Policy Shop Weekly Digest: Fast Food Strikes, Free Higher Education

I had 2 posts over at Demos’ Policy Shop this week. Here is a rundown with links:

False Concerns for the Poor. Excerpt:

Finally, this concern trolling is such an empty game ultimately. The reality is that these workers are living terrible lives. Many of their kids, due to the horrors of poverty, are on track to wind up with permanently messed up brains, among other things. They are, as striker Terrance Wise put it, slowly dying in need of some kind of help. So what would anybody seriously have them do? Organize to push a new cash transfer program through the GOP House of Representatives, the same one that passed a Farm Bill that eliminated the food stamp program? Don’t be ridiculous. Where, as here, more targeted legislative remedies are not available, directly confronting extraordinarily profitable employers with higher wage demands more than clears the requirements of the theory of the second best.

The Tax Incentives of Pay It Forward Will Work. Excerpt:

So, the point at which buying your kid out of PIF tax obligations actually pays off is at an unbelievably high income level. You’d have to be out of your mind to think that doing so is the best risk-adjusted way to pump up your kid’s future economic position given that your kid is not likely, even with most fancy private college degrees, to make that kind of money. You are better off having your kid go into a PIF school and giving them the college fund money.