News

Publication: San Francisco Chronicle

When sanity returns to Washington and Donald Trump’s insurrectionists are defeated, Democrats will control the Senate along with the House and White House — which could lead to new financial help for California governments and Californians.

Although it’s unclear how the riots that temporarily prevented Congress from confirming Joe Biden’s victory as president Wednesday will play out in the long run, it’s clear that Democrats will have more ability to pass legislation than at any time since Barack Obama’s first term.

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“It means everything for California,” said Assembly Member Phil Ting, D-San Francisco, chair of the Assembly budget committee. “Instead of an administration that we’re fighting every day, we have one that we can work with.”

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Publication: Spectrum Television News / Los Angeles

California teachers unions and state legislators are at odds over when students should return to the classroom after a Democratic bill was introduced that would force schools to reopen in the spring.

Toby Boyd, the President of the California Teachers Association, said he responds to hundreds of emails every week from concerned parents ever since the pandemic hit.

“We understand the importance of getting our students back into the classroom and having them there, but we have to do it safe and that’s our number one concern,” Boyd said.

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This December, California legislators proposed Assembly Bill 10, a bill to reopen schools as early as March. However, Boyd believes this date is too soon to be letting children and staff back into the classroom.

“Look at the numbers that we have of infections, the ICU rates, the beds that are not available, the hospitalization, the deaths,” Boyd explained.

Assemblymember Phil Ting is one of the main authors of the bill and is also a parent himself. He says he understands the stress of distance learning that millions of families are facing across the state.

“I just got finished with my parent teacher conferences. The teachers are working extremely hard, but they definitely let us know as parents that they are not going to be able to get through all the material that they normally would in a year,” Ting said.

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Publication: CalMatters

In the five years before the pandemic, low-income Californians had begun to see substantial wage gains, chipping away at the income inequality gap between California’s haves and have-nots that has widened over the past 40 years. But the coronavirus pandemic is “likely stripping away many of these gains,” researchers at the Public Policy Institute of California found in a new report.

The current coronavirus-induced recession has hit low-income workers the hardest, while higher income workers, largely able to work from home, have escaped relatively unscathed. And those acute job losses among low-wage workers — particularly African Americans, Latinos, workers without college degrees and women — have stayed worryingly high through the fall, the researchers found. 

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Last week, Assemblymember Phil Ting, a San Francisco Democrat who chairs the budget committee, announced his priorities for the session. They included transitional kindergarten for all 4-year-olds, more financial aid for college students, more money for low-income families through the state’s Earned Income Tax Credit, and making parents who don’t work eligible for the state’s Young Child Tax Credit of up to $1,000.

“Our major priority is making sure we do everything to get money into the pockets of the most vulnerable Californians,” Ting said. “So many Californians are struggling. They’re on the brink of homelessness.”