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VOTE NO ON PROPOSITION 33: CAR INSURANCE

This is the fourth part of a series of posts analyzing California’s propositions:

Proposition 33: A Fine Example of What’s Wrong With The Proposition System

California’s proposition system is generally broken. There are good propositions out there, such as Proposition 25 (which made it so that budgets no longer need super-majorities to pass).

Then there are things like Proposition 33.

Proposition 33 is the worst type of proposition out there.

More below.

 It’s the type of proposition in which a big corporation asks voters to change the law so that the corporation can increase profits. In this case the corporation is Mercury Insurance, founded by billionaire George Joseph:

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What is even more crazy about this proposition is that Mercury Insurance placed the exact same thing on the ballot just two years ago. It failed. Now Mercury is trying again.

What Does Proposition 33 Do?

Proposition 33 allows car insurance companies to give discounts to individuals with five continuous years of car insurance.

Conversely, this means that individuals without five continuous years of car insurance will have their car insurance become more expensive. Insurance companies, after all, don’t just hand out discounts because they’re nice. If Proposition 33 passes car insurance companies will give the discount to those who qualify and then raise their prices for everybody else. For those without five continuous years of car insurance, you’ll be paying more if this proposition passes.

Who are people without five continuous years of car insurance?

Well, they’re generally the young and the poor.

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Say you’re a working-class immigrant who’s just saved enough money to buy a car for the first time in your life. If Proposition 33 passes, your car insurance will become more expensive. Or say you’re a young person (like me) who just got your license for the first time. If Proposition 33 passes, your car insurance will also become more expensive. Or say you’re a proud mother of a blooming high school student. If Proposition 33 passes, you’ll be paying more for your son’s car insurance once he gets his license.

Yup, This Affects Me Too!

This proposition directly affects me and every single young and poor Californian out there. It also affects every single mother or father of a high school or college student. If Proposition 33 passes, car insurance will be more expensive for every Californian driving a car for the first time in his or her life.

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(Under Proposition 33 these smiling Californians will be paying a whole lot more in car insurance.)

This is why voting is so important. The young, the poor, and parents can’t let companies like Mercury Insurance sneak Proposition 33 past us.

Every single young person in California, and every single one of their parents, should vote against Proposition 33.

Health Care

‘Young Workers: A Lost Decade’

Something bad happened in the past 10 years to young workers in this country: Since 1999, more of them now have lower-paying jobs, if they can get a job at all; health care is a rare luxury and retirement security is something for their parents, not them. In fact, many-younger than 35-still live at home with their parents because they can’t afford to be on their own.

These are the findings of a new report, “Young Workers: A Lost Decade.” Conducted in July 2009 by Peter D. Hart Research Associates for the AFL-CIO and our community affiliate Working America, the nationwide survey of 1,156 people follows up on a similar survey the AFL-CIO conducted in 1999. The deterioration of young workers’ economic situation in those 10 years is alarming.

(Cross-posted from the AFL-CIO Now Blog.)

Nate Scherer, 31, is among today’s young workers. Scherer lives in Columbus, Ohio, where he shares a home with his wife, his parents, brother and his partner.  He spoke at a media conference at the AFL-CIO today to discuss the report.

After getting married, my wife and I decided to move in with my parents to pay off our bills. We could afford to live on our own but we’d never be able to get out of debt. We have school loans to pay off, too. We’d like to have children, but we just can’t manage the expense of it right now…so we’re putting it off till we’re in a better place. My [work] position is on the edge, and I feel like if my company were to cut back, my position would be one of the first to go.

During yesterday’s press briefing, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka summed up the report’s findings this way:

We’re calling the report “A Lost Decade” because we’re seeing 10 years of opportunity lost as young workers across the board are struggling to keep their heads above water and often not succeeding. They’ve put off adulthood-put off having kids, put off education-and a full 34 percent of workers under 35 live with their parents for financial reasons.

Just last week we learned that about 1.7 million fewer teenagers and young adults were employed in July than a year before, hitting a record low of 51.4 percent.

As AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said:  

Young workers in particular must be given the tools to lead the next generation to prosperity. The national survey we’re releasing today shows just how broken our economy is for our young people…and what’s at stake if we don’t fix it.

Some of the report’s key findings include:

  • 31 percent of young workers report being uninsured, up from 24 percent 10 years ago, and 79 percent of the uninsured say they don’t have coverage because they can’t afford it or their employer does not offer it.
  • Strikingly, one in three young workers are currently living at home with their parents.
  • Only 31 percent say they make enough money to cover their bills and put some money aside-22 percentage points fewer than in 1999-while 24 percent cannot even pay their monthly bills.
  • A third cannot pay their bills and seven in 10 do not have enough saved to cover two months of living expenses.
  • 37 percent have put off education or professional development because they can’t afford it.
  • When asked who is most responsible for the country’s economic woes, close to 50 percent of young workers place the blame on Wall Street and banks or corporate CEOs. And young workers say greed by corporations and CEOs is the factor most to blame for in the current financial downturn.
  • By a 22-point margin, young workers favor expanding public investment over reducing the budget deficit. Young workers rank conservative economic approaches such as reducing taxes, government spending and regulation on business among the five lowest of 16 long-term priorities for Congress and the president.
  • Thirty-five percent say they voted for the first time in 2008, and nearly three-quarters now keep tabs on government and public affairs, even when there’s not an election going on.
  • The majority of young workers and nearly 70 percent of first-time voters are confident that Obama will take the country in the right direction.

Trumka, who is running for AFL-CIO president without announced opposition at our convention later this month, is making union outreach to young people a top priority. He said one of the report’s conclusions is especially striking:

Young people want to be involved but they’re rarely asked. Their priorities are even more progressive than the priorities of the older generation of working people, yet they aren’t engaged by co-workers or friends to get involved in the economic debate.

Currently, 18-to-35-year-olds make up a quarter of union membership. And at the AFL-CIO Convention, we will ask Convention delegates to approve plans for broad recruitment of young workers, as well as plans for training and leadership of young workers who are currently union members. And that’s just the beginning of a broad push towards talking and mobilizing young workers in the coming months and years.

According to the report, more than half of young workers say employees are more successful getting problems resolved as a group rather than as individuals, and employees who have a union are better off than employees in similar jobs who do not.

Read the full report here.