Good morning, everyone. Thank you for braving the cold. For those of you watching at home, we had a big snowstorm here in d. C. , and it was difficult for a lot of people to get in, and we have a pretty full room considering the circumstances. So welcome to all of you. Thank you to winnie. One of my first jobs in politics was here at the center for American Progress when it was still just a fledgling organization with about i dont even remember at the time. But winnie was my boss here, and it was an honor to work for her. I learned so much from her, so thank you for the introduction and thank you for hosting us here today. So this panel and this conversation is about whats going on in the country. If you take a look currently at whats happening in washington, just last week, theyre having snowball fights on the senate floor debating whether Climate Change actually exists. Theyre trying to figure out what parts of the government to shut down. Its not a serious conversation. And then when you go and you look at whats happening in the country, there is a real fight for middle class and working class families thats going on. If you take a look right now in wisconsin, its sort of ground zero in that, where they call the special election to talk about whether people, secretaries, you know, regular workers can get together to organize themselves to be able to fight for or negotiate for better wages, better workplace environment, that sort of thing. These types of things are happening all over the country. Meanwhile, on our side, we are fighting every day. There is a group of state legislators here that we brought in from around the country that are legislative leaders who are on the front lines of this fight, and theyre fighting every single day for working class and middle class families. If you look at whats happening in nevada, there is an equal pay measure there. In minnesota, there is a package of bills that are protecting workers and advancing things like paid sick days, minimum wage increases, protecting wages. This is happening in all parts of the country, but its something that we dont hear. And so the state Innovation Exchange which was created last year is to help organize and e k÷ work with state legislators on things like those issues, things that matter to everyday americans, things that matter to parents. As a parent, i care about the education that my kid gets. I care that theyll get wages. I care that my daughter is paid equally for the same job as a man when she enters into the work force. Those things matter not only to me, but it matters to other americans. If you take a look, one of the Silver Linings of the midterm elections was that in places like my home state of nebraska, where i grew up, they voted they actively voted for Pete Ricketts whos very conservative for governor, but they also actively voted for a minimum wage increase. The same thing happened in arkansas. They voted against a personhood amendment in south dakota. We are, as progressives, right on the issues. And we want to take that fight and campaign and narrative to the states, which is why the state Innovation Exchange is launching a new campaign focused on middle class and working class families called opportunity works for us. It will be a way for us to work with legislators, to provide them Technical Communications and other supports, to be able to really advance and take this fight into the states and really support all of the work that theyre doing. And thats what were going to talk about today. We have a great group of panelists here from cap as well as some legislators from the state. We also have, as i mentioned, some state legislators here from around the country who i also hope will contribute to the conversation. So let me start by introducing david madlin from the center of American Progress. David is a director of the American Worker project and the managing director of Economic Policy team. Hes written extensively about the economy and american politics on a range of topics including retirement policy, labor unions and workplace standards such as the middle wage. His current work focuses on the importance of the middle class to the economy and democracy, as well as policies to restore the strength of the middle class. And on his right is melissa boteach. Melissa is the Vice President of the program of American Progress. In this capacity she oversees American Progress and analysis as well as the campaign to cut poverty in half in 10 years project. Melissa served as the policy lead on the shriver report, a book and multimedia platform by Maria Shriver and cap about the one in three women living in or on the brink of poverty, and the Public Private and personal solutions to help the nation push back. We also have here Senate Majority leader Loretta Weinberg from new jersey. She serves on the state committee and the government committee. She is a former member on the Senate Congress committee and the Senate Judiciary committee. To her left is representative Jessica Farrar from texas. Representative farrar is currently serving her tenth term as state representative district 148. She was first elected in 1994 at the age of 27. She is the longest serving hispanic member from Harris County in the texas house of representatives. Rep farrar currently serves a as the vice chair to have the judiciary and civil juris Jurisprudence Committee and a member of the state affairs committee. Rep farrar currently serves on the state committee and serves as its chair. Im going to hand it over to david to talk a little bit about whats happening with the American Worker in the states and some ideas that cap has for how to advance this middle class working class agenda in the states. Great. Thanks, nick. Do you want to join us . Yeah, ill be there in a second. Thanks very much for letting me sort of, i think, frame this discussion, because what i want to focus on is why we are talking about the state of the middle class and what we can do about it, so well provide some big picture ideas. The center for American Progress, we have long been focused on strengthening the middle class and weve been doing that for a couple of reasons. First, there are sort of obvious trends where the economy is only working for those at the very top. It is not working for the broad middle. Let me highlight a few indicators of those problems. First, theres the typical income that a typical family is taking home. And right now, that is lower than it was in 1989. Thats two decades of stagnation or decline for most families. At the same time, the cost of basic middle class goods have risen significantly, you know. So we looked at, for example, just over the past decade, we looked at the cost of things like health care, child care, housing, Higher Education for a typical family, and we found that those costs had gone up by 10,000, the same time incomes were stagnant. Thats putting a big squeeze on the middle class. Not surprisingly, debt for the middle class has nearly tripled over the past several decades, so middle class is in quite rough shape. And that matters because not just for people suffering, but really because this is how the economy works. The middle class are the basis for strong growth, and they are the consumers that purchase products that cause business to invest. They are the source of sort of a good democratic base, and right now we have this really fundamental debate about how the economy works. This progressive idea ive been talking about, how the economy grows from the middle out is a stark contrast to what has governed the way the economy has been run for the past three decades, which is this trickledown idea. They make things as easy as possible for the rich, cut their taxes, cut their regulations, and the economy will grow. Weve seen thats been a failure, and we have an alternative weve been pushing and developing, and its proving to be correct. In fact, you have organizations like the International Monetary fund coming out and saying the records of inequality we have are harming the u. S. Economy. So that leads us to this place where people are struggling, its harming our future growth. What can we do about it . Well, cap has spent a lot of time not you know, you might think of most of our work is on federal issues weve also done a lot on the state issues. And recently we put out a report on policies to rebuild the middle class in the states. And im going to highlight some of the main themes of that report. What i also want before i do that, we also this decline ive talked about is not inevitable. These policies were working on matter significantly. And just to highlight that, we recently did this report called the Inclusive Prosperity Commission where we had commissioners from around the world, from england, australia, canada and the u. S. Leading economists and policymakers where this is a growing problem for many countries but not all. All countries face the same challenges of globalization and technology that harm the middle class in some, but some countries have done a great job with their policies and have had wage growth in the past decades. Theyve had a much growing middle class. Australia and canada are sort of prime examples. So better policy makes a big difference. Now, what are those kinds of policies and what can states do . The three main areas, i think, weve been focusing on are raising wages. Raising wages, reducing costs for middle class, and making the tax system more progressive and more efficient. Now, to highlight a little about how to raise wages. Well, the basic ones most people are familiar with are standards like the minimum wage or paid leave, et cetera. But i dont want the conversation to end there because there are a whole host of other things. You think when the government is spending money on government contracts, for example, youll have standards on those to raise wages for those workers, and the government influences lots of jobs that way. You also think about the way we enforce our existing laws. There is a rampant wage theft going on. We can do a better job of enforcing that. We can promote things like profit sharing. So theres a set of policies on wages. Theres also a set of policies on making core middle class goods more afford and accessible, like housing, health care, and you think of, you know debate there. Theres medicaid, that were quite familiar with. Theres making preschool to higher ed more affordable and states are at the center of that debate. But theres still also other things that are not quite on the radar screen but are emerging. For example, a bunch of states are starting to create retirement plans for private Sector Workers who dont have plans. And that will get them into having a good, lowcost plan. And finally on taxes, you know, its really a shame that actually, all states have regressive tax systems, where the poor and middle class pay more of a share of their income than the wealthy. Thats wrong. It doesnt work properly, and we can do significant things to change that. And theres a whole host of policies to talk about there. And so i want to leave with the idea this really matters and there is a lot we can do. Thank you so much. Ill turn it over to you now for some thoughts on new ideas that cap has been talking about and trying to advance in states as well. Sure. A key complement to the middle class agenda is an agenda for economic mobility. For the millions of americans who are inspiring to be in the middle class. So in addition to the jobs and wages and all the important policies that david outlined, were also doing some thinking about how we remove barriers to opportunity for those americans who are struggling on the brink. So there are sort of two areas i want to explore here. One is making sure your zip code doesnt determine your life chances. And the second is thinking about how we remove barriers for the one in three americans who have a criminal record. On the first set of policies, i think its really important to remember that there are millions of americans in high poverty neighborhoods, and both the built environment such as the infrastructure and the schools, but also the social environment, can limit life chances for americans living in those kinds of neighborhoods. At the federal level, there is an initiative called promise zones where local communities can apply for a designation and theyll get more technical assistance, theyre going to get a better chance at getting federal grants, theyre going to get volunteers coming to their communities. So right now theres five federal promise zones and 15 more coming down the pike. Theres no reason states cant have a Similar Initiative considering the amount of both flexible federal funds and state funds that come to their communities. So one of the things were proposing that states think about, for example, is having local communities apply for some kind of designation in a high poverty area where states can leverage resources, federal and state flexible resources, send americorps and vista volunteers to those communities, provide greater mobility for those americans living in the high poverty communities. Its not only in the interest of people in those communities, because when you have a high poverty community, youre limiting both the life chances of individuals but also the Human Capital that can contribute to the states broader economic growth. Thats one area where were looking to explore new and innovative ideas to partner with states across the country, and we think this is generally a bipartisan idea. The second is that one in three americans in this country has some kind of criminal record. This is a barrier to employment, its a barrier to education and training, its a barrier to housing, to good credit, to all kind of things. And so one of the things that were looking at is a suite of policies at the state level. Theres obviously things that local governments can do, state and federal government employers, but states have a lot of policy tools at their disposal. One of the things thats gotten a lot of attention lately is efforts to ban the box, which basically means delaying the point at which employers are considering a persons criminal record so that it can be at a point where theyre already competitive and their resume isnt just thrown in the trash, even though they may be very qualified for the position. Other things were looking at, for example, are subsidized jobs. This is a proposal that, for example, during the recovery act, there were over 30 states who partnered with the private sector to create subsidized jobs for people who were having the hardest time finding work in that economy. And over 250,000 people were put to work in public, private and nonprofit jobs that gave them a foot in the door to the labor market, temporary income and also increased their longterm employment prospects. So people even with criminal records, a subsidized job is a opportunity states can take by creates job for those opportunities. And a new idea cap is pushing something called a clean slate. And that is for those with lowlevel offenses, after ten years with a clean record from time of a arrest, having an automatic expungement mechanism, so that is no longer a barrier to economic mobility and having a second chance. So those are two areas were looking to explore in partnering with state governments. Thank you so much. I want to turn it over now to the legislators who are sort of on the front lines of all this, really trying to push they are on the front lines of all of this, trying to push these ideas in the states and really fighting on behalf of working and middle class families and advancing this type of agenda there. So ill first turn it over to you, senator weinberg, to talk about whats happening in new jersey. Well, theres a lot happening in new jersey. I assume most of you are familiar with our governor. So we have what will i think is a rather progressive legislature, both policies assembly and senate, but an office of governor which, under our constitution, is the most powerful office, as a matter of fact, one of the most powerful offices in the nation. So the interplay between the legislature and the Governors Office becomes very important with the kind of issues that we passed. You mentioned ban the box. Weve passed that in the new jersey legislature, and it is now sitting on the governors desk awaiting what were assuming will happen, which will be a veto. We have had great difficulty with the Minority Party who, for some reason, are terribly reticent, afraid, whatever words you want to use, to override a gubernatorial veto, and in the senate we need three of those votes in order to be able to move things forward. Having said that, we do have a very good family leave policy in the state, which was passed, i think, three or four years ago. We are working now, and it is working its way through the legislature on the sick leave issues guaranteeing sick leave to employees, and particularly those in lower level. We raised the minimum wage, but we did it through a very arduous process because the governor vetoed it. We had to go through a constitutional amendment in order to get it on the ballot. We are not an Initiative Referendum state, so in order to get the minimum wage on the ballot, we had to go through a constitutional amendment, which meant we had to pass it twice in two different legislative sessions, have them veto it each time and get it on the ballot where it was passed overwhelmingly in new jersey. And we did, i think, add a very positive part to it besides the really minimal increase in the minimum wage. We added into it that it is added into the cost of living. We dont have to go back to the legislature each time. It will be automatic increases, some kind of a formula attached to the cost of living. And right now were working on a whole package of bills that run the gamut between giving tax credits to caregivers wh