The Heinz Journal, Volume 17, Issue 1 | Spring 2019

Editors in Chief Sean Hoover Sara Shore

Volume 17, Issue 1 ¡ Spring 2019 journal.heinz.cmu.edu

A Case Study on the Middle Class: Economic Trends for Colorado Families

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Joseph Zimmerman Head Editors Jimmy McHugh Shreya Prabhu Sonia Reed Preetha Swamy

Editors Mary Rose Debor Deborah Foell-McDowell Rashmeen Kaur Mia Lee Grace Luetmer Hallie Johnson Alejandro Orozco-Lemus Angelica Perry Yulini Persuad Carlyn Petrella Allyce Pinchback-Johnson Cheena Mae Pongase Nandini Radhakrishnan Cesar Ruiz Temeca Simpson

The Industrial and Environmental Development of Vienna and Pittsburgh: Lessons for China’s Future

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J. Alexander Killion

Poverty is Criminalized and Criminalization Perpetuates Poverty: Cash Bail and Mandatory Minimum Sentencing

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Wendy Schiller Kate Vander Wiede

Examining the Accessibility of Child Care and Related Policies for Employees of Higher Education Institutions Mary Rose Debor

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The Heinz Journal is a student-run publication of the Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University, dedicated to publishing works that link critical and theoretical analysis with policy implementation.

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We accept submissions from the Heinz community. Submissions and inquiries can be emailed to TheHeinzJournal@gmail.com.

A Case Study on the Middle Class

A Case Study on the Middle Class: Economic Trends for Colorado Families Joseph Zimmerman University of Colorado Denver, School of Public Affairs Entry into the middle class has become increasingly more difficult to attain over the past two decades. While incomes have largely remained stagnant, the cost of living has drastically increased, resulting in many middle-class families barely having enough money to pay for basic expenses. This project seeks to diagnose the ability of middle-class families to afford a middleclass lifestyle by comparing incomes to the cost of living in Colorado. The data is measured according to the variables of standard of living, geographic location, and family type based on the age of the children. When examining standard of living, this project provides an in-depth accounting of the middle class as defined by its lower and upper thresholds in order to provide a more complete view of the middle class. The purpose of this study is to display concrete evidence of the economic trends that are affecting these families and enable constructive discussion of their policy implications. The results show that each of these variables affect net incomes. The most readily apparent observation is that families in urban counties or with high standards of living have decidedly higher levels of net income in all years studied. Additionally, the most significant relative effect on income is the increasingly high cost of child care for young children as compared to older children.

Introduction The middle class is a concept many can describe and recognize but whose precise definition is just out of reach. Methods of understanding class often revolve around median income levels or basic cost of living.

This provides an incomplete picture of the reality that middle-class families experience every day. Middle class families everywhere must balance their checkbooks by assessing their income and subtracting living costs. As such, this project takes a similar approach.

Modern life has a primary focus on making an income to pay for goods and that income has become a central component of what it means to be a member of the middle class.

Consequently, the general principle of subtracting living costs from income to find the net income serves as the primary basis for the research and analysis conducted for this 1

Bell Policy Center Staff, What happened to Colorado’s Middle Class? The Bell Policy Center, (March 19, 2018).

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project. This research aims to gain a better understanding of the nature of the middle class and how recent economic trends affect the net incomes of middle-class families in Colorado.

This project synthesizes data from economic reports on the middle class and then analyzes it to determine how net income levels have changed over time according to standard of living, location, and family type.

By utilizing these three variables, this project intends to provide policy makers with a more complete picture of the financial definition of the middle class, which should allow for more effective policy decisions. The data for this project was compiled for The Bell Policy Center, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization in Colorado.1 This research is beneficial to decision makers as it fills important gaps left http://www.bellpolicy.org/2018/03/19/coloradosmiddle-class/

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The Heinz Journal by most of the available data for Colorado’s middle class that is limited to tracking income levels or the basic standard of living.

Studies of the living costs of middle-class families tend to look at the lower end of the spectrum or provide nonspecific estimates.

By tracking both income and living costs at the upper and lower ends of the spectrum, a broader and more concrete understanding of the middle class comes into focus. This is because the middle class is best understood as an economic classification of a social group that can live in a comfortably sustainable manner, with the upper end being able to sustainably afford a desirable living standard and the lower end being able to consistently meet its living expenses. This paper will first review applicable resources and academic studies; second, develop a description of the methodology for the research conducted in this project; third, give the results of this research; and finally, there is a discussion of the implications of this research along with my recommendations and conclusions.

Literature Review Scholarly works on the middle class point to membership in the middle class as a key component in economic development and social unity, with the middle class being associated with “higher income and higher growth, as well as higher education, better health, better infrastructure, better economic policies, less political instability, less civil war and ethnic minorities at risk, more social "modernization" and more democracy.” 2 It seems then to be something worth pursuing for as many people as possible. This project will primarily use an economic definition of William Easterly, “The middle-class consensus and economic development,” Journal of Economic Growth 6, no. 4 (December 2001): 317. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40216047 3 Joseph Eisenhauer, “An economic definition of the middle class,” Forum for Social Economics 37, no. 2 2

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the middle class with the upper and lower economic demarcations of rich and poor serving as a serviceable definition of the term.3 Put more simply, the middle class is not rich or poor, but all the spaces in between.

The sources examined here illustrate how the middle class has been influenced by several different factors over time, producing a dynamic and unique social group that is experiencing fundamental economic changes. First, an inquiry into the social context of the American middle class highlights the foundations for our current class definitions. Second, an in-depth look at economic trends for the middle class through an analysis of economic scholarly articles and financial reports provides a more quantifiable depiction of how middle-class families are faring today.

Context: The American Middle Class The approach of comparing income to living costs is rooted in the historic trends that brought about the current paradigm for the middle class. Two long-developing trends have played a significant role in forming our understanding of the middle class: the rise of white-collar salaried jobs in the labor market and the establishment of a more uniform standard of living. While the main sources of employment in America have historically trended towards small businesses and general labor,4 professionalized, service-oriented office jobs have grown in prominence and stature in the last few decades. These jobs tend to be stable with wages at least high enough to afford basic necessities. They have recently come to be closely identified with the middle and upper-middle classes, while blue-collar workers tend to constitute the (2008): 105. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12143-0079009-y 4 C. Wright Mills, White collar: The American middle classes (New York: Oxford University Press, 1953), 63.

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A Case Study on the Middle Class

lower middle class. This was not always the case, as manual labor such as factory jobs constituted a significant portion of the work force and supported many middle-class families.5 On the domestic front, however, these professional differentiations have been moderated by the formation of an idealized standard of living that all Americans have sought to partake in. This “standard of living is not a measure of achievement, but a measure of aspiration … (an) example against which all others are evaluated.” 6 This standard of living has cut across professional boundaries and facilitated the creation of a widely shared aspiration, colloquially known as the ‘American dream.’

The capacity to afford the ‘American dream’ is being tested by recent economic trends, as there have been dramatic changes in the socioeconomic makeup of the nation. News headlines describe a shrinking middle class resulting from upper middle-class families becoming more affluent,7 while middle and lower middle-class families have stagnated or been forced into low-skill service jobs.8 This is also the case in Colorado, where the number of middle-income families in all

Alan Abramowitz and Ruy Teixeira, “The decline of the white working class and the rise of a mass upper-middle class,” Political Science Quarterly 124, no. 3 (Fall 2009): 391-2. http://www.jstor.org/stable/ 25655694 6 Marina Moskowitz, Standard of living: The measure of the middle class in modern America (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004), 11.

7 Josh Zumbrun, “Not just the 1%: The upper middle class is larger and richer than ever,” Wall Street Journal, June 21, 2016. https://blogs.wsj.com/ economics/2016/06/ 21/not-just-the-1-the-uppermiddle-class-is-larger-and-richer-than-ever/ 8 David Autor and David Dorn, “The growth of lowskill service jobs and the polarization of the US labor market,” The American Economic Review 103, no. 5 (August 2013): 1555. http://www.jstor.org/stable/ 42920623 5

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metropolitan areas decreased from 2000 to 2014.9 This decrease in income levels nationwide and in Colorado specifically has negatively impacted the ability of the middle class to pay for their necessities and possessions in recent years, with lower middle-class families having a particularly difficult time affording the cost of living.10 While these broad trends have been widely reported, there are still a number of factors that need to be accounted for more specifically.

Measuring Economic Trends One of the most important elements of daily life in the middle class is one’s ability to pay for a family’s expenses consistently.11 Quantitative studies of the American middle class tend to focus on measuring this ability, and they provide a mixed but ultimately troubling view of the financial standing of the middle class. American wages have increasingly shifted away from the middle class, with a steady decrease in middle income families from 53% in 1987 to 43% in 2013 as upper income families have increased from 7% to 22% in the same period.12 One study found increased interest Aldo Svaldi, “Middle class shrinks in Colorado, across U.S. as incomes fall,” Denver Post, May 12, 2016. http://www.denverpost.com/2016/05/12/ middle-class-shrinks-in-colorado-across-u-s-asincomes-fall/ 10 Alicia Parlapiano, Robert Gebeloff, and Shan Carter, “The shrinking American middle class,” New York Times, January 25, 2015. https://www.nytimes. com/interactive/2015/01/25/upshot/shrinking-middleclass.html 11 Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo, “What is middle class about the middle classes around the world?” The Journal of Economic Perspectives 22, no. 2 (Spring 2008): 26. http://www.jstor.org/stable/ 27648239 12 David H. Autor, Lawrence F. Katz, and Melissa S. Kearney, “Trends in U.S. wage inequality: Revising the revisionists,” The Review of Economics and 9

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The Heinz Journal payments on consumer debt such as credit cards and motor vehicle loans to be squeezing middle-class families, with debt-to-income ratios increasing an average of over 6% for the middle class from 2000 to 2007.13 An additional study found that financial security for the middle class has significantly declined, with only 29% of families having three months’ worth of income saved in case of emergencies, which is down 10% from 2000.14 However, some studies do not paint such a bleak picture. One report reexamined income data by including changes in taxes, healthcare, and other factors, and found that household incomes have increased by as much as 36.7% from 1979 to 2007 after adjusting for inflation.15 Most of the literature, however, shows that the financial situation for the middle class has generally been worsening in recent years.

Trends in the labor market have led to a paradigm shift for the lower middle class.

One study by Alan Abramowitz and Ruy Teixeira details the demographic shifts in education and occupation that have wholly altered the nature of the American class structure in the decades following World War II. On education, most Americans have gone from not graduating high school to having at least some college education. On occupation, Statistics 90, no. 2 (May 2008): 300. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40043148 13 Robert H. Scott and Steven Pressman, “A double squeeze on the middle class,” Journal of Economic Issues 45, no. 2 (2011): 338. https://doi.org/10.2753/ JEI0021-3624450210 14 Christian E. Weller and Amanda M. Logan, “Measuring middle class economic security,” Journal of Economic Issues 43, no. 2 (June 2009): 332-3. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25511435 15 Richard V. Burkhauser, Jeff Larrimore, and Kosali I. Simon, “A “second opinion” on the economic health of the American middle class,” National Tax Journal 65, no. 1 (2012): 16. http://dx.doi.org/10.17310/ntj.2012.1.01 16 Alan Abramowitz and Ruy Teixeira, “The decline of the white working class and the rise of a mass

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jobs in professional fields and manual labor have gone from being about equal in 1940 to having roughly three times as many professional office jobs today.16 These changes to the American labor market have compelled some members of the lower middle class to attempt to adapt and attend college, although there have been significant difficulties along the way. A quantitative study of the differences in integration of college students from lower and upper middle-class backgrounds found that lower middle class college students indicated lower academic satisfaction and a lower sense of belonging.17 A qualitative study consisting of sixty in-depth interviews of college students from lower and upper middle-class backgrounds found a generally convoluted understanding of social class; lower middle class students exhibited greater awareness of their lower social standing.18 This economic dislocation and subsequent lack of integration has significantly impacted the lives of the lower middle class and led to their self-selection downward into low skill jobs. Market forces have increased the impact of these changes by providing an abundance of low-skill jobs, as consumer preferences and the automation of technical job tasks have led to a dramatic increase in lowupper-middle class,” Political Science Quarterly 124, no. 3 (Fall 2009): 391-2. http://www.jstor.org/stable/ 25655694 17 Krista M. Soria, Michael J. Stebleton, and Ronald L. Huesman, “Class counts: Exploring differences in academic and social interaction between workingclass and middle/upper-class students at large, public research universities,” Journal of College Student Retention 15, no. 2 (2013): 225. http://dx.doi.org/ 10.2190/CS.15.2.e 18 Jenny M. Stuber, “Talk of class: The discursive repertoires of white working- and upper-middle-class college students,” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 35, no. 3 (2006): 312. http://journals. sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0891241605283569

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A Case Study on the Middle Class

education service occupations that provide a low income.19 Another set of developments centers on changes regarding living expenses, such as home ownership, college education, health care, and child care. Regarding home ownership, Forrest and Hirayama point out that a shift in economic thinking has led to a focus on profit in the upper middle class, which is leading to an increase of private landlordism. This is causing cheaper home purchase options to be priced out of the market, which reinforces the economic divide between families that own and rent their homes. 20 Prospects for the attainment of higher education are also being pushed out of reach as rising tuition costs,21 and adjusting to the college experience is proving difficult to overcome for many in the lower middle class.22 The consequences of these economic trends are wide-ranging, as one review found a link between income inequality and deteriorating physical and mental health, along with “public health issues such as violence, David Autor and David Dorn, “The growth of lowskill service jobs and the polarization of the US labor market,” The American Economic Review 103, no. 5 (August 2013): 1558. http://www.jstor.org/stable/ 42920623 20 Ray Forrest and Yosuke Hirayama, “The financialization of the social project: Embedded liberalism, neoliberalism and home ownership,” Urban Studies 52, no. 2 (2015): 236. http://journals. sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0042098014528394 21 Colorado Department of Higher Education, “Reports and Publications,” accessed October 27, 2017. http://highered.colorado.gov/Data/Reports.aspx 22 MaryBeth Walpole, “Socioeconomic status and college: How SES affects college experiences and outcomes,” The Review of Higher Education 27, no.

1 (2003): 48. https://doi.org/10.1353/rhe.2003.0044 23 Kate E. Pickett and Richard G. Wilkinson, “Income inequality and health: A causal review,” Social Science & Medicine 128 (2015): 317. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2014.12.031 19

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teenage births, child wellbeing, obesity, and more,” 23 all of which have contributed to increasing health care costs. One of the most severe trends has centered on the impact of child care expenses, with one study finding that “one third of the poverty experienced by these families (with young children) is a result of child care expenses.” 24 It is worth noting, though, that some basic living costs have remained relatively stable during this time, such as food costs25 and other miscellaneous expenses.26 Even so, it seems that middle-class families are being adversely affected by a reduction in their advancement options, such as investment in real estate or higher education, while at the same time facing increasing liabilities for health care and child care.

Colorado has also felt the impact of these trends, yet the experience has been different for those living in cities such as Denver or Boulder and those living in rural areas.

Following the economic downturn in 2009, Colorado went from economically thriving to losing jobs in almost every sector.27 24

MaryBeth J. Mattingly, Christopher T. Wimer, and Sophie M. Collyer, “Child care costs and poverty among families with young children,” American Journal of Medical Research 4, no. 2 (2017): 162. https://doi.org/10.22381/AJMR4220177 25 Lindsey P. Smith, Shu Wen Ng, and Barry M. Popkin, “Trends in US home food preparation and consumption: Analysis of national nutrition surveys and time use studies from 1965-1966 to 2007-2008,” Nutrition Journal 12, no. 45 (2013): 7. https://doi.org/10.1186/1475-2891-12-45 26 Christian Broda, Ephraim Leibtag, and David E Weinstein, “The role of prices in measuring the poor’s living standards,” The Journal of Economic Perspectives 23, no. 2 (Spring 2009), 82. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27740525 27 Joint Select Committee on Job Creation and Economic Growth, Report to the Colorado General Assembly: The Colorado Legislative Council Research Publication No. 583 (Denver, CO: Colorado Division of Central Services, 2009), 8-9.

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The Heinz Journal Recently, however, economic confidence has begun to return in urban areas, with Denverarea residents exhibiting above-average confidence of achieving success and doing a better job of handling their debts.28 At the same time, former mining towns in rural areas are merely trying to survive, as towns like Lake City, Silverton, and Creede have lost more than half their population and are struggling to create new economic opportunities.29 This reflects a significant trend in Colorado, where traditional jobs involving extracting local resources in rural areas have ceased to be profitable and are being replaced by jobs in services such as tourism, leading to the creation of the “New West”. This trend is especially prevalent near towns with tourist destinations such as ski resorts.30 The economic benefits of these substantial demographic changes in rural Colorado have been uneven at best while causing significant social distress, with agricultural landowners finding population migration to be threatening their sense of place.31 Colorado seems to be experiencing many of the national socioeconomic trends facing the Aldo Svaldi, “Denverites define $2 million as the entryway to wealth, lower than national mark,” Denver Post, August 9, 2017. http://www.denverpost. com/2017/08/09/modern-wealth-index-denver-lowerthan-national/ 29 Jennifer Brown, “Colorado Divide: Isolated mountain towns struggle to survive with authentic identities without becoming tourist traps,” Denver Post, July 28, 2017. https://www.denverpost.com/2017/07/28/coloradodivide-mountain-towns-identity-economies/ 30 Richelle Winkler, Donald R. Field, A. E. Luloff, Richard S. Krannich, and Tracy Williams, “Social landscapes of the inter-mountain west: A comparison of ‘old west’ and ‘new west’ communities,” Rural Sociology 72, no. 3 (September 2007): 478. https://doi.org/10.1526/003601107781799281 31 Catherine M. H. Keske, R. Patrick Bixler, Christopher T. Bastian, and Jennifer E. Cross, “Are population and land use changes perceived as threats to sense of place in the new west? A multilevel 28

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middle class, but with unique local variations based on geographical location that deserve further examination.

By examining a series of economic reports detailing new ways to statistically analyze the full budgets of middle-class families, the scope of data necessary for a complete understanding of the financial situation of the middle class comes into focus. In a report by the Pew Research Center on income levels in American metropolitan areas, 203 out of 229 areas measured saw a decreased share of households in the middle-income tier, which the study defined as consisting of incomes ranging from two thirds the median income to two times the median income.32 The living costs of middle-class families are calculated by both the Family Budget Calculator33 and the Self-Sufficiency Standard34 with similar methodologies and equally alarming results.

The data compellingly demonstrates that living costs are rising, although there is significant variance according to location and family type.

Corresponding reports by former Vice President Joe Biden35 and the Department of modeling approach,” Rural Sociology 82, no. 2 (June 2017): 284. https://doi.org/10.1111/ruso.12121 32 Pew Research Center, America’s shrinking middle class: A close look at changes within metropolitan areas (May 11, 2016), 5. http://www.pewsocialtrends .org/2016/05/11/americas-shrinking-middle-class-aclose-look-at-changes-within-metropolitan-areas/ 33 Elise Gould, Tanyell Cooke, and Will Kimball, “What families need to get by: EPI’s 2015 family budget calculator,” Economic Policy Institute (August 26, 2015). http://www.epi.org/publication/ what-families-need-to-get-by-epis-2015-familybudget-calculator/ 34 Diana M. Pearce, “The self-sufficiency standard for Colorado 2015,” The Colorado Center on Law and Policy (June 2015). http://cclponline.org/ourissues/economic-self-sufficiency/colorado-selfsufficiency-standard/ 35 Vice President of the United States, Annual report of the white house task force on the middle class

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Commerce,36 took a broader view of expenses by examining the cost of possessions such as purchasing a home and one to two cars, according to national average prices. The reports showed that these items were becoming unobtainable to all but the highest earners. This research was very generalized, however, and did not take important factors such as location and the age of the children into account.

Taking these economic reports from Pew Research Center, Family Budget Calculator, Self-Sufficiency Standard, Vice President Biden, and the Department of Commerce together, it is clear that middle-class families are not faring well. However, it is unclear exactly how obtainable aspirational expenses are, or what the relationship is between income and standard of living. Additionally, there is a lack of comprehensive analysis directly examining the impact of factors such as location and family type.

Methodology In accordance with the stated purpose of this project, this paper studies how three independent variables, standard of living, location, and family type, affect the net incomes of middle-class families in Colorado. Consequently, there are three questions this research sets out to answer.

• •

How has the net income of middleclass families been affected according to standard of living over time?

How has the net income of middleclass families in Colorado been affected by geographical location over time?

(Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, February 2010).

36 Department of Commerce Economics and Statistics Administration, Middle class in America

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How has the net income of middleclass families in Colorado been affected by the age of the children in the family over time?

These questions are addressed by time trend analysis of a county-level dataset for the state of Colorado uniquely created for this project.

This dataset consists of two sets of earnings and two sets of expenses.

The earnings consist of • •

Median income for each county, and; Median income for each county multiplied by two for upper-middle class earners.

The expenses are classified as the SelfSufficiency and Aspirational Standards of living. The Self-Sufficiency Standard is derived from the report that was mentioned earlier. It is altered only in how taxes are calculated, which have been adjusted to account for income taxes based on the incomes mentioned above. Current income levels, and therefore current income tax levels, are not accounted for in the original Self-Sufficiency Standard.

The Aspirational Standard has been created specifically for this project and includes costs for: • • • • • • • •

Home Ownership Child Care Food Car Ownership Health Care College Savings Family Vacation Retirement

(Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, January 2010).

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Miscellaneous Taxes

Both standards are supported by data that is gathered for all 64 counties in Colorado, and classified into urban, tourist, or rural regions.

Additionally, the data is gathered for six family types, each with two parents and two children, but different combinations of ages for the children.

To address the research questions, economic trends in Colorado are described by using a quantitative analysis of secondary data obtained primarily from government agencies. Utilizing publicly available archival data allows for broadly replicable and consistent data that can be readily adjusted, reconfigured, or reanalyzed as new datasets become available. Studying data with a sample size of the entire population of Colorado essentially eliminates any external validity concerns. These results are specific to Colorado and any inferences about the applicability of these results outside of the state of Colorado should be avoided.

Perhaps the greatest concern of this study is internal validity, and great care is taken to find data that is as specific and accurate as possible. For measures that are highly specific to geographical location, such as housing, county level data is procured. A fair number of measures are generalized out of necessity, but actions were taken to minimize the impact of these generalizations.

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United States Census Bureau, Small area income and poverty estimates (2015). https://www.census. gov/did/www/saipe/data/statecounty/data/index.html 38 Pew Research Center, America’s shrinking middle class: A close look at changes within metropolitan areas (May 11, 2016). http://www.pewsocialtrends. org/2016/05/11/americas-shrinking-middle-class-aclose-look-at-changes-within-metropolitan-areas 39 Diana M. Pearce, “The self-sufficiency standard for Colorado 2015,” The Colorado Center on Law

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Median income levels at the county level are collected from a dataset on small area incomes compiled by the Census Bureau.37 Then, following the example set by Pew Research Center, 38 these income levels are multiplied by two to establish upper middleclass income levels. The Self-Sufficiency Standard39 serves as the lower threshold for the measurement of living costs for middleclass families and is generally unchanged from the report, with only an adjustment for tax liability. The Self-Sufficiency Standard was measured in the years 2001, 2004, 2008, 2011, 2015, and 2018, and therefore these are the years used in this research. The SelfSufficiency Standard consists of estimates of the bare minimum costs associated with housing, child care, food, transportation, health care, miscellaneous expenses, and tax liabilities.40 To live in accordance with the lifestyle afforded by the Self-Sufficiency Standard would be meager. There is no income set aside for vacations, long-term savings, recreation, leisure activities, any large purchases, or even occasionally eating at a restaurant. Even so, a family earning as much as this standard can afford life’s necessities.

The Aspirational Standard is calculated by combining a variety of different sources to create an economic model that follows the example set by the Department of Commerce.41 The Aspirational Standard assumes the purchase of a house, child care, more expensive food, ownership of one car per adult, health care costs, savings for and Policy (June 2015). http://cclponline.org/ourissues/economic-self-sufficiency/colorado-selfsufficiency-standard/ 40 Ibid., p. 37-45.

41 Department of Commerce Economics and Statistics Administration, Middle class in America (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, January 2010), 9.

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payment of tuition and fees for the college education of the children, annual vacations, long-term savings, and retirement savings.

The sources for this data are explained below.

•

•

• •

•

Home ownership costs consist of a monthly payment on a 30-year mortgage. It includes a 4% interest rate for the median house purchase price by county as obtained from a dataset provided by Zillow,42 as well as local property taxes and maintenance costs.43 Child care costs are assumed to be the same as the Self-Sufficiency Standard to account for only a basic level of child care.

Any additional expenditures would count against the family’s disposable income.

Food costs are upgraded to a more generous plan44 but retain the same local variances.

The example set by the Department of Commerce Report is used as the standard for car ownership and it assumes both parents purchase $25,000 sedans.45 Car owners continue to pay operation costs as

42

Zillow Inc., Median sale price by county (2017). https://www.zillow.com/research/data/#medianhome-value 43 Tax-rates.org, Colorado property taxes (2017). http://www.tax-rates.org/colorado/property-tax 44 United States Department of Agriculture, USDA food plans: Cost of food (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2017). https://www. cnpp.usda.gov/USDAFoodPlansCostofFood/reports 45 Department of Commerce Economics and Statistics Administration, Middle class in America (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, January 2010), 30.

46 Colorado Department of Higher Education, “Reports and Publications,” accessed October 27, 2017. http://highered.colorado.gov/Data/Reports.aspx 47 College Factual, “Room and board costs,” accessed October 17, 2017. https://my.mediafactual.com /college_factual

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•

•

• •

determined by the Self-Sufficiency Standard.

Health care costs in the SelfSufficiency Standard are assumed to be covered by the family’s health care plan provided by their employer, so those costs are also assumed to be provided by their employer in the Aspirational Standard and remain the same.

Savings for college education are calculated by assuming savings over 18 years. Costs include the price of each child’s four years of tuition and fees at a public university in Colorado,46 three years of room and board, 47 48 and four years of books.49 Vacation spending is calculated based on the national ratio of domestic and international trips, and therefore use the average cost of one domestic trip a year, with one trip during the child’s youth being international.50 Retirement savings assumes a savings rate of 3.25% of income. 51 Taxes for both the Self-Sufficiency and Aspirational Standards are calculated as detailed below.

48

National Center for Education Statistics, Average undergraduate tuition and fees and room and board rates charged for full-time students in degreegranting postsecondary institutions, by level and control of institution: 1963-64 through 2012-13 (2013). https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d13/ tables/dt13_330.10.asp 49 CollegeBoard, Quick guide: College costs (2017). https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/pay-forcollege/college-costs/quick-guide-college-costs 50 Bureau of Labor Statistics, Travel expenditures, 2005-2013: Domestic and international patterns in recession and recovery (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, March 2015).

51 Department of Commerce Economics and Statistics Administration, Middle class in America (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, January 2010), 13.

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It is also worth noting that while this standard accounts for several large expenses, it does not provide substantial funds for recreation, weekend getaways, children’s extracurricular involvements, or any of the other various expenses that can exhaust one’s disposable income.

Taxes for both the Self-Sufficiency Standard and the Aspirational Standard are calculated by adding together the federal payroll tax rate of 7.65% and the state income tax rate of 4.63% and then multiplying this by the appropriate income amount. Next, an estimate of federal income liabilities based on inflation-adjusted income level52 is also multiplied by the appropriate income amount. Lastly, this is then combined with the state sales tax of 2.9% on miscellaneous expenses and local sales taxes where applicable according to the Colorado Department of Revenue.53 Federal tax credits such as the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Care Tax Credit are also included.

Please reference Tables 1 and 2 for more information, for these include the factors that constitute the Self-Sufficiency and Aspirational standards for Denver County in 2018.

With the data gathered, the net incomes of middle-class families are calculated with four different combinations of income level and standard of living. This considers variations in spending patterns and debt levels. These four combinations include: •

Median income minus the SelfSufficiency Standard

Greg Leiserson, “Income taxes and tax rates for sample families, 2006,” Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center (December 2006). https://www.urban.org/ research/publication/income-taxes-and-tax-ratessample-families-2006 52

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• •

Median income minus the Aspirational Standard Two times the median income minus the Self-Sufficiency Standard Two times the median income minus the Aspirational Standard

This data is also adjusted for inflation according to the base year of 2018 using the Consumer Price Index for the Western region.54 The most recent income data available was for 2017, and this was also adjusted for inflation to compare against 2018 cost of living estimates. For further information, please reference Tables 3 and 4, which include the average of all county data for the median income against the SelfSufficiency Standard and two times the median income against the Aspirational Standard, respectively.

Finally, this data is examined with time trend analysis to show how average net income levels have changed in the years studied. To inspect the data, an average of all of the data is calculated according to the specific aspect that is being analyzed. For instance, the data for all families according to income and standard of living combination are calculated each year as can be seen in Tables 3 and 4.

The results for each year account for middleclass families in every county in Colorado and all of the family types that are measured in this study. These results were then compiled according to their variable and charted accordingly. These variables were not tested to find causality as that is not the focus of this project, although such analysis could certainly be done for future projects.

53

Colorado Department of Revenue, Colorado Sales/Use Tax Rates (2017). https://www.colorado. gov/pacific/tax/sales-tax-rates 54 Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer price index databases (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2017). https://data.bls.gov/cgibin/surveymost?cu

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By measuring economic trends over time according to these variables, this project

seeks to provide unique insights and spur further research and analysis.

Table 1. Self-Sufficiency Standard for Denver County, 2018

Table 2. Aspirational Standard for Denver County, 2018

Table 3. Overall Average, Double Median Income against Aspirational Standard

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The Heinz Journal Table 4. Overall Average, Median Income against Self-Sufficiency Standard

Results This methodology led to the creation of a dataset measuring the net incomes of middleclass families according to county, year of study, family type, income level, and standard of living. For each of the six years studied, this dataset includes 1,536 observations from four income/standard of living combinations in 64 counties in Colorado, and the six family types examined.

All 1,536 observations were used for the time-trend analysis used in each year to answer the research questions of this paper as well as provide several additional observations.

Analysis according to Standard of Living How has the net income of middle-class families been affected according to standard of living over time?

Only the income/standard of living combinations previously mentioned were considered here to provide the clearest evidence possible.

These two standards tend to follow a similar downward trend from 2000 to 2015, but this trend changed slightly in 2018. Families living according to the Aspirational Standard saw their net income tumble from $13,439 to $10,308 while those on the Self-Sufficiency Standard stayed relatively stagnant. It is also worth noting that families with median incomes can barely afford the SelfSufficiency Standard in 2011, 2015, and 2018, with only $1,860, $1,833, and $1,285 to spare, respectively. Standard of living affects the absolute net income position of middle-class families, but it has had a Spring 2019

minimal influence on relative net income position until recently. The results are shown in Chart 1 on the following page.

Analysis according to Location How has the net income of middle-class families in Colorado been affected by geographical location over time? The urban regions include counties in the metropolitan areas of Denver, Boulder, Colorado Springs, Fort Collins, Pueblo, and Grand Junction.

The tourist regions include all counties with a ski resort within its boundaries. All other counties are classified as rural. The average net income of urban counties is clearly higher than that of rural counties and are faring slightly better in the years after 2008.

Another interesting trend is the convergence of tourist counties and rural counties in 2008 and the continuation of that trend in later years to the point where tourist counties have less net income than rural counties in 2018. Location affects the absolute net income position of middle-class families, and increasingly affects the relative position as well. The results are shown in Chart 2 on the following page.

Analysis according to Family Type How has the net income of middle-class families in Colorado been affected by the age of the children in the family over time?

These include families with an infant and a preschooler, two preschoolers, a preschooler and a school age child, two school age children, a school age child and a teenager, and two teenagers. There is a fair amount of 12

A Case Study on the Middle Class

differentiation between younger and older children starting in 2001, and these differences become increasingly more severe, especially after 2008. The decrease in net income for families with infants and preschoolers from 2008 to 2011 is quite precipitous, and in 2018 these families fell below the break-even point. Throughout the

years studied, the significant differences among the family types grow further apart, and families with two teenagers even gained net income in 2018. Family type most significantly affects the net income position of a middle-class family, both in absolute and relative terms. The results are shown in Chart 3 on the following page

Chart 1. Average Net Income Levels by Standard of Living

Net Income (income-expenses)

Standard of Living $25,000 $20,000 $15,000 $10,000 $5,000 $2001

2004

2008

Self- Sufficiency

2011

2015

2018

Aspirational

Chart 2. Average Net Income Levels by Location

Net Income (Income-expenses)

Location $30,000 $25,000 $20,000 $15,000 $10,000 $5,000 $2001

2004 Tourist

2008 Rural

2011

2015

2018

Urban

Chart 3. Average Net Income Levels by Family Type

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Net Expenses (Income-expenses)

Family Type $25,000 $20,000 $15,000 $10,000 $5,000 $$(5,000) 2001

2004

2011

2015

Inf/Pre

Pre/Pre

Pre/Sch

Sch/Sch

Sch/Teen

Teen/Teen

Additional Observations First, when looking at basic measures of the net incomes of middle-class families, the average family at least appears to be making ends meet, with a mean average net income of $9,725 and a median of $6,913, among all data points collected. There is substantial variance in these results, with a range of $327,847 and a standard deviation of $41,369. The reasons for this extreme variance are the potential for high incomes in urban counties with a relatively low cost of living (double median income minus SelfSufficiency Standard – maximum of $197,443) and, conversely, the extraordinarily high cost of living in tourist counties against an insufficient income (median income minus Aspirational Standard – minimum of -$130,405).

Second, while many of the contributing factors of these results vary according to the different variables, average state-wide wages are largely consistent as the median incomes of Colorado households have remained static in the years that are measured. When adjusted for inflation, the average median income in Colorado in the years studied is $58,366, with a standard deviation of $1,297. On the other hand, when examining the average of the four net incomes there has been a general decrease Spring 2019

2008

2018

for nearly every net income level over the years studied. Most of the variation over time in net income is due to changes in cost of living.

Third, there is a great deal of variation in median income by county, with a range of $84,641 in 2017. There is also a substantial difference in cost of living across counties.

The Self-Sufficiency Standard in 2018 for a family with an infant and a preschooler costs over $90,000 for urban counties in the Denver-Boulder metropolitan area and tourist counties such as Pitkin County, Routt County, and Summit County. These counties notably contain the affluent resort towns of Aspen, Steamboat Springs, and Breckenridge, respectively. On the other hand, the Self-Sufficiency Standard in 2018 for a family with an infant and a preschooler costs $50,000 or less in 15 rural counties.

Fourth, the impact of the cost of child care features very prominently in the data, especially for infants and preschoolers. The average basic standard of living in 2018 for families with an infant and a preschooler was $20,040 more expensive than it was for a family with two teenagers. This is the most significant driving force behind the analysis according to family type.

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A Case Study on the Middle Class

This paper seeks to answer specific questions about economic trends according to standard of living, location, and family type, but these merely provide a broad overview of the data collected for this project. A variety of further studies may be possible using this dataset, as the data is readily available for analysis according to several different factors or even a combination of factors. For instance, a comparison of median income to the SelfSufficiency Standard that also accounts for location shows that urban net income at this standard of living plummeted from 2008 to 2011 but has recovered quite substantially through 2018. This same measure, though, shows that tourist and rural net income at this standard of living have dropped below zero in 2018. This can provide much more incisive data and analysis than the broad overview supplied here, where the trends are a bit less obvious. Additionally, more in-depth analysis of the data, such as panel analysis, may also be possible.

Discussion and Recommendations To summarize, these analyses highlight some interesting movements in the data as well as some startling figures. There is a general downward trend for net incomes from 2001 to 2018 in every time trend analysis.

Regarding differences in net income according to standard of living, the difference in net incomes between Self-Sufficiency and Aspirational Standards holds relatively steady from 2001 to 2015. There is an average difference of $11,872 with a standard deviation of $898 during that time. However, in 2018 the net income for Aspirational Standard dips significantly to $10,308, which is $9,144 above the Self-Sufficiency Standard net income of $1,164. This suggests that the middle-class squeeze might be moving membership in the upper-middle Spring 2019

class further out of reach in Colorado. For differences according to location, the incomes of middle-class families in urban areas are significantly higher than those in rural areas, yet tourist regions have converged with rural regions to the point where there is hardly any differentiation. In fact, in 2018, families in tourist counties fell to a net income of $2,452, which was a full $1,291 below the rural net income of $3,743.

This may be driven by the exorbitant cost of home ownership in affluent ski resort towns.

When looking at family types, the differences are incredibly stark, as families with infants and preschoolers have significantly lower net incomes than families with school age and teenage children, and this gap has grown substantially in recent years. In 2018, families with infants and preschoolers even had a negative net income. Families with an infant and preschoolers had a net income of -$1,958 and families with two preschoolers had -$1,152. Perhaps the most alarming statistic to be derived from this research then, is that families earning the median income and families in nonurban areas are dangerously close to being unable to break even, and families with young children have gone beyond that point.

Since the trends for standard of living, region, and family type have now been examined in this study, there are other important questions to consider as well. Namely, what is the most appropriate way to address the issues highlighted by this study, such as the plight of the lower-middle class, rural poverty, and the high costs of childcare for young children? While a more comprehensive approach may be necessary to address these issues, this paper will briefly consider policy that this research may support.

One possible way to do this could be to directly target poor counties in southern 15

The Heinz Journal Colorado such as Costilla, Huerfano, and Conejos counties in the San Luis Valley with new policies to assist with child care costs for example. A policy measure that could accomplish this aim would be a permanent implementation of the Colorado Earned Income Credit. From 2001 to 2016, the Colorado Earned Income Tax Credit was not funded. The Federal Earned Income Tax Credit was measured in the research for this project, and in this data the benefits are shown to go directly to rural lower-middle income families with children who would benefit greatly from even a small increase in funds. This measure matches 10% of the Federal Earned Income Tax Credit for Colorado residents, which would have amounted to $77 million in 2013.55 For comparison, the Colorado state budget in 2014 was $20.5 billion.56 Additional Research The research completed for this project allows for a modicum of policy discussion as shown above, but there are three limitations to this study that could be addressed with further research and analysis.

First, the source of income for middle class families is not examined in-depth, which raises issues such as availability, qualifications, and stability of employment.

By analyzing net income based on the median income for each county, this study fails to examine what jobs people are actually working. Furthermore, it fails to account for variables that affect income levels, such as education level, gender, race, and other such measures. County-level median incomes allow for responsiveness according to region, but there is no accounting for which jobs the Aldo Svaldi, “Colorado brings back its earned income tax credit,” Denver Post, January 11, 2016. http://www.denverpost.com/2016/01/11/colora do-brings-back-its-earned-income-tax-credit/ 55

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parents hold or for that matter if both parents can work. As such, further study ought to examine local employment figures and more in-depth income data.

Second, levels of public spending on relevant programs are not accounted for in this study.

These observations only seek to diagnose how families in Colorado have been faring in recent years, which on its own fails to account for the ability of applicable government agencies to develop or fund the programs that might meet the needs of these families.

Third, the analyses utilized in this paper were chosen with the intention of providing a broad look at the totality of the data that was collected. There are a multitude of further analyses that could be done using the existing dataset by isolating different variables and using more rigorous and predictive statistical analysis tools.

Conclusion This project sets out to provide data and analysis that details the economic trends that have affected middle-class families in Colorado since 2001. Although further research is needed, this study establishes baseline knowledge of the net incomes of middle-class families in Colorado and some of the contributing factors that influence those families. One of the benefits of evaluating social class according to economic factors is that it is possible to gain statistical insight on recent trends and ongoing issues within specific communities.

Unfortunately, the data points gathered here do not paint a promising picture of those trends, with middle class families losing Kurtis Lee, “Colorado Gov. Hickenlooper signs 2014 budget into law,” Denver Post, April 29, 2013. https://www.denverpost.com/2013/04/29/color ado-gov-hickenlooper-signs-2014-budget-into-law/ 56

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financial ground over the past 20 years and families in rural areas with young children being hit the hardest. While recommending specific policies or legislation is beyond the purview of this project, there are clearly specific groups that are having more difficulty making a living than others.

Further efforts to improve public policy and

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increase government efficiency should be taken to pinpoint and address specific problem areas such as infant child care.

Tackling these issues will likely be complicated, but the accurate data and analysis from this project can provide foundation and direction for policy makers now and in the future.

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The Industrial and Environmental Development of Vienna and Pittsburgh: Lessons for China’s Future J. Alexander Killion Carnegie Mellon University – Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy The process of industrialization has spread to nearly every corner of the globe since its introduction in Europe over two hundred years ago. As each new country embraces industrialization, it has to contend with the drastic changes in social, economic, and environmental conditions that such a process brings. Currently industrializing cities like many of those in China can learn much from the cities of the western world that have already gone through this process. Pittsburgh and Vienna both industrialized in the nineteenth century and learned much about the environmental consequences of doing so. China, however, has the opportunity to leverage these experiences and rapid technological change to avoid the worst consequences.

Introduction Each city is made unique by its environment.

Even cities that share major attributes like coastal location or climate vary in hundreds of ways. Features such as altitude, latitude, rainfall, sunlight, and even the presence or absence of nearby mountains makes each urban environment entirely unique.

Nevertheless, parallels in the environmental history of separate places can be drawn in many instances. Despite different histories and locations, Vienna, Austria and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania share a surprising number of similarities that make such a comparison possible. This comparison is not only useful for understanding the industrial development of both cities, but it can also provide important lessons for currently industrializing cities such as Beijing, China.

Beijing, China could benefit from examining how western nations dealt with their own process of industrialization, and the lingering environmental effects on the landscape that accompanied it. Both Pittsburgh and Vienna’s historical industrial development can show how a combination of bottom-up Spring 2019

behavior change combined with top-down legislation is a very effective way of dealing with issues of urban pollution. That is not to say that adopting the exact methods that Pittsburgh employed will clear the skies of Beijing, but for a nation that is undergoing its own period of industrialization, it may be prudent to examine both the successes and failures of the past. From this, we can see that China should implement three specific strategies to reduce the environmental damage of industrialization. First, it should hasten the transition to clean energy sources and move away from fossil fuels such as coal.

Second, it should enforce regulations on pollution more uniformly across the country.

Third, China should implement new, more restrictive regulations on what types of pollution and how much of it can be released into the water and skies of the country. These recommendations approach the problem from both the national and local perspective, utilizing insights taken from two major industrial centers of the past: Vienna, Austria, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

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The Industrial and Environmental Development of Vienna and Pittsburgh

Vienna, Austria The Industrial Background of Vienna

during the mid-1840s, which caused massive starvation throughout much of the continent.59

Vienna, capital of the Austrian, and later, Austro-Hungarian Empire, underwent a profound demographic transformation, exploding from 270,000 inhabitants in 1800 to over two million in 1910.57 This rapid population growth had many far-reaching effects on Viennese social and economic conditions, and produced strong social unrest among many in the lower class of the city.

Employees struggled with long hours, low pay, rising costs of living, and working days that were often between twelve and fourteen hours. Weekly wages for women and children barely cover the cost of food, which was significant considering that these two groups comprised 60 percent of the workforce of the cotton and paper mills in Lower Austria.58 Many other problems exacerbated the condition of the lower class in Vienna in the years leading up to the revolutions in 1848. A lack of new housing construction in conjunction with a massive increase in population led to drastically worsening living conditions, while a crash in the Vienna Stock Exchange resulted in a large credit crunch and soaring unemployment. Further compounding these problems was the European Potato Famine

This social unrest was a key (although by no means only) aspect of the popular uprisings that broke out in Vienna in 1848.

Revolutionaries successfully gained control of the city in October, although imperial forces were quick to respond by bombarding the city and laying siege to it. The revolutionaries surrendered completely by the end of the month.60 Although imperial forces ostensibly defeated the revolutionaries in the Vienna Uprising, the events of 1848 were instrumental in facilitating Vienna’s shift from a pre-industrial city to an industrial one. Much of this shift took place during the period immediately following the Revolution of 1848, during the period known as neoabsolutism. This period was characterized by an increasingly centralized ministerial government and a strong push for social management and economic development.

This system was envisioned as a means to modernize the industrial resources of the monarchy and enhance the stability of the state.61 What this meant in practice was the creation of a unitary customs zone throughout the empire, the abolition of feudal privileges, the definitive end to serfdom in the Habsburg realm, and an equitable

Heinz Fassman and Rainer Münz, “Between Melting Pot and Ethnic Fragmentation: Historical and Recent Immigration to Vienna,” in EthniCity: Geographic Perspectives on Ethnic Change in Modern Cities, ed. Curtis C. Roseman, Hans-Dieter Laux, and Günter Thieme (Los Angeles: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1996), 166.

58 R. John Rath, The Viennese Revolution of 1848 (Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 1957), 13.

59

57

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Hans J. Hahn, The 1848 Revolutions in GermanSpeaking Europe (Harlow, England: Pearson Education Limited, 2001), 78-79.

60 Ibid., 88.

61 John W. Boyer, Political Radicalism in Late Imperial Vienna: Origins of the Christian Social Movement, 1848-1897 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), 18.

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The Heinz Journal distribution of taxes. The “absolutism” part of neo-absolutism was evidenced by the extremely broad powers accorded to the monarch within the empire and the importance that was placed on the crown.62 Neo-absolutism also contributed to a number of economic and industrial reforms that were characteristic of the economic liberalism that took hold in the post-1848 Austria. A prime example of this is the Industrial Code (Gewerbeordnung) of 1859. Promulgated by the emperor on December 20, 1859, the law came into effect on May 1 of the following year and worked to significantly expand “the circle of free trade and commerce activities.”63 It accomplished this primarily by abolishing the existing guild regulations throughout most of the monarchy, not including Venice and the military frontier.

What this meant in effect was that anyone with the money and desire could establish a business in any craft, with a few exceptions such as law or medicine, and entrepreneurs could now work within a (relatively) free labor market.64 Although industrialization had its beginning before 1848 in Vienna and the Habsburg realms, the Austrian Empire was fairly late in developing industrial capacity relative to many Western European powers such as 62

Ágnes Deák, From Habsburg Neo-Absolutism to the Compromise, 1849-1867. Trans. Matthew Caples (Boulder: Atlantic Research and Publications, 2008), 30-31.

63 “Gewerbeordnung,” Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung no. 302 (December 29, 1859): 2615, ANNO Austrian Newspapers Online, http://anno.onb.ac.at/.

64 Ibid.

65 Otto Bauer, and Ephraim J. Nimni, Question of Nationalities and Social Democracy (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000), 183.

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England. It was not until after the Revolution that new laissez-faire economic policies were developed to fully encourage the development of industry and an industrial state in Austria. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Austria had only one steam engine throughout the empire, a figure that grew to 231 by 1841, and 671 by 1851.

Austria did not have a steam-powered mill until 1842, nor a steam-driven hammer until 1844.65 Although there was a clear upward trend, the amount of horsepower generated by steam engines practically exploded in Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia after 1848, with less drastic but still pronounced increases in Austria and Hungary.66 Coal is often the primary energy source for industrialization, but as late as 1830 it accounted for less than 1% of total domestic energy consumption. As Figure 167 shows, the use of coal only began to grow appreciably in the period following the Revolution of 1848.

The Environmental Impact of Industrialization in Vienna

66

John Komlos, The Habsburg Monarchy as a Customs Union: Economic Development in AustriaHungary in the Nineteenth Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), 105.

67 Simone Gingrich, Gertrud Haidvogl, and Fridolin Krausmann, “The Danube and Vienna: Urban Resource Use, Transport and Land Use 1800–1910,” Regional Environmental Change 12, no. 2 (2012): 287, accessed December 4, 2015. Doi: 10.1007/s10113-010-0201-x.

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The Industrial and Environmental Development of Vienna and Pittsburgh

In addition to evolving politically, Vienna was also evolving industrially. Many of the laws that were passed in the wake of the events of 1848 helped to spur industrial development and the growth of the economy, but also had significant unintended environmental consequences. As occurred in many instances of industrialization in Europe, the opportunity to find new work in the factories and shops opening around the city eventually drew hundreds of thousands of new workers. Cotton and paper mills in particular were a large industry in Austria, with 209 cotton mills alone throughout the empire by 1847, containing well over a million spindles being operated by workers, many of whom came to Vienna just for those

Vienna was like many major cities when it came to waste, with waste disposal consisting largely of dumping refuse into the river, or one of the many small channels that ultimately led into the nearby Danube.69 Urban centers throughout history have always needed to contend with issues of human waste, but the nineteenth century witnessed the problem grow to an unprecedented scale. As the population rose, so did the amount of waste produced each day, from an estimated 420 tons in 1830 to 2,600 tons in 1910, which does not even include waste from the thousands of animals residing in the city, or from industrial sites such as tanneries, butcheries, dyeing mills,

Figure 1. Total Domestic Energy Consumption in Vienna, 1800-1910

jobs.68

or breweries.70 Figure 271 shows the location

68

accessed December 4, 2015.doi: 10.1007/s10113014-0653-5.

70 Ibid., 229.

71 J. Alexander Killion, photographer. “Various Industrial Sites in Vienna.� Photograph. From

Rath, The Viennese Revolution of 1848, 13.

Sylvia Gierlinger, et al., "Feeding and Cleaning the City: The Role of the Urban Waterscape in Provision and Disposal in Vienna during the Industrial Transformation," Water History 5, no. 2 (2013): 230, 69

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The Heinz Journal of numerous industrial sites prior to 1858 situated just along one suburban waterway.

Contemporary authors also recognized the need for creative solutions to the problems facing the city. Justus von Liebig, a German chemist who is sometimes considered the father of soil science was one of the earliest to recognize that nitrogen in the soil was essential for plants to grow and that it became depleted as crops were harvested and sent to urban areas for consumption. In 1840, he published a work which approached the growing of crops from a scientific perspective, arguing that only by giving more

back to the soil than is taken away can crop yields be increased.72 Using this research as a rationale, several individuals such as the economist Fürst, the engineers Wodick and Podhagsky, and even the agricultural ministry advocated that the city enact policies that would encourage the recycling of nitrogen, primarily through the construction of urban sewage farms in a region east of Vienna. Here, the waste generated by humans and animals would be used to fertilize crops that would feed the urban population nearby, generating a self-contained cycle of use and re-use.73

Figure 2. Various Individual Industrial Sites in Vienna, Austria as Shown as Single Dots

Municipal and Provincial Archive of Vienna: Wien und seine Gewässer. Eine turbulente Umweltgeschichte.

72 Justus Freiherr von Liebig, Chemistry in its Application to Agriculture and Physiology, ed. Lyon Playfair and William Gregory (Philadelphia: T.B. Peterson, 1847), 173-177,

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http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=inu.30000111833 822;view=1up;seq=7.

73 Sylvia Gierlinger, “Food and Feed Supply and Waste Disposal in the Industrialising City of Vienna (1830–1913): A Special Focus on Urban Nitrogen Flows,” Regional Environmental Change 15, no. 2 (2015): 323, accessed March 15, 2019, doi: 10.1007/s10113-014-0653-5.

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The Industrial and Environmental Development of Vienna and Pittsburgh

Instead of employing sewage farms to remove the human and animal waste from the urban environment and put it to productive use, however, the city council decided to continue dumping waste into the Danube.74 Although the size and relatively rapid flow rate of the Danube allowed the river to absorb large amounts of waste in comparison to other urban rivers such as the Seine, the environmental quality of the waterway was still impacted. Historical estimates of the Danube’s hydro-morphology show that while the amount of nitrogen withdrew from the hinterlands of Vienna to supply the city with

the significant majority of its drinking water from wells within the Danube watershed, there were concerns that polluted water from the river was leaching into the wells.76 Additionally, vast clear-cutting of forests around Vienna led to ecological damage.

Prior to industrialization wood was virtually the only energy source used in Vienna for heating or light (See Figure 1). Indeed, wood remained a major source of energy until the mid-1870s. To supply such a vastly growing population, Vienna cut down more and more of the forest cover in the city’s hinterland, resulting in large-scale clear-cutting that also

Figure 3. Regulation of the Danube River in Vienna, Austria

food increased fivefold, there was a sevenfold increase in nitrogen disposed of in urban waters.75 Indeed, with Vienna drawing

negatively impacted water quality.77 Furthermore, the presence of forested area helps to reduce soil erosion through the

74

Despite Disparate Ecology and History,” Natural Areas Journal 32, no. 2 (2012): 200, accessed December 4, 2015. doi: 10.3375/043.032.0209.

77 Ibid.

Ibid.

Ibid., 325.

76 William H. Richards, et al., “Landscape-Scale Forest Management in the Municipal Watersheds of Vienna, Austria, and Seattle, USA: Commonalities 75

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The Heinz Journal presence of anchoring roots and canopy vegetation that absorbs most of the energy of falling rain.78 For Vienna, industrialization meant a shift from wood to coal as a primary energy source. This allowed for pressure on forests to diminish, leading to a rebound of forest coverage in the decades following the energy transition79

of water (See Figure 382). This was a boon to urban development as a channeled river reduced the risk of flood damage for those building on the waterfront.83

The City of Vienna undertook more deliberate activities to alter the environment of the Danube during the nineteenth century as well, the most significant of which was the regulation of the river in 1875. The impetus for regulation was the frequent flooding that often occurred in Vienna’s urban core, with especially bad events in 1830 and 1862.80 Prior to regulation, the Danube was more akin to a wide, constantly-shifting marsh that would experience sudden channel changes, erosion, and the regular replacements of land with water, and vice versa.81 Regulation replaced this with a clearly-defined channel

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA The Industrial Background of Pittsburgh Vienna was not the only city located on a major river that would be significantly impacted by industrialization. While Vienna had the Danube, Pittsburgh had the Allegheny, Ohio, and Monongahela Rivers.

Both cities experienced rapid-population growth during the industrial period. In the approximately 50-year period from 1851 to 1900, the population of Vienna increased by roughly quadrupled, from 431,889 to 1.7 million.84 Pittsburgh, while remaining a much smaller city by comparison, experienced an even greater rate of growth.

In 1860, the city had an estimated population of 49,217,85 but by 1900 Pittsburgh boasted 321,616 inhabitants, an increase of over six

78

82

Gene Likens, Biogeochemistry of a Forested Ecosystem (New York: Springer Science + Business Media, 2013), 172, accessed November 9, 2015. doi: 10.1007/978-1-4614-7810-2.

79 Simone Gingrich, et al., “Long-term Dynamics of Terrestrial Carbon Stocks in Austria: a Comprehensive Assessment of the Time Period from 1830 to 2000,” Regional Environmental Change 7, no. 1 (2007): 45, accessed December 4, 2015, doi: 10.1007/s10113-007-0024-6.

80 Gertrud Haidvogl , et al., “Urban Land for a Growing City at the Banks of a Moving River: Vienna's Spread into the Danube Island Unterer Werd from the Late 17th to the Beginning of the 20th century,” Water History 5, no. 2 (2012): 207, accessed December 4, 2015. doi: 10.1007/s12685013-0078-y.

81 Verena Winiwarter, Martin Schmid, and Gert Dressel, “Looking at Half a Millennium of CoExistence: The Danube in Vienna as a Socio-Natural Site,” Water History 5, no. 2 (2012): 106, accessed December 1, 2015. doi: 10.1007/s12685-013-0079-x.

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Severin Hohensinner, The Struggle with the River: Vienna and the Danube from 1500 to the Present, Environment & Society Portal, Arcadia (2012), no.

19. Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society. https://doi.org/10.5282/rcc/4959.

83 S. Hohensinner, et al. “Reconstruction of the Characteristics of a Natural Alluvial River– Floodplain System and Hydromorphological Changes Following Human Modifications: The Danube River (1812–1991),” River Research and Applications 20, no. 1 (2012): 38, accessed December 1, 2015. doi: 10.1002/rra.719.

84 Andreas Weigl, Demographic Change and Modernization in Vienna, 1700 to 1999 (2003), distributed by GESIS Data Archive, http://dx.doi.org/10.4232/1.8159.

85 Sarah Hutchins Killikelly, The History of Pittsburgh: its Rise and Progress (Pittsburgh: B.C. & Gordon Montgomery Co., 1906), 204, accessed November 13, 2015. http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=loc.ark:/13960/t6 m04x38x.

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The Industrial and Environmental Development of Vienna and Pittsburgh

times.86 Although the needs, language, environment, culture, and population of both cities are very different, the above similarities are good points of comparison for the two urban areas.

Like Vienna, Pittsburgh became an industrial city in the mid-to-late nineteenth century.87 It was during this period that the earliest exploitation of Pittsburgh’s coal fields began, with mining occurring as early as 1784.88 The sparing use of the coalfields in the eighteenth century gave way to a massive increase in their exploitation in the nineteenth. Indeed, in 1883, writer Willard Grazier wrote that the massive industrial development of the preceding decades was “rendered possible by the coal which abounds in measureless quantities in the immediate neighborhood of the city.”89 By the 1830s, iron emerged as the leader of Pittsburgh’s industry, and boasted eighteen iron foundries, a number which would double in the next quarter century, as well as glassmakers, textile shops, breweries, machine shops, and salt works.90 Fueled by cheap coal and easy access to markets that were increasingly interconnected by railroads, Pittsburgh became an industrial capital of the United States.91 This industrial development would come to be the defining characteristic of the city, as reflected by Pittsburgh’s reputation as an industrial city 86

Ibid., 243.

Joel Tarr, Devastation and Renewal: An Environmental History of Pittsburgh and its Region (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2004), 6.

88 Joseph Pratt, Martin Melosi, and Kathleen Brosnan, eds. Pittsburgh History of the Urban Environment: Energy Capitals - Local Impact, 87

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even today. In addition to defining the political and economic landscape of the city, industrialization would also heavily affect the environmental landscape around it.

The Environmental Impact of Industrialization in Pittsburgh Unlike Vienna, where the Danube was not primarily used as a source for drinking water, Pittsburgh heavily relied on their river system to quench their thirst. There was, however, a clear debate over whether water should be provided through public or private means.

Until the construction of a city-wide municipal water system, most of Vienna relied on private wells as a water source. In Pittsburgh, preference was given to private water supply until public pressure forced the city council to municipalize the water system in 1821. The first public waterworks in Pittsburgh was completed in 1828 and was expanded several times in the succeeding decades. By 1851, the municipal water system contained twenty-one miles of water pipe serving 6,630 dwellings.92 The other half of a municipal water system, the sewage system, shares a remarkably similar history with Vienna. Much like in the Habsburg capital, many Pittsburgh residents utilized cesspools to deal with their waste, resulting in streets and waterways that were polluted with excrement. For those in the heavily industrialized South Side of Pittsburgh, for example, their water quality Global Influence (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2014), 7.

89 Ibid., 9.

90 Ibid.

91 Tarr, Devastation and Renewal, 16.

92 Ibid., 65.

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The Heinz Journal was severely compromised by the proximity of privy vaults. For those in the South Side that didn’t fetch their own water, the Monongahela Water Company pumped water from the river that was heavily contaminated by waste overflow.93 An increase in population meant an increase in the amount of waste generated in the city, and what was once merely an inadequate waste disposal system quickly became a public health crisis. The Pittsburgh Board of Health declared as such in 1880 when it found that there were almost 1,300 privyvaults that were full, of which 176 were leaking and another 154 were classified as ‘foul.’ Unlike Vienna, establishing a new water system only exacerbated the problem.

In 1881, 62% of the water closets emptied into privy vaults and cesspools, while only 23% were connected to actual sewer lines.94 This vastly increased the amount of waste that was flushed into privy vaults and cesspools, which in turn often leaked or overflowed into the river. The problem was recognized as serious enough to warrant the creation of a dedicated, centralized sewer system for the city, which was constructed between 1889 and 1912.95 The water quality of Pittsburgh was not the only aspect of the environment affected by industrialization and increasing population.

In fact, coal was arguably an even larger contributor to environmental and health problems. Pittsburgh’s historical association with coal is no surprise given the widespread 93

Ibid., 66.

Ibid.

95 Ibid., 69.

94

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access that the city had to it. The original coal seam around Pittsburgh covered 14,200 square miles in layers three to four feet thick, often exposed to the air and easy to extract.96 For many years, the coal smoke that hung over Pittsburgh was seen as an unassailable positive. It was regarded as a symbol of progress, of the advanced nature of the economy in the city. After decades of viewing the smoke belching from factories as a symbol of progress, however, city leaders began to envision a different future for themselves. This vision was based on a view that “Pittsburgh’s economic future… was linked to national and global ventures rather than to its coal, its rivers, its steel, or its industrial workforce – the factors for which it had been instrumentally valued since its frontier beginnings.”97 This vision encountered a significant amount of pushback from those who saw the economic livelihood of the city as being inseparable from the heavy industry that grew to define it.98 The key to overcoming the air pollution in Pittsburgh was a public shift in thought that saw other economic considerations taking precedence over heavy industry. For instance, many residents in Pittsburgh began to see that “rather than representing virtuous industry and frugality, Pittsburgh smoke, by the end of the nineteenth century, was a threat to domestic comfort, luxury goods, and real estate interests, which were seen as legitimate

96

Pratt, Melosi, and Brosnan, Pittsburgh History of the Urban Environment, 7.

97 Tarr, Devastation and Renewal, 122.

98 Ibid., 112.

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The Industrial and Environmental Development of Vienna and Pittsburgh

economic interests.�99 Even the Chamber of Commerce, an organization generally averse to policies detrimental to business, saw that smoke from heavy industry was a threat to other sectors of the economy.100 Pittsburgh was eventually successful in largely eliminating smoke from the city’s skyline, but did not do so until largely after World War II, when the city re-doubled its commitment to heavy industry for the war effort.101 However, this success came about from a variety of coalescing factors as opposed to solely policy changes. In fact, the two major factors influencing the cleanup were: (1) major changes in the fuels and/or combustion technology used be a majority of Pittsburgh householders, commercial firms, railroads, and some manufacturing industries; (2) a municipal smoke control policy that required domestic consumers, industries, and transportation companies to change their fuel type and/or combustion equipment. The policy was originally based on the expectation that domestic consumers would meet clean air standards by using smokeless coal and/or smokeless heating equipment that burned regular bituminous coal.102 What this indicated was a combination of top-down policy changes combined with bottom-up consumption habits that culminated in greater effect than either could have on their own.

The Industrial Background of China We now shift our focus from the past to the present and examine the important lessons that cases such as Vienna and Pittsburgh can impart to the development of China and other currently-industrializing nations. Although the industrial development of China is unique in many significant ways, there are significant parallels with the historical development of Vienna and Pittsburgh.

While most nations in the western world have largely moved beyond issues of coal smoke darkening their cities or untreated sewage polluting their rivers, in many parts of the world that is not the case. Nations such as China and India are facing significant environmental challenges as their populations become more heavily urbanized and consumptive. The mistakes of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries can serve as a blueprint for future development.

One of the major factors that influence the growth of urbanization is employment because the opportunities offered by industrialization in cities are often greater than those available in the agricultural sector.

This generally leads to a massive increase in the population of urban areas, flooding cities and factories with cheap labor. We have already seen that both Vienna and Pittsburgh multiplied their urban populations between four and six times during their period of industrialization, and Beijing underwent a similar intensive growth. During the period from 1949 to 1988, the Chinese capital grew

China 99

Ibid., 123.

Ibid., 124.

100

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101 102

Ibid., 122.

Ibid., 146.

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The Heinz Journal from 4.1 million to 10 million.103 By the end of 2014, this population had more than doubled to 21.5 million.104 In each instance, industrialization signaled a shift in the focus of the economy from agriculture to manufacturing. This shift has significant consequences for energy usage, as the operation of machinery and the transportation and manufacture of goods undoubtedly consumes significantly more energy than pre-industrial agricultural practices. In addition, new industrial processes require large amounts of raw material, for which energy must be expended

can already be seen in China, where cement production has grown at an annual rate of 10.7% between 1985 and 2010, and where steel production has increased 457% between 2001 and 2011.105 Rates of energy usage in China and other newly-industrialized nations will likely only continue growing in the immediate future. Indeed, “The weight of global energy use began to shift towards developing countries. Among them, the percentage of world energy consumption by China, India, Russia, Brazil, and South Africa rose from 26.7% in 1990 to 32.8% in 2009. The annual growth in their energy consumption is 2.1 times the world

Figure 4. List of Countries with the Largest Remaining Proven Reserves of Fossil Fuels

to mine, refine, and transport it to factories.

Increased urbanization also leads to new pressures on urban centers, which are required to either construct new buildings to house residents, or allow homelessness to increase, as was seen in Vienna. This demand

average.”106

103

105

Hu Zhaoliang, Francis Yee, and George Chusheng Lin, “Population Growth in Beijing: Trends and Countermeasures,” Chinese Geographical Science 1, no. 3 (1991), 212, accessed December 4, 2015. doi: 10.1007/BF02664516.

104 Zheng Jinran and Cao Yin, “Beijing to Limit Population Growth this Year,” China Daily, January 24, 2015, accessed November 22, 2015, http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/201501/24/content_19394117.htm.

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Zhu Liu, et al. “Embodied Energy Use in China’s Industrial Sectors.” Energy Policy 49 (2012): 757, accessed November 22, 2015, doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2012.07.016.

106 Zhenya Liu, Electric Power and Energy in China, (Somerset, NJ, USA: John Wiley & Sons, 2013), 4.

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The Industrial and Environmental Development of Vienna and Pittsburgh

Like Vienna and Pittsburgh, most of the energy driving industrialization in China is derived from coal, and many of the issues facing all three locations came about from “a conjunction of urbanization, industrialization, topography, and the availability at low cost of large sources of highly-volatile bituminous coal.”107A large majority of Vienna’s coal came from mines in Upper Silesia, which were connected by rail to Vienna, making transport cheap and easy.108 Similarly, Pittsburgh was situated on or near large coal beds that could be easily worked to provide the city with energy.109 These historical developments echo China’s current situation, as China has the thirdlargest reserves of coal in the world, behind

is unsurprising that a very significant portion of the energy produced in China is derived from coal (See Figure 5).111 Despite these points of similarity, there are significant differences between the three cities that make it difficult to establish a comprehensive environmental plan moving forward. As already shown, population levels in Beijing are orders of magnitude larger than any current or historical population level in either Vienna or Pittsburgh. All three cities also operated under different political and economic systems. Vienna was the capital of an imperial monarchy, Pittsburgh is an industrial city in the federalist United States, and Beijing is the capital of the communist

Figure 5. China’s Total Energy Production and Composition, 1980-2010

,

only the United States and Russia (See Figure 4 on the previous page).110 Given this fact, it

People’s Republic of China. Furthermore, the economic situation of each is vastly different.

107

http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.3901506729 4002;view=1up;seq=5.

109 Tarr, Devastation and Renewal, 16.

110 Liu, Electric Power and Energy in China, 5.

111 Ibid., 19.

Tarr, Devastation and Renewal, 147.

Johann Pechar, Kohle und eisen in allen ländern der erde: (Gruppe V, Classe 43) Unter mitwirkung hervorragender fachgenossen (Berlin: Julius Springer, 1878), 134, 108

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29

The Heinz Journal The industrial eras of both Vienna and Pittsburgh occurred during the nineteenth century, a time when effective transportation technologies were just beginning to be developed and globalization was in its infancy. For China, however, a century of technological and transportation development has made a much different economic world for them to deal with.

Nevertheless, I believe there are important lessons from the past that can still be applied to the economic and industrial development of China.

If we examine the situation at the local level, there is much more nuance than one would expect from a declaration of war on pollution.

While at the national level there is significant interest in reducing pollution and cleaning up the water and the skies, at the local level many environmental laws are not being enforced.114 That is not to say there have been no successes - there have been many, but the war has not been fought to a conclusion and in fact, is not being fought at all in certain parts of the country.

The Environmental Impact of Industrialization in China As has already been shown, Pittsburgh was able to clean up its skyline through a combination of improved technology and government mandates that changed consumer behavior. As a unitary state, it seems that China is able to much more effectively enact standardized initiatives across the whole country than federal countries such as the United States. In 2014, Li Keqiang, the premier of China, announced that “We will resolutely declare war against pollution as we declared war against poverty.”112 Since then, the country’s urban centers have seen an average decline in airborne fine particulate matter of nearly a third.113 Shortly after the declaration of the war on pollution, new laws came into effect that promised harsher penalties for environmental polluters.

We will begin our analysis with the Chinese capital. Beijing is a good (if imperfect) point of comparison between Austria, Pennsylvania, and China, due to it being a major inland urban center that suffers from significant levels of pollution. In addition, the city’s status as an important center has given the city a level of attention higher than other Chinese cities with comparable levels of pollution.

Michael Greenstone, “Four Years After Declaring War on Pollution, China is Winning,” The New York Times, March 12, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/12/upshot/chinapollution-environment-longer-lives.html.

113 Ibid.

114

112

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Perhaps the most visible form of pollution in Beijing is in the air, with clouds of pollutants and particulate matter creating a haze in the sky that would be familiar to residents of Vienna and Pittsburgh at the height of their industrial periods. The Chinese capital experienced 1,812 days in which pollution levels were rated as “unhealthy” or higher during the period from April 2008 to April 2014. This is 82.4% of the days during this Jonathan Kaiman, “China Strengthens Environmental Laws,” The Guardian, April 25, 2014, http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/apr/2 5/china-strengthens-environmental-laws-pollutingfactories.

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The Industrial and Environmental Development of Vienna and Pittsburgh

period.115 While it is certainly true that many American cities continue to suffer from elevated levels of air pollution, Beijing routinely ranks as among the worst in the world, despite having made progress in recent years.116 Another aspect of pollution that receives less attention in the media but is just as important is water pollution. For Beijing, the situation is much the same as that of its air pollution: improving, but still bad. In 2017, a water quality report found that almost forty percent of the water in China’s capital was so bad that it was “essentially functionless.”117 Much like with Pittsburgh and Vienna, the causes behind this pollution are largely the dumping of industrial waste and the discharge of untreated sewage into urban waterways. In fact, almost 2 million cubic meters of untreated wastewater were discharged in Beijing alone.118 Such disposal can have farreaching and long-lasting effects as toxins accumulate in the body and affect quality of life and longevity, but the short-term effects can be even more harmful. Indeed, with “eighty percent of groundwater from major river basins [being] ‘unsuitable for human contact’” across China, efforts to clean up Lily Kuo, “Six Years of Beijing Air Pollution Summed Up in One Scary Chart,” Quartz, April 10, 2014, https://qz.com/197786/six-years-of-bejing-airpollution-summed-up-in-one-scary-chart/.

116 Reuters, “New Delhi is World’s Most Pollution Capital, Beijing Eighth,” US News & World Report, March 5, 2019, https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/201903-05/new-delhi-is-worlds-most-polluted-capitalbeijing-eighth.

117 Deng Tingting, “In China, the Water you Drink is as Dangerous as the Air you Breathe,” The Guardian, June 2, 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/globaldevelopment-professionals115

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Beijing’s air will be useless if the city dies of thirst at the same time.119 Given that “Of the more than 100 rivers that there are now in Beijing, only two or three can be used for tap water,” this is hardly hyperbole.120 City administrators have always been concerned about ensuring their residents have access to enough clean water, and those in Vienna and Pittsburgh were no exception.

Vienna eventually overcame the problem of water access by constructing a large aqueduct to transport fresh water from the Alps. Even today, water in Vienna ranks among the cleanest in the world.121 Pittsburgh took a different route and opted to invest in facilities to treat the water that flowed through the city.122 Although a significant improvement over the situation that existed previously, the water treatment system has had more challenges than the system that Vienna created. Given that Beijing is facing a very similar problem as these cities did in the past, it is worth looking to see what worked and what did not.

These issues do not only affect Beijing, however. Indeed, the lax enforcement of environmental policies has significant network/2017/jun/02/china-water-dangerouspollution-greenpeace.

118 Ibid.

119 Ibid.

120 Bill Ide, “China’s Other Pollution Problem: Water,” VOA News, January 23, 2013, https://www.voanews.com/a/beijing-releasingstatistics-on-water-pollution/1589425.html.

121 “From the Mountains to the City: Vienna's Drinking Water Lifeline,” Edie.net, October 1, 1998, https://www.edie.net/library/From-the-mountains-tothe-city-Viennas-drinking-water-lifeline/2441.

122 Tarr, Devastation and Renewal, 86.

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The Heinz Journal economic consequences for all of China. A 2005 report by MIT found that pollution cost the Chinese economy $112 billion in lost economic productivity, a number that exploded from $22 billion in 1975, and is likely much higher due to increasing levels of pollution in the subsequent decade.123 There are three primary ways in which air pollution affects economic growth. The first is through the negative impact that pollution can have on the short- and long-term health and productivity of a local workforce. The second is air quality affecting location decisions for residents and businesses, causing people and businesses to avoid investing in heavily polluted areas if possible. The final way air pollution affects economic growth is the cost of environmental regulation to businesses.124 The first manner in which air pollution affects economic growth is perhaps the most striking in China. The loss in health and productivity was measured in a 2013 MIT study in the context of the Huai River policy which provides free coal to heat boilers in the north of China but does not do so in the south.

Researchers discovered that total suspended particulates (TSPs) in the air of northern China is 55% higher than that in southern China. The health impact of prolonged exposure of elevated TSP levels is Tan Ee Lyn, “Worsening air pollution costs China dearly: study,” Reuters, February 15, 2012, http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/16/us-chinapollution-costsidUSTRE81F09M20120216#8BUtdSbdcqf0EvbR.97 .

124 Shanthi Nataraj, Ramya Chari, and Amy Richardson, Links Between Air Quality and Economic Growth: Implications for Pittsburgh (Santa Monica, CA: Rand, 2013), 21-22, accessed December 4, 2015, http://search.ebscohost.com.proxy.library.cmu.edu/lo 123

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particularly damaging and has collectively cost the half-billion residents of northern China an estimated 2.5 billion years of life expectancy throughout the 1990s.125 The authors of the article conclude that this may be a factor in why life expectancy in China has grown anemically compared to the robust economic growth that has characterized China’s industrial period.126 This is particularly important for economic considerations because a workforce that is constantly ill will have lower productivity than one without such health burdens.

Individuals who continuously breathe in particulates and ozone have a higher risk of suffering from respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. Prolonged exposure can lead to “coughing, breathing difficulties, impaired lung function, irregular heartbeat and premature death in people with heart or lung disease.”127 Furthermore, a 1981 study in California found that exposure to ozone corresponded to a 2 percent reduction in productivity and earnings on average among workers, while a 2012 study found that a 10 parts-per-billion reduction in ozone resulted in a 5.5 percent increase in productivity in

gin.aspx?direct=true&db=e020mna&AN=686717&si te=ehost-live.

125 Yuyu Chen, et al. “Evidence on the Impact of Sustained Exposure to Air Pollution on Life Expectancy from China’s Huai River Policy” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States 110, no. 32 (2013): 12936, accessed December 11, 2015, doi: www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1300018110.

126 Ibid., 12941.

127 Ee Lyn, “Worsening air pollution costs China dearly.”

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workers.128 For a single individual to be unable to work because of illness (or death) will likely not have an outsized impact on the national economy, but with millions of workers living in such conditions, the impact becomes particularly visible.

Air pollution does not only affect the economy by affecting on-the-job production, however. In fact, even more long-term damage is done to the country by affecting the quality of schooling. For instance, with regards to ozone exposure, an increase of 50 parts-per-billion corresponds to a thirteen percent increase in school absence.

Furthermore, exposure to ozone for two consecutive days in preschool-age children resulted in a twenty percent increase in illness-related absences from school. As educational attainment is closely related to poverty reduction, any impact on the educational outcomes of children at such a young age is likely to have a significant impact on their future economic prospects.129 It is more difficult to quantify the second factor affecting economic growth – location decisions for residents and businesses – because it is measuring which residents and businesses not there, rather than which ones are. Nevertheless, it makes intuitive sense that individuals will prefer not to live in heavily polluted urban areas if possible, particularly given the health consequences outlined in the MIT study. This is supported by the fact that, generally, cleaner air is 128

Nataraj, Chari, and Richardson, Links Between Air Quality and Economic Growth, 23-24.

129 Ibid., 24.

130 Ibid., 29.

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associated with higher housing prices.130 Furthermore, Paul Gottlieb found that environmental quality was the number one quality of life factor for high-technology firms.131 With China’s increasing development of technological production and development, this preference will likely be extremely important for attracting foreign and domestic investment in those fields.

As for the final factor affecting economic growth – environmental regulation – this is another complicated issue. Several studies in the United States have shown that environmental regulations do have an impact on where businesses decide to locate, although there is no universal consensus on this matter.132 Regardless, the regulatory environment in China is far different from that of the United States, making a direct comparison of this nature difficult. China has passed a number of environmental regulations that are similar to global environmental standards, but many go unenforced.133 This disconnect between existence and enforcement will likely make it difficult to measure if there is an impact on business locations, and it is also likely too soon to see if there are any consequential changes in environmental regulation enforcement that would impact business location decisions in China.

Despite these alarming statistics, there is evidence that progress is being made on the health front. The Chinese government’s war 131

Ibid., 29.

Ibid., 54.

133 Kaiman, “China Strengthens Environmental Laws.”

132

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The Heinz Journal on pollution has resulted in a substantial decrease of airborne particulate matter, and researchers can already see the impact of this reduction on the health of the Chinese population. Indeed, if such reductions prove to be a permanent feature, then the average resident of China can expect to live an extra 2.4 years. For residents of major urban centers, the gain is even greater. Those living in Beijing would experience 3.3 more years of life, and residents of Shijiazhuang and Baoding would get an extra 5.3 and 4.5 years, respectively.134 As a result of environmental pollution resulting from manufacturing, the Chinese economy is consistently taking two steps forward and one step back. The data does not exist to measure productivity lost in Vienna or Pittsburgh during their industrial period, but it is likely that air pollution had a similar negative impact on their economies as well.

A transition to cleaner forms of energy and production could help reduce productivity loss and health costs. Once other economic considerations are elevated to the same level of importance as heavy industry and manufacturing, then significant policy changes can be put into place to deal with the environmental pollution associated with burning fossil fuels. It is to some of those policy changes that we now turn.

Recommendations There is one key difference that makes policy-making much more challenging for the Chinese than for the past leaders of Pittsburgh and Vienna. That is the fact that

for Austria, Vienna was (and remains) the single largest and most important urban center in the country. Pittsburgh also held the same distinction for Western Pennsylvania during the height of industrialization. China, by contrast, has dozens of cities like Pittsburgh and Vienna, meaning that any policy recommendation has to go beyond just the municipal level in order to have any hope of effectively tackling the environmental problems facing the country. Three recommendations that use a combination of bottom-up and top-down policy-making that have proved successful in the past include: 1) hastening a transition to clean energy sources at the national level, 2) enforcing existing pollution regulations at the local level, and 3) implementing more stringent regulations for the worst polluters at the national level.

Recommendation 1 China is well-positioned to take advantage of the lessons learned by the industrial past of Vienna and Pittsburgh, as well as the technological advances that have been achieved since the 19th century. Neither Austria nor Pennsylvania could have developed any significant amount of heavy industry without coal, as it was the only viable fuel source available at the time to power their furnaces and factories. China has the benefit of twenty-first century technology, however, and its power demands can feasibly be met with technologies that the Austrians and Pennsylvanians of the past could only dream of. Technologies like photovoltaic cells, concentrated solar power stations, land-based and offshore wind

Greenstone, “Four Years After Declaring War on Pollution, China is Winning.�

134

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The Industrial and Environmental Development of Vienna and Pittsburgh

turbines, hydroelectric dams, geothermal plants, and even nuclear power plants are all capable of generating the electricity that China needs to fuel its industrial state of the twenty-first century. Rapid replacement of older fossil-fuel-based power plants will allow Chinese industry to continue developing while also reducing the emissions that have negatively affected the population.

Recommendation 2 In recent years, China has seen a decline in pollution. Part of the reduction can be attributed to more strict enforcement of pollution standards across the nation than has existed before. Indeed, much of China’s recent history has put higher priority on economic development than environmental quality, a trend that we can observe in the industrial history of Vienna and Pittsburgh as well.135 There is concern, however, that more strict enforcement of regulations is not uniform across the country - prompting heavy polluters to migrate to less-enforced areas.136 To avoid this, the enforcement mechanisms that have proven successful in the recent past should be uniformly applied across the People’s Republic of China.

Recommendation 3 Although bringing polluters in line with existing standards has helped reduce pollution levels in recent years, the amount of toxins and pollutants in China’s air is still Tom Phillips, “Blue-Sky Thinking: How China’s Crackdown on Pollution is Paying off,” The Guardian, February 22, 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/22/blu e-sky-thinking-how-chinas-crackdown-on-pollutionis-paying-off.

135

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well above recommended levels. Making significant progress on the pollution problem will require more stringent regulations on the worst polluters to reduce pollution to acceptable levels. This is because ensuring compliance with existing regulations is inherently reactive. Without taking more proactive steps toward reducing pollution (such as with new regulations), half of the picture is still missing.

For a pollution problem as large as China’s, no singular solution can make everything better overnight. Instead, a multi-pronged approach will be necessary that involves replacing the sources of pollution that cause the most harm, creating new limits on the amount of pollution that can be released into the air, and enforcing those regulations with a uniform policy across the country.

Conclusion As a historical process, industrialization varies from location to location, although it does share several commonalities across geographic and environmental lines. Fueled by access to rich coals seams and the proliferation of transportation, it spurs economic growth, but often at a high environmental and human cost. In industrialized societies such as Austria and the United States, the social and environmental costs of development have already been (mostly) incurred, but in Benjamin van Rooji, et al., “Pollution Enforcement in China: Understanding National and Regional Variation,” Legal Studies Research Paper Series No. 2015-76, University of California, Irvine, School of Law, accessed March 13, 2019, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id= 2646289.

136

35

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policies and enforce existing ones, China can avoid the worst aspects of industrialization, while still benefiting from the economic advancement that industrial development brings.

36

Cash Bail and Mandatory Minimum Sentencing

Poverty is Criminalized and Criminalization Perpetuates Poverty: Cash Bail and Mandatory Minimum Sentencing Wendy Schiller and Kate Vander Wiede Carnegie Mellon University – Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy Poverty is often criminalized in the United States through criminal justice policies. Cash bail practices and mandatory minimum sentencing laws and policies disproportionately impact people in poverty and people of color. These laws and policies also perpetuate poverty and inequality by limiting access to gainful employment that may alleviate the effects of poverty.

The “tough on crime” policies enacted during the height of the War on Drugs were thought to deter crime and reduce recidivism; however, these policies did neither. Now the United States finds itself in an era of mass incarceration that has increased inequality and poverty, especially for people of color. This research paper will analyze, discuss, and provide recommendations related to poverty, inequality, and crime in the United States. We follow this review by specifying two policy recommendations: (1) incentivizing states with block grants to reform cash bail practices by providing funding to implement pre-trial release centers and (2) drafting legislation to eliminate mandatory minimum sentences at the federal level.

The War on Crime Meets the War on Poverty: Poverty and Inequality in the Criminal Justice System Crime and poverty are linked. Crime perpetuates poverty in a way that disproportionately affects already vulnerable groups of people in the United States. In 1964 the U.S. passed federal legislation establishing the War on Poverty.137 The very next year a different type of war commenced – the War on Crime.138 These “wars,” declared under President Lyndon Johnson, have been entwined ever since and have led the U.S. into an era of mass incarceration that is unparalleled around the world. Policy makers, who are drafting or revising crime 137

Hinton, Elizabeth. From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2016, 1.

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and poverty legislation in the U.S., need to better understand how these policies can work against each other. It is especially important given the current criminal justice data that prove disparities in enforcement and punishment.

Over the past half century, there has been a 943 percent increase in the incarceration rate.139 Incarceration numbers grew from 184,901 in 1965 to 251,107 in 1982, when President Ronald Reagan escalated the War on Drugs.140 Today, the U.S., which has fewer than five percent of the world’s population, has nearly 25 percent of the world’s prison population, with 2.3 million

138

Ibid.

Ibid.

140 Ibid.

139

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The Heinz Journal people (655 per 100,000) in jail and prison.141 To provide further context to these numbers, it is important to highlight incarceration data from other developed countries. For example, the prison population in Canada is 41,145 (114 per 100,000), United Kingdom is 83,014 (140 per 100,000), and Germany is 62,194 (75 per 100,000).142 The United States far outstrips these countries and all other developing countries in its incarceration rate.

The timeline of this exponential increase in the U.S. is linked to a series of punitive crime control policy decisions that swept the nation between the 1970s and 1990s. These policies include the War on Drugs; harsher sentences for drug offenses; financial incentives for the states, like the Bryne Justice Assistance Grant program; and the Bail Reform Act of 1984. 143 The War on Crime and the War on Poverty are connected, as Elizabeth Hinton notes in her book From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime. Hinton writes that “federal policymakers treated antipoverty policies less as moral imperatives in their own right and more as a means to suppress future rioting and crime.� 144 Social policies that initially sought to address poverty ended up being redirected toward criminal justice training and research programs focusing on punitive responses to crime. This was done without recognition of the fact that it would be difficult for vulnerable peoples to be lifted 141

American Civil Liberties Union. Mass Incarceration. 2018. https://www.aclu.org/issues/smart-justice/massincarceration (accessed October 22, 2018).

142 Walmsley, Roy. World Prison Population List (12th edition). Report, London: Institute for Criminal

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out of poverty through poverty-reducing programs if at the same time crime-reducing policies were perpetuating poverty in the same population.

In this research paper, we focus on two aspects of the criminal justice system that impact poverty, racial inequality, and mass incarceration in the United States: cash bail and mandatory minimum sentencing. Cash bail and mandatory minimum sentencing play a large part in criminalizing poverty.

This criminalization perpetuates poverty and inequality by disrupting employment stability and employability, reducing income for individuals and their families, and disproportionately affecting people of color and neighborhoods of low socioeconomic status. Additionally, mandatory minimums have proven ineffective in reducing crime.

Below, we analyze cash bail and mandatory minimum sentencing and ultimately make two policy recommendations to reform these practices: first, that the federal government should incentivize states to reform cash bail practices using state block grants; and second, that the federal government should eliminate mandatory minimum sentencing for drug crimes.

Policy Research, 2018 (accessed on March 18, 2019 at: http://www.prisonstudies.org/sites/default/files/resour ces/downloads/wppl_12.pdf.

143 Hinton, Poverty and Crime.

144 Ibid, 12 & 13.

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Cash Bail and Mandatory Minimum Sentencing

Disparities in the Justice System: Vulnerable Populations and Disproportionate Minority Contact In general, data shows that criminal justice policies implemented from the 1970s through the 1990s disproportionately affected the poor. According to a Prison Policy Initiative report that used 2004 data collected by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, incarcerated men between 27- and 42-years-old had income levels that were 47 percent lower than their non-incarcerated counterparts ($19,650 compared to $41,250). 145 For women, it was worse, with income levels 58 percent lower than their non-incarcerated counterparts ($13,890 compared to $23,745).146 It is important to note that the Bureau of Justice Statistics does not regularly collect data related to the income of prison populations, a practice that prevents further analysis on the subject. This poses a challenge for reform efforts, as it is difficult to make data-driven decisions without current and reliable data.

The educational disparities of those sentenced to prison have also shifted drastically since the 1970s. In 1972, about

145

Rabuy, Bernadette, and Daniel Kopf. Prisons of Poverty: Uncovering the pre-incarceration incomes of the imprisoned. Press Release, Northampton: Prison Policy Initiative, 2015. (accessed on November 12, 2018 at: https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/income.html.).

146

Ibid.

Travis, Jeremy, National Research Council, Social Sciences and Education, Committee on Law and Justice, and Committee on Causes and Consequences of High Rates of Incarceration. "The Growth of Incarceration in the United States: Exploring Causes 147

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four percent of white men without a high school education were incarcerated by their mid-30s, compared to about five percent of black men with the same age and education levels.147 In 2010 those percentages were higher and more disparate. Black men without a high school diploma had a 68 percent chance of being imprisoned by their mid-30s, compared to 30 percent for white men.148 Incarceration also primarily affects black men and women.149 Black men have a one in three chance over their lifetime of being incarcerated, compared to a one in 17 chance for white men.150 Black women have a one in 18 chance of being incarcerated, compared to a one in 111 chance for white women.151 Overall, non-white, non-educated males from neighborhoods with high rates of poverty, unemployment and racial segregation make up much of the incarcerated population and are the hardest hit by punitive crime control policies.152 Cash Bail: Criminalizing the Poor Since the 1600s, the United States’ court system has used cash bail to secure a and Consequences." National Academies Press: OpenBook. April 30, 2014, 65. (accessed October 1, 2018 at: https://www.nap.edu/catalog/18613/thegrowth-of-incarceration-in-the-united-statesexploring-causes.)

148 Ibid, 65.

149 Lifetime likelihood of imprisonment of US Residents Born in 2001, 1974-2001. Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics. (Source: Bonczar, T. (2003) Prevalence of Imprisonment in the U.S. Population.

150 Ibid.

151 Ibid.

152 The Growth of Incarceration, 282.

39

The Heinz Journal defendant’s appearance at their court hearing.153 Bail refers to the process of releasing a defendant from jail with conditions set to both assure safety to the community and ensure that a defendant will appear in court.154 A judge can set bail in terms of money (cash bail) or non-financial conditions (i.e., on your “own recognizance”).

It is important to note here the difference between jail and prison. Jails are locally run, short-term facilities that house defendants awaiting trial or sentencing, as well as inmates who have sentences of less than one year. Prisons are long-term facilities run by state or federal agencies for inmates who have sentences over a year. If a judge has chosen to set bail in terms of cash and a defendant is unable to pay the cash bail, that defendant will remain in jail awaiting trial.

Cash bail, which is powered by a commercial bail industry, has led to decades-long inequities in the criminal justice system.

These inequities include the ability to remain free while awaiting trial only if a person has the financial means to post cash bail. Bail reform was first proposed under President Johnson to address this inequity, which was passed in 1966 as the Bail Reform Act in 1966.155 Unfortunately, the Act itself did not officially mandate the elimination of the 153

Billings, Thanithia. "Private Interest, Public Sphere: Eliminating the use of Commercial Bail Bondsmen in the Criminal Justice System." Boston College Law Review, Vol. 57:1337, 2016: 13371365, pg. 1342.

154 Bradford, Spike. For Better or For Profit: How the Bail Bonding Industry Stands in the Way of Fair and Effective Pretrial Justice. Policy Report, Washington D.C.: Justice Policy Institute, 2012.

155 Smith, Rachel. "Condemned to Repeat History?

Why the Last Movement for Bail Reform Failed and

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industry; rather it merely encouraged judges to release defendants on their own recognizance.156 However, in the few short years after the Act was passed, bail reform did work to reduce jail populations by introducing innovative bail programs, like pre-trial release centers.157 The reform was stunted by an uptick in crime which resulted in “tough-on-crime” laws and the new Bail Reform Act of 1984, which included federal preventative detention laws.158 Since 1984, the use of cash bail rather than non-financial bail has grown.159 This increase has helped to create a billion dollar commercial bail industry and has led to high levels of non-convicted defendants who are unable to pay cash bail awaiting trial in local jails. Of the 646,000 inmates in jail in 2016, 34 percent were held only because they were unable to pay cash bail.160 While almost every state in the United States allows the commercial bail industry to post bail set by judges in pre-trial release decisions, four states have eliminated the commercial bail industry – Illinois, Kentucky, Wisconsin, and Oregon.161 These four states eliminated commercial bail industry as a part of the reforms associated with the Bail Reform Act of 1966.162 Advocates of the commercial bond industry cite the benefits of the industry – reduced costs to the tax payer and increased How This One Can Be Succeed." Georgetown Journal on Poverty Law and Policy, Volume XXV, Number 3, Spring, 2018: 451-473.

156 Ibid.

157 Ibid.

158 Ibid.

159 Bradford, For Better or For Profit.

160 Ibid.

161 Smith, Condemned to Repeat History.

162 Ibid.

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Cash Bail and Mandatory Minimum Sentencing

community safety, which is why many states have not eliminated the use of commercial bail as an approach to releasing defendants back into the community.163 However, the data tell a different story that alludes to needing cash bail reforms.

Rising Societal Costs and Jail Populations The commercial bail business is a $14 billion industry that spends $3.1 million in lobbying dollars to influence legislators.164 The industry wields control over pretrial release decisions across the U.S. and is supported by insurance companies and trade groups with the money and political sway needed to ensure their power in the criminal justice system.165 The industry itself is comprised of commercial bail bond agencies that work directly with people who have been arrested, as well as regional and larger insurance corporations that provide financial backing to commercial bail businesses.166 The industry is supported by fees, generally 10 percent of the full bail (median cash bail is $10,000) collected from defendants.167 The industry has a usury effect on the poor who are pulled deeper into the criminal justice system due to their inability to pay cash bail.

In addition, while the commercial bail industry is making billions, local 163

Bradford, For Better or For Profit.

Simth, Condemned to Repeat History, 27.

165 Ibid, 5.

166 Ibid, 9.

167 Ibid; Bradford, For Better or For Profit, pg. 13.

168 Henrichson, Christian, Joshua Rinaldi, and Ruth Delaney. The Price of Jails:Measuring the Taxpayer Cost of Local Incarceration. Policy Report, New York: The Vera Institute, 2015.

164

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communities and taxpayers are paying a considerable amount of tax revenue through the allocation of funding to local jails. The U.S. Department of Justice estimated that $22.2 billion were spent on jails in 2011 alone, which is a considerable amount of funding to house and supervise low-risk defendants.168 The rise of incarceration levels in jail, from 200,000 inmates in 1983 (96 per 100,000)169 to 740,700 inmates in 2016 (229 per 100,000),170 can be linked to the Bail Reform Act of 1984, which added “danger to the community” as an additional consideration for judges determining bail.171 This legislation led to an increase in cash bail amounts because judges and prosecutors equated an inmate’s ability to pay higher cash bail with safety, which then meant that they could be released into the community to await trial. This belief, in turn, led to an increase in the inmate jail population simply because the majority of inmates are financially unable to pay cash bail. However, an estimated two-thirds of the inmate population have not been found guilty of crime and likely pose little threat to public safety, since “the vast majority of people who are sitting in jail in our country are there on low-level crimes or low-level offences.”172 Only around four percent of defendants are Ram Subramanian et al. Incarceration’s Front Door: The Misuse of Jail in America. New York, NY: Vera Institute of Justice, 2015.

170 Bureau of Justice Statistics, Key Statistics, Local Jail Inmates, 1980-2016. (accessed on October 24, 2018 at: www.bjs.gov.)

171 Ibid.

Bradford, For Better or For Profit.

172 Here's How Bail Works. Directed by Vera Institute. Performed by Insha Rahman. 2018 169

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The Heinz Journal deemed to be a danger to the community and denied bail, according to the Justice Policy Institute.173 Collateral Consequences of Cash Bail The collateral consequences for people who cannot pay cash bail are severe, as incarceration has a litany of negative effects.174 Inmates are more likely to (1) plead guilty, (2) lose their job, (3) have their children taken away, (4) experience homelessness due to an inability to pay rent, and (5) be exposed to trauma and physical violence while incarcerated.175 These negative effects perpetuate poverty and disproportionately affect a population that is already vulnerable and marginalized. In addition, employment has been identified in research studies as a protective factor that is associated with decreased recidivism.176 Cash bail is associated with loss of employment, as those who await trial in jail may lose their jobs.177 These unintended costs can be addressed if states reform cash bail practices by implementing pre-trial release centers to effectively assess defendants for risk, as well as provide supervision services to ensure community safety and trail appearances. This would allow people to return to their communities and employment while awaiting trial for low-level and non-violent crimes. The commercial bail lobby advocates for the continued use of their product stating 173

Bradford, For Better or For Profit.

Rahman, Here’s How Bail Works.

175 Ibid.

176 Ullrich, Simone, and Jeremy Coid. "Protective factors for violence among released prisoners— Effects over time and interactions with static risk."

174

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that cash bail keeps communities safer and ensures the appearances at trial. However, data reflect that the use of pre-trial services can result in the same outcomes by using “…simple, inexpensive actions like sending defendants text-message reminders.”178 Allocating tax revenue towards pre-trail services, rather than jail, will likely reduce jail populations and reduce the unintended consequences associated with spending time in jail awaiting trial.

Mandatory Minimum Sentences: Longer, Harsher, and Directed at Drug Offenders Mandatory minimum sentences, which are required sentences for certain crimes, have contributed significantly to the growth of the prison population and prison costs, and have exacerbated inequities within the prison system.179 In the sections below, we first summarize the history of mandatory minimum sentences and the effect of mandatory minimums on sentence length.

We then review the federal and state prison population and its costs and examine existing research regarding whether mandatory minimums and longer sentences deter crime or reduce recidivism. Finally, we discuss disparities within the overall prison system and those exacerbated by mandatory minimum sentences and explore how prison affects an individual and their family’s lives during and after prison.180 Based on our

Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, Vol 79 , 2011: 381-390, pg. 385.

177 Rahman, Here’s How Bail Works.

178 Simth, Condemned to Repeat History, 472.

179 The Growth of Incarceration, 344.

180 Ibid, 348.

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review of these topics in the context of the overall prison system, and in the area of drug crimes specifically, we recommend the federal government abolish mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes.181 1960 – 1995: Harsher Sentences Sweep the Nation Between 1975 and 1995, the movement to introduce harsher sentences swept the nation.

As summarized in the National Academy of Sciences 2014 report, “The Growth of Incarceration in the United States,” the 1960s and 1970s brought with it protests, riots, violent crime, drug use, the collapse of urban schools, mass layoffs due to technological change and international competition, and through it all, a greater fear and politicization of crime.182 With the aim of punishing, reducing and deterring crime, every state and the United States Congress had passed laws requiring mandatory minimum sentences by 1995.183 These laws varied, but almost all of them required mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses, murder, aggravated rape, felonies with firearms, and felonies committed by felons.184 Mandatory minimums sentences could also be triggered by the characteristics of a crime; for example, selling drugs to someone under 21 or selling drugs near a school.185 Mandatory minimum sentencing laws led to longer prison

181

Ibid, 344-348.

Ibid, 24-25, 105.

183 Ibid, 34.

184 Ibid.

185 United States Sentencing Commission, “An Overview of Mandatory Minimum Penalties in the Federal Criminal Justice System,” July 2017, 10. (accessed in November 2018 at 182

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sentences – often 5-, 10- and 20-year sentences – for violent crimes and drug offenses. 186 While we will not delve deeply into how criminal justice policies differ across countries, it is important to note that most other Western countries had rising crime rates at the same time the United States did.187 However, America’s specific “social, political, economic, and institutional context” led the country and its people to choose a set of very different – and much harsher - crime policies than the other countries.188 As described above, the United States incarceration rate today is five to 12 times greater than the rates in other Western countries.189 Longer Sentences Contribute to Larger Prison Populations and Costs Alongside other laws designed to increase the certainty and length of sentences, mandatory minimum sentencing laws have contributed to longer sentences for more individuals, which has in turn contributed to the soaring prison population in the United States.190 Overall, the National Research Council reported that half of the 222 percent growth in the state prison population between 1980 and 2010 was due to an increase in time

https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/researchand-publications/researchpublications/2017/20170711_Mand-Min.pdf).

186 The Growth of Incarceration, 96.

187 Ibid, 105.

188 Ibid.

189 Ibid.

190 Ibid, 344.

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The Heinz Journal served in prison for the top six offenses, including drug crimes.191 Mandatory minimum sentencing laws have led to longer sentences for drug-related offenses. Those convicted of a federal drug offense with a mandatory minimum were sentenced to an average of 10.4 years, while those convicted of a drug offense without a mandatory minimum received an average sentence of 3.3 years.192 It is true that crimes with attached mandatory minimums are often more severe than those without. For example, drug offenders convicted of offenses carrying mandatory minimum were more likely to have used a firearm, to have committed a crime that resulted in bodily harm, and to have played a leadership role in such crime.193 However, a 2017 report from the

191

Ibid, 55.

Ibid.

193 United States Sentencing Commission, “Mandatory Minimum Penalties for Drug Offenses in the Federal Criminal Justice System,” October 2017, 5. (accessed April 27, 2019 at 192

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United States Sentencing Commission notes that while Congress may have intended to have ten-year mandatory minimums apply to “major” traffickers and five-year minimums to “serious” traffickers, in practice, much lower-level offenders—often with no criminal history—receive these longer sentences.194 At the same time that the length of sentences has increased, the incarceration rate for drug offenses has also grown. As shown in Figure 1 below, the incarceration rate for drug offenses between 1980 and 2010 grew at a faster rate than any other offense category, from 15 people in 100,000 to 143 in 100,000.195

https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/researchand-publications/researchpublications/2017/20171025_Drug-Mand-Min.pdf).

194 Ibid, 6.

195 Ibid, 47, 153.

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This focus on drug crimes helped drive the increase in the prison population. In 2016, half of the 189,000 federal prisoners were drug offenders, 72 percent of whom were convicted of mandatory minimum 196 offenses. In state prisons, which in 2016 had 1.3 million inmates, 14 percent of incarcerated males and 25 percent of incarcerated females were serving time for drug offenses.197 The growing prison population led to parallel increases in the cost of operating prisons. The budget of federal prisons has increased by $173 million every year between 1980 and 2014, reaching $6.8 billion in 2014.198 State spending, meanwhile, has shown similar trends. Between 1980 and 2009, spending increased by 400 percent. 199 In 2015, states spent $42.8 billion on prisons.200 State spending on corrections is generally the third highest spending area for states, after Medicaid and education.201 Long and Harsh Sentences: Deterrent or Not? It was hoped that mandatory minimum laws would both punish offenders and, perhaps 196

Charles Doyle, Congressional Research Service, “Mandatory Minimum Sentencing of Federal Drug Offenses,” January 11, 2018, 4, (accessed on March 29, 2019 at https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R45074.pdf).; E. Ann Carson, “Prisoners in 2016,” U.S. Department of Justice, Burau of Justice Statistics, January 2018, 4, 13, (accessed March 29, 2019, at https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p16.pdf).

197 “Prisoners in 2016,” U.S. Department of Justice, 13.

198 Nathan James, “The Bureau of Prisons (BOP): Operations and Budget,” Congressional Research Service, 2014, 1, (accessed November 12, 2018, at: https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42486.pdf).

199 The Growth of Incarceration, 314.

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more importantly, deter crime.202 The focus on drug crimes grew out of the Nixon, Reagan, and Bush administrations’ War on Drugs, which aimed to reduce the number of people supplying drugs (via incarceration) while also reducing the number of people who were possessing and using drugs (via deterrence).203 However, despite the high cost the federal government, states and taxpayers have paid to prosecute, incarcerate and care for prisoners, mandatory minimums have been found to have “few if any” deterrent effects on crime, in general, and on drug crimes, specifically.204 During the same time that incarceration rates doubled between 1980 and 2010, recidivism rates dropped by only a small percentage, from 67.5 to 62.5 percent. 205 Even in 1983, when research was showing no change in the average three-year re-arrest rate, sentencing practices remained the same. One subsequent study compared a group of individuals in 11 states released from state prison in 1983 to another group from 15 states released in 1994. 206 It found no change in the average three-year, re-arrest rate despite the more punitive and lengthy sentencing laws in place Chris Mai and Ram Subramanian, “The Price of Prisons: Examining State Spending Trends, 20102015,” Vera Institute of Technology, May 2017, 8, (accessed November 2018, at: https://storage.googleapis.com/vera-webassets/downloads/Publications/price-of-prisons2015-state-spending-trends/legacy_downloads/theprice-of-prisons-2015-state-spending-trends.pdf).

201 The Growth of Incarceration, 314.

202 Growth of Incarceration, 78, 83.

203 Ibid, 153.

204 Ibid, 83.

205 Ibid.

206 Ibid, 151.

200

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The Heinz Journal in 1994.207 Lengthier sentences have also not affected drug crime rates. The National Research Council concluded in a 2001 study that “existing research seems to indicate that there is little apparent relationship between severity of sanctions prescribed for drug use and the prevalence or frequency of use.”208 Prison time, these studies suggest, has had little effect on recidivism.

In addition, research shows that mandatory minimum sentences have had little, if any, deterrent effect on crime.209 Instead, it suggests that the certainty of getting caught – not the length or harshness of a sentence - is more likely to deter a person from committing a crime.210 Together, these studies indicate that long sentences—like those meted out for drug offenses with mandatory minimums—have not led to decreased crime or recidivism and have instead left many questioning the efficacy of the very policies that promoted them.

Drug Crime Arrests and Sentencing: Disparities Persist Racial disparities persist in the criminal justice system, both in terms of relative and absolute disparities in incarceration rates between white and black populations.211 Black defendants are more likely than whites to be sentenced to incarceration, to receive longer federal sentences, and to receive

sentences near the high end of sentence guidelines.212 In 2010, black people were 4.6 times more likely than white people to be imprisoned, “a magnitude,” The Growth of Incarceration reports, “that exceeds racial differences for many other common social indicators…as varied as wealth, employment, poverty and infant mortality,” which are “significantly smaller than the 4.6 to 1 ratio.”213 In every racial group, high school dropouts are incarcerated at much higher levels than those who have finished high school.

However, the rate of incarceration is significantly higher for black students who are dropouts.214 Approximately 15 percent of black males without any college education and 33 percent of black high school students who are dropouts were incarcerated on a given day in 2010, compared to 5 and 13 percent, respectively, for white males.215 In 2010, at the height of incarceration, the incarceration rate for all blacks was 1,300 per 100,000, and 35,000 in 100,000 for blacks without a high school education.216 Additionally, black men who have dropped out of school have a 68 percent chance of being imprisoned in their lifetime, more than double the amount for white male dropouts.217 Black people in the United States are also disproportionately affected by mandatory minimums, as many of the mandatory

207

213

208

214

Ibid, 151.

Ibid, 153, 154.

209 Ibid, 83.

210 Ibid, 140.

211 Ibid, 58.

212 Ibid, 96-97.

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Ibid, 59.

Ibid, 65.

215 Ibid, 66.

216 Ibid, 66.

217 Ibid, 68

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minimum sentencing laws led to longer prison sentences for violent crimes and drug offenses, crimes that black people are disproportionately arrested for.218 All of these disparities are reflected in the overall prison population in the United States.

Though non-Hispanic black men and women make up 13 percent of the U.S. population, they made up almost 21 percent of the federal prison population in 2017 and 38 percent of state prison population in 2014.219 Collateral Consequences of Prison on Individuals and Families Having a criminal record and spending time in prison can negatively affect an individual psychologically and economically, hindering an individual’s ability to rejoin the general population after being released.220 Prospective employers are increasingly more likely to ask about criminal history and conduct background checks, and 40 percent of employers, in a study of four large urban labor markets, said they would not hire someone with a criminal record.221 Many studies have found that about half of the formerly incarcerated do not have a job within a year after their release from prison.222 In addition, overall incarceration has been found to have a 10 to 30 percent negative effect on earnings.223 Incarceration also impacts children and families. In 2007, just over half of the men in

prison said they were fathers to minor children.224 In that same year, an estimated 1.7 million children had an incarcerated father.225 Racial disparities can be seen in this data as well, with black children being 7.5 times more likely to have a parent in prison than white children.226 Many families of those who were incarcerated had financial difficulties prior to a partner’s incarceration – usually the father – and incarceration left those families worse off.227 Families of the incarcerated also have higher risks of homelessness and housing insecurity, difficulty meeting basic needs, and use more public assistance after the father or partner’s incarceration.228 Policy Recommendations The financial costs to society, coupled with the negative outcomes for vulnerable and marginalized populations, suggest that important reform efforts need to be implemented on a state and federal level to both the cash bail system and mandatory minimum sentencing practices.

Recommendation 1: The federal government should incentivize states to reform cash bail practices using state block grants.

States can reform cash bail practices by using block grant funding to implement a pre-trial release model that has worked in

218

222

219

223

Ibid, 96.

Governing.com, “State Population by Race, Ethnicity Data,” (Accessed on March 29, 2019 at https://www.governing.com/gov-data/census/stateminority-population-data-estimates.html).

220 The Growth of Incarceration, 235.

221 Ibid, 236-237.

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Ibid, 233.

Ibid, 244.

224 Ibid, 260.

225 Ibid.

226 Ibid.

227 Ibid, 267-268.

228 Ibid.

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The Heinz Journal Washington, D.C. The block grants should be administered by grant monitors working in the Department of Justice (DOJ). All eligible states (i.e., in compliance with DOJ grant requirements) should be incentivized specifically to adopt the Washington, D.C. pretrial service agency model, which is considered to be the “gold standard.”229 The incentive to adopt the Washington, D.C. model comes in the form of federal grant dollars to effectively implement components of the model.

The Model Proposed Washington, D.C. reformed its bail practices by creating the D.C. Pretrial Services Agency to implement a comprehensive approach that (1) assesses all defendants using a validated risk assessment to make a reliable release or detention decision and (2) provides supervision to all defendants who are released back into the community, which assures increased safety to the community.230 Risk assessments that use an algorithm to differentiate between low-risk and high-risk defendants allow jurisdictions to make scientific decisions regarding who can be released to await trial.231 This assessment process, in combination with the ability to supervise released defendants, can reduce the population of low-risk defendants who are awaiting trial.232 Since the reform in Washington D.C., only 15 percent of those charged with a crime have been kept in pretrial detention, thereby reducing the overall jail population in the district.

229

Billings, Private Interests, Public Sphere, pg.

1359.

230 Ibid, 1369.

231 Smith, Condemned to Repeat History.

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Generally, 80 percent of people released on non-financial bail returned for trial and sentencing.233 It is important to note that some critics argue that risk assessments can lead to “preserving the inequalities in the bail system.” 234 Those critics argue that because the assessments are based on prior behavior, the populations discussed in this paper will likely be scored as high risk through current practices already in place by the justice system.235 However, the objectivity and continued scientific rigor associated with risk assessments are an improvement upon the subjectivity that currently exist in pre-trial release decisions.

Federal Financial Incentive The financial incentive, through block grants, will provide support to states to implement a pre-trial service agency that identifies risks as well as provides supervision services for defendants released into the community. The goals of this policy include: (1) holding fewer non-convicted people in jail by allowing lowrisk individuals to be released on nonfinancial bail, and (2) giving individuals a higher chance of remaining employed and connected to their homes and families. Using federal block grants as a financial incentive provides states with more autonomy in the cash bail reform process, as individual states generally resist blanket mandates from the federal government. In addition, similar funding from the Department of Justice is

232

Ibid.

Billins, Private Interests, Public Sphere, pg. 1369..

234 Smith, Condemned to Repeat History.

235 Smith, Condemned to Repeat History.

233

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already disseminated through the use of block grants.236 Recommendation 2: The federal government should eliminate mandatory minimum sentencing for drug crimes.

The federal government should eliminate mandatory minimum sentencing for drug crimes and use the cost savings to pay for alternatives to incarceration and in- and postprison programming. Reducing the number of people sentenced to prison for drug crimes and the time they are sentenced will reduce the overall number of individuals negatively affected by the criminal justice system and reduce the poverty- and inequality-inducing effects of incarceration on individuals and their families. The money saved from reducing incarceration levels could be used to fund alternatives to incarceration (e.g., community supervision, treatment) and evidence-based programming within prisons (e.g., cognitive behavioral therapy). individuals incarcerated for drug crimes or sentenced to lesser sentences each year.240

The United States Department of Justice “Grants” 2018. (accessed March 18, 2019, at: https://www.justice.gov/grants 237 FAMM, “Recent State-Level Reforms to Mandatory Minimum Laws,” Families Against Mandatory Minimums, 2017, (accessed November 1, 2018, at: https://famm.org/wpcontent/uploads/Recent-State-Reforms.pdf).

238 Rhode Island Department of Corrections, “Fiscal Year 2017 Annual Population Report,” 2017, 9. (accessed November 1, 2018, at: http://www.doc.ri.gov/administration/planning/docs /FY17%20Annual%20Population%20Report.pdf).

239 Thomas W Mailey, “New York State Department Of Corrections And Community Supervision, Announces Prison Reforms That Will Save 236

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States across the country have repealed or reformed mandatory minimum sentencing laws in recent years.237 In 2009, Rhode Island eliminated mandatory minimums for manufacturing, selling, or possessing with intent to manufacture or sell Schedule I and II controlled substances, resulting in a 20 percent drop in their prison population (3860 in 2008 vs. 2958 in 2017).238 In 2009, New York repealed most mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses and saw an 18 percent decrease in their prison population as well as a 43 percent decrease in the number of drug offenders in custody. During an overlapping time period, New York also experienced a 15 percent reduction in crime, allaying fears that repealing mandatory minimum laws would lead to increased crime rates.239 If enacted on the federal level, a 20 percent decrease in the prison population could lead to as many as 9,000 fewer

There are monetary and societal benefits of repealing mandatory minimums. The cost savings of decreasing the prison population could be significant, especially if states that Taxpayers Over $30 Million, Annually Following Decline In Crime Rate And Inmate Population,” Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, 2013, (accessed November 20, 2018, at: http://www.doccs.ny.gov/PressRel/2013/Prison_Cl osure_Announcement.html).

240 Playbook for Change, 13.

“Figures: 2017 Overview of Mandatory Minimum Penalties in the Federal Criminal Justice System," United States Sentencing Commission, July 2017, 10, (accessed on Nov 1, 2018, at: https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/researc h-and-publications/researchpublications/2017/20170711_Mand-MinFigures.pdf).

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The Heinz Journal have not repealed mandatory minimums follow in the footsteps of the federal government. Additionally, if as a society we aim to reduce crime and recidivism, then we must recognize that the longer sentences imposed by mandatory minimums are not doing the job in reaching this goal. As indicated throughout this section, longer sentences due to mandatory minimum sentencing laws have failed to reduce drug use, failed to reduce recidivism, and have disproportionately impacted black Conclusion Cash bail and mandatory minimum sentencing practices have led to an exponential increase in incarceration rates in the United States, without leading to any significant decreases in crime or recidivism.

Cash bail and mandatory minimum laws have disproportionately affected people and neighborhoods of low socioeconomic status, as well as people of color by criminalizing and perpetuating poverty and inequality.

Policy-makers at the state and federal level should work to reduce the poverty-inducing and poverty-perpetuating effects of the criminal justice system by implementing the two policies put forth in this paper: (1) reducing the criminal justice system’s reliance on cash bail practices by

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Americans. Long prison sentences also negatively affect families and children of the incarcerated and released individuals for the rest of their lives, making it more difficult for those touched by incarceration to be a full part of the wider society. Repealing the federal mandatory minimum law for drug crimes would be an important step in reducing the severity of sentences individuals face, and in reducing the costs incarceration has on our federal budget and on American society. implementing pre-trail release centers to ensure community safety and court appearances and (2) eliminating federal mandatory minimums for drug crimes.

These policies will help to ensure that punitive crime control policies do not perpetuate and criminalize poverty. They will ensure that we are not implementing punitive crime control policies that do little to reduce crime. They will ensure that vulnerable and impoverished groups are not targeted by the criminal justice system in ways that perpetuate poverty and crime.

Instead, these recommendations will move the United States criminal justice system away from the “tough-on-crime� measures that have been ineffective in reducing crime and toward a system that values evidencebased practices that do not perpetuate and criminalize poverty.

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Examining the Accessibility of Child Care

Examining the Accessibility of Child Care and Related Policies for Employees of Higher Education Institutions Mary Debor Carnegie Mellon University – Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy This paper examines the history and implications of employer-sponsored child care in the United States, with a specific focus on higher education institutions. It then explores the specific nature of child care and related policies at Carnegie Mellon University, and offers recommendations that aim to improve outcomes for both the institution itself and its employees.

Introduction In the United States, employed sponsored child care policy has played a crucial role in the lives of working parents. Throughout this discussion, the term “child care policy” will encompass benefits relating to, on or near site child care centers unless otherwise specified.

In the Post World War II era, the government reduced child care benefits, and instead incentivized employers to create their own policies. Despite these incentives, only a small fraction of organizations offer child care policies. When child care policy is offered, there are positive implications for employers, such as increased recruitment and retention. One challenge for organizations is cost. For workers, there are several positive implications. Employer sponsored child care benefits, include alleviating the stress of finding alternative child care and reducing absenteeism. However, cost remains a key negative concern for organizations.

The next section examines child care policy through the context of higher education institutions. While many of the implications for all organizations also apply to universities, there are unique nuances to consider. First, there is the dynamic evolution Spring 2019

of university-based child care, from laboratory schools at teachers’ colleges in the early twentieth century to its current state.

This evolution contributed to the diversity in the administration, funding, and scope of service of present-day programs. Most notably, child care policy can support women faculty in gaining tenure and effectively conducting research. Universities have also explored other policies to support employees with families, such as maternity and paternity leave, tenure extension, and work reduction.

The final section discusses child care policies at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). The primary full-day, year-round child care provider is the Cyert Center for Early Education, which began in the 1970s due to the needs of female faculty. It currently serves CMU faculty, staff, and graduate students, and recently expanded to meet the growing demand for high quality child care.

The Cyert Center is self-sufficient in terms of funding and is under the Department of Human Resources. There are also additional policies at Carnegie Mellon University to designed to support working parents, but there is a disparity between is offered to a 51

The Heinz Journal faculty member versus a staff member. Thus, this paper argues that there is inequality in the benefits offered to faculty and staff and that the high cost of care makes the child care policy not accessible or cannot be fully utilized by a significant portion of the CMU community. I offer two recommendations to resolve this issue. First, CMU should accept a proposal by the CMU staff council to institute a twelve week, fully paid paternity leave policy for all CMU employees.

Additionally, the Cyert Center should connect with the Office of University Advancement in order to obtain a philanthropic source of funding, which would support a reduced tuition rate and make the child care system available to both faculty and employees.

History of Employer-Sponsored Child Care The rise of women in the workforce has been crucial to child care policy. This topic came to the national spotlight in World War II. As women with young children entered the workforce, there was a sudden and rapid need for child care.241 The government, rather than organizations, took the lead on supporting working women through child care policy. In response to the increase of women in the labor force, the Lanham Act was passed, which opened 3,000 centers that provided “Government Funded Childcare During WWII,” The Raising of America, accessed June 3, 2018. http://www.raisingofamerica.org/governmentfunded-childcare-during-wwii 242 Op. Cit. 243 Op. Cit. 244 Kelly, Erin L., “The Strange History of EmployerSponsored Child Care: Interested Actors, Uncertainty, and the Transformation of Law in 241

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care for 600,000 children across the country.242 However, this legislation was terminated after the war, and all centers were closed.243 The government still provided some assistance targeted towards lowincome families.244 However, there was nothing similar to the Lanham Act in size and scope; no federal policy that would support all working mothers in accessing child care.

Despite this lack of federal child care policy, women still engaged in the workforce. The number of women working outside the home steadily increased, most notably during the 1970s and 1980s. In 1948, 17,335 women were in the labor force; by 1970, that number had increased to 31,543.245 As more women entered the workforce, the need for child care naturally increased. Allyson Sherman Grossman (1981) noted, “Even with a declining youth population, the number and proportion of children with working mothers climbed steadily between 1970 and 1980.

During this time, women entered the labor force at an unprecedented pace, averaging over 1 million net additions each year except 1970-71, a recessionary period.”246 Despite, a growing need for quality child care, the government did not change policy to accommodate need.

With this influx of working mothers, child care policy reentered the national Organizational Fields,” American Journal of Sociology 109, No.3 (November 2003), p. 617 245 “Women in the Labor Force,” United States Department of Labor, https://www.dol.gov/wb/stats/NEWSTATS/facts/wo men_lf.htm#three 246 Grossman, Allyson Sherman, “Working Mothers and Their Children,” Monthly Labor Review (May 1981), p.50. https://stats.bls.gov/opub/mlr/1981/05/rpt3full.pdf

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conversation. This time, however, the federal government aimed to incentivize organizations to offer child care benefits, rather than offer federally funded child care.

Certain changes in tax law aimed to encourage employers to open child care centers. Most notably, a 1973 IRS ruling permitted organizations to deduct child care center contributions as expenses.247 While encouraging employers to subsidize child care, the government reduced its limited child care benefits. Erin L. Kelly (2003) states, “public subsidies of child care were cut repeatedly in the late 1970s and early 1980s.”248 This reflects the start of the trend towards employer-sponsored child care policies.

provided a financial incentive for employees to use their workplaces’ child care policies (if available) instead of looking into other options.

Additionally, tax reform further encouraged employees to take advantage of their employees’ child care benefits. The Economic Recovery Tax Act (ERTA) of 1981 contained a provision related to the dependent care assistance program, or DCAP.249 Specifically, according to Merlin Briner (1981), this provision conveyed that “if an employer provides dependent care program assistance, either by payment or by provision of services which would be employment-related expenses for an individual, the amount so provided is not considered income to the employee.” 250 This

Currently, organizations can design a variety of child care policies to best meet their needs.

These options include flexible spending accounts, on or near-site child care centers, and vendor and voucher programs.251 However, even with this wealth of choices, a 2015 survey revealed that only eleven percent of workers had access to child care benefits through their employer.252 The likelihood that a worker will receive child care assistance is affected by job status, employee demographics, and the size of the business. An organization with one hundred or more workers is more likely to provide assistance than a smaller organization, and part-time employees are less likely to receive child care aid than those who work fulltime.253 Moreover, a study conducted by Seyler et al (1995) noted that “the more women workers a company has the more likely it is to offer all types of family-friendly benefits and policies.”254 Though the number of organizations offering child care benefits remains relatively small, the need for child care has grown. According to the National Women’s Law Center (2017), 69.9% of women with children under the age of

247

252

Kelly, Erin L., p.626 Ibid., p.617 249 Ibid., p.618 250 Briner, Merlin G. “Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981,” Akron Law Review 15, No.2 (Fall 1981), p.329 251 “An Overview of Child Care Resources for Employers,” CAPSLO Child Care Resource Connection, accessed June 2, 2018, p.18 248

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“Working Mothers Issues Brief,” Women’s Bureau United States Department of Labor (June 2016), p.11. https://www.dol.gov/wb/resources/WB_WorkingMot hers_508_FinalJune13.pdf 253 “Working…Brief,” p.12 254 Seyler, Dian L., Pamela A. Monroe, and James C. Garand. “Balancing Work and Family: The Role of Employer-Sponsored Child Care Benefits,” Journal of Family Issues 16, No.2 (March 1995), p.183

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Implications Child Care

of

Employer-Sponsored

In addition, it is crucial to examine the implications of child care policies on all stakeholders, including both employers and employees. First, there are several implications for employers. Organizations can remain competitive and attract talent through family-friendly policies.

Increasingly, employers are using benefits packages as a key recruitment tool.

According to a survey conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management (2015), “…more than one third (38 percent) of respondents said their organizations leveraged benefits to recruit employees at all levels during the past 12 months.”256 Benefit packages that include child care assistance could be especially alluring to parents in the workforce. Seyler et al (1995) claim that “…if employers want to recruit and keep workers, and women workers in particular, they must provide rewards that are valued by women and their families.”257 This suggests

“A Snapshot of Working Mothers,” National Women’s Law Center (April 2017), p.1. https://nwlc.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/ASnapshot-of-Working-Mothers.pdf 255

“Benefits Take on New Importance in Recruiting and Retaining Employees, SHRM Survey Finds,” Society for Human Resource Management (October 15, 2015). https://www.shrm.org/about-shrm/pressroom/pressreleases/pages/2015_strategic_benefits_survey.aspx 257 Seyler et al, p.176 256

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that child care policy could bolster an organization’s recruitment.

Next, we will examine the implications for employers. Significantly, employers could be positively impacted by increased employee retention. A study by Kossek and Nichol (1992) submitted that child care benefits “were more likely to influence organizational membership behaviors such 258 as…retention.” High retention rates have several positive implications for organizations. Most notably, it can reduce costs. Surji (2013) notes, “An entry-level position can cost an organization about 50 to 100 percent of an employee’s wage.”259 Additionally, low turnover can bolster morale and improve customer service.260 Child care policy could develop retention rates for organizations, thus providing all of the benefits of low turnover.

One negative implication for employers is cost. Some employers may struggle to justify the high investment required for child care policy, especially the cost of on or near-site child care centers. Dan Munro (2014) submits, “The building structure alone is often a big expense, often $1M to $2M because of code requirements for kitchens and bathrooms.”261 When employers were Kossek, Ellen Ernst and Victor Nichol, “The Effects of On-Site Child Care on Employee Attitudes and Performance,” Personnel Psychology 45 (1992), p.502 259 Surji, Kenmal M., “The Negative Effect and Consequences of Employee Turnover and Retention on the Organization and Its Staff,” European Journal of Business Management 5, No.25 (2013), p.53 260 Op. Cit. 261 Munro, Dan, “Employer-Sponsored Day Care: Does It Make Sense For Your Company?” National Center for the Middle Market (July 16 2014).

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asked about barriers to providing child care and other programs, a 2014 study noted that “…the main obstacle cited by employers is cost (21%).”262 These findings indicate that there are negative financial implications, or at least perceived negative financial implications, for organizations that chose to support child care.

Employer-sponsored child care policies also have significant implications for employees.

Most significantly, it fulfills a great need of workers. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ “Employment Characteristics of Families Summary” (2018) conveys that “…among married-couple families with children…61.9 had both parents employed.”263 This suggests that a significant portion of the working population could benefit from child care policy. In addition, it reduces the number of missed workdays, especially when an employer’s policy offers on-site child care.

According to Anderson and Geldenhys (2011), “…those…without access to an onsite facility showed significantly higher absenteeism rates than respondents with access to an on-site facility.”264 This conveys that having child care assistance allows employees to miss fewer days, and which https://www.middlemarketcenter.org/expertperspectives/employer-sponsored-day-care-does-itmake-sense-for-your-company 262 Mathos, Kenneth and Ellen Galinsky “2014 National Study of Employers”, Families and Work Institute (2014), p.45. http://familiesandwork.org/downloads/2014NationalS tudyOfEmployers.pdf 263 “Employment Characteristics of Families Summary”, Bureau of Labor Statistics (April 19 2018). https://www.bls.gov/news.release/famee.nr0.htm 264 Anderson, B. and D.J. Geldenhys, “The relationship between absenteeism and employer-

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would likely contribute to increased engagement and productivity. Moreover, employees tend to have positive attitudes about organizations that offer some form of child care. This held true even if the employees didn’t use or even ever plan to use child care assistance.265 Therefore, employees at organizations that offer child care may be more likely to be satisfied at work and have positive morale.

History of Universities

Child

Care

Policy

at

In terms of child care policy, universities are distinct in several ways. When referring to universities, this encompasses all higheducation institutions unless otherwise noted.

University-based child care programs are unique in both their history and, in many cases, their mission. According to Kim Townley and Pauline Davey Zeece, the first campus child care center opened at the University of Chicago in 1896.266 Similar programs emerged in universities throughout the beginning of the 20th century in the form of the laboratory schools.267 As a result, serving the child care needs of faculty, staff, and students was often not a top priority.

sponsored child care,” South African Business Review 15 No.3 (2011), pp.39-40 265 “Employer-Sponsored Daycare Can Be Profitable, New Study Shows,” Bowdoin College (January 7 2005). http://www.bowdoin.edu/news/archives/1academicne ws/001791.shtml 266 Townley, Kim F. and Pauline Davey Zeece, “Managing the Mission: The Primary Challenge to Campus Child Care,” Early Childhood Research Quarterly 6 (199), p.19 267 Op. Cit.

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The Heinz Journal According to Townley and Zeece, “many laboratory school programs made a commitment to teacher education and/or research.”268 This conveys that, while these early programs strove to make strides in the fields of education, their primary mission was not provide child care for parents affiliated with the universities.

Into the late 1960s and early 1970s, a movement occurred to change this focus.

Carol Keyes connected this change to numerous factors, stating, “The increasing number of nontraditional students, women’s issues, and student activism that was born in the ‘60s gave birth to a redirection of the campus child care movement .”269 Thus, existing centers may have been encouraged to shift their focus to research to service, and new programs that emerged likely had the needs of campus parents as a top priority.

During this time period, child care programs also faced several challenges. Most notably, they struggled to secure funding and staffing.270 To help draw attention these issues, coalitions formed on both local and national levels. In 1970, a student parent applied for a grant that led to the creation Robert F. Kennedy Council for Campus Childcare, which aimed to advocate for quality programs at universities.271 This 268

Townley and Zeece, p.20 Keyes, Carol, “Campus Child Care Centers: Two Decades of Ferment,” Early Childhood Research Quarterly 6 (1991), p.4 270 Keyes, p.5 271 “About NCCCC,” National Coalition for Campus Children’s Centers, https://www.campuschildren.org/about-ncccc 272 Op. CIt. 273 Stoltzfus, Eli R., “Access to dependent care reimbursement accounts and workplace-funded childcare,” Bureau of Labor Statistics, January 2015.

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evolved into the National Coalition for Campus Children’s Centers (NCCC).272 This conveys that, while centers faced many struggles during the 1970s, the strength of the movement and the desire to organize coalitions allowed centers to survive and shift their focus to the needs of campus parents.

Currently, university-sponsored child care programs tend to be more prevalent than child care at other organizations. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 27 percent of state universities and 27 percent of private universities offer child care.273 Moreover, between 64% percent and 78 percent of university employees had access to dependent care reimbursement accounts.274 This is greater than the overall percentage of workers who are offered child care, which is 11%.275 These figures convey that higher education institutions are more likely to offer child care benefits than other organizations.

It is worth noting, however, that public universities are more likely than for-profit institutions to offer child care.276 Thus, access to child care support could be limited at certain universities.

Administration of University-Sponsored Child Care

https://www.bls.gov/opub/btn/volume-4/access-todependent-care-reimbursement-accounts-andworkplace-funded-childcare.htm 274 Op. Cit. 275 “Working Mothers Issues Brief,” Women’s Bureau United States Department of Labor (June 2016), p.11. https://www.dol.gov/wb/resources/WB_WorkingMot hers_508_FinalJune13.pdf 276 “Varieties of Campus Child Care,” National Coalition For Campus Children’s Centers, March 2012.

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Moreover, there are numerous possibilities for the administration of a university-based child care program. While the 1970s encouraged centers to shift from research to service, laboratory schools are still more prevalent than programs unaffiliated with an academic department. According to Tracey Boswell, 35 percent of programs are overseen by an academic department, while student affairs departments comprise another 30 percent.277 She notes, “Other agencies administering campus child care centers include individual/nonprofit agencies (15%), offices of administration/financial services (12%), offices of personnel/human resources (10%), contracted/outside vendors (4%), parent cooperatives (2%), and other (7%).”278 With this variation in administration, university child care programs could have different goals and priorities, which in turn may affect funding and scope of service.

programs may hesitate to charge a hefty tuition. Other funding sources include institutional support, United Way, foundations, individual donations, Head Start, contributions from student or faculty associations, and the federal Child Care Access Means Parents in School (CCAMPIS) program.280 Some of these financing sources, especially grants and donations, are not secure. For example, in 2013, funding for CCAMPIS was cut dramatically, and in 2017, a proposed bill aimed to eliminate the program.281 In addition to funding, programs are also diverse in scope of service. 92% of centers serve student parents and caregivers, while 83% serve faculty and staff and 68% are open to community families.282 With these variations in both administration and scope of service, it is crucial to recognize that university-sponsored programs are far from homogenous.

Funding and the Scope of Child Care Policy

Implications for Universities

Funding can come from a variety of sources.

According to a report compiled by the National Coalition for Campus Children’s Centers and the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, the greatest source of revenue is the child care center tuition.279 This conveys that the majority of centers must charge tuition high enough to cover all expenses.

Additionally, this will likely put a strain both the program and the families it serves, as Bowell, Tracy, “Campus Child Care Centers,” ERIC Digest 2003, p.1 278 Op. Cit. 279 “Varieties of Campus Child Care,” National Coalition For Campus Children’s Centers, March 2012.

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As with all organizations, child care policies have significant implications for universities.

Many of the ramification for workplaces also apply to universities and their affiliates. Yet, there are also distinct factors that are present in higher education settings. First, child care policy affects the university administration. It can support the retention of students, especially students who are parents. In one study of campus child care center directors, many early education leaders noted that this

280

Boswell, p.1 “The Role of the Federal Child Care Access Means Parents in School (CCAMPIS) Program in Supporting Student Parent Success,” Institute for Women’s Policy Research, February 2016, p.3 282 Op. Cit 281

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The Heinz Journal increase in retention was one of the biggest benefits of a campus center.283 Thus, child care policy could bolster a university’s graduation rate by supporting student parents. In addition, child care can support the attraction and retention of talent. A statement issued by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) submits that “the availability of child care is a crucial issue in recruiting and retaining faculty.”284 Therefore, it is likely that child care policy supports a university by attracting faculty and reducing turnover.

Finally, centers with a research focus, or laboratory schools, have the additional benefit of enhancing a university’s early childhood education program. Lori ArnoldGrine notes, “Theory to practice is actualized in the lab preschool setting if used for teaching training.”285 However, there are significant threats to university-sponsored child care. Critically, financing child care, especially on-campus centers, can influence an institution’s decision to offer or continue offering support.

According to Kevin Miller, “Between 2007 and 2009, thirty-two of the 572 community colleges that previously provided care stopped offering the service, with anecdotal evidence suggesting that some centers that remain open have reduced services or raised Myers, Kerisa A., “Child Care Centers on Higher Education Campuses: Director Perceptions of Internal and External Roles and Director Leadership” (2009). Dissertations 716, p.143. http://scholarworks.wmich.edu/dissertations/716 284 “Statement of Principles on Family Responsibilities and Academic Work,” American Association of University Professors 2001.

285 Arnold-Grine, Lori E., “Laboratory Schools: A Critical Link in Facilitating and Enhancing Preschool Teacher Education. “Ohio State University, 2007, 283

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fees as a result of recession-related budget cuts.”286 While all organizations could be impacted by the costs of child care, it seems that financing issues are especially prevalent among programs affiliated with universities.

Moreover, there are implications for students and faculty with children. Students with children face have time and financial constraints that make obtaining a degree difficult. A 2016 report claimed, “Students with children are especially unlikely to complete programs of higher education within six years of enrollment, with only 33 percent attaining a degree or certificate in that time.”287 Additionally, most students parents are low income, and on average, 40 percent of their average monthly income goes towards child care.288 If universities offered child care and subsidized at least some of the cost for students with children, then the time and financial constraints for those would be lessened, supporting the successful completion of their degree or certificate program.

Additionally, faculty, especially women, could be positively impacted by university child care policy. Most notably, it could bolster their research productivity and professional growth. Family responsibilities seem to hinder female academics more than p.3. https://etd.ohiolink.edu/rws_etd/document/get/osu11 79509794/inline 286 Miller, Kevin, “Child Care: A Critical Resource for Students with Children,” Association of American Colleges and Universities, 2012. http://archive.aacu.org/ocww/volume40_3/director.cf m 287 “The Role…Success,”p.1 288 Op. Cit.

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male colleagues in similar family situations.

While conducting a study on scientific productivity, Kyvik and Teigen found that “...women with children younger than eleven years of age published 41 percent fewer article equivalents than did their male counterparts.”289 The study also found that women tended to spend more time than men caring for preschool and young school-age children.290 Thus, having access to quality child care could support female faculty in conducting research and pursuing publication. Additionally, support for child care could support women who are seeking tenure. Currently, there is a gender gap in terms of tenure. An American Association of University Professors (AAUP) survey “reported that among full-time faculty women, only 48 percent are tenured, whereas 68 of full-time men are tenured.”291 There is also an overlap between the age range that many women have children and the age range that women faculty seek tenure.292 Thus, it is logical to consider that campus child care could contribute to leveling the playing field for female faculty, bolstering both their productivity and ability to obtain tenure.

In addition to child care, universities have explored other policies to aid working parents. Most notably, this occurs through

maternity and paternity leave policies.

According to the Society for Human Resource Management, the average employer sponsored maternity leave offered is 14.5 weeks, while the average parental leave (which could be taken by either parent) is 11 weeks.293 These figures do not reflect if the average employer sponsored maternity or parental leave is unpaid, partially paid, or fully paid. Universities vary in the length, structure, and accessibility of these policies.

For the intents of this research, these policies will be examined through the context of two of Carnegie Mellon University’s peer institutions: Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Based on these examples, there appears to be variance among peer institutions in terms of the length of the leave and pay, and differences between the offerings for faculty and staff. Harvard University offers 13 weeks of a combined short term disability (maternity) leave and parental leave.294 For non-faculty staff, short term disability is partially paid; the four weeks of parental leave is fully paid for staff who have worked at the university for seven or more years.295 Faculty members can take thirteen weeks parental leave at full pay.296 MIT also uses short term disability for maternity leave, and as of July 1, 2018, offers twenty days of paid parental leave for

Kyvik, Svein and Mari Teigen, “Child Care, Research Collaboration, and Gender Differences in Scientific Productivity,” Science, Technology, and Human Values 21, No. 1 (1991), p.63.

290 Op. Cit., p.68 291 “Statement…Work.”

292 Op. Cit. 293 Gurchiek, Kathy, “Study: Little Change to Maternity, Paternity Leave at U.S. Employers Since

2012,” Society for Human Resource Management, March 8, 2017, https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hrtopics/benefits/pages/little-change-to-maternity,paternity-leave-at-u.s.-employers.aspx 294 “Leaves of Absence,” Harvard University, https://hr.harvard.edu/leaves-absence.

295 Op. Cit. 296 Op. Cit.

Maternity and Paternity Leave

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The Heinz Journal employees.297 Both faculty and staff can take unpaid leave of up to twelve weeks through the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA).298

the career development of faculty with young children by providing more time to achieve a crucial professional milestone.

Tenure Extension An additional option for faculty is “stopping the tenure clock,” or requesting an extension for tenure evaluation, upon the birth or adoption of a child. This type of policy is often gender-neutral, allowing both men and women take more time (typically an additional year per child) to obtain tenure.299 In the context of other family-friendly policies, tenure extension is relatively new, and is gaining popularity among higher education institutions. According to Justin Wolfers, “universities typically adopted such policies in the 1990s and early 2000s, while about one-fifth chose not to do so.”300 Harvard University automatically grants a one-year extension upon the birth or adoption of a child to either parent, which can be extended to an additional year upon request.301 By contrast, MIT only automatically stops the clock for birth mothers: fathers, partners, or adoptive parents can request an extension, which may be granted at the discretion of the provost.302 In theory, stopping the tenure clock bolsters

This support tenure extensions provide could have significant implications for female faculty. As previously mentioned, there is a tenure gap between male and female faculty.303 The nature of clock stopping policies could help remedy this inequality and support an increase the number of women who obtain tenure. However, there is evidence to suggest that these policies not only fail to increase tenure rates, but also negatively impact female academics. One primary issue is the gender neutrality of tenure extension. After completing a study of the effect of such policies among economics professors, Antecol, Bedard, and Stearns noted, “These results imply that genderneutral tenure clock stopping policies do not adequately reflect the true gender-specific productivity losses associated with having children. Men are more likely to be productive while their tenure clock is stopped, and women are much less able to do so, yet they are treated equally under these policies.”304 If male faculty are more productive during the duration of their extension, the tenure gap may actually

“Personnel Policy Manual,” MIT Human Resources, http://hrweb.mit.edu/policy/4-6-new2018.

298 Op. Cit. 299 Wolfers, Justin. “A Family-Friendly Policy That’s Friendliest to Male Professors”, New York Times, June 24, 2016. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/26/business/tenur e-extension-policies-that-put-women-at-adisadvantage.html 300 Op.Cit. 301 “Paid Parental Leave, and Tenure Clock Extension to Meet Child Care Needs,” Harvard University Office of Faculty Affairs, ttps://www.hsph.harvard.edu/faculty-

affairs/faculty/sabbaticals-leaves-of-absence-andclock-extensions/paid-parental-leave-and-tenureclock-extension-to-meet-child-care-needs/ 302 “Tenure Process,” MIT Policies and Procedures, https://policies-procedures.mit.edu/facultyappointment-promotion-and-tenureguidelines/tenure-process.

303 “Statement….Work.”

304 Antecol, Heather, Kelly Bedard, and Jenna Stearns, “Equal but Inequitable: Who Benefits from Gender-Neutral Tenure Clock Stopping Policies?”, Institute for the Study of Labor Discussion Paper 9904, April 2016, p.24

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increase. Thus, these gender-neutral policies do not account for the unique physical toll of birth and early child care on women, are not fully effective at supporting female faculty.

Work Reduction In addition, some universities are introducing work reduction policies for faculty. Work reduction aims to support faculty with young children by lessening teaching or research requirements. For example, Harvard University’s policy states that “an eligible ladder faculty member who assumes substantial and sustained responsibility for the care of a newborn or newly-adopted child as the primary caregiver is entitled automatically to a workload reduction, as defined by the school, either for up to one semester on a full-time basis or over the course of two semesters or one year on a parttime basis.”305 (A ladder faculty member refers to a faculty member who is seeking but has not yet achieved tenure). A faculty member is expected to spend at least twenty hours per week caring for his or her child and should not be receiving full-time child care support from a partner or child care provider.306 MIT also offers work reduction.

Faculty may request a reduced schedule at reduced pay to care for family for up to five years.307 However, this only applies to those

“University-Wide Policy Framework for Parental Leave for Full-Time Ladder Faculty: Medical Leave, Workload Reduction, and Clock/Contract Policies,” Harvard University, http://faculty.harvard.edu/files/fdd/files/university_fr amework_for_parental_policies_final_12.17.2015.pd f 306 Op. Cit. 305

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faculty members who have already obtained tenure.308 It is therefore is likely that workload reduction policies ease a faculty’s member transition back to work. Such benefits provide a faculty member with more time to care for and bond with his or her child. Yet some policies, such as MIT’s, only apply to faculty with tenure, which could negatively impact younger, less senior faculty who are less likely to have reached this milestone.

Additionally, it is vital to recall that female academics still devote more time to child care than their male colleagues.309 Given that women are more likely to utilize workload reduction in order to be the primary caregiver, this type of policy may carry the unintended consequence of reducing women faculty’s research and productivity.

History of Child Care at Carnegie Mellon University In 1971, the Cyert Center for Early Education (then the Carnegie Mellon University Childcare Center), opened to provide fullday, year-around care to children of faculty and staff.310 According to Carla Freund, Director of the Cyert Center, there were two driving forces that encouraged Carnegie

“Part Time Appointment for Tenure with Family Care,” MIT Policies & Procedures, https://policiesprocedures.mit.edu/node/35/#parttimeappointment 308 Op. Cit. 309 Kyvik et al., p.68 310 “The Cyert Center for Early Education,” Carnegie Mellon University, https://www.cmu.edu/cyertcenter/.

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The Heinz Journal Mellon University (CMU) to offer on campus child care. First, the university was undergoing a period of growth and change, having recently merged Carnegie Tech with the Mellon Institute.311 The second – and perhaps the most significant – force was an organized group of female CMU employees.

The Women’s Liberation Committee petitioned for full-day child care.312 Originally, the Cyert Center accepted children who were aged three and older.313 Based on the needs of employees, it expanded to include infant and toddler care in 2000.314 The Cyert Center maintained a substantial waitlist for several years.315 In order to increase the accessibility of child care for CMU faculty and staff, the Cyert Center underwent another expansion. A satellite site, called the Cyert Center for Early Education – Penn Ave, opened on June 1st, 2017.316 The Rise of Child Care in Pittsburgh The rise of child care at CMU aligned with the blossoming growth of early childhood education in the larger Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania community. In the post-World War II time period, three psychiatrists at the University of Pittsburgh—Erik Erikson, Margaret McFarland, and Benjamin Spock— shared an interest in child development.317 311

Carla Freund (Director of the Cyert Center) in discussion with the author, June 19, 2018.

312 Op. Cit. 313 Op. Cit. 314 Op. Cit. 315 Op. Cit. 316 “The Cyert Center for Early Education-Penn Ave,” Carnegie Mellon University, https://www.cmu.edu/cyert-center/our-centers/pennave.html.

317 Linder, Caroline, Mary Moore, Audra Selkowitz, and Amy Strada, “Finding Our Collective Values –

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Sally Ann Flecker notes that in 1953, these pioneers “founded the Arsenal Family and Children’s Center, where pediatric students could go for training in normal child development.”318 McFarland also served as a mentor and collaborator to another innovator in early childhood education: Fred Rogers.

For over thirty years, she met weekly with Rogers to discuss topics and provide guidance on his television program, Mister Roger’s Neighborhood.319 While McFarland and Rogers spurred an interest in children’s issues through both media and academia, professional organizations also gained prominence in the field. Most notably, educators formed the Pittsburgh Area Preschool Association (PAPA) in 1963.320 This eventually become affiliated with the National Association for the Association of Young Children (NAEYC), which is known today as Trying Together.321 These strides in early childhood education likely provided support for high quality child care at Carnegie Mellon University. (p4) Current Cost and Administration Historical forces both from within CMU and the greater Pittsburgh community influenced the present cost structure and administration of the Cyert Center. The Cyert Center is a recharge center under the Human Resources ‘The Wonder of Learning – The Hundred Languages of Children’ Exhibit in Pittsburgh”, Innovations 23, No.2, p.21.

318 Flecker, Sally Ann, “When Fred Met Margaret,” Pitt Med, Winter 2014, http://www.pittmed.health.pitt.edu/story/when-fredmet-margaret 319 Op. Cit. 320 “Vision & Mission,” Trying Together, https://tryingtogether.org/about-us/vision-mission/.

321 Op. Cit.

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umbrella and is solely funded by tuition revenue.322 The monthly tuition rates for the 2017-2018 program year are as follows323: • • • • • •

Infant Wing: $1,876 Young Toddler: $1, 671 Older Toddler: $1,671 Preschool 1: $1,473 Preschool 2: $1,473 Pre-K/Kindergarten: $1, 473

Full-time faculty and staff can be eligible for a discounted rate as the sliding scale benefit.

According to CMU Human Resources, “the benefit is equal to the difference between your annual Cyert Center tuition and 10% of your family income for the prior calendar year, up to a maximum benefit of $5,000 in the aggregate for you and your spouse per year.”324 Even with this benefit, the high cost of child care likely has significant implications for families. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the median household income in Pittsburgh in 2016 was $42,450.325 If a CMU employee had this household income and used the sliding scale benefit to send his or child to the Cyert Center, they would still need to pay approximately $18,000 annually, which is over twenty percent of their household income. This evidence shows that

322

Carla Freund.

“Tuition Rates 2017-2018 Program Year,” Carnegie Mellon University, https://www.cmu.edu/hr/assets/cyert/restrict/20172018-cyert-tuition-rates.pdf 324 “2018-2019 Sliding Scale Benefit Application,” Carnegie Mellon University Human Resources, https://www.cmu.edu/hr/assets/cyert/2018-2019cyert-benefit-application.pdf 323

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cost likely prevents a significant portion of employees from accessing child care.

Carnegie Mellon University Maternity and Paternity Leave In addition to on-site child care, CMU offers other policies designed to support working parents. Currently, there are differences between time off policies for CMU faculty and staff. Most notably, faculty members access to an inclusive, fully paid parental leave policy. This policy entitles primary caregivers of a newborn or adopted child to one semester of paid leave.326 Thus, there is a sense of equity in the Faculty Parental Leave, as it can be taken by men and women, and encompasses both birth and adoptive parents.

Additionally, the policy considers the professional aspirations of families. It states: “Tenure-track faculty members without tenure who take a one-semester paid parental leave, may, at their discretion, exclude one year from current service for the purpose of determining the tenure decision deadline.

Reappointment and promotion clocks may similarly be delayed by one year for all regular faculty taking one semester of paid parental leave.”327 This further enhances the policy’s accessibility, as faculty members may feel “Quick Fact Pittsburgh City, Pennsylvania,” United States Census Bureau, https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/pittsbur ghcitypennsylvania/INC110216 326 “Faculty Parental Leave,” Carnegie Mellon University, https://www.cmu.edu/policies/faculty/facultyparental-leave.html 327 Op. Cit. 325

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The Heinz Journal less inhibited to utilize it knowing that the time away will not impact their career advancement.

families would most likely need to use PTO or take unpaid leave for FMLA. Recommendations

The staff offerings differ in several ways.

First, there is no policy designated for the unique needs of birth mothers and caregivers of newborns. While the CMU Human Resources references maternity leave, there is no specific policy of this name; rather, birth mothers are offered the more generalized short-term disability policy.328 Paternity leave—a policy supporting any parent or caregiver—is nonexistent. The only option a father or adoptive parent would have is FMLA.329 In addition, the policies for staff differ in length. Short-term disability is six to eight weeks depending on the type of birth, and FMLA can be taken for up to twelve weeks, though the first six weeks are FMLA are often used in conjunction with short-term disability.330 Another distinction is pay.

Short-term disability is sixty percent pay, though the first five days of this leave are either unpaid or covered by the employee’s Paid Time Off (PTO). FMLA is unpaid.331 Finally, the staff policies differ in scope. As aforementioned, without a designated parental leave policy, primary caregivers who are not birth mothers have limited options. A father who wanted to spend time with his child, adoptive parents, and LGBTQ

“Pregnancy or Adoption,” Carnegie Mellon University Human Resources, https://www.cmu.edu/hr/work-life/lifeexperiences/pregnancy/index.html 329 Op. Cit. 330 Op. Cit. 331 Op. Cit. 332 “MIT Childcare Scholarship Program,” Technology Childcare Centers, 328

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After considering the history, cost, administration, and scope of child care and related policies, it is evident that university employees face barriers. Two crucial recommendations would improve the accessibility of child care and related policies for CMU employees. First, The Cyert Center should connect with University Advancement to establish a scholarship fund.

This scholarship would be modeled after the MIT Childcare Scholarship Program, which awards funds to families currently enrolled in one of MIT’s child care centers.332 To be eligible for the MIT scholarship, the family’s gross income should not exceed $140,000 annually, and the amount of the scholarship varies based on the family’s gross income.333 Similar parameters could be adapted for the Cyert Center scholarship, as they support families less likely to have the resources to pay for child care.

Additionally, CMU should address the disparity between staff and faculty maternity and paternity leaves by instituting a fully paid, twelve-week staff paternal policy. Such a policy was recently proposed by the CMU Staff Council in 2017.334 The proposal addressed several of the currents of staff. https://childcare.mit.edu/tuition-scholarships/mitchildcare-scholarship-program 333 Op. Cit. 334 “Improving Staff Retention and Diversity Through the Creation of a Staff Parental Leave Policy,” Carnegie Mellon University, 2017 p. 4. , https://www.cmu.edu/staffcouncil/documents/parental-leave-proposal.pdf.

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First, it offers that all twelve weeks of leave should be fully paid and that PTO should not be needed to start the leave.335 The Staff Council also stresses the need to be inclusive of all families, allowing any primary caregiver to utilize parental leave. This would allow birth mothers, adoptive parents, spouses, and caregivers in other family structures to utilize parental leave. The secondary caregiver (defined as “the parent of the newborn or recently adopted child and who is not the primary caregiver”) would be entitled to six weeks of leave at full pay.336 The parental leave proposal is also supported

by CMU faculty. Over two hundred faculty members signed a letter which stated their concern about the lack of staff parental leave, and their desire for the proposal to be adopted.337 This reflects that other members of the CMU community see the need for change and want to create a more equitable policy. The proposed parental leave policy addresses the discrepancies in what is currently offered to faculty and staff, therefore increasing accessibility for staff and providing much-needed support for the working families at CMU.

Conclusion Higher education institutions differ significantly in terms of child care policy and related benefits. There are variances in cost, administration, and scope. Despite these differences, there are often common barriers to access. At CMU, the primary challenges are the high tuition rate at the Cyert Center for Early Education, and the discrepancies between staff and faculty maternal and parental leave policies. Two crucial policy changes would improve accessibility and alleviate these barriers.

335 336

“Improving…Policy,” p.5 Op. Cit.

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First, a scholarship would reduce the cost of child care for families who need assistance.

Second, a paid, twelve-week parental leave policy for staff would provide staff with similar benefits to faculty and allow a more diverse array of families and caregivers to spend time with their young children. Such changes would improve the wellbeing of working parents of the CMU community, and affirm the university’s commitment to all employees.

337

Carnegie Mellon University Faculty to Farnam Jahanian and Laurie Weingart, July 10, 2018.

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