PSN In The News

Suman Raghunathan, director of policy for the Progressive States Network, said support has been growing for policies that allow in-state tuition, particularly since Congress voted down immigration reform two years ago.

“We’ve seen a growing wave of interest,” she said. “It’s been a groundswell.”

California could be the latest state to enact a law that dramatically curbs regulatory oversight of telecommunications services in the state, handing a significant victory to the industry players that have lobbied for the bill’s passage. In California, the telecom industry has joined forces with Silicon Valley, as Fabiola Carrion, a broadband analyst with the Progressive States Network, explains.

Stealing hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands of dollars is, generally speaking, a risky proposition. Take it from a wallet, or a private house, or a bank — and get caught — and chances are good that criminal prosecution awaits. There’s an exception to this rule though, a loophole that’s especially gaping in Philadelphia: Steal from your employees, do it openly and flagrantly, and your worst-case scenario is generally just a civil lawsuit. Best-case — and most likely — scenario: You get away scot-free.

“By our estimation New York has the strongest law in the country,” says Tim Judson, workers' rights policy specialist with the Progressive States Network, and co-author (with Cristina Francisco-McGuire) of a new study, Cracking Down on Wage Theft: State Strategies for Protecting Workers and Recovering Revenues. “But wage theft laws are almost universally poor. In recent years a few states took strong steps, but even those laws have a ways to go before they are a model standard that could really be effective in cracking down on a problem this huge.”