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Deep economic divide found even among employed people during COVID-19

July 26, 2022 adriana

An exploratory study with implications for the growing gig-economy indicates there were only two kinds of workers during COVID-19: the haves and the have-nots.

Using data collected from 315 employed adults across 45 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, researchers examined how workers were affected by precarity—a persistent insecurity in employment or income. They looked at a range of measures related to precarity including job insecurity, financial insecurity, prior unemployment, household income and underemployment.

What they found was that most employees either had all positives or all negatives on these measures with little in between.

“We were expecting to find different nuanced groups. We didn’t. We only found two: those that were doing well and those that were doing really poorly,” said lead author Andrea Bazzoli, a Washington State University psychology doctoral candidate. “It’s a sign of a two-speed economy and the K-shaped economic recovery: some people are being left behind. That is pretty concerning as we recover as a nation from the COVID 19 pandemic.”

Precarity can create a spiraling effect, said co‑author Tahira Probst, a WSU psychology professor. For instance, if employees have insufficient income, they may not be able to afford doctor’s visits or medications leading to poor health, which can make them less fit for their jobs, which then increases their job insecurity, which can further deteriorate their health.

“These cycles have implications for organizations as well as for the employees themselves,” Probst said

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Phys.org
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StudyFinds.org

We the People: Stock market crash not sole cause of Great Depression

July 25, 2022 adriana

Today’s question: When did the Great Depression start?

Although the stock market crash of 1929 is commonly blamed for starting the Great Depression – and would count as the correct answer on the Naturalization Test – the worst economic downturn of the 20th century actually began earlier and had more causes than the crash.

“There was no start date,” said Matthew Sutton, Berry Family Distinguished Professor in the Liberal Arts and History Department chairman at Washington State University.

The crash revealed other problems in the national and international economy that had been developing during the 1920s, said Sutton, who teaches the Great Depression as part of 20th century history. But while the market would lose almost 90% of its value over the next three years – hitting its lowest point 90 years ago last Friday – tying the depression to the crash is a bit of a myth.

For American farmers, the Depression started well before 1929. Prices for farm commodities had increased dramatically during World War I, a result of heavy demand and poor supply of products from Europe during four years of war.

Profits from the war years encouraged farmers to invest in more land and new machinery to work it. They took on more debt, but when the prices went down because of greatly increased supply and lower demand, they had trouble paying off those loans and many lost farms to foreclosure.

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Spokesman-Review

Why a wave of social media ads may signal a potential DeSantis White House run

July 22, 2022 adriana

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a rising Republican star, has been careful not to nurture growing speculation that he will make a presidential bid in 2024. But there are signs that DeSantis could be preparing for a White House run even as he campaigns for another term as governor in November’s midterm elections.

A Reuters analysis of DeSantis’ social media ads shows he has dramatically expanded his out-of-state ads in recent months, an indicator, say some political analysts, that he may be laying the groundwork for a national campaign.

DeSantis may, however, simply be using his national profile to seek a broader donor base for his re-election campaign, said Travis Ridout, an expert on campaign ads at Washington State University, although the Republican is a fund-raising giant who has already built a $100 million plus warchest.

Two sources close to DeSantis confirmed to Reuters he is building a national database of voter contact information.

Should DeSantis launch a White House bid, he would be retracing the steps of past presidential candidates including U.S. Senator Corey Booker, a Democrat who boosted out-of-state social media ads ahead of the 2018 midterm elections before running for president in 2020, Ridout said.

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Reuters

Roe vs. Wade ruling to drive interest in state politics, foreshadows what’s to come

July 20, 2022 adriana

The strongly divided reactions to the overturning of Roe vs. Wade are continuing to drive both protest and praise at levels political experts say is likely to generate greater voter attention on state and local races.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision puts abortion policy in the hands of state lawmakers, whose races for legislative seats traditionally receive less attention from voters than federal offices such as U.S. Congress or the White House.

But political scientists at Washington State University say general voter awareness of state legislative races now could push public interest into uncharted territory.

“In the past, you didn’t really see campaigns for state legislatures or governors discussing the abortion question very often, but you are likely to see a lot more of that now,” said Cornell Clayton, director of the Thomas S. Foley Institute for Public Policy and Public Service at WSU. “In fact, I would expect to see it become a central issue in almost every midterm campaign because now states are going to be setting policies on abortion and it will matter very much who your governor is and who the members of your state legislature are.”

Clayton, a frequent political commentator whose work on judicial politics has twice received the American Judicature Award from the American Political Science Association, said the issue of abortion has moved front and center in political campaigns here in the Pacific Northwest.

Michael Salamone, political science professor at WSU, recently explained in an article written by the Associated Press that public support for the Supreme Court’s decisions can easily fluctuate on a case-by-case basis. But overall faith in the court’s central role in American democracy has tended to be historically resilient. Whether that support will suffer because of the Roe decision as well as other recent rulings remains to be seen.

“Just based on the amount of rhetoric and the high-profile nature of so many of these decisions, I’m wondering if we’ve perhaps reached our limit to that resilience,” Salamone told The Associated Press.

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WSU Insider

Research opportunities for underrepresented students

July 18, 2022 adriana

As a Hispanic woman from Southern California, Alexandra Malena questioned just how welcome she would feel at Washington State University’s rural Pullman campus.

She also found herself asking how she would fare in WSU’s neuroscience curriculum.

“Being first-gen and in a STEM field, I always had these doubts in the back of my mind,” Malena said. “But I quickly found a group of people here who helped me feel welcome and comfortable.”

That group, a hodgepodge of undergraduate and graduate students inside Associate Professor Ryan McLaughlin’s laboratory, eventually led her to another support network – WSU’s new Maximizing Access to Research Careers (MARC) program.

In addition to financial and peer support through the program, Malena, whose father is from Argentina and mother is from Mexico, said the program has helped her believe in herself when imposter syndrome kicks in.

It also pushed her to explore her passion for the brain and add neuroscience as a second major, in addition to psychology. “The aspect I love about psychology was learning about the brain, so I felt I should probably be studying neuroscience too,” she said.

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WSU Insider