While state House leaders continue to struggle for consensus on how to deal with the state’s fiscal cliff, a bipartisan group of state senators is urging Gov. John Bel Edwards to move forward with a post-Mardi Gras special session. Edwards has said that he won’t call a special session without assurances that House GOP leaders are ready to come to the negotiating table in full faith. The Senate effort is led by Sen. Rick Ward, indicating he’ll be a key player when the Senate comes into session to address the fiscal cliff. Last July, Jeremy Alford reported that Ward is considered one of the favored contenders for Senate President next term. Elizabeth Crisp of The Advocate reached out to the administration for their response to the letter:

“Gov. Edwards agrees with the senate – we need a special session in February,” Edwards deputy chief of staff Richard Carbo said. “We’re confident that a majority of House members agree as well. The reality is that a small group of House members have routinely blocked any effort for reform, while at the same time refusing to offer solutions of their own. There is an opportunity to make historic reforms that benefit the citizens of Louisiana who deserve meaningful progress; not political games.”

Racial disparities in Louisiana’s higher ed

A recent study by The Hechinger Report found that universities don’t enroll black students at the same rate as their white peers. Mark Ballard at The Advocate reports that LSU had one of the highest disparities among the postsecondary institutions in the study. Worryingly, the number of black students enrolled in postsecondary education in Louisiana has significantly decreased over the past 14 years, and enrollment at Louisiana’s two public HBCUs, Grambling and Southern, has fallen as well. Higher education leaders are addressing the disparity with a focus on recruiting and student support services:  

Administrators have not adopted affirmative action style goals for how many minorities to recruit for faculty, administrators and students, Henderson said. Rather, the colleges are visiting students in high schools, working earlier to match students with curricula that fits their wants and using mentoring programs to help students succeed. Many of the programs include mentoring and one-on-one help from professionals to help students crystallize their goals and succeed once they arrive at college. “It’s more than successful recruiting, that’s the access part. The success part is more crucial and is more vulnerable to budget cuts,” said Joseph Rallo, the state’s commissioner of higher education.

 

Inequality in urban Louisiana
Income inequality gets a lot of attention at the national level, as the last several decades have seen households at the top of the economic pyramid move farther away from families in the middle and bottom. But as the Brookings Institution reminds us, inequality differs widely from state to state and city to city. In Louisiana, which has the nation’s third-highest poverty rate, the two largest cities rank among the most unequal. New Orleans has the fourth highest income inequality of major cities, and Baton Rouge ranked ninth. Researcher Alan Berube breaks down the most recent data:

More cities experienced declines in income inequality from 2014 to 2016 than saw increases. While few cities overall saw income disparities between rich and poor households change by a statistically significant margin, among those that did, declines in income inequality (eight) outnumbered increases (five). …

Bonuses don’t indicate worker wins

A few major corporations have made headlines recently by shelling out “tax reform bonuses” to their workers. But Rick Wartzman and William Lazonick warn readers of The Washington Post that the real winners are the shareholders. Their analysis of corporate action post-tax reform shows that corporations are planning on investing more than 30 times more money than is being pushed down to their workforce in shareholder profits. In total, corporations have announced more than $157.6 billion in stock buybacks (meant to drive up the cost of shares and grow shareholder profit) and only $5.2 billion in one-time bonuses for workers and annual wage increases.

What changed? Beginning in the mid-1970s, a movement to “maximize shareholder value” above all other considerations gained currency. And in 1982, the Securities and Exchange Commission adopted a rule that allows executives to massively buy back the company’s stock without fear of being charged with manipulating the share price — even though that is precisely what they are doing. Soon, top corporate executives were being paid more and more in stock — making it in their personal interest to drive their company’s share price upward in the short term. In this environment, corporations have come to view workers as an avoidable expense, not as an asset to invest in.

Number of the Day

68 percent – The percentage of black students at LSU in 2017 who reported experiencing discomfort on campus due to comments about their race. (Source: LSU Campus Climate Survey via The Advocate)