Casey Quinlan, States Newsroom

Inflation has slowed, but the economy remains big issue for voters in picking a president

Inflation hit a three-year low last month, just as the presidential election is heating up.

But the high cost of housing and other necessities will keep the economy central to both of the major campaigns, as seen this week in the first debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.

The Consumer Price Index, a measure of inflation, rose 2.5% in the past year, which is the smallest jump since February 2021, according to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics data released Wednesday. The main driver of this increase was shelter, which moved up 0.5% in August. Airline fares, car insurance, education, and apparel also rose that month. But wages also rose in 0.4% August and 3.8% over the past year, and the average workweek increased by 0.1 hour — welcome news for workers trying to keep up with the cost of living.

Voters continue to say the economy is key in deciding who should be president, at 81%, and four in 10 say the economy and inflation are the most important issues guiding that decision.

Trump, the former president and Republican nominee, blamed the Biden administration for high prices early on Tuesday’s debate in Philadelphia, falsely claiming the post-pandemic wave of inflation is the worst ever.

“We’ve had a terrible economy because inflation, which is really known as a country buster, it breaks up countries, we have inflation like very few people have ever seen before, probably the worst in our nation’s history,” Trump said.

The worst inflation rate in U.S. history was actually in 1980, at 14%. The current wave – the highest inflation spike since then – peaked at 9.1% in June 2022.

Democratic nominee andVice President Harris responded to Tuesday’s question about the economy by touting tax cut proposals to combat housing costs.

“The cost of housing is far too expensive for far too many people. We know that young families need support to raise their children and I intend on extending a tax cut for those families of $6,000, which is the largest child tax credit that we have given in a long time so that those young families can afford to buy a crib, buy a car seat, buy clothes for their children,” she said.

Harris also pitched a proposal for a $50,000 tax deduction for small startup businesses.

Taylor St. Germain, an economist at ITR Economics, a nonpartisan economic research and consulting firm based in New Hampshire, said the latest data shows inflation is slowing enough to suggest it’s time for the Federal Reserve to start cutting interest rates.

“It’s encouraging to see that inflation is slowing and slowing to these much lower levels,” said St. Germain said. “However, it is, of course, still elevated and one of the reasons it’s still elevated is that shelter costs are driving a significant portion of that inflation, with rents rising as well, especially as we looked at this latest CPI report.”

The Fed began raising interest rates in March 2022 to bring down inflation, raising interest rates 11 times, and made its last rate hike in July of last year.

Economists are watching closely to see if the Fed cuts rates during its meeting next week, which is expected to have an impact on the housing market and other costs.

Kitty Richards, acting executive director at Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive think tank based in Washington, DC, said the Fed’s decisions are contributing to housing costs.

“The problem with housing is fundamentally a supply problem. And the Fed’s actions are actually making that supply problem worse by locking up the housing market and making it more expensive to buy, build or rehab housing,” she said. “Housing is such a big part of people’s experience of the economy and it really matters to folks when they might want to move and look around and they can’t. They can’t even afford to buy a house that is the same price as the house they live in because the interest rates are so high.”

Busted: Food sanitation company fined $1.5 million for illegal child labor

A company responsible for cleaning meatpacking plants across the country has paid $1.5 million in civil penalties for making children as young as 13 work in dangerous conditions.

The fine, announced Friday by the U.S. Department of Labor, followed an investigation by the agency into Packers Sanitation Services Inc., at 13 plants in eight states, including Arkansas, Colorado, Indiana, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska and Tennessee. At three meatpacking plants — in Nebraska, Kansas and Minnesota — Packers Sanitation employed more than 20 children.

The department said children, ranging from 13 to 17 years-old, spent overnight shifts cleaning equipment such as head splitters, back saws and brisket saws, and were exposed to dangerous chemicals such as ammonia. The risks inside meatpacking plants also include diseases from exposure to feces and blood, according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Three children out of at least 102 kids sustained injuries while working for Packers Sanitation Services, which is based in Kieler, Wisconsin.

Michael Lazzeri, wage and hour regional administrator for the department, said that the food sanitation business ignored flags from its own system that the workers were minors.

“When the Wage and Hour Division arrived with warrants, the adults — who had recruited, hired and supervised these children — tried to derail our efforts to investigate their employment practices,” Lazzeri said in a press release.

The department’s Wage and Hour division started investigating these issues in August of 2022. In November, the department filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court of Nebraska. The agency’s investigation found that children were working at plants in Gibbon, Grand Island and Omaha. Packers Sanitation Services was fined $408,726 for employing 27 minors at the JBS Foods plant in Grand Island.

Packers was also fined $333,036 for employing children at JBS plant in Worthington, Minnesota, and $393,588 for having children work at a Cargill plant in Dodge City, Kansas.

The $1.5 million total represents a fine of $15,138 for each child employed — the maximum civil money penalty allowed by federal law.

In December, the company agreed to comply with labor law and hire a third party specialist to provide child labor compliance training and monitor facilities for three years, among other requirements, as part of the U.S. District Court of Nebraska’s consent order and judgment.

The number of children working in violation of child labor laws has been on the increase since 2018, with the exception of 2021 during the pandemic, according to Department of Labor data. Last year, there were 835 child labor violation cases involving 3,876 children.

The increase in cases comes as some states are considering loosening child labor protections.

An Iowa bill would provide exceptions to state law prohibiting minors aged 14 to 17 from working in more dangerous industries, such as roofing, mining and meatpacking, as long as the state Workforce Development and Department of Education allowed it as part of a “work-based learning or a school or employer-administered, work-related program,” reported the Des Moines Register. It also lets minors under 16 drive themselves to work in some circumstances and let children under 16 work longer hours. An Iowa Senate subcommittee recommended passage of the bill on Feb. 9.

Another bill, in Minnesota, removes a prohibition on 16 and 17 year-olds from working in construction. In Ohio, lawmakers are proposing that minors be allowed to work longer hours.

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX

Wisconsin Examiner is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Wisconsin Examiner maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Ruth Conniff for questions: info@wisconsinexaminer.com. Follow Wisconsin Examiner on Facebook and Twitter.