INDIVISIBLE Lambertville NJ / New Hope PA

Category: Fact-checking

  • Just the facts – Jobs

    Contributed by Olga Vanucci.

    • The U.S. is down 8.2 million jobs from the pre-pandemic employment level.
    • The American Jobs Plan is expected to create millions of jobs and in the process:
      • Fix highways; rebuild bridges; and upgrade ports, airports, and transit centers.  [construction jobs]
      • Rebuild clean drinking water infrastructure, a renewed electric grid, and high-speed broadband to all Americans.  [construction and technical jobs]
      • Modernize homes, commercial buildings, schools, and federal buildings.  [construction jobs]
      • Create caregiving jobs and raise wages and benefits for essential home care workers.  [home care jobs]
      • Revitalize manufacturing, ensure products are made in America, and invest in innovation.  [manufacturing and engineering jobs]
      • Create good-paying union jobs and train Americans for jobs of the future.  
    • Alongside the American Jobs Plan is the Made in America Tax Plan to make sure corporations pay their fair share and encourage job creation at home. The Made in America Tax Plan would fully pay for the American Jobs Plan within 15 years, if passed alongside one another.

    Sources:  New York Times and  American Jobs Plan | The White House (short version) and FACT SHEET: The American Jobs Plan | The White House (long version) and What’s in the $2 trillion jobs bill? Joe Biden’s American Jobs Act, explained. – Vox

  • Truth Brigade: Raising the Minimum Wage

    Take this Truth Sandwich about raising the minimum wage to your social media channels, talk to your neighbors and community, write letters to the editor:

    Truth: Raising the minimum wage pays both economic and social dividends, as people have more buying power and higher wages directly affects the mental and physical health of the worker and their family. 

    Opposition: Opponents of an increased minimum wage say it will result in fewer jobs as businesses can’t afford to pay higher rates, or that minimum wage only affects teenagers who live at home. 

    Truth: In reality, 28 percent of the American workforce earn the current $7.25/hour minimum wage. Studies have shown that higher wages have not resulted in job losses, and the cost to the business is offset by a more stable, happier worker.

    Action: Raising the minimum wage to $15/hour is long overdue and needs to be enacted now!

    Sources: 

    https://bpr.berkeley.edu/2021/01/30/no-more-lies-the-truth-about-raising-the-minimum-wage/

  • Just the Facts:  Climate Opportunity

    Contributed by Olga Vanucci.

    • Every $1 invested in climate action yields $4 in benefits.
    • Bold climate action could yield a direct economic gain of $26 trillion worldwide through 2030 compared with business-as-usual.
    • President Biden has said his new $2 trillion infrastructure plan will allow “transformational progress in our ability to tackle climate change” by bolstering investments in clean energy, electric vehicles and building homes resilient to threats posed by the climate crisis.
    • The THRIVE Agenda would be even bigger.  It includes as one of its eight pillars:  Averting climate and environmental catastrophe, including with new investments that will spur the largest expansion in history of clean, renewable energy, emissions reductions, climate resilience, and sustainable resource use.  The $10 trillion plan, proponents say, would create 15 million new jobs and cut emissions in half by the end of the decade.

    Sources:  Climate Finance | United Nations and Biden’s $2tn infrastructure plan aims to ‘finally address climate crisis as a nation’ | Environment | The Guardian and THRIVE Agenda

  • Just the Facts:  Expanded and Contracted Voting Rights in NJ

    Contributed by Olga Vanucci.

    • Year in which New Jersey gave the right to vote to women and free Blacks:  1776
    • Number of other states that did the same at the time:  Zero
    • Minimum value of property owned that allowed someone to vote:  50 pounds
    • Typical value of property owned by married women:  Zero
    • Number of women who were found to have voted based on poll records:  At least 163
    • Number of free Black men who voted based on poll records:  At least 4, including 2 from the Hopewell Valley
    • Number of free Black women who voted as identified in poll records:  None
    • Year in which New Jersey revoked the right to vote to all but white male taxpayers, following, according to the New York Times, “charges of rampant fraud and corruption, as newspapers filled with tales of elections thrown into chaos by incompetent and easily manipulated ‘petticoat electors,’ to say nothing of men who put on dresses to vote five, six, seven times:”  1807  [It’s unclear why men couldn’t vote five, six, seven times wearing trousers.]

     

    Sources:  When Women Lost the Vote: A Revolutionary Story, 1776 – 1807 – Museum of the American Revolution (amrevmuseum.org) and

    On the Trail of America’s First Women to Vote – The New York Times (nytimes.com) and

    Uncovering a Cemetery’s Lost Black History, Stone by Stone – The New York Times (nytimes.com) – article about Elaine Buck and Beverly Mills, from Hopewell, who spoke to ILNH about their research

  • JUST THE FACTS – Black history month

    Contributed by Olga Vanucci.

    • Hiram Rhodes Revels, a Republican Senator from Mississippi, was the first Black member of the U.S. Congress, sworn in in 1870.
    • Democrats had attempted to block him. The Constitution requires senators to hold citizenship for at least nine years, and they argued that Revels had only recently become a citizen with the 1866 Civil Rights Act and the 14th Amendment. Before that, the Supreme Court had ruled in its 1857 Dred Scott decision that Black people weren’t U.S. citizens.
    • 57 House members in the new 117th Congress are Black, putting the share of Black House members (13%) about on par with the share of the overall U.S. population.
    • There are three Black senators.  
    • There are currently no Black governors.
    • Joe Biden’s Cabinet will include three Black members:  Kamala Harris as vice president, Lloyd Austin as the first Black Secretary of Defense, and Marcia Fudge as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.  (Bill Clinton’s Cabinet included four Black members.)
    • Nearly two-thirds of U.S. adults (65%) say Black people will gain influence in Washington with Joe Biden taking office.

    Sources:  

    The First Black Man Elected to Congress Was Nearly Blocked From Taking His Seat – HISTORY and

    Black Americans have made gains in U.S. political leadership, but gaps remain | Pew Research Center and

    Public Sees Black People, Women, Gays and Lesbians Gaining Influence in Biden Era | Pew Research Center