Daily Digest – January 16: Internet Access is the Next Tennessee Valley Authority
January 16, 2015
Roosevelt First is our weekday morning email featuring the Daily Digest.
There will be no new Daily Digest on Monday, January 19 in observance of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. The Daily Digest will return on Tuesday, January 20.
Barack Obama: The FDR of Internet Access? (Moyers & Company)
Roosevelt Institute Fellow Susan Crawford compares the president’s recent push for fiber-optic Internet access to FDR’s work on electricity during the New Deal.
Obama Tells Agencies to Advance Sick Leave For Feds’ New Children (WaPo)
Joe Davidson reports that the sick leave would be paired with paid administrative leave, so that federal employees with a new child could have parental leave as well as sick time to follow.
Trying to Solve the Great Wage Slowdown (NYT)
David Leonhardt looks at a new report that considers what could get wages rising again. It focuses in particular on Canada and Australia, countries similar to the U.S. that have seen wage growth.
How Elizabeth Warren Is Yanking Hillary Clinton to the Left (TIME)
Rana Foroohar says that Senator Warren is already shifting the conversation on economics, citing a new report on wages and the middle class from relatively centrist Larry Summers as proof.
Home Care Workers Denied the Right to Make Minimum Wage and Overtime (ThinkProgress)
Bryce Covert reports on a ruling that has overturned a 2013 Department of Labor rule change on the “companionship exception,” which allows home care workers to be paid sub-minimum wages.
New on Next New Deal
A Battle Map for the Republican War Against Dodd-Frank
Roosevelt Institute Fellow Mike Konczal looks at the three fronts in this surprisingly sophisticated GOP war: guerilla deregulation, administrative siege, and reactionary rhetoric.
The Van Hollen Plan Takes on Soaring CEO Pay: A Debate We Need to Have
Roosevelt Institute Fellow Susan Holmberg points out that Rep. Van Hollen’s plan has great political messaging around CEO pay, though it doesn’t fully close the performance pay loophole.
For Now, Excitement of Free Community College Program Raises Lots of Questions
David Bevevino, a Campus Network alumnus who now researches community college best practices, poses questions about how schools will implement this program, and what extraneous costs it might have.