Raising the Standard of Living
Raising the Standard of Living | Human Resource Executive Online
A proposed Obama task force to address the problems of working families could have wide-ranging recommendations. But, even though it will be headed by Vice President-elect Joseph Biden and include cabinet members and top-level policymakers, it's unclear how much power the group will have.
By Kristen B. Frasch
Reactions to President-elect Barack Obama's recently announced plans to create a task force aimed at raising the standard of living for middle-class, working families have been predictably varied.
Not surprisingly, organized labor has greeted the proposed initiative -- a group that will include many top-level policymakers and be headed by Vice President-elect Joseph Biden -- with enthusiasm.
After the Dec. 21 Obama announcement, AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney released a statement noting that working families face "an extraordinary and unprecedented set of challenges right now -- the economy is in meltdown, the real wages and incomes of middle-class Americans have been stagnant or eroding for decades, savings and home values have plummeted, and our nation's healthcare and retirement security systems are in dire need of reform."
Formation of the group, said Sweeney, "signals that the Obama administration will put the problems of working families front and center as they take necessary steps to rebuild our failing economy, create jobs and invest in America's future."
In announcing the task force, which goes into effect Jan. 20, Obama said his administration "will be absolutely committed to the future of America's middle-class and working families," and they will be "front and center every day in our work in the White House."
The task force, he said, will be "one vehicle we will use to ensure that we never forget that commitment."
The group will be charged with accomplishing various goals laid out by Obama, including expanding education and lifelong training opportunities, improving the balance between work and family, restoring labor standards including safety in the workplace, helping to protect the income of middle-class and working families, and protecting retirement security.
Mark Warshawsky, Watson Wyatt Worldwide's Arlington, Va.-based director of retirement research, says he's especially interested to see how the group tackles retirement security.
"Employer-sponsored retirement plans, both defined-benefit and defined-contribution, are essential elements of retirement security for middle-class and working families," he says.
"Social Security alone cannot do the job, especially given its long-term funding shortfall. Therefore, it's good the new Obama administration is including this issue on its agenda; we need to further refine the regulatory framework to preserve, enhance and encourage retirement plans," he says.
In another show of support from labor, Anna Burger, chair of Change to Win, said in a statement that Obama's move shows "change truly is coming to Washington."
The seven unions that make up Change to Win, she said, hope the group will consider "how the federal government can use its powers as a regulator and purchaser to raise job standards, protect workers' rights and hold corporations accountable."
While it's too early to determine the kind of power this initiative will have in the business community or its impact on employers, skeptics are already questioning its feasibility.
In an article posted on
The Labor Educator
Web site, Harry Kelber writes that "between [the group's] commitment and actual accomplishment, there are daunting, frustrating obstacles to be overcome."
"To skeptics," he writes, "the announced goals of the task force appear like an overloaded wish list. There is no indication of how much of a staff the task force will have to accomplish even one of these daunting objectives, especially during the current economic crisis."
Nor is there any proof of its power.
"The task force is given a great amount of leeway ... but it is not a policy-making body," he writes. "It can only make recommendations to the Obama administration that created it. ... [Its success] will depend in large part on how broadly it involves the labor movement, which played a principal role in developing of the middle class."
Far more negative is conservative columnist David Limbaugh. In an article on the
Townhall.com
Web site, he says the task force is little more than "political propaganda" and a vehicle to woo the public "with constant overtures to 'the middle class' designed to mollify it irrespective of actual economic conditions."
"From Obama's constant shifting of the goal posts as to where his planned tax hike would begin ... we know that [he] regards the middle class cynically," he writes, "not as a group of hurting people but a rhetorical device to convince you he cares.
"Biden assures us this task force will measure the success of Obama's economic policy by whether the middle class is growing and prospering," he continues.
"I just hope we're still at least slightly sympathetic to the notion that the American ideal is blind as to economic classes and grounded in equal opportunity for all. Obama's endless appeals to the middle class contradict his promises not to be divisive and to restore unity to America."
The White House Task Force on Working Families will include four cabinet members -- the secretaries of labor, health and human services, education and commerce -- as well as other top-level administration policy makers, including the directors of the National Economic Council, the Office of Management and Budget, the Domestic Policy Council and the chair of the Council of Economic Advisors.
Aimed at operating transparently, the group plans to reach out to representatives of labor, business and the advocacy communities, and post any and all submissions from outside groups online. It also intends to keep up a two-way dialogue directly with the American people and will issue -- and post online -- annual reports on its findings and recommendations.
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January 14, 2009 Copyright 2009© LRP Publications
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