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What does the Carbon Pollution Accountability Act do?

By: Dimitri Groce, Community Research Fellow

As a result of climate change, our region can expect increased wildfires, extreme weather and heat waves, which will have a disproportionate impact on people of color and people with lower incomes.

Since our last post, we have advocated with leaders committed to economic and racial justice to ensure tangible benefits for people of color and people with lower incomes from the Governor’s Carbon Pollution Accountability Act (CPAA). Below, we break down exactly what the CPAA does and what it means for people with low-incomes and people of color.

First – the bill sets a limit on carbon pollution and targets big polluters in Washington State. In order to meet this limit, industries that pollute more than twenty-five thousand metric tons of carbon dioxide or more per year will bid on emission “allowances”. The amount of allowances a facility may have per auction will be capped, and the prices of the allowances will gradually increase every year until 2026. The bill prohibits free allowances ensuring that every big polluter participates in an effort to reduce our regions carbon pollution.

What’s the specific benefit for communities of color and people with lower incomes? In addition to reducing carbon pollution, the state will generate $1 billion in revenue from these auctions, which will be used to create clean energy jobs, invest in education, fund more affordable housing, and fund working families tax rebate.

Most importantly for local communities most impacted by climate change, the bill includes a provision for “hotspot” mapping that will show how the disproportional impacts of environmental degradation intersects with communities of color and communities with lower incomes. Additionally, the CPAA creates an Economic Justice and Environmental Equity advisory committee, which allows leaders who are the most impacted by pollution to monitor the CPAA and advise the Department of Ecology on how to spend revenue, creating a pathway for the solutions to climate change to be informed by and benefit the communities most impacted.

Four Ways to Incorporate Justice into the Environmental Movement

By Nicole Vallestero Keenan, Puget Sound Sage and Ellicott Dandy, One America

Climate change is one of the biggest threats to social, economic and racial equity. Our jobs, our health, and the communities where we live are threatened by climate change, and we can expect more severe heat waves, flooding, extreme weather events, food scarcity, and the increased spread of disease to have the most direct impact on low-income communities and people of color. Although it is often overlooked, addressing environmental inequality is an essential component to moving strong policies that make our environment healthier for everyone. Why? In part it’s about doing what’s right, but it’s also necessary.

Research, by environmental justice organization Green for All, shows that people of color are more likely to care deeply about the environment. As in the rest of the nation, the number of people of color living in Washington State is growing. Census data shows that population growth rates among black, Latino, and API communities outpaces the growth of white communities, and the trend is predicted to continue. As the environmental movement considers strong policies for healthier people and a healthier planet, it must craft policies that serve the interests of the people most impacted, and the people whose voting base is growing.

Even though there is a growing population of people of color in Washington, who are likely to support environmental sustainability, a recent report from Green 2.0, finds that organizations at the forefront of the environmental movement are ill-equipped to engage and empower people of color in their movement. Green 2.0 finds environmental government agencies, foundations, and NGOs are often guilty of unconscious bias, apathy in addressing diversity, and of inadvertently maintaining a “green ceiling” such that the percentage of people of color employees has not grown in decades.

In this context, many of Washington’s environmental organizations are searching for ways reverse the trend found by Green 2.0 and better engage with communities of color. One key element to better engage with communities of color is to incorporate social justice into their work.

Here are four ways mainstream environmental organizations can better incorporate justice into the environmental movement:

Re-think communications: As long-time environmental activist Gail Swanson says: “You can’t enlist all humanity if you only speak to half of the population.” Communications experts in environmental organizations know they have to change the way they talk about the environment to be more relevant to people’s every-day lives, and many have taken important steps to talk about health, safety and jobs. However, communications is just one step to increasing engagement with communities of color, and will often come naturally if an organization applies a social justice lens to their work.

Train staff to apply a critical racial lens: Trainings that teach staff to understand and address racial inequities are important, but it’s even more crucial for staff to learn how to and practice applying this awareness to their work.

How does this policy affect communities of color or low income communities? What barriers inhibit communities of color from fully engaging in this program? Has my organization sought out and included people of color in crafting this program or policy?

The process of asking and seeking answers to these questions can open pathways to deep collaborations with people of color and community based organizations.

Actively seek out the expertise of community-based organizations: No need to reinvent the wheel! Fortunately for environmental organizations, there are people who have been doing incredible environmental justice work in communities of color for years. The mainstream environmental community can and should seek them out and work to support their programs and policy agendas. They should incorporate their input in policy design with the understanding that the policy’s success depends on local expertise of the problem and its possible solutions. Many environmental groups have already begun doing this work, and we encourage strong and socially just partnerships.

Promote and hire people of color into management positions: The Green 2.0 report finds that the few people of color employed by the environmental organizations and agencies studied tend not to hold leadership positions, with the exception of the “diversity manager” role. Even genuine attempts to include people of color in the environmental movement, may be misguided nonetheless. Ensuring people of color have institutional power in environmental organizations is critical for diversifying the environmental movement. This means recruiting people of color to the board and to management-level positions, which means they must expand beyond established networks. When people in charge of hiring are from the communities their organization hopes to engage, more people from these communities are more likely to join the team.

New Study on Early Childhood Education: Between a Rock and Hard Place

King County’s youngest people, their families, and their educators are all suffering from our regions’ child-care crisis.

In this report, we shine a spotlight on early childhood education in King County, which is increasingly the most expensive in the nation. Although child care can cost over $10,000 a year per child, the typical child care worker in King County earns poverty-level wages between $23,000 and $29,000 dollars per year. Insurance, rent, taxes, staff-to-child ratios, inadequate subsidy rates, and supplies make providing child care in our region extremely costly, and leaving little for workers.

Numerous studies show that low wages are one of the most significant factors contributing to high turnover in early educators. In King County, roughly 38% of teaching assistants are no longer in their positions just one year later. High turnover harms the stability and relationships our children need during their early developmental stages, disrupts the already rapidly changing child care environments, and costs child care centers significant resources to find high quality staff.

Key Findings

Early childhood education is unaffordable for many parents.

Market-rate, full time infant care at a child care center in King County costs parents on average $1,445 per month, roughly 52% of the median income of a single female parent in King County. Child care subsidies are not sufficient to meet the high need, and high costs, parents at low and middle incomes must pay.

Early childhood providers operate on slim margins, forcing teachers and assistants to make low wages.

The typical family home provider in King County earns $35,000 in gross annual earnings. After taxes, supplies and overhead – family home providers have minimal means to pay staff, let alone make ends meet. Centers typically employ more staff, but typically have higher overhead costs including insurance, rent, and fixtures. Combined with low staff-to-child ratios, there is little room to raise wages.

Low wages encourage high turnover, impacting the quality of care.

High turnover among teaching staff negatively impacts the quality of care a program can provide and affects children’s social-emotional and language development. According to the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment at University of California, Berkeley, turnover discourages the development and maintenance of consistent relationships between children and their caregivers.

Seattle City Council Committee Approves $15 Minimum Wage

A Seattle City Council committee unanimously voted today to pass the Mayor’s proposal for a $15 minimum wage. The ordinance passed out of committee will phase in the minimum wage over the next three to seven years. Specifically, it will require large businesses (500+ employees) to pay $15 by 2017 or 2018, and small businesses (less than 500 employees) to pay $15 by 2019 or 2021.

This historic vote represents a huge victory for workers, communities of color, and progressive leaders through the U.S. The final vote in Council is expected to occur next week.

$15/hour minimum wage proposal passes through Seattle City Council's committee with a unanimous vote. — Seattle’s $15/hour minimum wage proposal passes through City Council’s committee with a unanimous vote.

In the end, City Council did not make some of the dramatic changes recently rumored in the media, but they did make some modest amendments that alter the deal struck by the Mayor’s Income Inequality Advisory Committee.

Below, we highlight and explain some of the most significant changes:

Amendments that support workers:

Council strengthened the power for the City to enforce the minimum wage throughout the ordinance. The City of Seattle is undergoing a separate stakeholder process that will determine how the City handles all labor enforcement strategies; however, the amendments passed today allow for stronger mechanisms than in the Mayor’s proposal. They include:

Extending the period a worker has to report a violation after it has occurred, from just 180 days to three years, which dovetails Washington State law.
Ensuring that, if wage theft occurs, employers must not only pay back wages to wronged workers, but they may be subject to a penalty up to $500 for first time violations, $1000 for second time violations, and $20,000 for subsequent violations.

Councilmember Sawant successfully inserted a provision that codifies the City’s intent to identify additional funding for non-profit organizations.

Amendments that weaken the ordinance for workers:

Council pushed back the effective date to April 1, 2015 from January 1, as originally proposed.

The City will allow employers to pay a sub-minimum wage (85% of the minimum) to 14 and 15 year old youth, people with certain disabilities, and apprentices. Employers must apply for a waiver granted by the Department of Labor and Industries – a practice already done under State law. This provision will potentially allow for discriminatory wage practices that are currently allowed under State law. However, the employer will also have to apply to the City for a permit as well. Between the two permits, the requirement for a waiver will create transparency for workers and the public about which employers are requesting and have received permission to pay sub-minimum wages.

Implications of the Mayor’s Proposal for a $15 Minimum Wage

What is the Income Inequality Committee’s proposal to raise the minimum wage?

If the Council approves the Mayor’s proposal to raise the minimum wage, low-wage workers in Seattle and our local economy will see significant economic gains.

46% of Seattle’s low-wage workforce, who work for large employers, will make $15 by 2018.
Local small businesses and small non-profits will have 5 to 7 years to phase in the minimum wage to $15, and will reach parity with big businesses in 2025.
After all businesses have phased-in the minimum wage, the minimum wage standard will be equivalent to roughly $14.30 in 2015 dollars.

Table 1. Mayor of Seattle’s Minimum Wage Proposal

The Mayor’s proposal phases in the minimum wage in four separate tiers: A, B, C, D. As of January 1, 2015, the minimum wage for most businesses in Seattle will be $11/hr. The minimum wage standard will be tied to inflation starting on January 1, 2018. By the end of 2025, all businesses in the Seattle will pay the same exact minimum wage: an estimated $18.13/hr with a 2.4% adjustment for inflation.

Table 2. Phase-In Tiers For Proposed Minimum Wage

Who Will Benefit from the Mayor’s Income Inequality Proposal (And When)?

Who will see a wage increase, and when, depends entirely on who you work for and what types of benefits you receive. Combining government data with a report produced by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, we estimate that nearly half of Seattle’s 102,000 work for large businesses, and 26% receive health-care coverage. For exact breakdowns of workers for each tier of minimum-wage phase in, see Table 3.

Table 3. Number Workers affected by Tier of Minimum Wage Phase-in

How much more money will workers earn?

Over the next 10 years, low-wage workers will earn nearly $3 billion dollars more than their current wages (assuming current wages rose in line with inflation). Our recent report shows that Seattle’s low-wage workforce earns an average of $11.95 per hour and works roughly 32 hours per week. We estimated their new earnings based on the difference between the proposed minimum wage and the current average wage of a workers making less than $15 an hour. The table below shows that how much more in earnings workers affected by the policy will make in each year of the phase-in. For example in 2017, when large businesses who do not provide health insurance reach $15 per hour low wage workers will earn nearly 150 million more in 2017, than if their wages had only increased with inflation. Over the 10 year phase-in period, the cumulative earnings for affected workers would be $2.9 billion dollars.

1 Our recent report showed that roughly 102,000 workers earn below $15 an hour. Using Economic Census data to estimate that 46% of workers are employed by large businesses with more than 500 employees anywhere in the nation. A national report, from the Center for Economic and Policy Research, indicates that only 26% of low wage workers receive healthcare coverage, and our own analysis of Census MicroPUMS data indicates that there are nearly 10,000 tipped workers in Seattle.