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| Source Iowa Election Market |
Fatally injured drivers increasingly test positive for drugs, numbers nearly triple for marijuana in 10-year period
The prevalence of non-alcohol drugs detected in fatally injured drivers in the U.S. has been steadily rising and tripled from 1999 to 2010 for drivers who tested positive for marijuana — the most commonly detected non-alcohol drug — suggesting that drugged driving may be playing an increasing role in fatal motor vehicle crashes.
As reported in a news release, to assess these trends researchers at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health examined toxicological testing data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Fatality Analysis Reporting System and found that of 23,591 drivers who were killed within one hour of a crash, 39.7% tested positive for alcohol and 24.8% for other drugs.
While positive results for alcohol remained stable, the prevalence of non-alcohol drugs rose significantly from 16.6% in 1999 to 28.3% in 2010; for marijuana, rates rose from 4.2% to 12.2%. Findings are online in the American Journal of Epidemiology.
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| Source: The Wall St Journal |
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| Source: The Wall St Journal |
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| Source Iowa Election Market |
[Art] Laffer [former Reagan Economic Advisor] ... appeared on the January 8 edition of Fox News' Happening Now to discuss the possible extension of recently-expired unemployment benefits for the long-term unemployed. When host Jenna Lee asked Laffer and American Enterprise Institute's Michael Strain about other ways to improve the economy, Laffer recommended doing away with the minimum wage for some workers, saying that "honestly" the requirement is the "black teenage unemployment act." Strain agreed, and suggested lowering the minimum wage "for the long-term unemployed" to $4 an hour.The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the unemployment rate for White teenagers, 16-19 years old, is 18 percent and for Black teenagers it is 35.5 percent. Both teenage unemployment rates are over three times their respective unemployment rates for 20 years old and over, and the Black teenage unemployment rate is double the White teenage unemployment rate.
Video.
JENNA LEE: One of the things you both agree on is maybe looking at minimum wage, and Art, you have an idea for minimum wage that you think could encourage hiring and it involves state government so what is that plan?
LAFFER: Yeah, well the minimum wage makes no sense whatsoever to me. I mean, honestly, it's just the teenage -- black teenage unemployment act and this is the very groups that we need to have jobs not be put out of work because of the minimum wage so I'm really very much in favor of at least for teenagers getting rid of the minimum wage so we can bring them back into the labor force, get them the skills they need to continue being productive members of our society for years and years. I mean, that's the way I'd go on minimum wage.
Last year, public-sector health benefits cost $8,551 per employee while private-sector coverage cost only $6,040.
That 40 percent premium for a public-sector worker is not captured by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Indeed, because the Foundation does not survey federal-government employees, it does not even report those who might be the highest cost. Even if the latter include the military, the premium for government benefits is remarkably high.
When people complain about the cost of private coverage, they likely don’t know that many of the guilty parties are government employees (including the ones who would be involved in a so-called “single payer”, government monopoly, health system).
The reports do not publish the number of public-sector workers versus private-sector workers. If they did, simple arithmetic would likely show that the rapid increase in health spending over the decades is largely explained by growth in public-sector health benefits, not private-sector ones. [Emphasis added.]
But a new working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research says that Americans increasingly engage in what economists call “positive assortative mating” — meaning they marry someone who is about the same as they are. Princes do not tend to go after Cinderellas.
The paper’s authors, led by Jeremy Greenwood at the University of Pennsylvania, mined census data from 1960 to 2005 and found that people’s tendency to marry someone of the same education level as their own increased steeply. After taking into account the increases in the education levels for men and women that have occurred between 1960 and 2005, the odds of a college-educated male marrying a college-educated female rose by 12 percentage points.*** They then looked at the effect of this self-selection on income inequality. In 1960, they found, a couple without high school degrees would have made 77 percent of the mean household income. But if the woman without a high school degree married a man with a college degree, their household would have made 124 percent of the average.
In 2005, a woman with post-college education married to a man without a high school degree would have had a household income 92 percent of average. But if she married a man with a similar level of education to her own, they would have been making more than twice the average income.
The authors compared their marriage model to a measure of inequality known as the Gini coefficient — the higher the Gini coefficient, the greater the inequality in a given society. From 1960 to 2005, the Gini coefficient in the United States increased to 0.43, from 0.34, representing the dropping share of income controlled by poor families.
If people married completely randomly in 1960, instead of following the pattern they did, the Gini coefficient would have remained about the same. But if people married randomly in 2005 (or if they followed the preferences of couples in 1960) the Gini coefficient — and thus income inequality for the society at large — would have been significantly lower.
Not only are people more apt to marry someone similar to themselves today, but their choices also matter more to society. That’s because a far greater share of women work today than before.
Before, it didn’t matter so much whom you married if your household was going to have only one income, Mr. Greenwood said. “Plus, the higher educated women earn a lot more now relative to what they did in 1960, so that makes sorting more important in 2005,” he said. [Emphasis added.]
Sources: S&P Dow Jones Indices and CoreLogic
Earners of $1 million or more who live in New York, not those who earn their income in New York but live elsewhere, increased 6.8 percent between 2010 and 2011, according to IRS data. Nationally, it grew by 7.7 percent, McMahon said.
The increase in New York millionaires in 2011, the most recent figures available, wasn’t as large as it was in 2010, when it soared 19 percent from 2009.*** State budget documents forecast that earners making $1 million or more are expected to pay 41 percent of the state’s total income tax in 2014, a 17 percent increase from 2011. Yet they will represent 26 percent of the state’s total earnings, an increase of 15 percent from 2011.
The total taxes paid in every other income bracket is expected to drop in 2014, the state budget showed.*** New York City had 53 percent of the millionaires in 2011, a total of nearly 19,000 or 8 percent higher than in 2010. And 87 percent of them lived in Manhattan.
The second most millionaire earners in 2011 lived in Westchester County, with 6,518 – an increase of 6.7 percent from the previous year.
A 2010 report on pedestrian safety in New York City concluded that "surprisingly, most (57 percent)" of deaths at intersections between 2005 and 2009 "occurred while the pedestrian was crossing with the signal."The complete report, "The New York City Pedestrian Safety Study & Action Plan" by the New York City Department of Transportation,
In 2013, the union membership rate--the percent of wage and salary workers who were members of unions--was 11.3 percent, the same as in 2012, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The number of wage and salary workers belonging to unions, at 14.5 million, was little different from 2012. In 1983, the first year for which comparable union data are available, the union membership rate was 20.1 percent, and there were 17.7 million union workers.*** Highlights from the 2013 data:--Public-sector workers had a union membership rate (35.3 percent) more than five times higher than that of private-sector workers (6.7 percent).
--Workers in education, training, and library occupations and in protective service occupations had the highest unionization rate, at 35.3 percent for each occupation group.
--Men had a higher union membership rate (11.9 percent) than women (10.5 percent).
--Black workers were more likely to be union members than white, Asian, or Hispanic workers.
--Among states, New York continued to have the highest union membership rate (24.4 percent), and North Carolina had the lowest rate (3.0 percent). [Tables omitted.]
Data from the Current Population Survey, or CPS, form the basis of the Social Security Administration's Income of the Aged publication series—which is widely cited as showing that Americans' inadequate retirement incomes force them to increasingly rely on Social Security benefits. But the CPS fails to count most of the income Americans derive from 401(k) and IRA plans, as well as significantly understating the percentage of current American workers who are saving for retirement.
.... The Census Bureau's definition of income, however, includes only payments made on a regular, periodic basis. So monthly benefits paid from a defined benefit pension or an annuity are counted as income, while as-needed withdrawals from 401(k)s or IRAs are not.
*** For 2008, the CPS reported $5.6 billion in individual IRA income. Retirees themselves reported $111 billion in IRA income to the Internal Revenue Service. The CPS suggests that in 2008 households receiving Social Security benefits collected $222 billion in pensions or annuity income. But federal tax filings for 2008 show that these same households received $457 billion of pension or annuity income.*** The Social Security Administration has used the Census survey for the last 40 years to report the income status of the elderly. The agency has known for nearly 20 years that CPS data ignored much of the retirement income paid out by pensions and IRAs, and that the underreporting of this income was a growing problem.*** Nevertheless, Social Security Administration summary reports developed from CPS data continue to be published. They are widely cited as justification for expanding Social Security and shifting away from the 401(k) and IRA saving system that today produces more income for retirees than does Social Security.
Californians face the highest top marginal tax rate on wage income at 51.9 percent, followed by Hawaii (50.5 percent), and New York (50.3 percent). Even high income earners in states with no income tax such as New Hampshire, Texas, and Nevada face top marginal income tax rates over 42 percent. The average across all states is 47.9 percent.
