Steve Herzenberg
Blog Post List
June 29, 2011
Some bad news out of Philadelphia Tuesday — Mayor Michael Nutter vetoed legislation that would have allowed every worker in the city to earn paid sick days. As Lonnie Golden, a professor of economics and labor studies at Penn State Abington, and I wrote in an op-ed earlier this month, a paid sick days law would be good for business, good for the economy and good for public health in Philadelphia. The public seems to agree. Seven in 10 Philadelphians supported the bill, according to a recent poll. As we wrote in our op-ed: Paid sick days are good for business and the community, as well as for...
MomsRising
Together
June 8, 2011
In recent weeks, I've written here and here about legislation before Philadelphia City Council that would allow every worker in the city to earn paid sick days. To round things out, I am now passing along an op-ed I co-authored with Lonnie Golden, a professor of economics and labor studies at Penn State Abington, that was published last week in The Philadelphia Daily News urging City Council to pass the paid sick days bill. Post a comment to let me know what you think. The benefits of paid sick days LAST WEEK, a group of economists, including the authors of this op-ed, published an open...
MomsRising
Together
June 1, 2011
Last week, I wrote that when you look at the positive benefits and the low costs of Philadelphia’s proposed paid sick days legislation, it could end up paying for itself. As I wrote that, I could almost hear a collective gasp from neoclassical economists: “If it paid for itself, employers would already do it!” Employers in the standard economic model are assumed to be all knowing (they have “perfect information”) about the present and all possible futures. When it comes to whether to offer paid sick days, for example, it is assumed that employers can estimate the turnover savings that would...
MomsRising
Together
May 26, 2011
As a kid living near Manchester in the north of England, my first love was cricket. The sport (it is a sport) comes up nowadays when I use the phrase “it’s not cricket” — as in, it’s not acceptable, it’s not done. In a report circulated to Philadelphia City Council and the media (but not online that I can find), Dr. William Dunkelberg estimated the cost to employers of enacting paid sick days legislation in Philadelphia. I’m going to use this blog post to try to persuade readers that, even if they oppose paid sick days, they shouldn’t use the Dunkelberg estimates because, well, “It’s not...
MomsRising
Together