Op-Ed: We Committed to Paying Our Staff More Than a Living Wage. Your Nonprofit Should Do the Same.
This op-ed was originally published by the Chronicle of Philanthropy. It is reprinted here with permission.
The rally outside New York City Hall was a familiar scene of speakers and placards decrying the injustice of near-poverty-level wages. The hundreds of workers gathered that day in March demanded a minimum wage of $21 per hour and a 6 percent cost-of-living adjustment — not unreasonable given the cost of living there.
What made this rally different was that the workers were not protesting Amazon or other large corporations. They were nonprofit workers seeking better pay from the food pantries, domestic-violence shelters, and foster-care groups they serve.
In New York State, human-service workers earn only 70 percent of what their counterparts at government agencies are paid — not enough to survive in normal times, let alone during a period of escalating inflation. Given the demographics of the state’s human-service workers — 66 percent women and 68 percent people of color — low nonprofit wages are fueling New York’s poverty and inequality.
The story of low wages for nonprofit employees is not unique to New York. Nationally, nonprofits employ about 10 percent of the entire private workforce. That’s 12 million paid workers — nearly as many …
I’m thrilled to share that the Center for Progressive Reform features prominently in the pages of a forthcoming anthology of last year’s best writing on environmental law.
Three of five articles selected for inclusion in the 2022 edition of the anthology were written or co-written by our esteemed Member Scholars — law professors who generously donate their time and expertise to help us achieve our mission to create a more responsive and inclusive government, a healthier environment, and a just society. A fourth article was authored by a Member Scholar who is on leave from the center while serving in the Biden administration.
The competition was fierce. Every year, leading environmental law professors and practitioners review hundreds of articles in the previous year’s law review literature — on topics ranging from land use and development to energy and natural resources — and select the best of the …
This blog post is the third in a series outlining the Center for Progressive Reform's strategic direction. We previously published "Strengthening the 4th Branch of Government" and "A Turning Point on Climate."
I'm hopeful the recent disco revival won't last but that other resurging movements of the 1960s and '70s will. That era saw the birth and explosive growth of the modern environmental movement alongside other sweeping actions for peace and equality.
Public pressure led to critical environmental laws that continue to protect our natural resources and our health and safety. In 1970, Congress created the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and enacted the Clean Air Act, which authorizes the federal government to limit air pollution, and the Occupational Safety and Health Act, which established the first nationwide program to protect workers from on-the-job harm. Two years later came passage of the Clean …
We're sad to share the news that long-time Center for Progressive Reform (CPR) Member Scholar Dale Goble passed away at his home on April 14. Scholars and staff alike appreciated his warm presence at our scholars' meetings, and he brought a wealth of knowledge to the fields of wildlife and conservation law.
Center Vice President Sid Shapiro said, "When the founders of CPR were reaching out to the nation's leading progressive scholars, we were so pleased that Dale agreed to join. His humanity, his dedication to protecting public lands and wildlife, and his participation in CPR will be sorely missed."
Board Member Rob Glicksman added, "Dale was a leader in natural resources management and wildlife law. At a time when interdisciplinary work did not have the cache that it does now, Dale worked closely with scientists in advocating effective approaches to protecting the nation's precious natural …
This blog post is the second in a series outlining the Center for Progressive Reform’s new strategic direction. We published "A Turning Point on Climate" in October.
Watch a 2-minute video from James Goodwin as he explains the regulatory system in an approachable and lighthearted way.
Over the last four decades, small government ideologues have waged a coordinated attack against government. The strategy has paid off: Public approval ratings of all three branches of government are at all-time lows.
Nevertheless, the federal government still manages to get things done on a day-to-day basis, and that is primarily due to the so-called 4th branch of government — the administrative and regulatory state that employs 2 million workers, invests trillions of dollars each year on things like air pollution monitoring and cutting-edge clean energy research, and makes rules that protect us all.
This is not to say …
Our society has finally reached a turning point on climate.
I’m not referring to the “point of irreversibility” about which the United Nations warns us: In nine short years, the cascading impacts of climate change will trigger more and greater impacts — to the point of no return.
Rather, we have reached the turning point of political will for climate action. There is no going back to climate passivity or denialism. Choosing to electrify and greenify is a progressive agenda, a mainstream agenda, and an industry agenda — though all of these agendas differ.
Reconciling these interests, Congress will pass one, if not two, major spending bills this fall, which would invest as much as $750 billion in climate investments to decarbonize, electrify, and build resilient infrastructure. This achievement is not the Green New Deal, nor the full vision of the Sunrise Movement, but it borrows parts from …
New dynamics are shaping the labor market, labor organizing and labor policies
Economists are scratching their heads furiously — why is there a labor shortage amidst high unemployment? Everywhere employers are posting “Help Wanted” signs but still face shortage of workers. Construction projects are stymied, retail shops are half-staffed and produce rots in the fields all because of a lack of workers. There is no fresh supply of “essential workers” who are surging into the job market.
The conservative view, that people don’t want to work and that the unemployment benefits are a disincentive, has been debunked by the evidence. An academic study analyzed the effect of cutting unemployment benefits (done in 26 states which are all but one led by Republican governors). On employment rates, the impact was negligible — only 7 of 8 people who were dropped from unemployment rolls actually gained jobs. But for households …
President Joe Biden is breaking the status quo: He has pledged to write a new chapter in America's leadership on climate change. Unlike any other president, he has outlined specific and aggressive targets to reduce carbon emissions and has backed them up with a $2 trillion plan to fight climate change.
In the meantime, our climate continues to change rapidly and dramatically, raising the ever more urgent question: Will the politics of climate change shift in time to curb its worst effects?
We think it will.
First, low-income people of color are leading a growing movement for environmental justice.
Communities along Georgia's coast, including Tybee Island, Brunswick and Savannah, are feeling the ravages of climate change — from wildfires to high energy prices to coastal erosion — and residents are agitating for change. Fortunately, Georgia enjoys significant wind potential off its coast, according to a new study by Environment …
As a progressive think tank, our mission is to leverage existing law and influence new policy to better protect people and our planet. To do this, we must understand and respond to the social movements of the day, with one foot immersed in the communities and lands we strive to protect and the other in government process and policy.
Alejandro Camacho, Sekita Grant, and Ajulo Othow are leaders in their respective fields, and they bring critical voices and perspectives to our organization. Among other experiences, they’ve worked with conservation and frontline communities on the West Coast, in Puerto Rico and in the Southeast. As CPR moves into its third decade, their rich set of experiences in and connections to the movements for good, effective governance and social justice are exactly what we need to move the needle of change forward.
Alejandro Camacho is a law professor …
It’s heartening to see that not all of the noise generated by the 2020 presidential campaign has dissipated in these post-election times.
President Biden pledged last week to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent by 2030 — making good on a big campaign promise and possibly nudging some of us out of the still-skeptical category.
When I think about climate, I think about equity. Low-income people spend more of their paychecks on energy and transportation costs. Those sweet rebates on electric vehicles? They don’t go to people who can’t afford a new car, much less an electric one. As CPR Member Scholar Maxine Burkett notes, environmental degradation creates “sacrifice zones” — and communities of color pay the price. We simply cannot address climate change without addressing racism, and environmental racism in particular.
When I think about climate, I also think about jobs. Jobs that don …
