Author: Mary Pat Campbell

Covid-19 Isn’t the Only Thing Shortening American Lives

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-02-23/covid-19-isn-t-the-only-thing-shortening-american-lives

Graphic:

Excerpt:

The 2020 life expectancy numbers also underscore longer-term health challenges that were already alarming. For two to three decades, life expectancy has been improving much more rapidly for higher earners than for lower earners, and 2020 has probably made these gaps worse. The one bright spot in the differential trends before the pandemic had been a narrowing of racial differences. These new estimates show a dramatic reversal of that hopeful pattern. From the early 1990s to 2016, the racial gap in life expectancy for males at birth shrunk from more than 8 years to about 4.5. During the first half of 2020, it widened to more than 7 years.

…..

On the contrary, 2020 mortality data indicate that death rates from non-Covid causes rose, despite the economic recession. More Americans than expected died from diabetes, high blood pressure and pneumonia. Some of these deaths may have been misreported, and actually caused by Covid. But a large number may also reflect the challenges in providing non-Covid health care during the past year, as people have avoided hospitals, and government mandates have restricted discretionary medical procedures. The pandemic will provide hard lessons on which types of medical care truly improve health, and which ones can be safely skipped or delayed.

Author(s): Peter R. Orszag

Publication Date: 23 February 2021

Publication Site: Bloomberg

Illinois Speaker Welch admits ‘folks don’t trust us,’ yet calls for redo of progressive income tax hike – Wirepoints

Mary Pat Campbell
Illinois Speaker Welch admits ‘folks don’t trust us,’ yet calls for redo of progressive income tax hike – Wirepoints

Graphic:

Excerpt:

Illinoisans who thought new House Speaker Chris Welch might change the direction Illinois is headed in just got a dose of reality. Welch recently said he wants Illinois to have a second go at a progressive tax scheme, this time committing the tax hike proceeds to pensions. Illinoisans rejected Gov. Pritzker’s first attempt, he said, because they didn’t know where the tax hike dollars would go. “…folks don’t trust us,” Welch said. 

Welch is right about the trust factor, but he’s wrong to think Illinoisans will suddenly approve a tax hike just because the legislature promises to funnel the new revenues to pensions. They know it’s unlikely politicians will keep their promise. And Illinoisans know the state’s unreformed pensions are a corrupted mess – that they’d be throwing good money after bad.

Author(s): Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner

Publication Date: 2 March 2021

Publication Site: Wirepoints

Editorial: The dangers of an oversized stimulus package and a lesson from Illinois — yes, Illinois!

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/editorials/ct-editorial-stimulus-payments-1400-economy-20210210-3jtgubimtjgi5deaigdplzilpe-story.html#new_tab

Excerpt:

Look at Illinois, of all places. Next week, Gov. J.B. Pritzker plans to introduce his budget for the next fiscal year. While the details are sketchy, his office estimates the state will need to close a $3 billion deficit, less than the $5.5 billion his office originally estimated. A stronger than expected economy is partly due the credit. While closing a $3 billion hole is not great news, we’ll take what we can get around here.

Yet, rather than take into account rosier economic pictures states like Illinois are projecting, Democrats in Washington are pressing for another big spending bill, even as they juggle the other big news of the week, the start of former President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial in the Senate. They insist an undersized response during the Great Recession slowed that recovery. But keep in mind during that far worse slump, President Barack Obama’s stimulus program had a price tag around $800 billion. Since the pandemic hit, by contrast, Congress has responded with $4 trillion in new outlays.

Does that sound like “too little?” More than $1 trillion of that sum has not even been spent yet, according to the Committee For a Responsible Federal Budget.

Author(s): Editorial board

Publication Date: 10 February 2021

Publication Site: Chicago Tribune

Speaker Emanuel ‘Chris’ Welch wants a graduated income tax do-over — this time tied to pension funding

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.chicagotribune.com/politics/ct-chris-welch-speaker-graduated-income-tax-illinois-20210224-fuzpz3fznrdwzpp7lhnhdlflue-story.html

Excerpt:

New Democratic House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch suggested Wednesday that the state should again ask voters to approve a graduated-rate income tax, but this time target the new money toward paying down Illinois’ massive pension debt.

The call for a do-over came after voters in November overwhelmingly rejected Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s graduated income tax proposal. Opponents, including Republicans and business leaders, used distrust of Springfield to argue for keeping the state constitution’s flat tax requirement.

Author(s): DAN PETRELLA

Publication Date: 24 February 2021

Publication Site: Chicago Tribune

Unemployment Scammer Spills Secrets: Illinois Easy Target Because ‘They Don’t Verify Anything’

Mary Pat Campbell
Unemployment Scammer Spills Secrets: Illinois Easy Target Because ‘They Don’t Verify Anything’

Excerpt:

“Over 50% of the claims that we receive in our office are fraudulent claims,” Eckstein said. Before the pandemic he said it was “Less than 1%.”

The bogus claims Eckstein sees are just a fraction of the fraud. The Illinois Department of Employment Security reported, between March 2020 and January 2021, it had stopped close to one million fraudulent claims.

Author(s): Dorothy Tucker and Carol Thompson

Date Accessed: 2 March 2021

Publication Site: CBS Chicago

Government sets out plans to raise normal minimum pensions age to 57 by 2028

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.professionalpensions.com/news/4027084/government-sets-plans-raise-normal-minimum-pensions-age-57-2028

Excerpt:

At present, people aged 55 can access their retirement funds but the age limit is likely to increase by two years under plans laid out by the Treasury.

The Treasury consultation said the government intended to legislate to increase the normal minimum pension age to age 57 on 6 April 2028.

Author(s): Jenna Brown

Publication Date: 11 February 2021

Publication Site: Professional Pensions

Elizabeth Warren Still Wants a Wealth Tax. It Still Won’t Work.

Mary Pat Campbell
Elizabeth Warren Still Wants a Wealth Tax. It Still Won’t Work.

Excerpt:

Warren is spending this week talking up her “Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act.” It’s essentially a refreshed version of the same idea she proposed during her failed bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. The current measure, like the old one, would tax the net worth of American households with more than $50 million in assets to the tune of 2 percent annually, with an additional 1 percent tax for households worth more than $1 billion. Warren favored the wealth tax in 2019 when the economy was generally doing pretty well. But now, she says, it’s needed “because of the changes in this country under the pandemic.”

….

Yellen is right, by the way, that Warren’s plan would have “implementation problems.” That’s a polite way of saying it wouldn’t work. The wealthy tend to have difficult-to-value assets, and forcing the IRS to value them every year in order to assess the tax would, in the words of one tax expert, be an “administrative nightmare.” 

Author(s): Peter Suderman

Publication Date: 2 March 2021

Publication Site: Reason

Democrats Demand Bureaucrats Regulate Bureaus More Heavily

Mary Pat Campbell
Democrats Demand Bureaucrats Regulate Bureaus More Heavily

Excerpt:

Sens. Blumenthal, Bob Casey (D–Penn.), and Amy Klobuchar (D–Minn.) introduced the STURDY Act last Thursday. The legislation would require the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) to develop more rigorous standards for dressers and other free-standing “clothing storage units” to prevent them from tipping over.

Deaths from falling furniture have attracted increased attention recently. According to the CPSC, which has released a series of reports on these incidents, 571 people, including 451 children, have died in the last 20 years from accidents involving unstable TVs, furniture, and appliances.

Most of these fatalities involved either falling TVs or falling furniture. Incidents involving only a tipped-over dresser or bureau, the subject of the STURDY Act, have produced 115 deaths in two decades.

Author(s): CHRISTIAN BRITSCHGI

Publication Date: 1 March 2021

Publication Site: Reason

Junk Has Never Been So Valued

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/junk-has-never-been-so-valued-11612915150

Excerpt:

The Federal Reserve has pushed down long-term interest rates by buying bonds and committed to keep short-term interest rates at near zero through 2023. While the central bank’s interventions were needed in March, it continued to buy corporate bonds well into the summer when markets didn’t need the support.

Chairman Jerome Powell last month reassured investors that the Fed won’t take away its market support until the economy makes “substantial further progress” toward inflation above 2% and maximum employment. The rush into high-yield corporate and municipal debt has since accelerated with yields dropping due to great demand.

Junk-rated Chicago Public Schools and the city of Detroit recently floated bonds yielding less than 2%. Spreads with the AAA muni-bond benchmark have collapsed. The sages at BlackRock last month recommended high-yield munis for their “diversification benefits” and “high levels of income” and saw “significant value” in Puerto Rican bonds.

Author(s): Editorial board

Publication Date: 9 February 2021

Publication Site: Wall Street Journal

Dolly Parton gets first dose of COVID-19 vaccine she helped fund

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://abc11.com/10383614/

Excerpt:

Dolly Parton has received her first shot of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine she helped fund with a $1 million donation to Vanderbilt University last year.

Parton chronicled the vaccination process in a video posted Tuesday to social media. In it, she sang a parody of her hit song “Jolene” with new lyrics imploring people to get vaccinated.

“Vaccine, vaccine, vaccine, vaccine,” she sang in the famous tune. “I’m begging of you please don’t hesitate.”

Publication Date: 2 March 2021

Publication Site: ABC 11 Eyewitness News

Behind the maps

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://koenvandeneeckhout.medium.com/behind-the-maps-66d6377b8644

Graphic:

Excerpt:

Data: I don’t know how the idea popped into my head, but I always wanted to do something with 🚩 country flags, and the color schemes they use. I had found a suitable set of all the countries’ flags in .svg format, but was struggling to extract specific colors from them. Googling around I stumbled upon the Image Color Summarizer, which partly did what I was looking for, but not entirely. I was saved when I found out that Martin Krzywinski, creator of the tool, had many other tools and examples on his mindblowing website — including an overview of all the colors in all of the different flags! 🤯 The most difficult part left to do was defining when a color was ‘red’ — #FF0000 is obviously red, but what about #D62612 (in the Bulgarian flag)? Or #FBDE4A (in the flag of Congo-Brazzaville)? This was done more or less manually by going through the entire list and quickly verifying any colours for which I had doubts.

Author(s): Koen Van den Eeckhout

Publication Date: 6 January 2021

Publication Site: Koen Van den Eeckhout

Only One U.S. State Has Vaccinated 10% of Its Black Population: Covid-19 Tracker

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/covid-vaccine-tracker-global-distribution/us-vaccine-demographics.html

Graphic:

Excerpt:

Some of the disparities are a result of who has approval to get shots so far. The elderly are more likely to be White, while the Hispanic population skews young and is less likely to work in hospitals and nursing care, groups targeted in the earliest phases of vaccine distribution.

Other disparities are a result of lower uptake rates among certain groups. Some health-care settings have reported that it’s taking longer to build up trust with communities of color, particularly Black people, who are wary of a medical establishment that for centuries has ignored and mistreated them. Anti-vaxx misinformation campaigns are targeting the already hesitant, including women and Black people. In addition, those with fewer resources may not be able to navigate the notoriously buggy and overloaded online sign-up systems. Meanwhile, others with connections, time, and money can snap up open slots.

Publication Date: 24 February 2021 (last updated)

Publication Site: Bloomberg