As Susan wrote, a report from the Restaurant Opportunities Center United called “Tipped Over the Edge” is shining a light on the unfair treatment faced by servers, cooks, and other restaurant workers. The banner headline is this: the federal subminimum wage for tipped workers is $2.13 an hour – and it has been that way since 1991.
This comes on the heels of news out of Florida, where a GOP-run Senate committee has approved SB 2106, a bill that would return the state subminimum wage for tipped workers to 1985 levels.
It should be common sense, but let’s spell it out for the so-called legislators who think this is good policy: paying working people less hurts the economy. Less money in the pockets of those most likely to spend instantly means less money going to grocery stores, gas stations, utility companies and other small businesses. Less money for businesses means fewer hires. That kills jobs. Get it?
Our members sure do. When we posted this news on Facebook, Working America members reacted strongly. Many of them work or have worked in the restaurant industry:
I was a restaurant chef for over 20 years. Everyone in the restaurant business is generally under paid and over worked. All restaurants are sweatshops, pure and simple… Jerry – Utica, New York
$2 an hour now? I made that as a waitress in the 80′s. Rita – Wabasha, Minnesota
I put up with a lot of hours on my feet….The tips were good on some days and near zero on other days. When the economy is bad, so are the tips. –Sherry
Years ago I worked as a waitress at the local campus PIzza Hut…got paid barely $1/ hr (this was the early ’70′s!) – the frat boys were the worst tippers and kept me running constantly. Ever since, I’ve always tipped, no matter what. –Mary
Many of my friends have worked in restaurants and my mother worked for 60 cents an hour back in the 1950′s as an assistant cook and waitress. Wages have not come very far in all these years, have they? –Susan – Fall River, Wisconsin
I think it’s disgraceful that employers are allowed to pay 2.13 per hour!! A tip should be an added bonus for a job well done – not money to make up what the employer doesn’t want to pay!! That’s always been ridiculous to me!! I always tip above and beyond because I appreciate good service! Having to pool and share tips is ridiculous too yet happens at many places! -Terri
However, when business owners take it upon themselves to pay their servers a fair wage, the results are good for staff – and good for the economy as a whole. Amber from Tallahassee, Florida writes:
I gave up on waitressing because I was sick of management using servers at slave wages to do hours and hours of un-tipped labor every week. Got a job next to a small diner with very low prices and delicious food, they pay their servers minimum wage plus tips and they do all the same work I did for $2.13/hr at other restaurants. The owner is frequently around also, she lives comfortably but not high on the hog.
Not all bosses are like Amber’s. Without federal legislation mandating the first increase in the tipped subminimum wage in 20 years, servers in states like Florida will continue to scrape by and be subject to their ALEC-influenced, anti-worker state legislators and cash-strapped managers.
Rep. Donna Edwards (D-MD) has introduced the Workers for Adequate Gains for Employment in Services, or WAGES Act, which would increase the hourly subminimum wage to $3.75 after 90 days and $5.00 after a year. We don’t think that’s asking for too much, and would help some of our lowest-paid workers have a better life.
Unfortunately, the committee that will consider the bill is dominated by Republicans, none of whom have co-sponsored or stated their support for the WAGES Act.
Photo by artgoeshere on Flickr, via Creative Commons
Tags: Florida, Jobs, wages
A new report on gender inequity in the restaurant industry called Tipped Over the Edge was recently released. The executive summary and the full report are available at those links, in PDF form.
This is a 40 page report, and I’ve just skimmed the surface of it. All of this is very familiar territory to me–I worked in the restaurant industry for 20 years.
There are over 10 million restaurant workers in the United States. Approximately 52% of them are women. 66% of tipped workers are women. Tipped workers can be payed a sub minimum wage, which creates legalized gender inequity. From the report:
The restaurant industry is one of the only sectors in which predominately male positions have a different minimum wage than predominately female positions: non-tipped work- ers (52 percent male) have a federal minimum wage of $7.25, while tipped workers (66 percent female) have a federal subminimum wage of $2.13.
The federal rate is $2.13, though some states have a higher rate. Alaska, Montana, Minnesota, and California have eliminated the sub minimum wage. The federal sub minimum wage of $2.13 has been the same since 1991.
Female restaurant workers are paid less than their male counterparts for two primary reasons. First, they are concentrated in lower-paying segments such as quick-serve and family style, and second, they are not able to access the highest-paying positions in the industry. Women fill only 19 percent of chef positions, one of the highest paying restaurant positions with a median wage of $19.23. And at the lowest end of the pay scale, women are highly concentrated in four of the ten lowest paid occupations of any industry: host, counter attendant, combined food prep and serving worker, and server.
(Maryland Rep. Donna Edwards has filed the Wages Act, which would increase the federal minimum wage for tipped employees. The subminimum wage has been frozen at $2.13 for 21 years. An increase would provide a little more financial security for tipped employees in a bad economy.)
Then there’s health care, or lack thereof:
These wage inequities are exacerbated by lack of benefits that prevent restaurant workers from properly caring for their health and their families.Of the more than 4,300 restaurant workers ROC surveyed across the country, 90 percent lack paid sick days and 90 percent do not receive health insurance through their employers. One third of all female restaurant workers (33.4 percent) lack any kind of health care, whether provided by their employer or otherwise. More than a quarter (26.8 percent) of all female restaurant workers are mothers,and more than one in ten are single mothers,25 so the lack of paid sick leave and workplace flexibility creates an additional burden for women in the industry.
Sick people who can’t afford to take a day off go to work, where they prepare and serve food.
The low pay isn’t the only problem:
A recent MSNBC review of Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) data revealed that from January to November 2011, almost 37 percent of all EEOC charges by women regarding sexual harassment came from the restaurant industry, even though less than 7 percent of employed women work in the restaurant industry.
The EEOC has identified the restaurant industry as the largest source of sexual harassment claims.
What I’ve seen in the report confirms what I learned from my own experiences in restaurants. I started out as a server, but quickly learned where the real money was, and learned to bartend and cook.
The flexible schedule worked fairly well for me as a single mother, but restaurant scheduling is often subject to last minute change, which can be` a real problem for women who have child care or elder care responsibilities. Many restaurants consistently overstaff the dining room, in case it gets busy. It’s not unusual to get sent home halfway through a shift, having made very little money. That subminimum wage paycheck doesn’t pay the bills.
Sexual harassment is certainly plentiful, as is discrimination. I worked in one kitchen where postcards of bare chested women adorned the walls. The chef had giant posters of scantily clad, silicone enhanced women in his office. To call it a hostile work environment doesn’t really do the situation justice. He didn’t want women working in his kitchen, and I didn’t stay long.
To be fair, I’ve also worked in a few great restaurants where the staff were treated like family, and even a few that offered health care benefits, which is a rarity.
As a server, getting sent home on a slow night, with little or no tip money was both painful and frightening. The industry is able to pay substandard wages because servers are tipped. Relying on the whims of the public for a paycheck can also be painful and frightening. One can provide excellent service and still receive no tip. The type of restaurant one works in is also a big factor. The tips are better in fine dining – but that isn’t an option for everyone.
The restaurant industry isn’t just “able” to pay substandard wages. They RELY on paying substandard wages, and they lobby fiercely for their right to do so. Right now in Florida, the legislature is considering a bill that would cut the subminimum wage for tipped employees in half. From Raw Story:
A Florida Senate committee has followed the advice of a restaurant association and passed a bill that would cut the minimum wage for tipped workers by more than half.
The bill, SB 2106, would slash the current Florida tipped minimum wage of of $4.65 an hour to the federal standard of of $2.13 an hour.
And:
“We are being brave and bold and being statesmen and not politicians,” Republican state Sen. Nancy Detert, the committee’s chair, asserted, adding that the bill had been requested by the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association.
Associated Industries of Florida and the Florida Chamber of Commerce have also expressed support for the bill.
I wasn’t aware that cutting the subminimum wage qualified one as a “statesman.”
One of those restaurant employees, Charles Spencer, is working at Raglan Road Irish Pub and Restaurant in Orlando to pay for his education. He told the Sentinel that the $11 or $12 an hour he currently makes barely pays the bills.
“It’s a lot of canned vegetables and grilled chicken and ramen noodles,” Spencer explained. “I was rather appalled by the fact they’re going to try to cut a wage standard in this economy.”
The Florida AFL-CIO’s Rich Templin said that the bill would effectively mean a more than $2.50 an hour pay cut for a waitress currently making $14 an hour.
This is shocking – in a bad economy, they would cut an already substandard subminimum wage? How very Dickensian.
To bring it back to the original topic; that cut in the subminimum wage in Florida would disproportionately hurt women, who make up the majority of tipped employees. At a time where people are dining out less, and tips aren’t as big as they once were, it’s a remarkable show of greed on the part of the restaurant industry, to try to cut an already criminally low wage.
Photo by avlxyz on Flickr, via Creative Commons
Tags: Florida, Jobs, wages
by Mike Hall – Reposted from the AFL-CIO NOW Blog
A scheme to privatize Florida’s prisons failed (19-21) in the state Senate yesterday after a huge public outcry led by Florida working families, community and civil rights groups. The plan was backed by extremist Gov. Rick Scott (R), private prison companies and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), one of the key players in the drive to privatize prisons throughout the nation.
The corporate takeover would have cost 3,800 workers their jobs, and Florida AFL-CIO President Mike Williams says it would have “devastated small communities, working families’ economic stability and safety.”
The privatization bill was one of the largest efforts so far to give private corporations control of a state’s prison system. It would have turned over control of 27 state prisons and work camps in 18 south Florida counties to the GEO Group—formerly Wackenhut Corrections.
GEO is a major sponsor of ALEC, The Nation reported in August. ALEC has led the charge to privatize prisons by writing model legislation for its right-wing state legislature members to push in their states.
ALEC has also worked to pass state laws to create private for-profit prisons, a boon to two of its major corporate sponsors: Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and Geo Group, the largest private prison firms in the country. An In These Times investigation last summer revealed that ALEC arranged secret meetings between Arizona’s state legislators and CCA to draft what became S.B. 1070, Arizona’s notorious immigration law, to keep CCA prisons flush with immigrant detainees. ALEC has proven expertly capable of devising endless ways to help private corporations benefit from the country’s massive prison population.
Click here for the full report.
St. Lucie County Sheriff Ken J. Mascara says prison privatization puts the public’s safety at risk. In a letter to state Senate President Mike Haridopolos (R), he writes:
In the continued race to the bottom, private prison contractors reduce pay, benefits and quality of personnel in the interest of slashing budgets; but as in most other areas of life, you get what you pay for. I know when protecting our families from the most heinous individuals in our society, I don’t want the guard who will work for the least pay—I want a professional who receives proper training, a reasonable wage and benefits and the security of knowing that the people of Florida, and its elected leaders, appreciate the value of the often thankless job they do.
Tags: Corporate Accountability, Florida, Rick Scott
by Donald Cohen, founder and executive director of In the Public Interest, a national resource center on privatization and responsible contracting. Reposted from the AFL-CIO NOW Blog
Florida Gov. Rick Scott and the Republican-controlled legislature are moving fast to privatize all 29 prison facilities in 18 counties in southern Florida.
Last year, the GOP prison privatization proposal was ruled unconstitutional because it was wrapped into a budget proposal, a violation of Florida laws that requires policy changes be in separate laws. Tallahassee Judge Jackie Fulford ruled that the lawmakers rushed the process.
The privatizers aren’t making the same mistake this time. Not only are they proposing to privatize the prisons but they are changing the law to be able to privatize any service as fast, as easily and as secretly as possible. Under the latest proposals, an agency would not have to report its privatization of a program or service until after the contract is signed. And they also would eliminate a current legal requirement to do a cost-benefit analysis before privatizing any government function.
In other words, don’t let the public know what you’re doing and don’t bother to find out the costs.
Scott, former CEO of hospital giant Columbia/HCA, came into office on a mission to privatize Florida government. Scott left HCA as the company was being investigated for the “biggest Medicare fraud case in U.S. history.” Columbia/HCA ultimately paid a record $1.7 billion in fines, penalties and damages.
Scott has already proposed privatizing the state’s Medicaid system, state parkcampgrounds, the state’s three remaining public mental hospitals, three centers for the developmentally disabled and six veterans’ homes.
The two largest prison companies, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and GEO Group (formerly Wackenhut), are poised to strike, in what Judith Greene, director of Justice Strategies calls, “an unprecedented” expansion of the use of private prisons that no other state has undertaken.
GEO has been a consistent force within Florida politics. GEO Group alone gave more than $400,000 to the party in the past election cycle. Geo Group‘s lobbyist, Brian Ballard, hosted Scott at his Tallahassee home to watch the Super Bowl. GEO Group and CCA donated nearly $1 million toward the Scott’s inauguration celebrations.
Tags: Corporate Accountability, Florida, privatization, Rick Scott
Photo by Casey Serin on Flickr, via Creative Commons
Despite the announcement at the State of the Union of a task force to investigate predatory lending and other sketchy bank practices, the settlement between the state Attorneys General and the five biggest banks is still on the table. Yes, we were successful in stalling the settlement, but that doesn’t discount the fact a deal is still being worked out, and that a draft has been submitted to the states AG’s for approval.
The deal calls for only $25 billion in assistance, which as we’ve said is a great deal of money until you compare it with U.S. homeowners $700 billion in negative equity. Despite the fanfare, that amount would only help a small percentage of affected homeowners – many Working America members among them.
We don’t think that’s enough. And now, we’re not alone:
Calif. Atty. Gen. Kamala D. Harris’ office has called a proposed $25-billion settlement with the nation’s mortgage industry “inadequate.”
“We’ve reviewed the details of the latest settlement proposal from the banks, and we believe it is inadequate for California,” Shum Preston, a spokesman for Harris, said in a statement. “Our state has been clear about what any multistate settlement must contain: transparency, relief going to the most distressed homeowners and meaningful enforcement that ensures accountability. At this point, this deal does not suffice for California.”
Kamala Harris, along with Attorneys General Schneiderman (New York), Coakley (Massachusetts), Biden (Delaware), and Cortez Masto (Nevada), have been leading the charge against a weak settlement for months. Harris’ statement is a big deal because California, in addition to being a big state with a great deal of resources, has one of the highest foreclosure rates in the country. We agree with Harris – agreeing to this pittance of a settlement would be an abdication of her duties as California’s chief law enforcer.
If you want a great example of abdicating your duty as law enforcer, take a gander at Florida’s Republican Attorney General Pam Bondi. Bondi, a frequent Fox News guest and ally of the exceedingly unpopular Rick Scott, is also skeptical of a settlement, but not for the same reasons we are. She’s worried about the Big Banks being treated unfairly:
[With] a settlement taking shape last year, Bondi broke ranks with her counterparts and rejected it. That’s because the settlement would have mandated principal reduction—a measure that could help keep more homeowners out of foreclosure, but that would force banks and lenders to take a bigger hit on their balance sheets. “It seems like she’s balancing the interest of businesses with the interest of Floridians when it comes to principal reduction,” state Rep. Darren Soto (D-Orlando) told the Sentinel. “When you’re the AG, you have one interest: Floridians. You’re supposed to be the consumer advocate, first and foremost.”
When you follow the money, you can see one possible reason why Bondi is interested in a slap-on-the-wrist settlement: she’s received campaign contributions from executives and employees of ProVest and Lender Processing Services – two big foreclosure mills.
We’re cheering this move by Kamala Harris, as well as the efforts of her fellow “Justice Democrats” Eric Schneiderman, Martha Coakley, Beau Biden, and Catherine Cortez Masto. Our members have acutely felt the pains of mass foreclosures in their neighborhoods, communities, and families. These AG’s shouldn’t stop fighting until we get a full investigation of foreclosure fraud; something with a strong budget, adequate staff, and the authority to go after the people accountable for kicking millions of Americans out of their home.
As for Pam Bondi, whether her inaction on the foreclosure crisis really is the result of her campaign contributions or mere negligence, it’s just a reminder of why people are so cynical. Owning a home used to be part of the American promise – this is an area where government needs to help, regardless of party.
Tags: California, Florida, foreclosure, foreclosure crisis, foreclosures, Kamala Harris
In October we told you about the governors and legislators proposing mandatory urine testing in order to qualify for food stamps or welfare.
A few weeks ago, we wrote about Rep. Jack Kingston from Georgia, who wants the unemployed to undergo mandatory drug testing to “qualify” for unemployment benefits.
The latest entrant into the drug testing wars is Michigan. From Huffington Post:
Officials in Michigan’s Department of Human Services want to bring back drug testing of welfare recipients, a controversial practice that Michigan courts struck down more than a decade ago. The new policy would differ from the one enacted under Republican Gov. John Engler in 1999, which required a urine test to apply for benefits and would have subjected recipients to random drug screenings.
and
Michigan state Rep. Jeff Farrington (R-Utica) introduced a bill on Dec. 13 that would require applicants take a drug test to qualify for FIA benefits. Under the proposed bill, which is still up for discussion, recipients who passed a drug screening would have the cost of the test deducted from their first benefits payment.
Great. Not only do they want to demonize the poor, they want the poor to pay for that demonization. Rep. Farrington should heed the lesson of Governor Rick Scott of Florida, whose misguided urine test policies lead to record low approval levels. From Mother Jones:
But with 96 percent of applicants passing the test with flying colors (and another 2 percent getting inconclusive results), the state is having to buy back a lot of clean pee: 11.5 gallons at $34,300 every month, assuming an average sample size of 1.5 ounces and and average test price of $35.
That’s spending an awful lot of taxpayer money just to harass poor people. It’s certainly not creating the big savings that Governor Scott promised his constituents.
I wrote in October:
On the one hand, we hear a lot of gnashing of teeth from DC about job creation, yet on the other, we have the ongoing blame being heaped upon those who aren’t able to find work and are living in poverty, as if being unemployed or poor were somehow voluntary.
It is deeply distressing to see this becoming a national trend.
Photo by micahb37 on Flickr, via Creative Commons.
Tags: Florida, Michigan, Rick Scott, unemployment
In September I wrote about states that were considering forcing people receiving welfare or food stamp benefits to undergo urine testing for drugs, in order to qualify for their benefits. Florida actually tried it, and has found that it isn’t exactly working out the way they’d hoped. In fact, it’s costing the state a lot of money. But, this hasn’t deterred those who are determined to wage war on the poor.
A new warrior has stepped forth. From the Huffington Post:
The bill by Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) would require unemployment claimants to pass a drug test if they are identified in an initial screening as having a high probability of drug use.
Yes, that’s right. He wants people who are collecting unemployment benefits from a system they’ve paid into, to take mandatory drug tests.
Michael Steel, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), said Wednesday that Republican legislation would “reform” unemployment insurance. “We are working on a bill to stop a tax hike, protect Social Security, reform unemployment insurance and create jobs,” Steel said.
It doesn’t seem to occur to these folks that if there were jobs, there would be fewer folks who are unemployed. They really work hard at having it both ways; decrying the lack of jobs, then blaming the unemployed for not working.
Kingston cited an overwhelming number of job applicants flunking drug tests as the rationale for his proposal.
“I had an employer tell me of an overwhelming response for job openings,” Kingston said in a statement. “There was just one problem: half the people who applied could not even pass a drug test.”
Last year Governor Nikki Hailey of South Carolina made a similar claim. It proved to be bogus. Governor Hailey had to admit that she’s made those comments based on erroneous information. Representative Kingston is refusing to provide the source for his claims.
From Kingston’s website:
At a series of listening sessions with business owners throughout the First District conducted earlier this year, Congressman Jack Kingston (R-GA) heard repeatedly about barriers to job creation. While he heard many of the issues he expected like overly burdensome regulations and the pervasive uncertainty in the economy, one issue that was brought up in every meeting surprised him: abuse of unemployment insurance.
So, because people are allegedly abusing unemployment insurance business owners can’t create jobs? That doesn’t even make sense.
“My proposal strengthens the safety net and ensures it will be available to those who use it as a stepping stone back into the workforce,” Kingston said. “It does so without increasing federal spending or placing new, unfunded mandates on the states.”
So, preventing people from collecting unemployment benefits from a fund that they’ve paid into is his definition of strengthening the safety net? Ensuring that kids go hungry and may become homeless is a function of the safety net?
I vote we drug test Congressman Kingston. At about 8 pm, on any given night.
Tags: Florida, Jobs, Rick Scott, unemployment
By David Fernandez – Orlando, Florida
At the steps of Winter Garden City Hall, Working America member Dennis Maclaren held his 7 year-old son Aidan, choking up as he shared his struggles as a long-term unemployed graphic designer. “When I’ve applied for work over the past several years, it’s dozens of people vying for the same position,” Dennis exclaimed as he spoke the crowd of thirty community members in attendance. “I have long exhausted my unemployment insurance, but without them during these past years hunting for work, I wouldn’t have been able to afford a roof over my family’s head and food on our dinner table.” Dennis was one of many who came to Representative Dan Webster’s (R-FL) office on December 8th the national day of action to demanding Congress extend unemployment benefits for the millions without work.
The purpose of the gathering was to stand in solidarity with those who have lost their jobs during the economic recession, and to send a strong message to Rep. Webster urging him to remember all of his unemployed constituents when he votes for the extension of unemployment insurance in the coming weeks. “As a student I’ve been looking for work in my field for years now, and having to balance student loans with job hunting is an enormous burden,” said member Krist Cooper, who has been taking action with the Working America’s Unemployment Action Team. “How is unemployment extension even a debate? It’s a vital necessity for those currently without work, and first stepping into a jobless workforce.”
Outside of Rep. Webster’s office, a delegation of students, teachers, union members, religious leaders, and local city officials prayed and chanted for the passage of unemployment extension before the December 31st deadline. “If Congress does not act now, then 2 million people will lose their unemployment insurance by the month of January,” said Lorraine Tuliano, President of the Central Florida City Labor Council. “It’s time for our representatives to be accountable to their constituents and to stop playing political poker at the expense of millions of unemployed families.”
Photo of Dennis and Aden by GenuineRevolt on Flickr, via Creative Commons.
Tags: Dan Webster, Florida, Orlando, OWS, unemployment, unemployment extension
Florida Governor Rick Scott has achieved a historically low approval rating of 26 percent. How did he do it? Here’s our guide to being an incredibly unpopular state executive:
1.) While campaigning, make sure to promise to take action on the most pressing issue on the minds of Americans: jobs. Declare unequivocally and repeatedly that you will create 700,000 jobs in 7 years, and make “Let’s get to work” your campaign slogan. That way, voters can feel a sense of betrayal and disappointment when you do nothing to follow through.
2.) Start breaking promises right off the bat – voters love initiative! Despite a historic high level of unemployment in construction, reject federal money for a high speed rail project that would employ thousands of construction workers and engineers. Don’t give a good reason for your actions. That way, voters can assume you’re killing jobs for political reasons.
3.) Has your state experienced a huge economic hit because of a man-made, preventable disaster recently, perhaps an oil spill? By all means, do not make any effort to hold the corporations behind that disaster accountable. Even if other governors of your own party are making such an effort, continue to have more sympathy for those corporations then your constituents.
4.) One of the keys to being an unpopular governor is to demonize huge segments of your state’s population, and then watch it backfire. Here’s a good list to start from:
- Firefighters and police officers
- Students
- College professors
- Welfare recipients
- People who want to vote
- Teachers
- People who enjoy parks
- People with preexisting medical conditions
- “Government”
5.) Related: Fire lots of teachers. Voters love crowded classrooms.
6.) Display your callous disregard for working families by raising the salaries of your personal staff while slashing wages for state employees.
7.) Continue to tout your business background while doing everything you can to seed doubt about your understanding of economics. Bonus: Fail at basic math and attack public workers simultaneously.
8.) While you’re ignoring the jobs crisis, try addressing some imaginary problems. Let your imagination run wild! Don’t stop at fighting imaginary voter fraud, that’s just Bad Governor 101. Search for oil in the Everglades! Fight imaginary drug use among welfare recipients! Spend as much taxpayer money as possible.
9.) Establish a “jobs agency” that can’t keep track of its own spending. Voters love irony!
10.) Make lots of statements that are demonstrably false. These statements should concern topics a governor should be familiar with: regulations, budgets, spending, transportation, health care, and the geography of your state. (Bonus: Racial insensitivity.)
11.) Don’t forget your role: serving the needs of corporations and the super-wealthy. For instance, pass $2 billion in tax breaks targeting the wealthiest and lift regulations on property insurers. Announce plans to privatize as many things as you can. Make sure your campaign donors coincidentally benefit from your policies. (Bonus: Wink at the taxpayers for footing the bill – they’re in on the joke!)
12.) At all times, lack compassion and understanding about the basic needs and priorities of your state. The majority of your constituents just want to find a decent job, put food on the table, afford health care when they get sick, pay bills on time, vote on Election Day, and make sure their children get an adequate education. Your job is to wake up every morning in your mansion, drive to work, and make sure all those things are as difficult as possible.
Got more to add to Rick Scott’s Guide to Popularity? Leave your suggestions in the comments, or tweet at us with the hashtag #RickScottFail.
Photo of Governor Rick Scott by Gage Skidmore on Flickr, via Creative Commons.
Tags: Corporate Accountability, Education, Florida, Health Care, Housing, Jobs, Retirement, Rick Scott, Rights At Work
Rick Scott, the Governor of the State of Florida, has broken new ground. According to Public Policy Polling, he is once again the least popular governor in the country:
Florida’s Rick Scott has retaken the title of least popular governor in the country among the 36 on which PPP has polled this year. His job performance mark has tanked from 36% approving and 52% disapproving when PPP last polled the state in September to 26-58 now, a decline of 16 points on the margin. His greatest fall has been with his own party, which stands at 46-31, down 22 points. Independents disapprove by a 30-55 margin.
More key numbers:
- 66 percent of those who identify as political “moderates” disapprove of Scott. 34 percent of those who identify as “somewhat conservative” also disapprove.
- 55 percent of Independents disapprove, and so do 31 percent of Republicans.
- African-Americans, a sizable population in Florida, have truly soured on Rick Scott – only 5 percent approve versus 80 percent disapproving. 66 percent of Hispanics also disapprove.
- In a hypothetical rematch with 2010 Democratic opponent Alex Sink, Scott would only receive 37 percent of the vote. Sink would net 48 percent of the crucial Independent vote, and 21 percent of Republicans would cross party lines instead of voting for Scott.
This level of poor job performance is even more impressive when you consider Scott’s competition:
- Michigan’s Gov. Rick Snyder, who despite calling himself in favor of “small government” is wresting away local the power of local governments in his state;
So how did Scott do it? How did he manage to get nearly 3 out of every 4 Floridians to think he is bad at his job? We’ve prepared a little cheat sheet, in case you want to be a terrible governor at home. Stay tuned for Rick Scott’s Guide to Unpopularity!
Photo by juxtapose^esopatxuj on Flickr, via Creative Commons.
Tags: Corporate Accountability, Education, Florida, Health Care, Housing, Jobs, Retirement, Rick Scott, Rights At Work
