I Guess We Gotta Keep Doing This

From today's Tribune-Review:

Laurel: To Jake Haulk. The Allegheny Institute for Public Policy boss pulls no punches in a post about Pittsburgh Public Schools: “(T)he poor academic performance and the high rates of absenteeism” (well over 40 percent, on average, at the high school level) “point to the same thing — a failed public school system.” He takes to task those who continue to think the “solution” is to throw more money at the problem. Anyone ready to listen yet? [Bolding in original.]

We've done this blog post a number of times before.  But Scaife's braintrust still keeps hiding the financial entanglements that connect their boss with the subject of their praise.

So we'll have to do it for them, I guess.

According to the data found at the Bridge Project, The Allegheny Institute for Public Policy has received $6,484,200 in foundation support and $5.801,000 of that comes from three foundations (The Allegheny, Carthage, and Sarah Scaife Foundations) controlled by Richard Mellon Scaife, owner of the Tribune-Review.

For those who don't have calculators handy, that's means that 89.46% of the total financial support the Allegheny Institute receives from foundations, it receives from one guy - the owner of the paper whose op-ed page just praised the Institute's president.

There's more.  According to the Trib, Haulk also sits on the board of the Lincoln Institute for Public Opinion Research.  And according to the data found at the Bridge Project, the Lincoln Institute has received $1,482,500 in foundation support and $980,000 of that comes from the above mentioned Allegheny Foundation.  That's 68.62%, by the way.

I am sure Jake Haulk is a very nice guy.  I am sure he's very smart, accomplished, respected and so on, but considering the above, I have to ask myself, "How prominent of an economic pundit would he have been without Scaife's largess?"

Now go back to today's op-ed praise by Scaife's braintrust and ask yourself that same question.

This is how the right wing noise machine works.

When Studies Collide (Said George Pal To His Bride)

In today's Tribune-Review, Scaife's Braintrust has effectively endorsed this Texas A&M study on the minimum-wage.  They write:

A new Texas A&M study concludes that raising the minimum wage retards job creation. Additionally, the study says raising the government-dictated wage floor would not stimulate the economy. It's so simple and fundamental that even a “progressive” should be able to understand it. [Bolding in original.]

I realize there's a lot of competing economic theories on the effects that the raising minimum wage on our nation's employment.  For example in this discussion via Minnesota Public Radio, the "pro" side says it would  pump more money into the economy since those working minimum wage jobs pay for things immediately.  On the other hand, there's the argument that minimum wage jobs are rarely the primary income for a household and raising the rate too high would make jobs "disappear" and hurt the families you're looking to help.

I'm not here to settle that discussion - oh no.

I'm here to look at some of the details from the study endorsed by the Braintrust.  In the paper's abstract we read:

The voluminous literature on minimum wages offers little consensus on the extent to which a wage floor impacts employment. For both theoretical and econometric reasons, we argue that the effect of the minimum wage should be more apparent in employment dynamics than in levels. Using administrative data in a state-year panel, we evaluate each employment margin directly. We find that the minimum wage reduces gross hiring of new employees, but that there is no effect on gross separations. Moreover, despite having an insignificant discrete effect on the employment level, increases in the legal wage floor directly reduce job growth. Neither labor force turnover nor the entry or exit rate of establishments are affected. [Emphasis added.]

So what they're saying, as I understand it, is that raising the minimum wage, while it would reduce the rate at which new jobs are created, won't effect, on the whole, the current level of employment ("no effect on gross separations" and "Neither...entry or exit rate of establishments are affected").  So raising it won't kill any existing jobs.

Again, I am not here to discuss whether that's true, only to point out how much that idea conflicts with other things we've found at the Trib.

For instance this from last July:

Jake Haulk, a former Mellon Bank economist and president of the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy, a conservative think tank in Castle Shannon, said the minimum wage is bad policy.

"They're fighting reality," said Haulk. "If you force a minimum wage (increase), you're just going to cost people their jobs."

So I guess the study the Trib just quoted is in direct disagreement with the President of the local think-tank that the Trib's owner supports.  And for those who aren't following the numbers, according to the Bridgeproject, Scaife's various foundations account for about 89% of the support given to the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy.  They've given $5,331,000 to the institute since 1955 1995 (sorry for the typo).  Adjusted for inflation that's about $6,629,320 in today's dollars.

I wonder if they'll be correcting themselves anytime soon.  And I wonder how long it'll be before we see the Trib declare that raising the minimum wage will result in people losing their jobs.

A Thanksgiving Gift From The Trib

As long as they keep doing this, I'll keep pointing it out.

Take a look at this blurb from today's Laurels & Lances:

Laurel: To Jake Haulk. The president of the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy continues to do what he does best -- slay shibboleths. His latest effort calls into serious question the conclusion of an American Public Transportation Association "study" that says Pittsburgh motorists could save $9,201 a year by taking Port Authority Transit. As per usual, the facts show the APTA hyped the numbers. Thanks for the reality check, Dr. Haulk.

We've run the numbers before, but let's get a more recent picture, alright?

According to mediamatters, the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy has received $3,421,000 from the Richard Mellon Scaife controlled Allegheny, Carthage, and Sarah Scaife Foundations and $4,039,200 in total foundation support.  After a few seconds with my trusty calculator I now know that that of all the foundation support received by the Allegheny Institute, about 84.7 % came directly from the foundations controlled by the owner of the paper that lavished such praise Jake Haulk, president of the Allegheny Institute.

Heck, the Washington Post reported in 1999 that:

Scaife has been donating to big think thanks for four decades, but he recently launched a new kind of policy group in Pittsburgh, the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy, which describes itself as "devoted exclusively to the study of local issues" in western Pennsylvania.

So not only is Scaife the main source of foundation money for the institute, he founded the darn thing in the first place!

And yet no mention of any of that information is to be found on the pages of the Tribune-Review.

I find that interesting, don't you?