It is
time for all Hoosier progressives to organize pressure on the state legislature
and to support political candidates for all offices who are working on policies
to end hunger, egregious economic inequality, inadequate health care, limited
child support, inadequate funding for public education, attacks on unions, and,
in sum, to support economic justice as a human right. As the United Way ALICE
reports indicate Indiana government has been moving in the wrong direction for
years; privileging the wealthy and powerful at the expense of the majority of
Hoosiers. As a recent report said:
"In
2018, 37% of Indiana’s 2,592,262 households still struggled to make ends meet.
11% of households were vulnerable to an economic disruption, like the COVID-19
crisis, and on the brink of the ALICE threshold."
From:
https://iuw.org/alice/
*************************************************************************
(The essay on the Indiana political economy below was posted
in February, 2017. The history is important and not much has changed for
working families since then.)
Social and Economic Wellbeing Survey Shows No Progress
A flurry of newspaper stories appeared the first week of February in The
Wall Street Journal and several Indiana newspapers reporting on data
from a “health and wellness” national survey about the performance of the 50
states. Indiana according to several measures was ranked as the fourth “worst
state” in the country. The national survey consisted of data from 177,281
people interviewed by the Gallup and Healthways organizations. Data included
responses to questions about feelings of community support and pride, physical
health, and financial security.
According to the survey The Times of Northwest
Indiana, (February 8, 2017) reported, “31.3 percent of Indiana
residents are obese, 30.6 smoke, and 29.4 percent don’t exercise at all.” Only
24.9 percent of the population has a bachelor’s degree (one of the lowest
percentages of any state). The NWIT article indicated that median
household income of Hoosiers was $5,000 less than the national median income.
As The Wall Street Journal put it: “Indiana is one of just a
handful of states to rank worse in every category of well-being--sense of
purpose, social life, financial health, community pride, and physical
fitness--than most other states…” On all these measures combined
Indiana’s rank was only ahead of Oklahoma, Kentucky, and West Virginia.
Previous Data on the Indiana Economy
The centerpiece of Indiana public policy since 2004 has been
corporate and individual tax cuts and reduced budgets for education, health
care, and other public services. Indiana was one of the first states to begin
the privatization of the public sector, including transferring educational
funds from public to charter schools. It established a voucher system to
encourage parents to send their children to private schools. Also Indiana sold
public roads; privatized public services; and recruited controversial
corporations such as Duke Power to support research at the state’s flagship
research universities. Meanwhile the manufacturing base of the state shifted
from higher paying and unionized industrial labor (automobiles, steel, and
durable goods) to lower paying service jobs and non-union work such as at the
Amazon distribution center.
The narrative about Indiana economic growth presented by the
former Governor Mike Pence varied greatly from data gathered between 2012 and
2014. For example, between 2013 and 2014, despite enticements to business,
Indiana grew at a 0.4 percent pace while the nation at large experienced 2.2
percent growth.
Indiana’s economy historically was based on manufacturing
but has experienced declines since the 1980s (with only modest increases in
recent years). However, newer manufacturing between 2014 and 2016
has been mostly in low-wage non-unionized sectors. For
example, the Indiana Institute for Working Families reported on data from a
study of work and poverty in Marion County, which includes the state’s largest
city, Indianapolis. Four of five of the largest growing industries
in the county paid wages at or below family sustainability ($798 per week for a
family of three) and individual and household wages declined significantly
between 2008 and 2012 (Derek Thomas, “Inequality in Indy - A Rising Problem
With Ready Solutions,” August 13, 2014, (www.iiwf.blogspot.com).
Further, Thomas quoted a U.S. Conference of Mayors’ report
on wages and income: “…wage inequality grew twice as rapidly in the
Indianapolis metro area as in the rest of the nation since the recession.” This
is so because new jobs created paid less on average than the jobs that were
lost since the recession started.
Thomas pointed out that the mayors’ report had several
concrete proposals that could address declining real wages and stimulate job
growth. These included “raising the minimum wage, strengthening the Earned
Income Tax Credit, public programs to retrain displaced workers,” and developing
universal pre-kindergarten and programs to rebuild the state’s crumbling
infrastructure. They may have added that declining real wages also relates to
attacks on unions in both the private and public sectors and the dramatic
reduction in public sector employment.
Thomas recommended in 2012 that Indianapolis (and Indiana)
should have taken these data seriously because in Marion County “poverty is
still rising, the minimum wage is less than half of what it takes for a
single-mother with an infant to be economically self-sufficient; 47 percent of
workers do not have access to a paid sick day from work, and a full 32 percent
are at or below 150 percent of the federal poverty guidelines ($29,685 for a
family of three).”
More recently, November 10, 2014, the Indiana Association of
United Ways issued a 250 page report on the state called the “Study of
Financial Hardship.” The study, parallel to similar studies in five other
states and prepared by a research team at Rutgers University, introduced the concept
of Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed or (ALICE). ALICE
refers to households with incomes that are above the poverty rate but below
“the basic cost of living.” The startling data revealed that:
-a third of Hoosier households cannot afford adequate
housing, food, health care, child care, and transportation.
-specifically, 14 percent of households are below the
poverty line and 23 percent above poverty but below the threshold out of ALICE,
or earning enough to provide for the basic cost of living.
-570,000 households are within the ALICE status and 353,000
below the poverty line.
-over 21 percent of households in every Indiana county are
above poverty but below the capacity to provide for basic sustenance.
Referring to those within the ALICE category of wage earners
who have struggled to survive but earn less than what it takes to meet basic
needs, Kathy Ertel, Board Chairperson of Indiana Association of United Ways
said: “ALICE is our child care worker, our retail clerk, the person who cares for
our grandparents, and our delivery driver” (Roger L. Frick, “Groundbreaking
Study Reveals 37% of Hoosier Households Struggle With the Basics,” Indiana
Association of United Ways, November 10, 2014, Roger.Frick@iauw.org).
Assessing these recent studies and the 2017 report cited at
the outset leads to the conclusion that an evaluation of the current state of
the Indiana economy depends upon where one is located in terms of economic,
political, or professional position. Those Indiana men, women, and children who
come from the 37 percent of households who earn less, at, or slightly above the
poverty line probably have a negative view of their futures. For them, the tax
breaks for the rich and the austerity policies for the poor are not
positive.
Indiana Politics
Perhaps the starkest fact to note in reference to the
growing economic insecurity in the state of Indiana over time is that in 1970
forty percent of Hoosier workers were in unions, then the state with the third
highest union density. By the dawn of the second decade of the twenty-first
century only 11 percent of workers were in trade unions. Recent legislation has
disadvantaged Hoosier workers including passage of a Right to Work law and
repeal of the state version of prevailing wage. The Mitch Daniels/Mike Pence
administrations (2004-2016) have used charter schools and vouchers to weaken
teachers' unions. In addition, in his first day in office in January, 2004,
newly elected Governor Mitch Daniels signed an executive order abolishing the
right of state employees to form unions.
In 2005 the Indiana state government (legislature and
governor) passed the first and most extreme voter identification law. Voters
were required to secure voter identification photos. Michael Macdonald a
University of Florida political scientist estimated that requiring voter IDs
reduces voter participation by 4-5 percent, hitting the poor and elderly the
hardest. In addition, Indiana law ended voter registration in the state one
month before election day. And polls close at 6 p.m. election day, among the
earliest closing times in the country. Finally, requests for absentee ballots
require written excuses.
Republican control of the executive and both legislative
branches led to redistricting which further empowered Republicans and weakened
not only Democrats but the young and old and the African American community.
Nine solidly Republican congressional districts were drawn in
2000. In 2014, of 125 state legislative seats up for election, 69
were uncontested. 2014 Indiana voter turnout was 28 percent, the
lowest state turnout in the country. The Governor’s office has been held by
Republicans since 2004 and Republicans have had majorities in both legislative
bodies since 2010, when statewide redistricting was implemented.
Traditionally when Democrats were in the Governor’s mansion
and/or controlled a branch of the legislature, they too tended to support
neoliberal economic policies, but less draconian, and had been more moderate on
social policy questions. In recent years, many legislators and the two most
recent governors have been friends of or received support from the American
Legislative Exchange Council (or ALEC) funded by major corporations and the
Koch brothers.
With ALEC money, some active Tea Party organizations, the
growth of rightwing Republican power, and centrist Democrats, Indiana
government has been able to initiate some of the most regressive policies in
reference to voting rights, education, taxing, and deregulation in the country.
And as the data above suggests, the political economy of Indiana has increased
the suffering of the vast majority of working families in the state. Other data
suggests that the quality of health care, education, the environment, and
transportation have declined as well.
The political picture is made more complicated by the fact
that Indiana is really “three states.” The Northwest corridor, including Gary
and Hammond, are cities which have experienced extreme deindustrialization,
white flight, and vastly increased poverty. Political activists from the area
look to greater Chicago for their political inspiration and organizational
involvement. Democratic parties are strong in these areas but voter participation
is very low.
Central Indiana includes a broad swath of territory with
small cities and towns and the largest city in the state, Indianapolis. Much of
the area is Republican, many counties have significant numbers of families in
poverty, and some smaller cities have pockets of relative wealth. Democrats
hold some city offices but the area is predominantly Republican.
The southern part of the state, south of Indianapolis, in
terms of income, political culture, and history resembles its southern neighbor
Kentucky, more than the northern parts of the state. The state of Indiana was
the northern home of the twentieth century version of the Ku Klux Klan. In the
1920s, the KKK controlled Indiana state government. That reality, the
institutionalized presence of overt racism, remains an aspect of Hoosier
history that may still affect state politics.
In
sum, the working people of Indiana enter the coming period with little economic
hope, a politics of red state dominance, and the number two person in the White
House who bears some responsibility for the economics and politics left behind.
Social change in Indiana, as with the nation at large, will require a vibrant,
active progressive program in the electoral arena, the 2018 (now 2022) elections for
example, at the same time that mass movements direct their attention to
improving the lives of the 99 percent.