Italy, mired in a fourth recession since 2001, is struggling to shake the threat of debt-crisis contagion even as the nation
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No one took issue with Antonio Hegwood’s dreadlocks when he worked for the temp service. Or the fast food restaurant before that.
But in mid-April, four months after a service station and convenience store hired him as an overnight clerk, Hegwood learned his hair style had suddenly became a problem.
Hegwood, 24, hasn’t been fired. But he hasn’t collected a paycheck since.
His supervisors at a St. Louis Petro Mart have told Hegwood that he’s welcome to return to work — if he shears the dreadlocks that run about halfway down his neck.
Hegwood doesn’t understand the fuss.
“It’s a gas station,” he said. “People aren’t going to not buy gas just because the clerk has dreads.”
Policies on the personal grooming habits of employees land on the edge of state and federal employment discrimination laws.
Companies doing business in Missourihave the right to terminate or suspend any employee that doesn’t meet established guidelines addressing hair, tattoos or dress.
“An employer may condition a job on an employee’s compliance with the employer’s hair styling preferences, unless the employee’s alternative hair styling preference is connected with the employee’s inclusion in a protected category,” Missouri Department of Labor spokeswoman Amy Susan explained in an e-mail. “For example, a particular hair style may be a tenet of the employee’s religion, or the employer may decline to hire a prospective employee because the employee is considered to be disabled because of his or her hair style (such as believing someone without hair to be suffering from cancer).”
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is a bit more exacting. It looks at how various groups of people wearing various hairstyles are treated in comparison to other groups.
“The baseline for evaluating grooming policies is to look at their overall burden on different groups of employees,” EEOC spokeswoman Justine Lisser wrote in a general overview of the Petro Mart matter.
“…If an employer prohibits a range of hair styles, such as both corn rows and mohawks, and the no cornrows/dreadlocks policy affects 30% of its African-American employees while the no mohawks affects only 3% of its white employees, we could say that the policy had a disparate impact on African-Americans, even if it applies to all employees.”
Hegwood has sported dreads on and off for years. The dreadlocks were in place when he applied for and was offered the $8 business cards.50-an-hour position at Petro Mart late last year.
“They didn’t say anything about it then,” he said.
Nor, Hegwood added, was there any mention of the dreads posing a threat to safety or the health of co-workers.
Owned and operated by Western Oil Co. in Earth City, Petro Mart does have a written policy stipulating that hair should be “kept neat and clean…immoderate styles… such as corn rows, braids etc. must be approved by a supervisor…dreadlocks and mohawks are unacceptable.”
Western Oil did not respond to requests for a response.
A father of three, Hegwood doesn’t know how long he can take a principled stand against Petro Mart and its grooming policy.
He needs a salary to support his children and pay for the remainder of his education at St. Louis Community College-Forest Park, where Hegwood hopes to earn a degree in business.
The worst of the job crisis may be over — unemployment in the St. Louis region dropped to 8.1 percent in March.
But back in the hunt four months after starting a job “I really liked,” Hegwood fears landing employment remains a challenge.
“Maybe I’ll start my own business,” he said, looking ahead. “That way I can wear my hair anyway I want.”
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“We’re all technology companies at heart. Whether you’re a law firm or a bank, the core of your company is technology. And that is kind of shaking the core of the office today.” — Thomas Vecchione, head of Workplace Design at Gensler, the global architectural firm, on the work space evolution that includes “free range” offices in which employees take a seat each day at whatever desk is available.
Source: The Point, WBUR/Boston
BY THE NUMBERS
3.9 million - The population of Oregon — and the number of Americans who continue to suffer the effects of unemployment lasting more than a year. The long-term unemployed represent 29.5 of the nation’s jobless.
Source: The Pew Charitable Trusts
FINAL WORD
“You know, how could you not look?” - Cardinals President Bill DeWitt III on whether he tracks the struggles of a former employee, Albert Pujols, in the box scores each day.
Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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A bill designed to enact President Barack Obama’s plan for a “Buffett rule” tax on the wealthy would rake in just $31 billion over the next 11 years, according to an estimate by Congress’ official tax analysts obtained by The Associated Press.
That figure would be a drop in the bucket of the over $7 trillion in federal budget deficits projected during that period. It is also minuscule compared to the many hundreds of billions it would cost to repeal the alternative minimum tax, which Obama’s budget last month said he would replace with the Buffett rule tax.
The alternative minimum tax, originally aimed at ensuring that wealthy Americans pay taxes despite deductions and other breaks, has begun affecting upper middle-class families. Congress acts every year to minimize its impact.
The Buffett rule has become a leading symbol of Obama’s and congressional Democrats’ election-year efforts to persuade voters that they are the party championing economic fairness. Republicans have mocked it as one aimed at scoring political points that would have little real budgetary impact.
The plan is named for billionaire investor Warren Buffett, who has said taxes on the rich are too low. Obama has proposed requiring that people earning at least $1 million annually pay at least 30 percent of their income in taxes, but has provided few details.
In an analysis provided to The AP on Tuesday, Congress’ Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that a bill introduced last month by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., attempting to enshrine Obama’s proposal into law would collect $31 billion through 2022. The measure has little chance of advancing soon, especially before the November elections.
“Now that we have this analysis, I hope the president will stop the class warfare and start leading by putting out real proposals to bring down our debt, get rid of the AMT and reform our broken tax code,” Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, said in a written statement, using the alternative minimum tax’s acronym.
Hatch’s Finance committee GOP aides requested the study.
Whitehouse said other groups, including the respected bipartisan Tax Policy Center, have estimated that the proposal could earn more than $31 billion.
“No matter how you slice it, that’s real money that could help bring down our deficit. Most important: It’s simply the right thing to do,” he said in a statement.
Whitehouse’s bill would require people making at least $2 million a year pay at least 30 percent of their earnings in taxes, though they could deduct certain amounts for their charitable contributions. The tax would be phased in for people earning at least $1 million annually.
Asian stock markets were mostly lower Thursday, hindered by falling commodity prices and worries about the extent of China’s economic slowdown.
But Japan’s Nikkei 225 index rose for a third straight day, basking in the ongoing retreat of the yen from record highs against the U.S. dollar. The Nikkei was 0.4 percent higher to 10,091.19.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng slipped 0.1 percent to 21,288.23 and South Korea’s Kospi shed 0.2 percent to 2,040.86. Benchmarks in mainland China fell while Indonesia and New Zealand rose.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 was down 0.4 percent at 4,270.80. Mining and resource-related shares that depend on Chinese demand were hurt after Premier Wen Jiabao said Wednesday that controls to cool surging housing prices would remain in place.
BHP Billiton, the world’s largest mining company, fell 1.7 percent. Newcrest Mining Ltd. plummeted 3.8 percent.
“Investors’ focus shifted to China growth concerns, after Premier Wen made some fairly negative comments about the property market,” said Stan Shamu, market analyst at IG Markets in Melbourne, Australia. “This is likely to see recent government curbs on property speculation stay in place payday loans for bad credit.”
In the U.S., markets are expecting a “very subdued number” when industrial production figures for February are released later in the week, analysts at DBS Bank Ltd. in Singapore wrote in an email. Production is “growing but not rapidly and it’s not accelerating.”
On Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 0.1 percent to 13,194.10. The Standard & Poor’s 500 fell 0.1 percent to 1,394.28. The Nasdaq composite index rose 0.03 percent to 3,040.73.
Benchmark oil for April delivery was up 32 cents to $105.75 in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell $1.28 to settle at $105.43 per barrel in New York on Wednesday.
In currencies, the euro rose to $1.3027 from $1.3024 late Wednesday in New York. The dollar rose to 84.05 from 83.72 yen. The Japanese currency has been weakening against the dollar ever since the Bank of Japan increased its economic stimulus program in February.
European Central Bank council member Jens Weidmann said policy makers are already discussing ways to withdraw some of the emergency cash they injected into the banking system to fight the sovereign debt crisis.
Last year, Jane Kuhl and her husband qualified for a state-run program that promised a 50 percent rebate to homeowners installing energy-saving insulation.
The couple spent more than $6,700 plugging holes and insulating their Harford County farmhouse, which was originally built in the late 1800s. For their work, they received a 35 percent rebate from the state, along with a 15 percent rebate from their utility. Happy at first, they were later surprised and disappointed to find out that they owe income taxes on the $2,461 received from the state.
“This is the first time I have heard of a rebate being taxable,” says Kuhl, 55, a retiree. “I have been getting rebates all my life, but no one has ever taxed it.”
Welcome to the confusing and quirky world of rebates and taxes. Some rebates are taxable; others aren’t.
And which is which is not always crystal clear — which can trigger some ugly surprises. Some Citi customers, for example, were shocked recently to discover that the frequent flyer miles they received for opening an account are taxable.
Basically, federal law says all income is taxable unless there’s an exemption, explains Wally Eddleman, deputy director of the office of Maryland comptroller.
And rebates have quite a few exemptions, which is why many of us don’t think of them as taxable.
A rebate isn’t taxable if it’s reducing the purchase price of an item or if it’s a reward for meeting certain spending goals.
So if a car manufacturer gives you a $2,000 rebate on a new auto, that’s a price reduction and not income. And you don’t have to pay taxes on cash awards, miles or points in exchange for making purchases with your credit card.
But Citi caused an uproar when it notified some customers that their air miles are taxable.
The bank last year offered 25,000 or more in American Airlines miles to people opening a checking or savings account. And last month, Citi sent those new customers federal 1099 forms that listed the miles as miscellaneous income. (Businesses that pay $600 or more to taxpayers in income other than wages must report this on the 1099. A copy also is sent to the IRS.)
Citi’s move caused a panic among consumers, who feared that frequent flyer miles would now be taxed.
“When a customer receives a gift for opening a bank account, whether cash or a toaster or airline miles, the value of that gift is generally treated as income and subject to reporting,” said Citi spokesman Sean Kevelighan.
The Internal Revenue Service agreed.
According to the Tax Institute at H&R Block, whether a reward is taxable or not depends on why you were given it.
Cash back or other awards to customers for spending a certain amount of money are not taxable, the Tax Institute says. But gifts, such as an iPad or concert tickets, awarded upfront to get you to open an account are taxable.
And the tax bite on some gifts can be sizable. Based on the price of miles consumers can buy on American Airlines’ website, the value of 25,000 miles is $687.50. If this were taxed at the 25 percent rate, it would add about $172 to a tax bill.
“If I was going to respond to one of those ads to get 50,000 miles for opening a new credit card or other account, I would look at it really closely,” said Abe Schneier, senior technical manager with the American Institute of CPAs.
(Don’t worry: That mug your bank gave you for opening an account is too small to be taxworthy, according to the Tax Institute.)
In Kuhl’s case, the homeowner says there was no mention in the rebate terms that the money would be taxed when she applied for Maryland’s Home Performance program. The Maryland Energy Administration notified her that the money might be subject to taxes only after the insulation work was completed, she says.
Kuhl says she found out for sure the money was taxable last month, when she received a 1099 form from the state. She didn’t get a 1099 for the utility’s share of the rebate, which amounted to about $959.
The homeowner says she bought the insulation with money out of her own pocket — on which she had already paid taxes. To be taxed again, she says, ’significantly cuts down on the amount we saved.”
I asked Eddleman with the state’s comptroller office to explain what happened.
Eddleman says there is an exemption for utilities offering a rebate for energy conservation, and that’s why Kuhl’s rebate from the utility was untaxed. But there is no exemption, he says, for the state portion.
Marylanders who received a state rebate for less than $600 won’t receive a 1099. But Eddleman says they should report the income on their tax return.
This is all based on federal law, Eddleman adds. If state legislators don’t like it, they can always carve out an exception.
They have before. Several years ago, the state offered solar energy grants to homeowners that also turned out to be taxable, Eddleman says. Responding to complaints, Maryland legislators provided some relief by allowing taxpayers to subtract the rebate from the income reported on their state income tax.
Kuhl has her fingers crossed.
“If everybody complains,” she says, “maybe they will look into it.”
Zellipah Githui’s route to the research offices of Monsanto Co., where she was hired in early 2006, was not the typical one.
Growing up in a remote rural village in Kenya, Githui’s family members were (and are) subsistence farmers. But her parents urged their 17 children to pursue an education, and that eventually led Githui to Missouri, where she earned her MBA. Githui soon landed a job at the world’s largest biotechnology company, where she now coordinates field sampling at sites across the country.
After 14 years in the U.S., Githui recently decided to look homeward, where she has started a nonprofit group to help rural women farmers in Kenya — the people, she says, who are at the heart of her country’s food production. Last year, the organization helped 16 women farmers learn better growing practices via a Kenyan agronomist, using better fertilizers and hybrid seeds. The results were promising. Now in it’s second full year, the organization is growing.
How did you come up with the idea for your project?
I struggled with how I can help my community in a way that they can be independent and can do it for themselves. I thought about a school for orphans, or a primary school. But I woke up one morning in September 2010, and I just had the idea to do something with farming…. In Kenya, mainly the women do the farming, by virtue of the fact that there’s not much employment, and historically, not much education. In Kenya land is inherited, but it’s to the men, and the plots are getting small. So a farm we used to grow food on, we can’t anymore. The land is tired, so to speak. But we come from a productive area; we know it can be productive.
How did you start?
I went to an educated woman – a friend of the family. I knew she was a good fit, a go-getter. I said: let’s get a group together…. I said: You guys do this every day, you have the experience. You provide me a piece of land and labor, I’ll take care of the rest – the seed, the fertilizer, the manure.
How did the first year go?
They planted maize, planted bananas payday loans no faxing. Some did potatoes, some did tomatoes. The corn was very good, until the reproductive stage, when the rains failed. So there was not much harvest. It went to the cows, so they had a good season. But more importantly was the change – the ‘Ah’ that this can happen on their own farm. The farmers who weren’t part of the group, they saw the obvious changes. They learned proper planting, proper inputs. They were guided by the agronomist I hired. They learned to grow one crop at a time – they normally practice inter-cropping… They’re seeing big, big differences.
How do you fund the project?
The agronomists give them the guidance – how much seed, fertilizers, spraying they need. They give me a dollar figure, in Kenyan shillings, and I send it to them…. When I started, I had no model. I just said: I can do this, I’m going to do this. I sell jewelry at craft fairs; I’ve had garage sales.
What’s the next step?
The goal was to start small, but I want it to get bigger, too…. Right now we have a good problem: People want this. So how can I keep doing this? The next step is to find the resources. I would like this to keep growing, and changing the lives of people in my area. Personally, it’s been a very fulfilling journey, knowing where I’ve come from and where I am. It’s been very fulfilling to give back.
ZELLIPAH GITHUI
Title: Metabolite Analysis Platform Logistical Coordinator, Monsanto Co., Founder Project Gold Finger/The Rural Women Development Initiative of Kenya.
Education: Bachelor’s degrees from Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, and Pittsburg (CQ) State University. MBA from Southwest Missouri State University.
Home: Florrisant
Family: Nine-year old son, 16 brothers and sisters
During the last three years, state Rep. Steve Webb, the ranking Democrat on the House utilities committee, has accepted more in free gifts from Ameren than any Missouri public official has accepted from any single lobbying group.
In 2011, he also received more in meals and event tickets from AT&T — $1,674 worth — than any other Missouri politician received from the telecommunications giant, according to data from the Missouri Ethics Commission.
Missouri is one of a few states that places no limit on lobbyist gifts to lawmakers, and by no means is Webb, who represents Florissant, the only politician who gets into ballgames and concerts for free.
But from 2009 to 2011, Webb received tickets to 51 separate events — from the World Series to shows at the Fox Theatre to professional wrestling — with 40 of the events coming courtesy of utility companies. Twenty-eight sets of tickets came from Ameren and, in all, the utility spent $8,094 on Webb and his family during the three-year span.
“It’s not a conflict of interest,” Webb said. “First, I’m the ranking Democrat on the utilities committee. I work closely with these different utility companies on pending or upcoming legislation.”
Webb said going to events and dinners with lobbyists gives him a chance to form a relationship and discuss issues with them, and that the gifts don’t affect his views. He said he gives away some of the tickets.
And while Webb isn’t the only member of the utilities committee who’s received gifts from Ameren, he has accepted far more than any other members. Republican Jeannie Riddle of Callaway County comes in a distant second, with $1,799 in gifts accepted by her and her family and staff during the past three years.
The utilities committee oversees legislation related to the development and regulation of utilities, communication and technology, and energy-related matters.
Excluding Webb, 17 of the committee’s 25 other members have accepted gifts from Ameren. Combined, they have received $6,502 in gifts, about $1,600 less than Webb.
In 2010, Webb also accepted $777.50 worth of tickets and food for Rams and Cardinals games and a Jay-Z concert from Laclede Gas Co. In November 2011, he received $279 in concert tickets from Kansas City Power & Light Co.
“I think it’s obvious that they have no influence on how I may feel on any particular issue,” he said, citing his strong opposition to a bill that would change discrimination workplace laws, a measure supported by the St. Louis Regional Chamber and Growth Association, of which Ameren and AT&T are members. Ameren CEO Tom Voss is chairman of the RCGA.
And if Ameren’s spending on politicians is so influential, Webb said, why haven’t large pieces of legislation involving the company — such as last year’s proposal to charge consumers to obtain a site permit for a second nuclear plant near Fulton, Mo. — been passed by the Legislature?
A bill similar to last year’s legislation was referred to the House utilities committee last month. Webb is one of several dozen co-sponsors of the bill, which would allow an electrical utility seeking an early site permit to recover up to $45 million in costs from ratepayers. The bill also would reduce the share of utilities’ operating revenues that can go to fund the Public Service Commission, the state’s utility regulator.
“I’m a minority in the minority party,” Webb said. “We don’t push the legislation. We don’t decide what legislation comes to the floor.”
George Connor, a political science professor at Missouri State University, said it was nearly impossible to prove that lobbyist gifts have an impact on how a legislator votes. But typically, he said, “They’re not giving you gifts to get you to vote a certain way, they’re giving you gifts because you vote a certain way.”
The most important thing for a lobbyist to have is access, Connor said, and handing out tickets is one way to achieve that.
While gifts may not influence a politician, he said, “The appearance of impropriety is just as bad as impropriety, as far as I’m concerned.”
Webb said that lobbyist gifts were not nearly as significant as the unlimited campaign donations Missouri allows. Free tickets and meals are ’small potatoes compared to someone getting a $100,000 check,” he said.
Ameren, which has raised its rates four times during the last five years, recently proposed a 15 percent rate increase. Webb said he was concerned about the proposed hike and had discussed the matter with Ameren’s lobbyists. “We don’t want any unfair rate increases,” he said.
It’s up to the state’s utility regulator to decide whether the increase is fair, Webb said.
“Ameren has some of the lowest rates in the nation,” he said. “We want to keep it that way.”
Webb said that it might not be necessary for his meetings with lobbyists to take place at concerts and baseball games but maintained that gifts from utilities weren’t a problem.
“Some may have a difference in opinion on whether or not you should be taking tickets,” he said. “My opinion is, there’s nothing wrong with it.”
A Michigan factory that made luxury yachts before the recession and diversified to add wind energy products when times got tough was touted by President Barack Obama at his State of the Union Address as an example of an industry creating forward-thinking jobs _ with a little help from the government.
In urging Congress to approve clean energy tax credits, Obama cited Energetx Composites LLC, a wind turbine blade manufacturer in Holland, Mich., that received millions in government assistance. Invited to sit in the first lady’s box during the speech Tuesday night was Bryan Ritterby, 58, who went to work for Energetx after being laid off from his furniture-making jobs three years ago.
“Some technologies don’t pan out; some companies fail,” Obama said. “But I will not walk away from the promise of clean energy. I will not walk away from workers like Bryan.”
Without mentioning it by name, Obama appeared to be defending his administration’s support of Solyndra LLC, the California solar panel maker that received a $528 million government loan but filed for bankruptcy court protection last year. Energetx is in a somewhat different situation than Solyndra but still must fend off skepticism from critics who contend government-assisted clean energy products often don’t produce enough high-wage jobs to make it worth the money.
“They must have had to look pretty hard to find someone working in alternative energy,” said Donald Grimes, a senior research specialist at University of Michigan. “I think the politics is what’s driving almost this delusion of where the jobs are. If you want to tout the future of where green energy jobs are going, it’s going to be garbage collection.”
Indeed, waste management and treatment is among the categories with the most “clean economy” jobs in the United States, according to a 2011 report by the Metropolitan Policy Program of the Brookings Institution, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit think tank. The category represented about 385,000 jobs in 2010; the wind industry employed 24,294 the same year, the report said.
In 2009, a state board announced a $27.3 million tax credit over 15 years to encourage Energetx to expand. The money is tied to the creation of about 1,000 jobs at the company, and won’t be awarded in cases where jobs don’t materialize. It also got a $3.5 million state award for “energy excellence” in 2010, which was expected to be matched by the U.S. Department of Energy.
The company is far short of its ultimate job target now _ with fewer than 50 employees currently making the turbine blades and other projects _ but it expects to hire roughly 100 more this year, mostly in composite manufacturing. The company would not release specific wage rages, but human resources director Steven Busch said pay will be competitive with similar manufacturing jobs in the Midwest.
U.S. Rep. Bill Huizenga, a Republican whose district includes Holland, said he doesn’t “see a Solyndra-type situation” with Energetx or other clean energy companies in southwest Michigan, such as those that produce batteries for alternative-fuel vehicles. Combined, the area around Holland has about 7.5 percent of its workforce employed in the broad category of “clean jobs,” compared with the national average of 2 percent.
“This isn’t our preferred route, but if this is the route that’s presented to us, we’re going to take it and make it as successful as we can make,” Huizenga said. “Ultimately, the business principles have to be sound. Whether it’s wind, solar, nuclear … these industries aren’t going to just be able to depend on government subsidies forever. At some point you’ve got to be able to stand on your own two feet.”
While Michigan remains stung by the decline in the auto industry, some officials see this new technology as an area where it can lead again.
“It’s communicating a message to people: This is a place on the cutting-edge of change and solving problems,” said John C. Austin, a Brookings senior fellow and visiting faculty member at University of Michigan. “That’s been our big problem in Michigan. We fought for years protecting the auto industry from change. Now we can be the leader in increasing the production of electric cars.”
Brookings officials acknowledge the alternative industry is hard to assess since such jobs pervade all parts of the economy, but its study last year aimed to provide a comprehensive, detailed snapshot of what the sector truly represents.
Erik Nordman, an assistant professor of renewable energy and lead investigator of the West Michigan Wind Assessment project, says the Energetx’s transition isn’t as far-fetched as it might seem because the keel of a yacht closely resembles the blade of a turbine.
With wind energy seemingly more marketable in the future, West Michigan economic developers envision a time Energetx will expand and have hundreds of workers.
“This is new product entry,” said Rick Chapla of The Right Place, a western Michigan economic development organization. “This is complex manufacturing. This is not something that has been done or will be done overnight. It won’t be done in one year. It will be done over a period of years.”
It’s fertile political ground for Obama too. Not only is Michigan considered a swing state in the November election, but he has made several trips to the area to tout clean energy projects, and his administration has provided $2.4 billion in federal grants to develop next-generation electric vehicles and batteries.
Grimes remains skeptical. He says it’s appropriate for the government to invest in research, but not in fledgling commercial enterprises. He cites Solyndra as an example but argues even “picking winners” can prove problematic, since “creative destruction” is a common byproduct of successful yet disruptive technologies.
“They don’t do well with innovation because it costs people jobs,” Grimes said.
___
Associated Press writer Tim Martin contributed to this report.
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