ’ s see the nation catch up to us by fixing the data gap.
” All this data collection , mapping , and scoring comes with significant political , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and communities .
In California , for example , lawmakers have had to consider which data sets to consult and how to weight environmental versus public health indicators .
In the context of a pandemic , such decisions come with significant downstream consequences for public policy .
They also create geographic and community competition between parts of the state that want to be identified and prioritized by the tool .
Should , for example , lawmakers in Sacramento prioritize the more agricultural Central Valley — home to many migrant farmworkers — for investment @ @ @ @ @ @ @ urban centers like Long Beach and Oakland ?
And how do the state ’ s tribal communities , whose lands fall under tribal and federal rather than state jurisdiction , fit in ?
What about more qualitative data ?
If we took the California model national , how would we account for the weight of history ?
Take Louisiana ’ s Cancer Alley , where petrochemical plants have been built atop lands that were once plantations and graveyards of enslaved people .
If the quantitative data doesn ’ t foreground communities like that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ well ?
And is the EPA even the right agency to house such a tool ?
If we acknowledge that these crises are intersectional — and not strictly racial , environmental , or economic in nature — why not create a cross-agency data collection , mapping , and screening initiative ?
Nationally , a robust plan to take on environmental injustice through targeted investments rooted in data could similarly create competing regional coalitions of disadvantaged communities with their representatives on Capitol Hill jockeying to ensure that their constituents benefit from programs and investments @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pressing questions about how to carry out this essential data collection , mapping , and screening process .
All of these questions , tested in California and now on the brink of going nationwide if President-elect Biden pushes forward with his environmental justice plans , point to a bigger and broader truth about the nature and power of data : Where , how , and what we measure matters .
How better data could empower communities to undo legacies of pollution When used well , data can empower social movements pushing for justice @ @ @ @ @ @ @ led , for the first time , to the creation of national data sets about police killings of civilians and people of color — often housed at media outlets like the Guardian and the Washington Post .
Activists , journalists , and policymakers now use this data to tell stories and shape policy leading to shifts in public opinion as well as tangible policy changes in police departments across the country .
In the short term , data collection might lead to small but wide-reaching reforms like programs to mitigate and redress legacies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ like the Flint water crisis and the asthma endemic in the Bronx .
More ambitiously , data might also broaden the debate and build the case for reparations for slavery and the return of land to tribal nations .
So far , those conversations have primarily focused on economic inequality and , in particular , the wealth gap .
They almost certainly also have environmental and public health dimensions we should consider .
“ When we have data that ’ s capturing how many folks are shot [ by ] police , when @ @ @ @ @ @ @ certain areas and lack of investments in others , it then paints a picture of how certain things happen in certain communities , ” said Ali .
“ When we talk about ‘ We can ’ t breathe ’ we understand it is rooted in both the data — the reality of where many of these things are being located and the data that shows where redlining and restrictive covenants are happening.
” With a commitment from the Biden administration to reboot EJSCREEN or to create a similar cross-agency tool that would , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ do something quite simple — collect and synthesize information about social and environmental inequities — researchers , communities , and policymakers might build deeper understandings of these problems and construct more effective policies to address them .
Data alone is , of course , insufficient for the justice that we need and deserve .
But in the right hands , it can empower movements for change with the moral gravity of the truth — the only ground upon which justice can stand .
Marcela Mulholland is the deputy director for climate at Data @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the vice president of policy and strategy at Data for Progress .

President-elect Joe Biden campaigned on the most ambitious environmental justice plan ever offered by the nominee of a major political party. His Build Back Better agenda included a commitment to invest 40 percent of his $2 trillion clean energy plan into communities living on the front lines of poverty and pollution.
At the same time, his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris of California, co-authored the Climate Equity Act with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), outlining ways the next administration can operationalize environmental justice across the agencies. After a summer of historic protests that saw some 15 million to 26 million people take to the streets to take a stand against racial injustice in policing, it’s almost certain that the incoming Biden administration will take bold action to address the intersecting crises of environmental pollution and racial inequality.
But this mandate for anti-racist policy raises a question: How, in the first place, will a Biden administration identify the most polluted and impoverished communities across the country?
And if Democrats were to gain control of the Senate in the Georgia runoffs, thus being in a position to pass Biden’s $2 trillion climate and infrastructure plans that commit 40 percent of public spending to front-line communities — an investment that would total $800 billion — how would federal agencies charged with carrying out those policies prioritize communities for spending?
To target and support the communities most burdened by environmental injustice, the Biden administration will need to revamp and iterate on existing equity mapping and screening initiatives while learning from effective models in the states. While they might seem esoteric, data and maps are likely an essential starting point for policymakers interested in fighting environmental degradation and racial inequality.
“Data drives policy, and the lack of data drives policy”
Environmental justice — the idea that environmental benefits and burdens are distributed unequally throughout society, often along racial, gender, and class lines — deeply shapes communities across the United States. The environmental justice movement primarily emerged out of the struggle for civil rights and the research of Bob Bullard, PhD, whose pioneering work showed how pollution maps onto racial divisions at the neighborhood level.
After decades on the periphery of the mainstream — and white — environmental movement, environmental justice began attracting national attention in the 1980s and 1990s. In 1994, President Bill Clinton signed the first executive order to “Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income Populations.”
One of the main consequences of this executive order was to create screening tools that compile indicators of pollution and inequity like EJView and EJGat that, under the Obama administration, evolved into the Environmental Protection Agency’s EJSCREEN, a mapping tool that compiles data from across the US to identify communities with higher environmental vulnerabilities and burdens. A tool like EJSCREEN can help policymakers allocate resources and target regulations to the communities that need them most.
But EJSCREEN has been mostly neglected by the Trump administration, which proposed a 71 percent cut to the EPA’s environmental justice program in its 2021 budget. And the tool could use some work.
State data in EJSCREEN is inconsistent, making it difficult at times to get comparable snapshots of communities in different regions, according to Mustafa Santiago Ali, a former senior adviser for environmental justice at the EPA. EJSCREEN could also integrate more data sets, particularly on public health, Ali said.
He acknowledged that this would be especially consequential during the pandemic. (A recent Harvard University study found that people who live in areas with higher air pollution are more likely to die from the coronavirus.) Ali emphasized that impacted communities should have a strong say in which data specifically is and is not included.
EJSCREEN is also hard to use, which means it’s difficult for policymakers, journalists, and advocates to access the information they need. “It doesn’t do what it’s meant to do. If you’re thinking about pollution burdens, you need to see the whole picture, and EJSCREEN doesn’t let you do that easily,” said Mijin Cha, assistant professor of urban and environmental policy at Occidental College. “The problem is not that the data isn’t there — the bigger issue is that it is unusable.”
But EJSCREEN does not allow users to map multiple data sets at a time.
Finally, here is the same area mapped by proximity to superfund sites. (Note, again, that it’s not possible to map this dataset alongside demographic data like race and income.)
EJSCREEN was launched after the Obama administration passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Ali, who worked in the administration at the time, said that an effective equity mapping tool like it would have been immensely helpful, and could have helped policymakers screen investments to ensure they were targeting the areas of greatest need. “Imagine if they had a tool that would have given them snapshots of the country in talking about investments that could be happening,” he said. “Data drives policy, and the lack of data drives policy.”
California shows how better environmental justice data can shape policy
To begin addressing this challenge, policymakers can look to the states for guidance. Washington, Maryland, and New York have all developed, or are developing, data collection, mapping, and scoring tools to address environmental injustice.
The most sophisticated of these state-level models can be found in California, where a mapping and screening tool called CalEnviroScreen helps the state identify communities for prioritized climate investments. The Biden administration would be wise to overhaul EJSCREEN or to create a cross-agency equity mapping initiative based on the California model.
CalEnviroScreen, like the Clinton executive order that first created federal screening tools, is a product of the environmental justice movement’s success. The tool was created in the wake of the state’s fight over cap and trade, which environmental justice groups opposed on the grounds that a cap-and-trade model allows big corporate polluters to pay a small fee and simply continue damaging low-income communities of color.
After passing a cap-and-trade bill, Democrats in the state bargained with the environmental justice movement. Now 35 percent of revenues from cap-and-trade are reinvested in the state’s poorest and most polluted neighborhoods. To identify those neighborhoods, the state created CalEnviroScreen. The current iteration of CalEnviroScreen, the third generation of the tool, collects data on 20 indicators and uses them to identify disadvantaged communities for targeted investments.
Here’s a screenshot of the tool focused on Oakland, California, the hometown of one of the authors (Julian).
Note that the tool develops a cumulative impact score based on pollution burdens and population characteristics. In this map, the historically Black and redlined neighborhoods of East Oakland appear in red, indicating a higher score and greater incidence of environmental injustice.
“California has been able to map EJ communities,” said Mari Rose Taruc, former co-chair of the California Environmental Justice Advisory Committee. “Let’s see the nation catch up to us by fixing the data gap.”
All this data collection, mapping, and scoring comes with significant political, social, and economic implications for policymakers and communities. In California, for example, lawmakers have had to consider which data sets to consult and how to weight environmental versus public health indicators. In the context of a pandemic, such decisions come with significant downstream consequences for public policy. They also create geographic and community competition between parts of the state that want to be identified and prioritized by the tool.
Should, for example, lawmakers in Sacramento prioritize the more agricultural Central Valley — home to many migrant farmworkers — for investment and other policy interventions ahead of deindustrialized urban centers like Long Beach and Oakland? And how do the state’s tribal communities, whose lands fall under tribal and federal rather than state jurisdiction, fit in? What about more qualitative data? If we took the California model national, how would we account for the weight of history?
Take Louisiana’s Cancer Alley, where petrochemical plants have been built atop lands that were once plantations and graveyards of enslaved people. If the quantitative data doesn’t foreground communities like that, should qualitative data be consulted as well? And is the EPA even the right agency to house such a tool? If we acknowledge that these crises are intersectional — and not strictly racial, environmental, or economic in nature — why not create a cross-agency data collection, mapping, and screening initiative?
Nationally, a robust plan to take on environmental injustice through targeted investments rooted in data could similarly create competing regional coalitions of disadvantaged communities with their representatives on Capitol Hill jockeying to ensure that their constituents benefit from programs and investments. It also presents future administrations with pressing questions about how to carry out this essential data collection, mapping, and screening process.
All of these questions, tested in California and now on the brink of going nationwide if President-elect Biden pushes forward with his environmental justice plans, point to a bigger and broader truth about the nature and power of data: Where, how, and what we measure matters.
How better data could empower communities to undo legacies of pollution
When used well, data can empower social movements pushing for justice. The Black Lives Matter movement has led, for the first time, to the creation of national data sets about police killings of civilians and people of color — often housed at media outlets like the Guardian and the Washington Post. Activists, journalists, and policymakers now use this data to tell stories and shape policy leading to shifts in public opinion as well as tangible policy changes in police departments across the country.
In the short term, data collection might lead to small but wide-reaching reforms like programs to mitigate and redress legacies of pollution that have led to inequities like the Flint water crisis and the asthma endemic in the Bronx. More ambitiously, data might also broaden the debate and build the case for reparations for slavery and the return of land to tribal nations. So far, those conversations have primarily focused on economic inequality and, in particular, the wealth gap. They almost certainly also have environmental and public health dimensions we should consider.
“When we have data that’s capturing how many folks are shot [by] police, when we have data that shows investments in certain areas and lack of investments in others, it then paints a picture of how certain things happen in certain communities,” said Ali. “When we talk about ‘We can’t breathe’ we understand it is rooted in both the data — the reality of where many of these things are being located and the data that shows where redlining and restrictive covenants are happening.”
With a commitment from the Biden administration to reboot EJSCREEN or to create a similar cross-agency tool that would, at the end of the day, do something quite simple — collect and synthesize information about social and environmental inequities — researchers, communities, and policymakers might build deeper understandings of these problems and construct more effective policies to address them. Data alone is, of course, insufficient for the justice that we need and deserve. But in the right hands, it can empower movements for change with the moral gravity of the truth — the only ground upon which justice can stand.
Marcela Mulholland is the deputy director for climate at Data for Progress. Julian Brave NoiseCat is the vice president of policy and strategy at Data for Progress.


vox--2020-12-08--This week in TikTok: And the most popular video of the year is ....

Hello from The Goods ’ twice-weekly newsletter !
On Tuesdays , internet culture reporter Rebecca Jennings uses this space to update you all on what ’ s been going on in the world of TikTok .
Is there something you want to see more of ?
Less of ?
Different of ?
Email rebecca.jennings @ vox.com , and subscribe to The Goods ’ newsletter here .
IIt ’ s December , which is always a time to reflect on the past 12 months , although the major difference this year is that nine of them were collectively terrible .
Well @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the past few weeks , writers have begun publishing their odes to 2020 , the year of TikTok .
By April , it had already surpassed 2 billion downloads ; it now has an estimated 850 million monthly active users .
BuzzFeed ’ s Scaachi Koul wrote that TikTok was “ 2020 ’ s only silver lining ” ; Bookforum ’ s Charlotte Shane described it as “ a precious source of solace during an unendingly precarious time.
” Vulture ’ s Zoe Haylock argued that it was “ the best medium for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s worth , I agree .
Or , at least I did , until I saw TikTok ’ s top 100 trends of 2020 , which ranks the most popular people , memes , and subcultures on the platform ( whether or not these were heavily curated is unclear — TikTok did not provide data to back up its claims regarding what makes a “ top ” trend ) .
What you ’ ll find there is both heartening and not .
In the music section , Black artists make up nine @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of them was Jason Derulo ’ s rather shameless remake of an already-viral reggaeton beat , which he released without permission from the little-known New Zealand artist Jawsh 685 .
Emerging creators like vegan cooking influencer Tabitha Brown and Minnesota-based Doctor Leslie were highlighted in the list , but the vast majority of creators named had mostly gone viral for being traditionally good-looking or otherwise interesting to look at .
The most popular video of the year , for instance , was of a woman named Bella Poarch with an exceptionally childlike face @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
It has been viewed more than half a billion times .
What does Bella Poarch ’ s inexplicable rise say about the future of entertainment ?
I think this recent Kyle Chayka piece that basically tries to answer the question “ How do you describe TikTok ?
” makes a lot of really salient points .
He ’ s written extensively on algorithms and their effects on the culture , and on TikTok , the algorithm is the entirety of the experience .
On the For You page , users don ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on Twitter or Instagram ; the decision of what to watch is made for them , and none of us are allowed to know why the videos we see are the ones served to us .
Chayka compares TikTok to two forms of legacy media : magazines and television , with the user acting as both editor and consumer .
“ ‘ The mix ’ is famously how Tina Brown described the combination of different kinds of stories in Vanity Fair when she was the magazine ’ s very successful editor-in-chief in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Brown ’ s mix was hard-hitting news , fluffy celebrity profiles , glamorous fashion shoots , and smart critical commentary , all combined into one magazine .
TikTok automates the mix of all these topics , going farther than any other platform to mimic the human editor.
” At the same time , he says , it ’ s also “ an eternal channel flip , and the flip is the point : there is no settled point of interest to land on .
Nothing is meant to sustain your attention.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what essentially amounts to “ soft censorship , ” or a feed that becomes as “ glossy , appealing , and homogenous as possible rather than the truest reflection of either reality or a user ’ s desires.
” How did a perfectly average competitive dancer become the No .
1 internet celebrity in the world ?
Why did half a billion people watch Poarch ’ s face bob up and down ?
Because these two women are the logical endpoint of the world ’ s most powerful entertainment algorithm : young people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ formats .
With every new TikTok star who dances or smirks their way to a million followers come just as many more people asking why they deserve to be famous in the first place .
The cycle of overnight fame and equally swift backlash is going to keep happening , because as more people download and use TikTok , the algorithm gets better at choosing the content we all must pay attention to .
Those are problems we can save for next year , though .
As Koul writes in BuzzFeed , “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ evil , as most tech companies turn out to be , but that ’ s later me ’ s problem .
Current me just wants to be soothed.
” Here ’ s to a year of avoiding the news and getting lost in the void .
• The TikTok sale was supposed to be done by now .
It appears no one cares .
• Another TikTok talent management company , IQ Advantage , has been accused of using scammy practices to retain clients , including contracts that required them to give the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ signing ( an extremely unusual deal ) , Business Insider reports .
Thankfully , the company appears to have shut down in November .
• A smart and sort of scary read on whether TikTok is equipped to handle the responsibilities of a global platform , by Rest of World ’ s Louise Matsakis .
• Versailles — like , the palace — is on TikTok now .
It ’ s only the latest historic institution to turn to the platform in an effort to reach its young users .
• A cool @ @ @ @ @ @ @ verses before they ’ re even songs .
• Miley Cyrus is doing the most on TikTok ( including asking out a fan , it ’ s very cute ! )
.
• Do not watch the videos from this crime scene clean-up crew ’ s TikTok account if you are squeamish about blood .
• This Starbucks taste test and its follow-up videos are a WILD ride ; friendly reminder that before you leave angry reviews on scented candles , make sure you don ’ t have Covid-19 !
Let ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ just jealous of the “ chamomile tea bitches .
”

Hello from The Goods’ twice-weekly newsletter! On Tuesdays, internet culture reporter Rebecca Jennings uses this space to update you all on what’s been going on in the world of TikTok. Is there something you want to see more of? Less of? Different of? Email rebecca.jennings@vox.com, and subscribe to The Goods’ newsletter here.
It’s December, which is always a time to reflect on the past 12 months, although the major difference this year is that nine of them were collectively terrible.
Well, terrible with one exception: Over the past few weeks, writers have begun publishing their odes to 2020, the year of TikTok. By April, it had already surpassed 2 billion downloads; it now has an estimated 850 million monthly active users. BuzzFeed’s Scaachi Koul wrote that TikTok was “2020’s only silver lining”; Bookforum’s Charlotte Shane described it as “a precious source of solace during an unendingly precarious time.” Vulture’s Zoe Haylock argued that it was “the best medium for our absurdist present.”
For what it’s worth, I agree. Or, at least I did, until I saw TikTok’s top 100 trends of 2020, which ranks the most popular people, memes, and subcultures on the platform (whether or not these were heavily curated is unclear — TikTok did not provide data to back up its claims regarding what makes a “top” trend).
What you’ll find there is both heartening and not. In the music section, Black artists make up nine of the 10 hits, although one of them was Jason Derulo’s rather shameless remake of an already-viral reggaeton beat, which he released without permission from the little-known New Zealand artist Jawsh 685. Emerging creators like vegan cooking influencer Tabitha Brown and Minnesota-based Doctor Leslie were highlighted in the list, but the vast majority of creators named had mostly gone viral for being traditionally good-looking or otherwise interesting to look at. The most popular video of the year, for instance, was of a woman named Bella Poarch with an exceptionally childlike face making cosplay expressions to a grime song. It has been viewed more than half a billion times.
What does Bella Poarch’s inexplicable rise say about the future of entertainment? I think this recent Kyle Chayka piece that basically tries to answer the question “How do you describe TikTok?” makes a lot of really salient points. He’s written extensively on algorithms and their effects on the culture, and on TikTok, the algorithm is the entirety of the experience. On the For You page, users don’t curate their feeds like they would on Twitter or Instagram; the decision of what to watch is made for them, and none of us are allowed to know why the videos we see are the ones served to us.
Chayka compares TikTok to two forms of legacy media: magazines and television, with the user acting as both editor and consumer. “‘The mix’ is famously how Tina Brown described the combination of different kinds of stories in Vanity Fair when she was the magazine’s very successful editor-in-chief in the ’80s,” he writes. “Brown’s mix was hard-hitting news, fluffy celebrity profiles, glamorous fashion shoots, and smart critical commentary, all combined into one magazine. TikTok automates the mix of all these topics, going farther than any other platform to mimic the human editor.” At the same time, he says, it’s also “an eternal channel flip, and the flip is the point: there is no settled point of interest to land on. Nothing is meant to sustain your attention.”
The result, he argues, is what essentially amounts to “soft censorship,” or a feed that becomes as “glossy, appealing, and homogenous as possible rather than the truest reflection of either reality or a user’s desires.” How did a perfectly average competitive dancer become the No. 1 internet celebrity in the world? Why did half a billion people watch Poarch’s face bob up and down? Because these two women are the logical endpoint of the world’s most powerful entertainment algorithm: young people centering their conventional attractiveness in easily repeatable formats.
With every new TikTok star who dances or smirks their way to a million followers come just as many more people asking why they deserve to be famous in the first place. The cycle of overnight fame and equally swift backlash is going to keep happening, because as more people download and use TikTok, the algorithm gets better at choosing the content we all must pay attention to.
Those are problems we can save for next year, though. As Koul writes in BuzzFeed, “Look, I know TikTok is probably evil, as most tech companies turn out to be, but that’s later me’s problem. Current me just wants to be soothed.” Here’s to a year of avoiding the news and getting lost in the void.
TikTok in the news
One Last Thing
Let’s face it, we’re all just jealous of the “chamomile tea bitches.”


vox--2020-12-08--A new Supreme Court case considers whether low-income people can lose Medicaid if they aren’t workin

A new Supreme Court case considers whether low-income people can lose Medicaid if they aren’t working

The Supreme Court announced on Friday that it will hear a pair of consolidated cases — Azar v. Gresham and Arkansas v. Gresham — both of which concern whether the state of Arkansas may require Medicaid recipients to either work or take certain steps to find a job , or else lose their health benefits .
Arkansas , with the Trump administration ’ s approval , implemented a program called “ Arkansas Works , ” which requires Medicaid beneficiaries between the ages of 19 and 49 to “ work or engage in specified educational , job training , or job @ @ @ @ @ @ @ per month , ” and to document that they ’ ve engaged in these activities .
The ostensible purpose of Arkansas Works is fairly straightforward .
If Medicaid beneficiaries risk losing health care if they aren ’ t also employed , then they have additional incentive to find work .
In approving Arkansas ’ s request to add a work requirement to its Medicaid program , the Trump administration claimed that this requirement would “ encourage beneficiaries to obtain and maintain employment or undertake other community engagement activities that research has shown to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Yet research indicates that Medicaid work requirements do not advance this goal .
A 2019 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that “ Arkansas ’ s implementation of the nation ’ s first work requirements in Medicaid in 2018 was associated with significant losses in health insurance coverage in the policy ’ s initial six months but no significant change in employment.
” Nevertheless , 19 states have attempted to implement work requirements , although some of these states have since abandoned such plans .
The Department of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of these requests so far , with several more pending .
For the moment , at least , none of these work requirements are in effect .
Many have been blocked by courts ( the opinion blocking Arkansas ’ s work requirement was written by David Sentelle , an extremely conservative federal appeals court judge ) .
And the federal government implemented a freeze on dropping people from Medicaid during the Covid-19 pandemic .
Moreover , because Medicaid work requirements must be approved by HHS , the Biden administration will likely be able @ @ @ @ @ @ @ although the process of withdrawing approval may take some time to complete .
Nevertheless , the implications of the Gresham cases could be profound .
While Arkansas ’ s work requirement was in effect , about a quarter of those subject to the requirement — more than 18,000 people — were kicked off Medicaid in five months .
And that ’ s just in one state .
Moreover , while the Biden administration is unlikely to permit Medicaid work requirements , a future Republican administration is likely to support them just as enthusiastically @ @ @ @ @ @ @ if the Supreme Court holds that such requirements are lawful , thousands ( or potentially hundreds of thousands ) of Americans could lose coverage whenever a Republican occupies the White House .
Medicaid is a partnership between the federal government and the states to provide health coverage to low-income Americans .
States administer their own Medicaid programs and pay for some of the costs of those programs .
The federal government , in turn , provides significant funding to states — provided those states comply with conditions laid out in the various laws @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Obamacare , states that participate in Medicaid ( and all 50 states do ) were only required to cover certain mandatory populations , such as poor families with dependent children or certain low-income individuals with a disability .
The Affordable Care Act sought to expand Medicaid to all Americans earning less than 133 percent of the poverty rate , but the Supreme Court held in NFIB v. Sebelius ( 2012 ) that states could opt out of Obamacare ’ s Medicaid expansion without endangering their existing Medicaid funding .
For this reason , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Medicaid can vary greatly depending on where they live .
To date , 12 states still have not expanded their Medicaid program under the Affordable Care Act .
Another reason access to Medicaid can vary from state to state is that the law also permits states to seek waivers from Medicaid ’ s minimum coverage requirements , in order to set up “ experimental , pilot , or demonstration project [ s ] .
” Requests for such a waiver must be approved by HHS , and they may only be granted if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to assist in promoting the objectives ” of the Medicaid program .
Arkansas is one of the few Southern states that expanded Medicaid under Obamacare , although it did so pursuant to a 2013 waiver that allows Arkansas to provide private insurance to Medicaid beneficiaries , rather than covering them through a government-run Medicaid program .
In 2017 , about six months after President Trump took office , the state sought an amendment to this earlier waiver , allowing the state to implement Arkansas Works .
The courts have thus far been skeptical @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the purpose of the Medicaid program Because Medicaid waivers may only be granted if they are “ likely to assist in promoting the objectives ” of the broader Medicaid program , work requirements generally have not fared very well in federal court .
The Medicaid statute states that one of the primary purposes of the program is to furnish “ medical assistance on behalf of families with dependent children and of aged , blind , or disabled individuals , whose income and resources are insufficient to meet the costs of necessary medical services.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ medical assistance ” to mean “ payment of part or all of the cost of [ certain forms of ] care and services or the care and services themselves.
” Thus , the explicit purpose of Medicaid is to provide health coverage to vulnerable populations — or , at least , to pay for the cost of such coverage .
Work requirements undermine this purpose .
They reduce the number of Medicaid-eligible individuals who receive coverage .
So , by granting a waiver permitting Arkansas ’ s work requirement to take effect , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ authority .
The Trump administration , for what it ’ s worth , claimed that such a waiver is justified because work requirements would advance broader public health goals .
Among other things , the administration claimed that work requirements address “ behavioral and social factors that influence health outcomes , ” that they give Medicaid beneficiaries an incentive “ to engage in their own health care and achieve better health outcomes , ” and that they will “ encourage beneficiaries to obtain and maintain employment ” or take other actions that are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Yet , whatever the wisdom of these arguments — and , as the New England Journal of Medicine study suggests , there are good reasons to doubt the Trump administration ’ s case for work requirements — HHS is not allowed to substitute its own public health objectives for those laid out in the Medicaid statute .
As Judge Sentelle wrote in his opinion striking down Arkansas ’ s Medicaid waiver , “ the Supreme Court and this court have consistently reminded agencies that they are ‘ bound , not only by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but by the means it has deemed appropriate , and prescribed , for the pursuit of those purposes.
’ ” And , in Gresham , he writes , “ the means that Congress selected to achieve the objectives of Medicaid was to provide health care coverage to populations that otherwise could not afford it.
” Until recently , if Sentelle voted to strike down a federal policy that is rejected by Democrats and that enjoys broad support among Republicans , that was a pretty good sign that the policy would not survive Supreme @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the bench at the urging of Sen. Jesse Helms , the archconservative North Carolina Republican who first rose to prominence as an outspoken segregationist .
Before Trump started filling the federal bench with Federalist Society stalwarts , Sentelle was one of the most conservative judges anywhere in the federal judiciary .
But the current Supreme Court , with its 6-3 Republican majority , is more conservative than any panel of nine justices since the early days of the Roosevelt administration .
The fact that the Court decided to review Sentelle ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ potentially uphold Medicaid work requirements .
The Biden administration may be able to moot this case As Joan Alker , executive director of Georgetown University ’ s Center for Children and Families , notes , “ every waiver approval has a long list of ‘ terms and conditions ’ many of which are boilerplate material that appear in every Medicaid demonstration.
” One of those requirements is that the federal government may withdraw its approval of a waiver if “ at any time if it determines that continuing the waivers … would no @ @ @ @ @ @ @ promote the objectives ” of Medicaid .
So the Biden administration can probably rely on this authority to withdraw approval of Arkansas ’ s Medicaid work requirements — as well as approval of any similar requirements in other states .
Yet , as Alker notes , “ the state is guaranteed the right to a hearing to challenge the federal determination.
” So it is unclear just how quickly the Biden administration could withdraw approval of Arkansas Works .
Moreover , as Alker also notes , Medicaid waivers often involve “ complex agreements @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” so the new administration may need to take its time studying these agreements to determine which parts it wishes to keep and which parts it wishes to unravel .
Arkansas ’ s work requirement , for example , was approved as an amendment to the state ’ s existing waiver allowing it to offer private coverage to Medicaid beneficiaries .
This privatized arrangement has proven successful in expanding health coverage in Arkansas , and it ’ s provided a model that red states that might otherwise refuse to expand Medicaid have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that the Biden administration will wish to unravel Arkansas ’ s waiver altogether .
The new administration , in other words , may spend its first months negotiating new terms with states like Arkansas , rather than acting unilaterally .
If Biden ’ s HHS department can nullify the Trump administration ’ s approval of Arkansas ’ s work requirements before the Supreme Court rules in Gresham , however , it has good reason to do so .
Such a decision by the Biden administration would likely moot this case , and prevent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ decision permitting work requirements .
And that would mean that a future Republican administration would likely have to spend months or even years litigating the question of whether work requirements are permitted , rather than potentially being able to implement such requirements right away .

The Supreme Court announced on Friday that it will hear a pair of consolidated cases — Azar v. Gresham and Arkansas v. Gresham — both of which concern whether the state of Arkansas may require Medicaid recipients to either work or take certain steps to find a job, or else lose their health benefits.
Arkansas, with the Trump administration’s approval, implemented a program called “Arkansas Works,” which requires Medicaid beneficiaries between the ages of 19 and 49 to “work or engage in specified educational, job training, or job search activities for at least 80 hours per month,” and to document that they’ve engaged in these activities.
The ostensible purpose of Arkansas Works is fairly straightforward. If Medicaid beneficiaries risk losing health care if they aren’t also employed, then they have additional incentive to find work. In approving Arkansas’s request to add a work requirement to its Medicaid program, the Trump administration claimed that this requirement would “encourage beneficiaries to obtain and maintain employment or undertake other community engagement activities that research has shown to be correlated with improved health and wellness.”
Yet research indicates that Medicaid work requirements do not advance this goal. A 2019 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that “Arkansas’s implementation of the nation’s first work requirements in Medicaid in 2018 was associated with significant losses in health insurance coverage in the policy’s initial six months but no significant change in employment.”
Nevertheless, 19 states have attempted to implement work requirements, although some of these states have since abandoned such plans. The Department of Health and Human Services has approved eight of these requests so far, with several more pending.
For the moment, at least, none of these work requirements are in effect. Many have been blocked by courts (the opinion blocking Arkansas’s work requirement was written by David Sentelle, an extremely conservative federal appeals court judge). And the federal government implemented a freeze on dropping people from Medicaid during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Moreover, because Medicaid work requirements must be approved by HHS, the Biden administration will likely be able to withdraw approval of such programs — although the process of withdrawing approval may take some time to complete.
Nevertheless, the implications of the Gresham cases could be profound. While Arkansas’s work requirement was in effect, about a quarter of those subject to the requirement — more than 18,000 people — were kicked off Medicaid in five months. And that’s just in one state.
Moreover, while the Biden administration is unlikely to permit Medicaid work requirements, a future Republican administration is likely to support them just as enthusiastically as the Trump administration.
Thus, if the Supreme Court holds that such requirements are lawful, thousands (or potentially hundreds of thousands) of Americans could lose coverage whenever a Republican occupies the White House.
Medicaid waivers, briefly explained
Medicaid is a partnership between the federal government and the states to provide health coverage to low-income Americans. States administer their own Medicaid programs and pay for some of the costs of those programs. The federal government, in turn, provides significant funding to states — provided those states comply with conditions laid out in the various laws and regulations governing Medicaid.
Prior to Obamacare, states that participate in Medicaid (and all 50 states do) were only required to cover certain mandatory populations, such as poor families with dependent children or certain low-income individuals with a disability. The Affordable Care Act sought to expand Medicaid to all Americans earning less than 133 percent of the poverty rate, but the Supreme Court held in NFIB v. Sebelius (2012) that states could opt out of Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion without endangering their existing Medicaid funding.
For this reason, a low-income individual’s access to Medicaid can vary greatly depending on where they live. To date, 12 states still have not expanded their Medicaid program under the Affordable Care Act.
Another reason access to Medicaid can vary from state to state is that the law also permits states to seek waivers from Medicaid’s minimum coverage requirements, in order to set up “experimental, pilot, or demonstration project[s].” Requests for such a waiver must be approved by HHS, and they may only be granted if the proposed experimental project is “likely to assist in promoting the objectives” of the Medicaid program.
Arkansas is one of the few Southern states that expanded Medicaid under Obamacare, although it did so pursuant to a 2013 waiver that allows Arkansas to provide private insurance to Medicaid beneficiaries, rather than covering them through a government-run Medicaid program. In 2017, about six months after President Trump took office, the state sought an amendment to this earlier waiver, allowing the state to implement Arkansas Works.
The courts have thus far been skeptical of Medicaid work requirements because they undermine the purpose of the Medicaid program
Because Medicaid waivers may only be granted if they are “likely to assist in promoting the objectives” of the broader Medicaid program, work requirements generally have not fared very well in federal court.
The Medicaid statute states that one of the primary purposes of the program is to furnish “medical assistance on behalf of families with dependent children and of aged, blind, or disabled individuals, whose income and resources are insufficient to meet the costs of necessary medical services.” The statute defines the term “medical assistance” to mean “payment of part or all of the cost of [certain forms of] care and services or the care and services themselves.”
Thus, the explicit purpose of Medicaid is to provide health coverage to vulnerable populations — or, at least, to pay for the cost of such coverage.
Work requirements undermine this purpose. They reduce the number of Medicaid-eligible individuals who receive coverage. So, by granting a waiver permitting Arkansas’s work requirement to take effect, Trump’s HHS department exceeded its authority.
The Trump administration, for what it’s worth, claimed that such a waiver is justified because work requirements would advance broader public health goals. Among other things, the administration claimed that work requirements address “behavioral and social factors that influence health outcomes,” that they give Medicaid beneficiaries an incentive “to engage in their own health care and achieve better health outcomes,” and that they will “encourage beneficiaries to obtain and maintain employment” or take other actions that are “correlated with improved health and wellness.”
Yet, whatever the wisdom of these arguments — and, as the New England Journal of Medicine study suggests, there are good reasons to doubt the Trump administration’s case for work requirements — HHS is not allowed to substitute its own public health objectives for those laid out in the Medicaid statute.
As Judge Sentelle wrote in his opinion striking down Arkansas’s Medicaid waiver, “the Supreme Court and this court have consistently reminded agencies that they are ‘bound, not only by the ultimate purposes Congress has selected, but by the means it has deemed appropriate, and prescribed, for the pursuit of those purposes.’” And, in Gresham, he writes, “the means that Congress selected to achieve the objectives of Medicaid was to provide health care coverage to populations that otherwise could not afford it.”
Until recently, if Sentelle voted to strike down a federal policy that is rejected by Democrats and that enjoys broad support among Republicans, that was a pretty good sign that the policy would not survive Supreme Court review. President Reagan nominated Sentelle to the bench at the urging of Sen. Jesse Helms, the archconservative North Carolina Republican who first rose to prominence as an outspoken segregationist. Before Trump started filling the federal bench with Federalist Society stalwarts, Sentelle was one of the most conservative judges anywhere in the federal judiciary.
But the current Supreme Court, with its 6-3 Republican majority, is more conservative than any panel of nine justices since the early days of the Roosevelt administration. The fact that the Court decided to review Sentelle’s decision suggests that its new majority could potentially uphold Medicaid work requirements.
The Biden administration may be able to moot this case
As Joan Alker, executive director of Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families, notes, “every waiver approval has a long list of ‘terms and conditions’ many of which are boilerplate material that appear in every Medicaid demonstration.” One of those requirements is that the federal government may withdraw its approval of a waiver if “at any time if it determines that continuing the waivers … would no longer be in the public interest or promote the objectives” of Medicaid.
So the Biden administration can probably rely on this authority to withdraw approval of Arkansas’s Medicaid work requirements — as well as approval of any similar requirements in other states. Yet, as Alker notes, “the state is guaranteed the right to a hearing to challenge the federal determination.” So it is unclear just how quickly the Biden administration could withdraw approval of Arkansas Works.
Moreover, as Alker also notes, Medicaid waivers often involve “complex agreements that include other features besides work requirements,” so the new administration may need to take its time studying these agreements to determine which parts it wishes to keep and which parts it wishes to unravel.
Arkansas’s work requirement, for example, was approved as an amendment to the state’s existing waiver allowing it to offer private coverage to Medicaid beneficiaries. This privatized arrangement has proven successful in expanding health coverage in Arkansas, and it’s provided a model that red states that might otherwise refuse to expand Medicaid have emulated. So it’s unlikely that the Biden administration will wish to unravel Arkansas’s waiver altogether.
The new administration, in other words, may spend its first months negotiating new terms with states like Arkansas, rather than acting unilaterally.
If Biden’s HHS department can nullify the Trump administration’s approval of Arkansas’s work requirements before the Supreme Court rules in Gresham, however, it has good reason to do so. Such a decision by the Biden administration would likely moot this case, and prevent the Supreme Court from handing down a decision permitting work requirements.
And that would mean that a future Republican administration would likely have to spend months or even years litigating the question of whether work requirements are permitted, rather than potentially being able to implement such requirements right away.


vox--2020-12-08--What it would really take to save the economy

The clock is ticking on much-needed stimulus for the economy amid the Covid-19 pandemic .
Not only is it too late to stop some of the damage , but chances are , any stimulus that does come is going to be much , much too little to be effective .
The latest bipartisan offer on the table in Congress is a $ 908 billion stimulus bill .
It ’ s a substantial number that ’ s about $ 500 billion more than Republicans recently proposed .
But according to a new paper from economists Adam Hersh and Mark Paul commissioned @ @ @ @ @ @ @ economic think tank — really reviving the United States economy could require three , even four times that : The pair estimates Congress would need to pass $ 3 to $ 4.5 trillion in economic relief in the near term to get the economy to reach its full potential .
“ Economics has given us all the tools we need to address the crisis , and we just need the policymakers to open up the checkbooks of the US government , ” said Paul , a political economist at the New College of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ While the Federal Reserve has taken extraordinary measures , such as slashing interest rates and resuming securities purchases , to boost the markets and economy using the tools it has available , Congress has not followed suit .
And that ’ s likely to cause long-term damage as well as a slower recovery , with the people at the bottom of the economic ladder left behind .
Hersh and Paul make the case that the best way to avoid this scenario is for lawmakers to inject trillions of dollars into the economy to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ new normal that is better for all Americans .
The researchers also say it ’ s important to enact automatic triggers that will renew key parts of a stimulus package as long as necessary .
The extra $ 600 a week in expanded unemployment insurance ended in July , and other stimulus programs are set to expire at the end of the year .
But that isn ’ t because the economy is running on all cylinders and the pandemic is over .
It ’ s because Congress put in place arbitrary — @ @ @ @ @ @ @ support would no longer be necessary .
What the economy really needs : A lot of money to a lot of people , now The United States economy added 245,000 jobs in November .
Pre-pandemic , that would have been a decent amount , but in the current moment , it ’ s woefully insufficient .
The US is still 10 million jobs short of the employment level when the coronavirus hit , and if this pace of recovery holds , it will be years before those jobs are recovered .
The economy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people feared at the outset of the pandemic — the current unemployment rate is 6.7 percent — but it ’ s not great .
What ’ s more , that 6.7 percent number masks the number of people who have given up on job searching and dropped out of the labor force altogether .
Women , in particular , are leaving the workforce at an alarming rate .
If the labor force participation rate matched the rate in 2007 before the Great Recession , Hersh and Paul estimate that the unemployment rate would @ @ @ @ @ @ @ official number .
“ We know that right now and over the past several business cycles , a lot of people have been disappearing from the labor force who otherwise should be working , ” Hersh said .
“ They ’ ve dropped out by the millions , so we ’ re dramatically undercounting what the real rate of unemployment is.
” Digging out of that hole would require trillions of dollars , though the exact amount depends on the multiplier — basically , how much bang the federal government could get for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of increasing that multiplier would be to give cash assistance , like the $ 1,200 checks that went out to many Americans in the spring .
Money that goes to those that need it most is generally a more successful stimulus arrangement , because those people tend to spend the money and put it back into the economy instead of saving it .
And millions of Americans are increasingly in need : According to Census Bureau data , one-third of adults in the US are having trouble paying for usual household expenses .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ is just going to right back out the door when they get it , ” said Hersh , the director of Washington Global Advisors and a research associate at the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts Amherst .
Analyses from the Congressional Budget Office find that each dollar of net spending given to corporations generates about $ 0.40 in extra economic activity and every dollar given to high-income people generates $ 0.60 .
But Hersh and Paul say that a dollar in direct transfer payments to an individual generates $ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it goes to people who are financially stressed and have less disposable income , and when it goes into regional economies that are particularly impacted .
People need money , and so do state and city government whose budgets were slammed by the pandemic .
One unknown regarding multipliers like direct transfers is the effect of social distancing — as long as the virus is still spreading , spending habits will be far from normal , and the economy can ’ t get back to normal .
But the main takeaway is that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — and do it fast — to repair the damage caused by two recessions arriving over the span of about a decade .
One important lesson from the Great Recession is that fiscal stimulus efforts fell short , and in turn , the recovery was slow , as Hersh and Paul write : The US risks making the same mistake now , particularly if Congress doesn ’ t spend enough money to really boost the economy and get the unemployment rate so low that workers are pulled back into the market .
Doing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ especially Black workers , who historically have a much higher unemployment rate than white workers .
“ In order to bring all those people back into the labor force and see wage gains extend to those groups , we need to get unemployment down to a very low level , ” Hersh said .
Some critics will point to the federal deficit and say such an expenditure would add too much to the country ’ s debt and endanger the US economy long term .
And Republicans in Congress have already begun making @ @ @ @ @ @ @ plans for a multi-trillion-dollar stimulus go too far .
But Republicans also passed a tax cut bill that disproportionately benefited corporations and the wealthy in 2017 without worrying very much about the estimated $ 1.5 trillion it is projected to add to the debt .
The Federal Reserve has said it plans to keep interest rates low for a long time , meaning borrowing costs will remain low .
If there were ever a moment to invest in the US economy , it ’ s now .
“ Without this kind of fiscal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ leave a gaping hole in the economy , ” Hersh said .
Congress is all but certain to fall short on the economy It ’ s not hard to imagine a scenario where the Covid-19 pandemic played out much differently in the US .
Had the country been able to get the coronavirus under control , and had Congress put in place economic supports that were predicated on metrics of recovery instead of hoping things would be fine by July or December , the picture in America might be quite different from what @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is just weeks away , and most of the mechanisms put in place under the first congressional stimulus package , the CARES Act passed in March , are about to expire or already have .
An estimated 12 million Americans are poised to lose their unemployment insurance benefits on December 26 , the day after Christmas .
Tens of millions of people face possible eviction or foreclosure once a federal eviction moratorium expires on January 1 .
States and cities are facing enormous budget shortfalls .
Student borrowers who have has their student @ @ @ @ @ @ @ month by month to see whether they ’ ll start to owe again .
With these crises weeks away , Congress is still haggling .
Democrats in the House passed the $ 3 trillion HEROES Act — on the low end of what Hersh and Paul believe is needed to really help the economy — back in May , but beyond that , there just hasn ’ t been much progress .
The Senate never voted on the HEROES Act , and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell seems reluctant to get on board @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s hope in the new $ 908 million bipartisan proposal , but it ’ s hard to believe that will be enough .
Ultimately , the economy is made up of people , people are hurting , and lawmakers aren ’ t helping them .
Past recessions have made it clear that recovery can take a long time , meaning today ’ s inaction will be a drag on the country , and financial problems for its people , for years to come .

The clock is ticking on much-needed stimulus for the economy amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Not only is it too late to stop some of the damage, but chances are, any stimulus that does come is going to be much, much too little to be effective.
The latest bipartisan offer on the table in Congress is a $908 billion stimulus bill. It’s a substantial number that’s about $500 billion more than Republicans recently proposed. But according to a new paper from economists Adam Hersh and Mark Paul commissioned by the Groundwork Collaborative — a progressive economic think tank — really reviving the United States economy could require three, even four times that: The pair estimates Congress would need to pass $3 to $4.5 trillion in economic relief in the near term to get the economy to reach its full potential.
“Economics has given us all the tools we need to address the crisis, and we just need the policymakers to open up the checkbooks of the US government,” said Paul, a political economist at the New College of Florida and a Roosevelt Institute fellow.
While the Federal Reserve has taken extraordinary measures, such as slashing interest rates and resuming securities purchases, to boost the markets and economy using the tools it has available, Congress has not followed suit. And that’s likely to cause long-term damage as well as a slower recovery, with the people at the bottom of the economic ladder left behind. Hersh and Paul make the case that the best way to avoid this scenario is for lawmakers to inject trillions of dollars into the economy to achieve full employment — and create a new normal that is better for all Americans.
The researchers also say it’s important to enact automatic triggers that will renew key parts of a stimulus package as long as necessary. The extra $600 a week in expanded unemployment insurance ended in July, and other stimulus programs are set to expire at the end of the year. But that isn’t because the economy is running on all cylinders and the pandemic is over. It’s because Congress put in place arbitrary — and overly optimistic — timelines on when support would no longer be necessary.
What the economy really needs: A lot of money to a lot of people, now
The United States economy added 245,000 jobs in November. Pre-pandemic, that would have been a decent amount, but in the current moment, it’s woefully insufficient. The US is still 10 million jobs short of the employment level when the coronavirus hit, and if this pace of recovery holds, it will be years before those jobs are recovered.
The economy isn’t as bad as some people feared at the outset of the pandemic — the current unemployment rate is 6.7 percent — but it’s not great. What’s more, that 6.7 percent number masks the number of people who have given up on job searching and dropped out of the labor force altogether. Women, in particular, are leaving the workforce at an alarming rate. If the labor force participation rate matched the rate in 2007 before the Great Recession, Hersh and Paul estimate that the unemployment rate would be 13 percent — nearly double the official number.
“We know that right now and over the past several business cycles, a lot of people have been disappearing from the labor force who otherwise should be working,” Hersh said. “They’ve dropped out by the millions, so we’re dramatically undercounting what the real rate of unemployment is.”
Digging out of that hole would require trillions of dollars, though the exact amount depends on the multiplier — basically, how much bang the federal government could get for its buck.
One particularly effective way of increasing that multiplier would be to give cash assistance, like the $1,200 checks that went out to many Americans in the spring. Money that goes to those that need it most is generally a more successful stimulus arrangement, because those people tend to spend the money and put it back into the economy instead of saving it.
And millions of Americans are increasingly in need: According to Census Bureau data, one-third of adults in the US are having trouble paying for usual household expenses. “We know that [money] is just going to right back out the door when they get it,” said Hersh, the director of Washington Global Advisors and a research associate at the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Analyses from the Congressional Budget Office find that each dollar of net spending given to corporations generates about $0.40 in extra economic activity and every dollar given to high-income people generates $0.60. But Hersh and Paul say that a dollar in direct transfer payments to an individual generates $2.10. The impact is higher when it goes to people who are financially stressed and have less disposable income, and when it goes into regional economies that are particularly impacted. People need money, and so do state and city government whose budgets were slammed by the pandemic.
One unknown regarding multipliers like direct transfers is the effect of social distancing — as long as the virus is still spreading, spending habits will be far from normal, and the economy can’t get back to normal.
But the main takeaway is that Congress should inject a lot of money — and do it fast — to repair the damage caused by two recessions arriving over the span of about a decade. One important lesson from the Great Recession is that fiscal stimulus efforts fell short, and in turn, the recovery was slow, as Hersh and Paul write:
Michigan did not return to its pre-Great Recession level of output until 2015. Arizona did not surpass its pre-recession level of output until 2016. Connecticut’s economy never recovered: by the time the pandemic began, Connecticut’s gross state product stood 4.2 percent below its 2007 level, after adjusting for inflation. As a nation, relative to pre-Great Recession trends, an estimated seven million potential workers have gone missing from the labor force in the face of poor job prospects resulting from insufficient macroeconomic policy support.
The US risks making the same mistake now, particularly if Congress doesn’t spend enough money to really boost the economy and get the unemployment rate so low that workers are pulled back into the market. Doing so would help workers of color, especially Black workers, who historically have a much higher unemployment rate than white workers.
“In order to bring all those people back into the labor force and see wage gains extend to those groups, we need to get unemployment down to a very low level,” Hersh said.
Some critics will point to the federal deficit and say such an expenditure would add too much to the country’s debt and endanger the US economy long term. And Republicans in Congress have already begun making this argument, claiming that Democrats’ plans for a multi-trillion-dollar stimulus go too far.
But Republicans also passed a tax cut bill that disproportionately benefited corporations and the wealthy in 2017 without worrying very much about the estimated $1.5 trillion it is projected to add to the debt. The Federal Reserve has said it plans to keep interest rates low for a long time, meaning borrowing costs will remain low. If there were ever a moment to invest in the US economy, it’s now.
“Without this kind of fiscal support, we’re going to leave a gaping hole in the economy,” Hersh said.
Congress is all but certain to fall short on the economy
It’s not hard to imagine a scenario where the Covid-19 pandemic played out much differently in the US. Had the country been able to get the coronavirus under control, and had Congress put in place economic supports that were predicated on metrics of recovery instead of hoping things would be fine by July or December, the picture in America might be quite different from what it is now.
Instead, 2021 is just weeks away, and most of the mechanisms put in place under the first congressional stimulus package, the CARES Act passed in March, are about to expire or already have. An estimated 12 million Americans are poised to lose their unemployment insurance benefits on December 26, the day after Christmas. Tens of millions of people face possible eviction or foreclosure once a federal eviction moratorium expires on January 1. States and cities are facing enormous budget shortfalls. Student borrowers who have has their student loan payments put on pause are waiting month by month to see whether they’ll start to owe again.
With these crises weeks away, Congress is still haggling. Democrats in the House passed the $3 trillion HEROES Act — on the low end of what Hersh and Paul believe is needed to really help the economy — back in May, but beyond that, there just hasn’t been much progress. The Senate never voted on the HEROES Act, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell seems reluctant to get on board with much of anything. There’s hope in the new $908 million bipartisan proposal, but it’s hard to believe that will be enough.
Ultimately, the economy is made up of people, people are hurting, and lawmakers aren’t helping them. Past recessions have made it clear that recovery can take a long time, meaning today’s inaction will be a drag on the country, and financial problems for its people, for years to come.


vox--2020-12-08--Congress is staring down big deadlines on stimulus and government funding in December

It ’ s almost the end of the year and Congress is , once again , staring down several major deadlines .
First and foremost , the increasingly severe pandemic means there ’ s huge pressure to pass more coronavirus relief prior to December 31 , when multiple aid programs — including unemployment insurance coverage for 12 million people — are poised to expire .
Second , the deadline to approve an annual government funding package is fast approaching on December 11 , with lawmakers expected to pass another one-week extension .
And finally , Congress still needs to pass @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sets up a yearly budget for the military — a move that ’ s been complicated by President Donald Trump ’ s threats to veto it over frustrations with lawmakers regarding a separate issue .
All three bills are key priorities during the lame-duck term , as failing to pass them would leave millions to wrestle with a dire financial situation , force the government to shut down , and cause potential delays in the Defense Department ’ s planning for the year to come .
But it ’ s unclear how much @ @ @ @ @ @ @ within the roughly two weeks the legislature will be in session before the end of the year .
The future of a stimulus bill is perhaps the most uncertain , though there are still outstanding conflicts on government funding and the NDAA as well .
Developments in the coming week , and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell ’ s receptiveness to a bipartisan stimulus proposal , will be key to watch when it comes to the prospects for additional relief .
“ We have a lot of work to do .
And just @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Sen. Dick Durbin ( D-IL ) noted this past weekend during an appearance on ABC ’ s This Week .
Here ’ s a rundown of Congress ’ s to-do list before lawmakers leave for the year .
There ’ s a lot of pressure on lawmakers to get more stimulus done during the lame-duck session , something that ’ s only grown since the release of sluggish jobs numbers in November , which showed much slower job growth than the previous month .
Additionally , a new bill is sorely needed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ scheduled to expire on December 31 .
Multiple programs could sunset if no new stimulus is passed : Unemployment insurance ( UI ) coverage for millions of Americans is slated to end ahead of January 2021 , barring additional legislative action .
Federal eviction protections are due to expire unless Congress or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ( CDC ) approve an extension .
And relief for student loan holders could also be in jeopardy soon .
These provisions were all set up earlier this year with specific end dates : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ economy workers and longer-term unemployed workers are both scheduled to end by December 31 , which could mean that roughly 12 million people will abruptly stop receiving UI .
An eviction moratorium covering tenants in federally assisted housing was also included in the CARES Act , a prior stimulus package passed by Congress in March , though it lapsed earlier this year .
Since then , the CDC has implemented an eviction moratorium that covers a wide set of renters through December 31 .
An extension is needed to keep it going and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ new year .
As Vox ’ s Jerusalem Demsas has reported , the need for rental assistance in any stimulus package is also critical to addressing the financial shortfalls that both renters and landlords are facing .
This sort of assistance is currently being weighed in a bipartisan proposal as well .
The CARES Act had also deferred federal student loan payments until September , a proposal that Trump extended through December 31 in an executive action .
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has since extended this deferment for another month until January 31 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pushed Congress to approve a longer one .
New stimulus is vital both to maintain these existing programs and to provide added support to small businesses and households trying to cope with the financial effects of the pandemic .
A bipartisan $ 908 billion Senate proposal that ’ s gained traction would allocate $ 180 billion to expand weekly unemployment insurance payments , $ 160 billion to state and local governments to cover funding for social service programs , including K-12 education , and $ 288 billion in more aid for small businesses @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , one of the senators involved in the bipartisan proposal , said on a Sunday appearance on NBC ’ s Meet the Press that “ we looked at everything that was going to terminate by the end of December , ” and tried to find ways to extend sunsetting programs .
Lawmakers are still mulling over the final language , but if both Republican and Democratic leadership gets on board , this stimulus proposal could be added to a government funding package that Congress needs to get done this month as well .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ government open Passage of a government funding bill comes down to the wire pretty much every year — and that ’ s been no different in 2020 .
Lawmakers approved a continuing resolution this past September in order to give themselves more time to negotiate on the measure , and that extension will expire on December 11 .
At this point , it ’ s likely that Congress will approve another short-term funding bill that will provide federal agencies with enough funds to allow lawmakers to continue negotiations through December 18 , according @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Leader Steny Hoyer has announced that the lower chamber will vote on this continuing resolution on Wednesday .
Lawmakers from both parties have previously signaled that they are focused on avoiding another government shutdown like the one that left hundreds of thousands of workers without pay for 35 days in late 2018 and early 2019 , though there are still outstanding disagreements on a couple different points .
According to USA Today , one of the central areas of contention involves a Republican request for money for a border wall and Immigration and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ these issues by December 18 will be important to ensure that the government stays open and negotiations are completed ahead of the start of a new congressional term .
Trump ’ s issues with the NDAA could complicate its passage The National Defense Authorization Act ( NDAA ) is another bill lawmakers are trying to approve prior to the end of this year .
While the bill — which establishes funding allocations for the defense department — has strong backing in both the House and the Senate , the major pushback it ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by Trump , who has threatened to veto it because it does not include a repeal of Section 230 protections for tech companies .
This provision currently protects social media companies like Facebook , Twitter , and Google from liability for content that ’ s posted on their sites by third parties .
Senate Armed Services Chair Jim Inhofe ( R-OK ) has stated that a Section 230 repeal will not be included in the bill because of the bipartisan opposition it faces , and the likelihood that the bill would fail if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s unfortunate that Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle disagree with the need for a full repeal — but , because of that , it is impossible to add a repeal of Section 230 to the defense authorization bill , ” Inhofe previously said in a statement .
Trump had also said he ’ d veto the bill over an issue he and some Republican lawmakers had with the legislation , a problem lawmakers have now addressed .
House Democrats were pushing for a provision in the NDAA that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ leaders within the span of one year .
A new compromise version of the bill now would establish a commission that would determine how to handle the renaming of these bases over three years , something that Trump also supports , according to Inhofe .
The House has already scheduled a vote for the bill on Tuesday , and the Senate is expected to hold a vote as well later this week .
The main question now is whether Trump will follow through with a veto over the Section 230 issue , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ respond .
Thus far , Congress has yet to marshal enough votes to override one of Trump ’ s vetoes , though some Republicans have voted to override vetoes on other legislation in the past .
But even if they are successful in doing so now , navigating this potential difficulty would be just one of several issues Congress must contend with before the end of its term this December .

It’s almost the end of the year and Congress is, once again, staring down several major deadlines.
First and foremost, the increasingly severe pandemic means there’s huge pressure to pass more coronavirus relief prior to December 31, when multiple aid programs — including unemployment insurance coverage for 12 million people — are poised to expire.
Second, the deadline to approve an annual government funding package is fast approaching on December 11, with lawmakers expected to pass another one-week extension.
And finally, Congress still needs to pass the National Defense Authorization Act — which sets up a yearly budget for the military — a move that’s been complicated by President Donald Trump’s threats to veto it over frustrations with lawmakers regarding a separate issue.
All three bills are key priorities during the lame-duck term, as failing to pass them would leave millions to wrestle with a dire financial situation, force the government to shut down, and cause potential delays in the Defense Department’s planning for the year to come. But it’s unclear how much lawmakers will be able to get done within the roughly two weeks the legislature will be in session before the end of the year.
The future of a stimulus bill is perhaps the most uncertain, though there are still outstanding conflicts on government funding and the NDAA as well. Developments in the coming week, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s receptiveness to a bipartisan stimulus proposal, will be key to watch when it comes to the prospects for additional relief.
“We have a lot of work to do. And just a few days to do it,” Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) noted this past weekend during an appearance on ABC’s This Week.
Here’s a rundown of Congress’s to-do list before lawmakers leave for the year.
There’s huge pressure to pass more stimulus
There’s a lot of pressure on lawmakers to get more stimulus done during the lame-duck session, something that’s only grown since the release of sluggish jobs numbers in November, which showed much slower job growth than the previous month. Additionally, a new bill is sorely needed to extend relief programs that are otherwise scheduled to expire on December 31.
Multiple programs could sunset if no new stimulus is passed: Unemployment insurance (UI) coverage for millions of Americans is slated to end ahead of January 2021, barring additional legislative action. Federal eviction protections are due to expire unless Congress or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) approve an extension. And relief for student loan holders could also be in jeopardy soon.
These provisions were all set up earlier this year with specific end dates: Programs that increased UI access for gig economy workers and longer-term unemployed workers are both scheduled to end by December 31, which could mean that roughly 12 million people will abruptly stop receiving UI.
An eviction moratorium covering tenants in federally assisted housing was also included in the CARES Act, a prior stimulus package passed by Congress in March, though it lapsed earlier this year. Since then, the CDC has implemented an eviction moratorium that covers a wide set of renters through December 31.
An extension is needed to keep it going and potentially prevent millions of evictions in the new year. As Vox’s Jerusalem Demsas has reported, the need for rental assistance in any stimulus package is also critical to addressing the financial shortfalls that both renters and landlords are facing. This sort of assistance is currently being weighed in a bipartisan proposal as well.
The CARES Act had also deferred federal student loan payments until September, a proposal that Trump extended through December 31 in an executive action. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has since extended this deferment for another month until January 31, 2021, and she’s pushed Congress to approve a longer one.
New stimulus is vital both to maintain these existing programs and to provide added support to small businesses and households trying to cope with the financial effects of the pandemic. A bipartisan $908 billion Senate proposal that’s gained traction would allocate $180 billion to expand weekly unemployment insurance payments, $160 billion to state and local governments to cover funding for social service programs, including K-12 education, and $288 billion in more aid for small businesses.
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), one of the senators involved in the bipartisan proposal, said on a Sunday appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press that “we looked at everything that was going to terminate by the end of December,” and tried to find ways to extend sunsetting programs.
Lawmakers are still mulling over the final language, but if both Republican and Democratic leadership gets on board, this stimulus proposal could be added to a government funding package that Congress needs to get done this month as well.
Congress must pass funding to keep the government open
Passage of a government funding bill comes down to the wire pretty much every year — and that’s been no different in 2020.
Lawmakers approved a continuing resolution this past September in order to give themselves more time to negotiate on the measure, and that extension will expire on December 11.
At this point, it’s likely that Congress will approve another short-term funding bill that will provide federal agencies with enough funds to allow lawmakers to continue negotiations through December 18, according to two Democratic aides. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer has announced that the lower chamber will vote on this continuing resolution on Wednesday.
Lawmakers from both parties have previously signaled that they are focused on avoiding another government shutdown like the one that left hundreds of thousands of workers without pay for 35 days in late 2018 and early 2019, though there are still outstanding disagreements on a couple different points. According to USA Today, one of the central areas of contention involves a Republican request for money for a border wall and Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention beds.
Hammering out these issues by December 18 will be important to ensure that the government stays open and negotiations are completed ahead of the start of a new congressional term.
Trump’s issues with the NDAA could complicate its passage
The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) is another bill lawmakers are trying to approve prior to the end of this year.
While the bill — which establishes funding allocations for the defense department — has strong backing in both the House and the Senate, the major pushback it’s getting at this point is driven by Trump, who has threatened to veto it because it does not include a repeal of Section 230 protections for tech companies. This provision currently protects social media companies like Facebook, Twitter, and Google from liability for content that’s posted on their sites by third parties.
.....Therefore, if the very dangerous & unfair Section 230 is not completely terminated as part of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), I will be forced to unequivocally VETO the Bill when sent to the very beautiful Resolute desk. Take back America NOW. Thank you! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 2, 2020
Senate Armed Services Chair Jim Inhofe (R-OK) has stated that a Section 230 repeal will not be included in the bill because of the bipartisan opposition it faces, and the likelihood that the bill would fail if it was added in.
“It’s unfortunate that Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle disagree with the need for a full repeal — but, because of that, it is impossible to add a repeal of Section 230 to the defense authorization bill,” Inhofe previously said in a statement.
Trump had also said he’d veto the bill over an issue he and some Republican lawmakers had with the legislation, a problem lawmakers have now addressed. House Democrats were pushing for a provision in the NDAA that would rename military bases named after Confederate leaders within the span of one year. A new compromise version of the bill now would establish a commission that would determine how to handle the renaming of these bases over three years, something that Trump also supports, according to Inhofe.
The House has already scheduled a vote for the bill on Tuesday, and the Senate is expected to hold a vote as well later this week.
The main question now is whether Trump will follow through with a veto over the Section 230 issue, and if he does, how Congress will respond. Thus far, Congress has yet to marshal enough votes to override one of Trump’s vetoes, though some Republicans have voted to override vetoes on other legislation in the past.
But even if they are successful in doing so now, navigating this potential difficulty would be just one of several issues Congress must contend with before the end of its term this December.