Each month, I receive from Leo Hindery an update on "America's effective unemployment rate" which includes not only the official unemployment figures but other data points showing off-the-books unemployed or underemployed people.

The numbers are staggering and are aggregates of official data. They matter because various Obama administration officials including the President himself started off calling for huge stimulus packages to help generate "jobs, jobs, jobs!"...

The likelihood of a California Constitutional Convention actually taking place in the near future seems to grow daily. 

The notion of fixing California's infamously dysfunctional state government has generated more and more serious political, philosophical and pragmatic discussion about the future governance of this sprawling and diverse nation-state.

The New America Foundation and the Political Reform Program have been at the forefront of this initiative, from co-sponsoring the initial Summit which served as the launching of this public conversation, to producing policy papers and commentary that describe what reform in California might look like and how we get from here to there.  Most recently, New America sponsored "California v 2.0:  The Roads to Fundamental Reform," an event which brought together experts in law, finance and political reform to outline a vision for California's future as well as the nuts and bolts of such an ambitious undertaking.

Industry groups may be holding their ad fireworks until after the Fourth of July, but a coalition of a faith-based groups will take to the airwaves this Independence Day weekend with ads presenting health care reform as a moral and ethical imperative.

The spots will run in Arkansas, Colorado, Louisiana, Nebraska, and North Carolina (states which just happen to be home to potential swing senators like Ben Nelson and Mary Landrieu...). Sponsored by a coalition of religious groups, including PICO National Network, Faith in Public Life, Faithful America, Sojourners, Gamaliel, and Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, the ads feature local preachers from each state. Using passages from Scripture, they argue that the status quo on health care is "not who we are as a nation" and that "America can do better." You can listen to ads here. Dan Gilgof, writing on U.S. News and World Report's God & Country, has the text of an ad to be run in North Carolina:

It's a vision first proclaimed by Isaiah: No more shall there be an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime.

President Eisenhower and Cuban President Batista meet in Panama. 

One of the most difficult communications challenges for President Obama will be overcoming America's history of ideological hypocrisy. In his speech in Cairo, Mr. Obama started down this path, recognizing that our own history in the Middle East, such as the invasion of Iraq and the coup against the popularly-elected Iranian government of Mossadegh, was less than stellar. Indeed, whenever the United States has intervened on behalf of democracy and everyday human rights, our efforts have generally made things worse. Iraq, Grenada and Vietnam come readily to mind. The premature elections in Palestine and the failed 50-year old embargo on Cuba are also examples. Democracy is an organic and indigenous political condition and cannot be imposed by intervention or isolation...

In 2007, Congress created two new programs aimed at making it easier for students to repay their federal student loans and encouraging them to pursue careers in the public service. As we wrote yesterday, one of those programs -- Income-Based Repayment -- goes into effect today. The other one -- Public Service Loan Forgiveness -- is already up and running but may not live up to its full potential unless changes are made to the regulations governing it.

Under the loan forgiveness program, which Congress included in the College Cost Reduction and Access Act, the federal government will forgive the remaining debt of Direct Student Loan borrowers who have made 120 payments on their loans while working in a public service occupation. Borrowers with loans through the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) program can take advantage of this benefit by consolidating their debt into Direct Lending.

Lawmakers created the program in reaction to reports that student loan borrowers were increasingly shying away from pursuing public-service careers, such as teaching and social work, because of their heavy debt loads. By providing loan forgiveness, the bill's authors hoped to provide incentives to college graduates to enter these fields and reward them for their service.

Sounds pretty straightforward, right? Unfortunately, the program is not operating in the way lawmakers envisioned. That's because the U.S. Department of Education, under its previous leadership, decided to keep people in the dark about whether their chosen jobs qualify them for the benefit. Under regulations the Department issued in October, student loan borrowers will not know whether they qualify for the loan forgiveness until after they have made all 120 required payments.

I applaud Wal-Mart's embrace of shared responsibility for health care financing and its support for an "employer mandate." Their recent letter (also signed by SEIU and CAP) to President Obama represents the kind of leadership we will need to finally achieve quality, affordable health care for every American.

As critical (if not more so) is their emphasis on cost control.  Time and time again we reiterate that rising health care costs threaten not just households, but also employers and governments.  To shore up our nation's fiscal future and sustainably finance reform, we must guarantee that health care reform will slow the rate of health care cost growth.

A new message coming from the anti-health reform chorus is telling older Americans that they have a lot to lose under comprehensive health reform. For instance, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell took to the airwaves on Sunday to proclaim, “When you get to the question of paying for [health reform], it appears as if they want to pay for it on the backs of seniors through Medicare cuts.” It’s not surprising, then, that recent polls have found some seniors more nervous about health care reform.

Older Americans, age 65 and up, are the only segment of the U.S. population that has coverage for all under Medicare. Nobody is talking about taking it away from them; some of the changes to Medicare contemplated in reform plans are actually designed to change incentives so that they get more appropriate care for their multiple chronic diseases. The status quo is also failing millions of older Americans, age 50-64, and reform proposals would lend an urgently needed hand to that segment of the population, which is vulnerable, often-overlooked, and growing. “They are uninsured people ages 50 to 64 who are caught in a frightening twilight zone of health care—old enough to be facing more medical problems but too young for Medicare,” Patricia Barry wrote recently in AARP Bulletin Today. “And this is the age when chronic health conditions such as diabetes and heart problems most often begin to show up.”

Some big changes are coming to the federal student aid programs tomorrow that will save students money and make it easier for struggling borrowers to repay their government-backed student loan debt.

Most of these changes are the result of three pieces of legislation that have been enacted over the last several years: the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, the College Cost Reduction and Access Act of 2007, and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. All contain provisions that go into effect on July 1. These include:

• A $619 increase in the maximum Pell Grant, to $5,350 for the 2009-10 academic year.

• A 0.4 percentage point reduction in the fixed interest rate charged on new federally subsidized Stafford loans to 5.6 percent.

• A one-half percentage point decrease in the origination fees that borrowers must pay on their federal student loans to 1.5 percent of total amount borrowed.

Meanwhile, borrowers with variable-rate Stafford Loans originated before July 1, 2006 will see their rates drop to 2.48 percent on Wednesday. That's two percentage points lower than the current 4.21 rate on these loans. Members of the Class of 2009 can lock in an even lower rate of 1.88 percent if they consolidate their variable rate loans during the sixth month grace period before they enter repaym

Since the inception of the Global Assets Project in 2006, I have advocated that having opportunities to save and accumulate assets earlier in life will lead to a more economically and socially secure future. Now, as I write my last blog post before beginning maternity leave to care for my first child, this assets "perspective" has transformed into much more of "reality." Now more than ever, I am sensitive to the fact that we all need a fair and decent shot at success in life. Yet such success, all over the world, is often hindered by exclusion from a financial identity; from opportunities to save and grow assets, or from the policies and products that the better-off take for granted that allow them to accumulate wealth and pass it along from generation to generation.

With all the attention this week focused on the extraordinary events occurring in Iran, events next door in Iraq are barely registering (in fact Iraq has virtually dropped off the radar screen of the blogosphere). Perhaps folks should be paying attention, because it's a very bloody week and one that does not bode well for the country's future.

First there is the violence. And as is so often the case in Iraq, it's been horrific.Yesterday, a car bomb exploded in Sadr City killing more than 70 people and injuring 135. On Saturday, a massive truck bomb exploded in Northern Iraq killing 68 people and wounding 200. While other scattered bombings might be chalked up to score settling and revenge, these attacks seem intended to undermine the government in Baghdad...