Recent editorials from Louisiana newspapers:
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Jan. 8
The (Lake Charles) American Press on the minimum wage:
The increasing cost of living and the fact a vast majority of Louisiana residents favor a higher minimum wage justifies an increase in the existing $7.25 minimum, but it isn’t likely to happen. State legislators have rejected higher minimum wage bills over the last four years, and a newly elected and more conservative Republican lawmaking branch is expected to do it again.
Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards has said he will push for a higher minimum wage and equal pay for women, another proposal that has gone nowhere. Jan Moller, executive director of the Louisiana Budget Project, which advocates for low-income Louisianans, is more optimistic.
“I don’t want to predict what the new group of legislators are going to do,” he told the Louisiana Radio Network. “I have heard that they are more conservative maybe, but they are also brand new and, hopefully, they are going to take a fresh look at this issue.”
The minimum wage was first introduced in 1938 at 25 cents per hour. It has been increased 22 times since then. A 2019 CNBC survey found that 60% of those contacted favored raising the minimum to $15 per hour.
The $7.25 federal minimum wage hasn’t been increased since 2009, and it amounts to only $15,080 annually. Although 24 states have increased their minimum wages for 2020, 21 others, including Louisiana, are still at $7.25.
Arkansas has increased its minimum wage from $9.25 per hour to $10 per hour, but Mississippi and Texas, two other neighboring states, are still at $7.25. The 2020 minimum is $15 per hour in the District of Columbia, $13.50 in Washington state, $13 in California, $12.75 in Massachusetts and $12 in Arizona, Colorado and Maine.
Edwards wants to increase the minimum to $9 per hour, which Moller said is a start, but still below an adequate living wage for a full-time worker. Moller said it should be $10 or $12, but he’d like to see it go to $15.
Supporters of raising the minimum wage say it improves worker productivity, reduces employee turnover and absenteeism and boosts the economy because it generates increased consumer demand.
Business interests continue to be the major opponents of raising the minimum wage. They insist it kills jobs and hurts a company’s bottom line. The Louisiana Association of Business and Industry and the National Federation of Independent Businesses lobbied hard to elect more conservative and business-friendly legislators.
Although Louisiana isn’t likely to increase the minimum wage anytime soon, debate over the issue is still expected to be an annual affair.
Online: https://www.americanpress.com/
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Jan. 8
The Advocate on expanding Medicaid in the state:
On one of the really bad lists, Louisiana is now ahead of the game: Our state is below the national average on the number of people without health insurance.
That’s a real accomplishment and one that the outgoing head of the Department of Health, New Orleans physician Rebekah Gee, can be rightfully proud of.
Gee was under fire from the beginning of her tenure because she supported abortion rights. The governor, most of the Legislature and Republican-oriented groups like the Louisiana Family Forum were of the opposite view on that issue.
But the man who calls the shots, Gov. John Bel Edwards, refused to buckle under pressure and directed her to head the expansion of Medicaid insurance for the working poor.
Hundreds of thousands of families now have access to primary care doctors. Lifesaving procedures have been performed. Even conservative business groups often hostile to Edwards have had to recognize that the health care dollars flowing into Louisiana from the U.S. Treasury have been good for the economy, particularly endangered hospitals in rural areas where large numbers of patients work in low-wage jobs.
Those who blindly blocked Medicaid expansion during the terms of former Gov. Bobby Jindal have some nerve criticizing Gee, who worked with the governor to get Louisiana families expanded health options, for management issues with the program.
Not only was the old administration’s policy wrong, but its Jindal-era management procedures were hung around Gee’s neck by a factious political opposition. It was under Gee’s watch that Medicaid’s state administration much more aggressively checked eligibility for the program.
The ever-provocative U.S. Sen. John N. Kennedy, R-Madisonville, called upon her to resign, saying unfairly that she was oblivious to abuse of tax dollars. He and other critics are of the magic wand school of public administration, assuming that a vast public-private program, governed by federal regulations, can be run like a dime store with a clerk stopping a kid with a pilfered candy bar.
Medicaid is a huge program, and it will never be run without a single case of providers miscoding the files, or some beneficiaries out of many thousands abusing the rules by intent or neglect. Gee improved the system.
In fact, Gee should be praised for a significant innovation in purchasing - the “Netflix” model implemented to buy generic medications for the highly contagious Hepatitis C. It is a better way to approach the suppression of a dangerous and infectious ailment.
Gee leaves for another job at the end of the month with national praise for her Hep C initiative. But the beneficiaries of her tenure are less grand than those who dwell in national policy forums. They are in the households of poorly paid workers who have often had to live with pain because their income wouldn’t pay for a doctor, or who had to clog the emergency rooms to get care because there was no system to give them another place to go.
Online: https://www.theadvocate.com
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Jan. 3
The Houma Courier on helping out the homeless:
Homelessness is a complicated problem that has to be addressed from various angles — housing, education, job training, mental health care and more.
But an admirable new program is reaching out to homeless people in Houma to help serve one immediate need: hunger.
Lawrence DeHart, director of Terrebonne Churches’ United’s Good Samaritan Food Bank on Magnolia Street, estimates there are 250-300 homeless people in Houma on any given day. On Christmas, some of the food bank’s volunteers visited known spots where homeless people congregate to deliver a special holiday dinner.
The pantry has started a new initiative and dubbed Thursday its homeless day, dedicating two to three hours to giving out 10-meal packages to those people weekly. The volunteers served at least 175 people last year. The donations have allowed those who receive the packages to use their limited money for other needs, like paying for gas, medication or emergency car maintenance. Volunteers have also been able to connect homeless people with nonprofits that can provide other services.
Volunteers told The Courier and Daily Comet, in a story published Wednesday, that they learned something during the effort that everyone in Terrebonne and Lafourche ought to be more aware of. Many said their eyes were opened by the number of people who are homeless within our community and the difficult circumstances they endure day to day.
And here is where you — or anyone — can help.
Organizers say they want to do more to reach Houma’s homeless. Sometimes, homeless people use the sink at the food bank to wash up, and volunteers would like to install a shower. The pantry is also looking for churches or charities that can help provide or deliver boxes of food, expanding the program’s range to include communities outside Houma. And the pantry always needs food, money and more volunteers.
If you can get involved, visit the pantry at 254 Magnolia St. or call 851-5523.
Online: https://www.houmatoday.com/
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