Category: Labor Economics

Some Democrats Trying to Restrict “Zoning, Environmental, and Procedural Laws” that “Thwart” New Housing

(p. A1) SACRAMENTO — A full-fledged housing crisis has gripped California, marked by a severe lack of affordable homes and apartments for middle-class families. The median cost of a home here is now a staggering $500,000, twice the national cost. Homelessness is surging across the state.
In Los Angeles, booming with construction and signs of prosperity, some people have given up on finding a place and have moved into vans with makeshift kitchens, hidden away in quiet neighborhoods. In Silicon Valley — an international symbol of wealth and technology — lines of parked recreational vehicles are a daily testimony to the challenges of finding an affordable place to call home.
Heather Lile, a nurse who makes $180,000 a year, commutes two hours from her home in Manteca to the San Francisco hospital where she works, 80 miles away. “I make really good money and it’s frustrating to me that I can’t afford to live close to my job,” said Ms. Lile.
. . .
Now here in Sacramento, lawmakers are considering extraordinary legislation to, in effect, crack down on communities that have, in their view, systematically delayed or derailed housing construction proposals, often at the behest of local neighborhood groups.
The bill was passed by the Senate last month and is now part of a broad package of housing proposals under negotiation that Gov. Jerry Brown and Democratic legislative leaders announced Monday was likely to be voted on in (p. A13) some form later this summer.
“The explosive costs of housing have spread like wildfire around the state,” said Scott Wiener, a Democratic senator from San Francisco who sponsored the bill. “This is no longer a coastal, elite housing problem. This is a problem in big swaths of the state. It is damaging the economy. It is damaging the environment, as people get pushed into longer commutes.”
. . .
The bill sponsored by Mr. Wiener, one of 130 housing measures that have been introduced this year, would restrict one of the biggest development tools that communities wield: the ability to use zoning, environmental and procedural laws to thwart projects they deem out of character with their neighborhood.

For the full story, see:

Adam Nagourney and Conor Dougherty. “Housing Costs Put California In Crisis Mode.” The New York Times (Tuesday, July 18, 2017): A1 & A13.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date July 17, 2017, and has the title “The Cost of a Hot Economy in California: A Severe Housing Crisis.”)

Some Brain Traits Ease Music Learning

(p. C2) A study published in Cerebral Cortex in July [2015] shows that unusual activity in specific neural areas can predict how easily musicians learn their chops.
. . .
The data . . . point to a distinct starting advantage in some people–and where that advantage might reside in the brain. A retroactive examination of the first fMRI images predicted who would be the best learners.
Those with a hyperactive Heschl’s gyrus (part of the cerebral cortex that is associated with musical pitch) and with lots of reactivity in their right hippocampus (an area linked to auditory memory) turned out to be more likely to remember tunes they had heard before and, after some practice, play them well.
The “kicker,” said Dr. Zatorre, was finding that neural head start. “That gives you an advantage when you’re learning music, and it’s a completely different system from the parts of the brain that show learning has taken place. It speaks to the idea of 10,000 hours.” In his book “Outliers,” Malcolm Gladwell called 10,000 hours of practice “the magic number of greatness.” Dr. Zatorre disagrees, saying, “Is it really fair to say that everyone’s brain is structured the same way, and that if you practice, you will accomplish the same thing?”

For the full commentary, see:
Susan Pinker. “Practice Makes Some Perfect, Others Maybe Not.” The Wall Street Journal (Saturday, Aug. 29, 2015): C2.
(Note: ellipses, and bracketed year, added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date Aug. 26, 2015.)

The print version of the Cerebral Cortex article discussed above, is:
Herholz, Sibylle C., Emily B. J. Coffey, Christo Pantev, and Robert J. Zatorre. “Dissociation of Neural Networks for Predisposition and for Training-Related Plasticity in Auditory-Motor Learning.” Cerebral Cortex 26, no. 7 (July 1, 2016): 3125-34.

The Gladwell book mentioned above, is:
Gladwell, Malcolm. Outliers: The Story of Success. New York, NY: Little, Brown, and Co., 2008.

What Wofford’s Family “Lacked in Money, They Made Up for in Expectations”

(p. A19) Growing up on Buffalo’s rough and often neglected East Side, Keith H. Wofford recalled many crisp autumn Sundays spent with his father bonding over the Bills, following the team’s losses and wins on the radio.
Tickets to football games were not in the family’s budget: His father, John Wofford, worked at the nearby Chevrolet factory for 32 years, and his mother, Ruby, picked up odd jobs in retail to bring in extra income. But what the Woffords lacked in money, they made up for in expectations for their two sons.
“They always had an incredible amount of confidence in us,” Mr. Wofford, 49, said in an interview. “They made very clear that they didn’t see any limitations.”
Mr. Wofford held tight to that ideal as he left high school as a 17-year-old junior to attend Harvard University on a scholarship. Seven years later, he graduated from Harvard Law School. Last year, Mr. Wofford earned at least $4.3 million as a partner overseeing 300 lawyers and 700 employees at the New York office of international law firm Ropes & Gray, LLP, according to financial disclosure forms.
Now he’s the Republican nominee for state attorney general in New York, vying to become one of the most powerful law enforcement officials in the country.
“How many guys who work at a white shoe law firm had dads who had a union job?” asked C. Teo Balbach, 50, the chief executive of a software firm who grew up in Buffalo, and played intramural rugby at Harvard with Mr. Wofford.
“He’s a real hard worker and grinder, and that comes from that upbringing where you come from a middle-class family in a difficult neighborhood and you don’t take anything for granted,” Mr. Balbach added.
. . .
. . . issues facing Mr. Wofford should he win are potential conflicts of interest from his law practice.
. . .
Mr. Wofford said the criticism about him is indicative of Ms. James’s “hyperpartisan” attitude, and he sought to distinguish himself from her by characterizing himself as an outsider.
“Being on the wrong side of the tracks in Buffalo,” Mr. Wofford said, “is about as far from insider as you can get.”
His success as a lawyer, however, did allow him one heartfelt opportunity: In his father’s last years, Mr. Wofford returned to Buffalo, and during football season, they would bond again over Bills games — but in person, at the stadium, as a season-ticket holder.

For the full story, see:
Jeffery C. Mays. “Can an Unknown G.O.P. Candidate Become Attorney General?” The New York Times (Saturday, Oct. 13, 2018): A19.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date Oct. 12, 2018, and has the title “Can a Black Republican Who Voted for Trump Be New York’s Next Attorney General?”)

More Boys Choose Math Fields Due to Their Weaker Verbal Skills

(p. C2) A key tenet of modern feminism is that women will have achieved equity only when they fill at least 50% of the positions once filled by men. In some fields, women have already surpassed that target–now comprising, for example, 50.7% of new American medical students, up from just 9% in 1965, and 80% of veterinary students. But the needle has hardly moved in many STEM fields–such as the physical sciences, technology, engineering and math, in which barely 20% of the students are female.
A new study suggests some surprising reasons for this enduring gap. Published last month in the journal Psychological Science, the study looked at nearly a half million adolescents from 67 countries who participated in the Program for International Student Assessment, the world’s largest educational survey. Every three years, PISA gauges the skills of 15-year-olds in science, reading and math reasoning. In each testing year, the survey focuses in depth on one of those categories.
. . .
Some fascinating gender differences surfaced. Girls were at least as strong in science and math as boys in 60% of the PISA countries, and they were capable of college-level STEM studies nearly everywhere the researchers looked. But when they examined individual students’ strengths more closely, they found that the girls, though successful in STEM, had even higher scores in reading. The boys’ strengths were more likely to be in STEM areas. The skills of the boys, in other words, were more lopsided–a finding that confirms several previous studies.

For the full commentary, see:
Susan Pinker. “Why Don’t More Women Choose STEM Careers?” The Wall Street Journal (Saturday, March 3, 2018): C2.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date March 1, 2018, and has the title “Why Aren’t There More Women in Science and Technology?”)

The print version of the Psychological Science article discussed above, is:
Stoet, Gijsbert, and David C. Geary. “The Gender-Equality Paradox in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Education.” Psychological Science 29, no. 4 (April 2018): 581-93.

More Job Security as Factory Work Requires More Technical Skills

(p. A3) A yearslong decline in the number of layoffs is providing a renewed level of job security to factory workers, who had seen their ranks thin since the late 1970s.
. . .
“We’ve become much more careful about letting people go,” said David Nicholson, chief executive of PVS Chemicals Inc., a Detroit manufacturer with 850 employees. “Most manufacturing jobs today are technology jobs. It takes a long time to train someone for that role, so you’re reluctant to let them go for what could be a short-term slowdown.”

For the full story, see:
Eric Morath. “Job Security Is a New Perk of Factory Employment.” The Wall Street Journals (Wednesday, July 11, 2018): A3.
(Notes: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date July 10, 2018, and has the title “Factory Workers’ New Perk: Job Security.”)

Disneyland Opened in “Confusion,” “Disorder,” and “Chaos”

(p. B11) On the mid-July day in 1955 when Disneyland opened in Anaheim, Calif., confusion reigned. More people stormed its grounds than expected, rides broke down, food and beverage supplies ran short, and a plumbers’ strike limited the number of working water fountains.
Out in the park that afternoon, amid the disorder, was Marty Sklar, a 21-year-old college junior who was editing the theme park’s 10-cent newspaper. At one point Fess Parker, in full costume as Disney’s television and big-screen Davy Crockett, complete with coonskin cap, approached him on horseback.
Spotting Mr. Sklar’s name tag, Mr. Parker called out for help.
“Marty,” he said, “get me out of here before this horse hurts someone!”
Disneyland recovered well from the early chaos. And Mr. Sklar went on to spend more than a half-century at the Walt Disney Company, as a close aide to Walt Disney himself and eventually as the principal creative executive of the company’s Imagineering unit, made up of the innovators who blend their imaginations and their technical expertise in devising every element of the company’s theme parks.
. . .
He soon became Mr. Disney’s chief ghostwriter for publicity materials, dedications, souvenir guides, speeches, slogans, presentations and short films, like the one that helped the company win approval to build Walt Disney World and Epcot in central Florida. He also collaborated with Walt and his brother, Roy, on Disney’s annual reports.
“It was pretty heady stuff for someone just closing in on his 30th birthday and only six or seven years out of college,” Mr. Sklar wrote in his autobiography, “Dream It! Do It: My Half-Century Creating Disney’s Magic Kingdoms” (2013).

For the full obituary, see:
Richard Sandomir. “Marty Sklar Dies at 83; Became Trusted Aide And Executive at Disney.” The New York Times (Friday, Aug. 4, 2017): B11.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the obituary has the date Aug. 3, 2017, and has the title “Marty Sklar, Longtime Disney Aide and Executive, Dies at 83.”)

Sklar’s autobiography, mentioned above, is:
Sklar, Martin. Dream It! Do It!: My Half-Century Creating Disney’s Magic Kingdoms. Glendale, CA: Disney Editions, 2013.

A.I. Frees Workers from Drudgery More Than It Eliminates Jobs

(p. B1) New software is automating mundane office tasks in operations like accounting, billing, payments and customer service. The programs can scan documents, enter numbers into spreadsheets, check the accuracy of customer records and make payments with a few automated computer keystrokes.
The technology is still in its infancy, but it will get better, learning as it goes. So far, often in pilot projects focused on menial tasks, artificial intelligence is freeing workers from drudgery far more often than it is eliminating jobs.
. . .
(p. B4) The recent research has examined jobs as bundles of tasks, some of which seem ripe for replacement and others not. So the technology’s immediate impact will resemble the experience to date with robotic software, changing work more than destroying jobs.

For the full story, see:
Lohr, Steve. “Menial Tasks Ease A.I.’s Way Into Workplace.” The New York Times (Monday, Aug. 6, 2018): B1 & B4.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date Aug. 5, 2018, and has the title “‘The Beginning of a Wave’: A.I. Tiptoes Into the Workplace.”)

“Tesla Is His Baby”

(p. B5) “Tesla is his baby,” said Deepak Ahuja, Tesla’s chief financial officer. “He takes it extremely personally.”
. . .
In preparing the assembly lines, Mr. Musk became convinced that the process should be close to fully automated, using robots rather than humans whenever possible. Doing so, he believed, could make cars move through the factory at one meter per second, 10 to 20 times the speed of existing lines.
So Tesla built a factory with hundreds of robots, many programmed to perform tasks that humans could easily do. One robot, which Mr. Musk nicknamed the “flufferbot,” was designed to simply place a sound-dampening piece of fiberglass atop the battery pack.
But the flufferbot never really worked. It would fail to pick up the fiberglass, or put it in the wrong place, frequently delaying production. It was eventually replaced by factory workers.
Mr. Musk has accepted responsibility for some of these missteps, occasionally with humor. In late June, he wore a T-shirt depicting a robot that passes butter. It was an inside joke, lampooning the notion of technology for technology’s sake.
After the debacle, Mr. Musk tweeted: “Excessive automation at Tesla was a mistake. To be precise, my mistake. Humans are underrated.”
. . .
“He is absolutely working incredibly hard, but Elon has always worked incredibly hard,” said Mr. Ahuja, Tesla’s chief financial officer. “He’s very tough, too. He can eat glass.”
. . .
“I know that it has been a difficult year for him,” said Gwynne Shotwell, the SpaceX president and chief operating officer. “Not because he’s frowning or throwing things, but because I can tell he’s physically exhausted.”

For the full story, see:
David Gelles. “In Elon Musk’s World, Brakes Are for Cars, Not C.E.O.s.” The New York Times (Wednesday, Aug. 29, 2018): B1 & B5.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date Aug. 28, 2018, and has the title “MARSEILLE DISPATCH; Yes, There Is a French McDonald’s That Is Beloved (by Its Staff).”)

Outsiders in France Defend McDonald’s

(p. A4) MARSEILLE, France — The nearly 20-year-old images have entered French folklore: peasants, farmers and ex-hippies dismantling a rural McDonald’s, panel by panel, in what became a symbol of France’s resistance to American fast food.
Today that aging newsreel is being played in sharp reverse. A group of workers and their union leaders in Marseille are fighting tooth-and-nail to save a McDonald’s from closing in a working-class, largely immigrant neighborhood. A so-called “Festival of Dignity” protest was recently organized by the McDonald’s employees in an effort to save their roughly 70 jobs.
Even though McDonald’s was once seen as a cultural menace to a glorious French tradition, the workers say this particular McDonald’s, in its quarter-century of existence, has played a vital role as a social integrator in one of France’s most troubled districts — providing employment and shielding local youth from pervasive drug-dealing, getting them out of jail and helping them stay out.
“Look, we’re not thugs here,” said Kamel Guemari, the restaurant’s assistant manager, who was hired at age 16 and is now 37. “We’re working. And we’re setting an example for the others. We’re playing a social role.”

For the full story, see:
Adam Nossiter. “MARSEILLE DISPATCH; French Workers Fight to Save a Beloved McDonald’s.” The New York Times (Thursday, Sept. 6, 2018): A4.
(Note: the online version of the story has the date Sept. 5, 2018, and has the title “MARSEILLE DISPATCH; Yes, There Is a French McDonald’s That Is Beloved (by Its Staff).”)

“An Insular Fortress of Thought Coercion”

(p. A3) WASHINGTON–A day before Google’s chief was set to meet with high-ranking Republicans, critics in a congressional hearing accused the internet giant and other tech firms of being “insular” and dismissive of the free-speech rights of conservatives.
. . .
At Thursday’s House subcommittee hearing, Rep. Steve King (R., Iowa) warned that tech companies’ alleged bias is beginning to be noticed by the public. “Americans are beginning to recognize this quiet trend in our society in which one group or another systemically silences another’s beliefs with which they disagree,” he said in his opening statement.
Harmeet Dhillon, an attorney representing a group of conservative Google employees claiming employment discrimination by the company, directed lawmakers to media reports concerning its alleged blacklisting of phrases, articles and websites, and the blocking of conservative YouTube videos.
“Big Tech has become an insular fortress of thought coercion and vindictive behavioral control,” she said.

For the full story, see:
McKinnon, John D. “Tech Firms Face Political Bias Accusations.” The Wall Street Journal (Wednesday, September 28, 2018): A3.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date Sept. 27, 2018, and has the title “Tech Firms Face Bias Accusations at Congressional Hearing.” The online version includes additional paragraphs, but the passages quoted above appear in both the online and print versions. The formatting above, follows the print version.)

Higher Minimum Wages Increase Automation of Routine Tasks

(p. A11) Over the past few years, San Francisco in particular, and California in general, has increased the cost to hire and train employees at risk of being automated. The minimum wage will rise to $15 an hour in San Francisco in 2018. The rest of California will get there four years later. On top of San Francisco’s hourly wage mandate are requirements for health care, paid leave and employee scheduling.
These added costs give employers with already slim profit margins a strong incentive to automate or embrace self-service. In an interview with Forbes, the founder of a delivery robot company linked his product’s value proposition to a rising minimum wage: “At something like $10 per delivery, the majority of citizens will not use [human delivery]. It’s too expensive.”
The empirical evidence supports the anecdotes: An August [2017] study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research linked a rising minimum wage to an increase in unemployment for workers in jobs that require a large number of routine tasks. The authors reported that it wasn’t just service-industry jobs at risk. A rising minimum wage also had a negative effect on job opportunities for older, less-skilled employees in manufacturing.

For the full commentary, see:
Michael Saltsman. “CROSS COUNTRY; San Francisco’s Problem Isn’t Robots; It’s the $15 Wage Floor; The city fears automation will replace workers–but its own policies make low-value jobs illegal.” The Wall Street Journal (Saturday, Nov. 25, 2017): A11.
(Note: bracketed year added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date Nov. 24, 2017.)

The later published version of the National Bureau of Economic Research study mentioned above, is:
Lordan, Grace, and David Neumark. “People Versus Machines: The Impact of Minimum Wages on Automatable Jobs.” Labour Economics 52 (June 2018): 40-53.