ALICE Lives Here, And Needs Some Help

job automation impact us?

Assemblyman Alex Sauickie

Some of you may recall the 1974 movie “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore,” but most have never heard of the ALICE project. Led by the United Way of Northern New Jersey, it has spread over half the country, providing research on the number of working households who are struggling financially. ALICE stands for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed. These working households depend on a job, usually a low-paying one, to make ends meet. So why is this important to the residents of Ocean County, and how does

Well, according to the 2021 ALICE report, Ocean County with its 240,736 households has the third highest percentage of residents in the state in terms of both the working poor and those living below the poverty level. In other words, ALICE lives here in Ocean County with many families living day-today off their lower-skilled jobs that provide important services.

Many of these jobs are the very ones that are most at risk of being lost to automation. According to a report by Zippia, a job research company, automation will displace 20 million manufacturing jobs by 2030 and has the potential to eliminate 73 million total American jobs by that year. Job loss due to automation cannot be stopped, but with proper planning the life-changing impact can be lessened and maybe even reversed. That’s why I’ve sponsored four legislative proposals in the General Assembly to bring attention to this silent job-killer, and provide some relief to hard working families in Ocean County and in the rest of our state.

One of these bills (A4987) creates a job training and career development program, which focuses on connecting employers with workers whose jobs have been lost or endangered by automation. It provides wrap-around services for these workers so that they can gain the needed skills to find new employment.

Another bill (A5150) requires the Department of Labor and Workforce Development to track and maintain information on job losses due to automation. Effectively addressing a matter such as this requires upto-date data and a clear picture of the trends.

A third bill (A-5224) requires public colleges and universities to enroll students impacted by automation in job-training courses tuition-free, as long as there is room in the class and the student doesn’t qualify for financial aid.

The final bill (A-5451) provides a tax credit – against either the corporation business tax or the gross income tax, whichever the company pays – for hiring people who have lost their jobs due to automation.

By introducing these bills and bringing these issues to the public’s attention, it is my hope to gain the support of the Governor and other members of the Legislature. It is our duty to make every effort to ensure that all of our ALICEs can afford to live and stay here.

Alex Sauickie is a life-long Jackson resident who represents his home town and 13 other towns in the State Assembly.

Federal Oversight Could Have Prevented Bank Failures

Senator Robert Menendez

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), a senior member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, pressed federal financial regulators during an oversight hearing on their efforts to ensure greater executive accountability and effective supervision in the wake of recent bank failures.

The Senator noted that Michael Barr, the Federal Reserve Vice Chair for Supervision, identified in his recent report major weaknesses in Silicon Valley Bank’s incentive compensation program, noting that it encouraged excessive risk taking to maximize short-term financial metrics and did not adequately reflect longer-term performance, nonfinancial risks, or unaddressed audit or supervisory issues.

“As I noted in our hearing with the executives...the incentive structure SVB put in place rewarded breakneck growth and profitability, while kneecapping efforts to manage growing risks to the firm,” said Sen. Menendez.

The Senator pointed out that financial regulators have been slow to develop and swiftly implement a strong incentive-based compensation rule – a rule that is required under Dodd-Frank and is now more than 10 years overdue – that could have helped in preventing the situation we saw at SVB.

“I have a sense, having sat through the

Great Recession, almost the financial collapse, listening to all we were asked to do as members of the Banking Committee back then. When we pass things, we seem to get it vetoed by omission,” added Sen. Menendez. “Which means maybe the regulators don’t like what we say, but it’s the law. And then nothing happens. A decade – a decade! At some point, gentlemen, you have responsibility. So, I hope you’ll get to that quickly.”

The Senator also highlighted how Vice Chair Barr’s report on the supervision of SVB revealed that Fed examiners gave the bank’s management satisfactory ratings even after supervisors began identifying and communicating issues with governance and risk management in 2018. The Federal Reserve continued awarding management satisfactory ratings despite identifying significant concerns year after year. He questioned why regulators appear reluctant to downgrade bank ratings to reflect their performance.

“To me, this shows that Fed examiners fundamentally misunderstood their role in enforcing a safe and sound banking system,” concluded Sen. Menendez. “Your job is to identify risks proactively and ensure they are fixed before they impact performance, since we’ve seen time and again that the banks themselves do a poor job of it.”

At the end of his line of questioning, Sen. Menendez secured commitments from Vice Chair Barr to sharpen the focus of the Federal Reserve’s supervisory efforts in order to proactively identify and ensure banks fix vulnerabilities.

In late March, Sen. Menendez led a bipartisan group of Senate Banking colleagues in pressing Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on the agency’s use of enhanced supervision and prudential standards for SVB. He also signed a letter led by Chair Sherrod Brown to Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Gensler requesting prompt examinations of Silicon Valley Bank’s purportedly selling millions of dollars’ worth of company stock in the days and months leading up to SVB’s failure.

In response to the recent bank failures,

Sen. Menendez joined dozens of Senate and House colleagues to introduce the Secure Viable Banking Act, legislation that would repeal Title IV of S.2155, the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act of 2018, and increase prudential standards for banks similar to Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank. Sen. Menendez is a longtime advocate for prudent financial regulation, and was outspoken about the dangers of passing S.2155 five years ago, which reduced critical oversight and capital requirements for large banks.

Production

Layout Designer Sara Zorns social media with reports that were not entirely accurate. The event was handled immediately by district staff and addressed in accordance with the school’s Code of Conduct.

The district declined to provide further details as student matters are not discussed publicly due to student privacy requirements. Pormilli said that such incidents were growing in number and were reflective of the need to add additional personnel to address mental health issues as well as substance abuse incidents.

“The mental health needs have increased. We are dealing with more social emotional issues, more conflict issues. We need a better ratio of coun - selors for students,” the superintendent said, noting the need for more substance abuse counselors as well.

Rosenauer Not For Sale

During the latest Board of Education meeting, Pormilli said one option off the table this year involved “a rumor that has been out there for ages in regards to selling Rosenauer school. It is a small elementary school and is intended to be a small elementary school.”

She added, “it is a wonderful neighborhood school. Many students walk to that school because it is a neighborhood school.”

Pormilli explained while the review showed that selling the building would provide some savings, the relocation of those students wouldn’t make it feasible.

“Currently, there would not be space in the two closest elementary schools. We also had to consider all those walkers that would now have to be bussed and that would be an additional expense. At this time, we have determined that closing the school would not be good for the district,” she said.

Loss Of 64 Positions

The adopted $165,790,499 budget included the loss of 64 positions.

Business Administrator Michelle Richardson explained that the spending plan “contains a general fund tax levy increase of 2% which is the cap that the state allows.”

This will translate into a $2 increase for the owner of the average home assessed at $330,688. The tentative school rate is $1.4203 per $100 of assessed home value.

The loss in staff is in addition to the 151.5 staff reduction already realized in the last five years - bringing the total loss to 215 positions.

Pormilli said, “that is a reduction across all staffing. We reduced yet again our school budgets and put on pause any Tier 1 capital improvement projects unless they are related to safety. We’ve reduced much needed upgrades to our technology department. Due to the reduction in staff, we will see class sizes increase.”

The dire financial position was created by the bill commonly referred to as S-2. This transferred state aid away from some districts like Jackson and gave it to other districts. Local school officials have been fighting this change but have been unsuccessful in overturning it.

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