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Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand is with us. As here we are on Thursday, the day that the weekly unemployment claims number comes out, the new one this morning showed more than a million new claims around the country, more than a million for the 20th straight week. Around 30 million Americans are collecting unemployment benefits due to the shutdowns caused by the pandemic. That would be around a 20% unemployment rate. It was around 3% before COVID came to the US. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says unemployment among black, Latinx, and Asian-Americans is about 50% higher than among whites.

The resurgence of the virus this summer across the South and West, and increasingly now the Midwest and even Massachusetts and Rhode Island, are seeing a troubling new increase. All of that has now led to a thousand deaths a day in the US for nine straight days and re-closings of what had been re-openings in various places. More virus equals more unemployment, equals more income inequality. Congressional leaders are now promising to try to get a new Coronavirus relief bill passed by the end of the week, they remain at odds on the $600 a week of expanded unemployment benefits that expired last Friday, and more, Senator Gillibrand had a New York Daily News op-ed yesterday called "Congress can stop a pandemic depression". She also has introduced a bill along with Senator Elizabeth Warren and Congresswoman Maxine Waters that would have the Federal Reserve Board include ending racial inequality in the economy in its mission. We'll talk about those things and more. Senator Gillibrand, thanks for coming on with us again. Welcome back to WNYC.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: Thanks, Brian.

Brian: Why'd you use the D-word 'depression' in your Daily News op-ed?

Kirsten: I'm deeply concerned. New Yorkers are suffering, and what we've seen is so many small businesses can't reopen, may never reopen. We still have millions of people unemployed throughout the region and country, and this Congress, Mitch McConnell, President Trump don't seem to care. They lack empathy. They're still unwilling to send significant funds to cities and states to help recover, so we don't have to slash money for first responders like firefighters or money for teachers. They seem unwilling to focus on the things that people need, like food assistance, childcare. We have an absolute lack of childcare. People have to go back to work, but schools may not reopen. Unwilling to actually support schools so they could reopen safely, not even supporting our health care system and testing.

We're at a very difficult place. If we don't take this recovery seriously and put the resources into our economy and into our communities, we're never going to stop the spread of COVID and we won't be able to reopen. That's where we're at. One of the ideas about asking the Fed should change their mission to begin to rectify some of the institutional racism in our economy and in how it works is just a bigger idea about how to begin to rebuild--

Brian: Oops, did we lose the Senator? Senator, are you there?

Kirsten: No, I'm here. Can you hear?

Brian: Oh, yes. Can you hear me?

Kirsten: Yes. I can hear you?

Brian: Okay, good. I think your line blanked out there for just a second. Let me follow up on what you were just starting to say because I think this is going to be new to a lot of people. The idea of using the Federal Reserve Board to fight income inequality. People think of the Fed as mostly just setting interest rates to speed up economic growth or slow down inflation. How does that relate to inequality or what else do they do that's relevant?

Kirsten: What the Fed could do is they could use their resources for direct lending. They could use their resources to set up regional economic development boards to increase investment in regions. They could begin to look aggressively at at-risk or marginalized communities and make sure that we're investing in those communities. It's all about where you put your resources. That's why I think if you could change the mission of the Fed, you could begin to do that very directly.

Brian: The Washington Post story on your proposal says, Joe Biden is talking about something like this, but it doesn't go as far as your bill. Could you compare and contrast what you and Senator Warren and Congresswoman Waters have compared to what's in the Biden platform?

Kirsten: No, I don't know, I didn't get to read what was invited in platform yesterday, but this is an idea that the Fed should basically be there to help people, not the bank because right now all the Fed seems to be doing is making sure the wealthiest in society and that our banks stay whole when what they should be doing is actually being repurposed to making sure community stay whole. It's a way of reshifting how banking works in America.

The second idea that compliments it very well is postal banking. We've talked about this before, Brian. 30% of Americans are unbanked or underbanked, and that means they don't have a checking account or a savings account and have no access to microloans at the end of the month or a mortgage or a small business loan. If you could combine the Fed with postal banking, what you can do is create the ability to put resources into communities directly from the grassroots up. If you can allow more at-risk marginalized communities, more black-owned businesses, brown owned businesses to have access to capital in the same way white-owned businesses do, you then create regrowth in a way that has economic justice in mind.

These are just bigger ideas about reform the Fed, reform banking, put it into our post office. We have 30,000 post offices in America, in every community, in small towns, in inner cities, everywhere, in rural America. If you want to rebuild the economy from the bottom up, you put resources straight into the economy through these microloans, through small business loans, and through basic banking for people who don't have resources.

Brian: You're talking about postal banking. The post office is having a hard enough time delivering the mail these days. There seems to be pressure from the White House to make it even harder for them. Obviously, this is a major issue with respect to the quantity of the vote and the integrity of the vote coming in November. What do you see going on with the white house and the post office, and does Congress have a role to protect it?

Kirsten: Yes, Congress does have a role to protect the post office. The post office is in the constitution. It's one of the things that is our obligation to actually protect and keep strong. Right now we are not ready for these elections. We saw the absolute disarray in New York. The post office was overwhelmed, they didn't have the resources they needed to do what they needed to do. They didn't have standards to just-- Some of these mail-in ballots were postmarked because there were different standards for different post offices. People's votes weren't counted.

There was a report out today saying up to one in four or one or five ballots weren't even counted because they had things wrong like there was no postmark. We need to invest in our post offices. We know that our post offices are at risk for running out of money. The house bill put several billion dollars in to begin to fund it. Postal banking raises $9 billion a year. If we actually put that in place, it would be self-sustaining. We need, in this next COVID package, to put real money in. Then we need to make sure that we can rebuild the ability of the post office to make sure we can turn around these files quickly. We also should, which is in the house bill, should tell state because they have to start counting at least two weeks before Election Day because a lot of people already mailed in their ballots. They need to be prepared to process these ballots in a timely fashion.

Brian: Can all that be done by Election Day? We see the problems that just took place with the New York primary. Of course, you're a Senator from New York, they just declared a winner in the Carolyn Maloney re-election primary, some of the others, maybe a week earlier, that primary was on June 23rd. When President Trump talks about the fact that the result of the election for president may not be known for weeks after November 3rd, does he have a point?

Kirsten: Well, we do need to invest in our post offices to make sure we don't have to wait six weeks. That's why the guidance within the house bill is so important. We have to take the lessons learned in the New York election. Then we have to put protections in place to, again, start counting two weeks before making sure there's a standard set, so we don't have some post offices putting postmarks on the ballots and some not, making them uncountable.

Those things have to happen. We have to take these lessons that we learned and we have to make sure that states can do mail-in voting. We know President Trump announced a couple of days ago that he wants to sue Nevada to stop the state from issuing mail ballots to all active voters. Now, that is outrageous because, at the same time, he encouraged vote-by-mail in Florida because-- Who knows? Maybe because the governor is Republican. The statement he's making is just confusing people and frightening people. We have to invest now, we have to put in protections, and we have to give them resources. Democrats are fighting very hard to make sure this next COVID package actually has resources for the post office.

Brian: Listeners, we can take your phone calls with your questions for New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand from New York among her constituents or from anyone else anywhere at 646-435-7280, or you can tweet your question @brianlehrer. Senator, how close is Congress, and how close are Congress and the White House to resolving all your differences on the $600 and the relief bill as a whole? I see now after days of McConnell and others saying this may take weeks, there's now supposedly some resolve to get it done in the next couple of days. What can you tell us?

Kirsten: We're pretty far apart, unfortunately. Republicans don't want to do $600 a week which is essential. That amount of money is what keeps the family from sliding into poverty and not having enough money to either make rent or to put food on the table. We don't want Americans all across this country to be homeless which will happen if we don't provide these enhanced unemployment benefits. We're far apart. They're now at 400 a week. We're still at 600. 600 is the right number.

We have to keep fighting for that. We don't have a deal yet on elections which we just discussed, significant disagreements there. We don't have any agreement on childcare. As I mentioned, I've traveled around the state and learned that we have such a need for childcare. For every eight children that need childcare, right now there's only one slot available in our state and around the country.

We have no agreement on food stamps. You go to any food bank in New York. If it's upstate, there are lines for miles long on roads for cards. In the city, when I visited one food bank, the line went around the block. The truth is that food assistance is necessary and we don't have an agreement there. Big picture, there's no agreement on city and state money and, for New York, if we don't get it state relief, we'll have to cut essential services, firefighters. There won't be enough money for teachers. There won't be enough money to clean classrooms and spread kids out to make sure that we could actually open schools. There won't be money for any of the things that allow our government to function.

It's a serious disagreement. I think we have a long way to go. Mitch said we will certainly be in next week which is fine. We certainly shouldn't leave until we have a deal. We have to make sure we get some of these resources into our state. Without it, people will continue to suffer. People are hungry. People are worried. People are fearful. We have constituents who are calling, who are sleeping and living in their cars. We are not in a safe place or in a good place on any level. Then you add to that the extreme worries from the storm and how many millions of people without power, it's worrisome because there seems to be this constant and chronic lack of empathy that people, particularly McConnell and Trump, are unwilling to do their jobs to help people when they need it the most.

Brian: Let me go back to one of the things that you mentioned just now and that's food insecurity. You used as an example in your op-ed in the Daily News, the Agatha House Foundation Food Pantry in the Bronx. Can you tell everyone a little bit of what you learned is happening there?

Kirsten: Agatha House was founded by a local woman in the Bronx as a way to give back to her community. Agatha was her mother, she named it after her mom, who was a woman who always helped others. She's been working with food banks around the state and getting resources into Agatha House house to distribute. She has, I think, a daily or every other day distribution, and the line went around her block. It was literally around the block, lined up an hour before she even was opening.

When I went there, I helped put the fresh fruits and vegetables into bags that she's getting from regional farmers and she's getting from other food programs that food stamps actually run, that SNAP runs. She's doing her part. What she said was, she said people who use her food pantry, a lot of people are using it now used to be people who used to donate. She's seeing an exponential rise in need. It's deeply disturbing. Again, this is a lack of empathy out of Congress that in the wealthiest country in the world, we can't make food security a priority. It's absurd.

Brian: Let's take a phone call. Laura in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC with Senator Gillibrand. Hi, Laura.

Laura: Hello, thank you for taking my call. I love the show. Senator, you got me. I don't know if you have walked the walk, but you are feeling the path. I can feel that within you. You just mentioned this is so outrageous, we've got people living in our cars. Yes, that's me. That wasn't really why I called today, I've already called you regarding that. Today, I want to say, kudos on the post office situation.

Please, I saw when big business came in, like FedEx just to mention one, I said to myself, why do we need this when we have the post office that can do this? There's so many other things like banking, I can't get a bank account because I don't have big money. I don't have an auto deposit. I don't have big money to sit in the bank. I can't get a bank right now. I never realized until this modern time, up until 50-years-old, I'm the giver, I'm the helper category. I'm the donater to the--

Kirsten: Yes. Now you need the help. Laura, you're exactly who I was talking about. The reason why these ideas you're talking about is because you're not alone. There are so many people who don't have access to a bank account who right now are living in their cars, who are living with relatives or living in a place that's not their home, living in shelters. How many kids do we have in New York City who are still living in shelters? How hard is it to get schooling if you don't even have a home or a computer?

That's exactly what's happening to New Yorkers across our city and state. That's why I want to be able to do that because you could get to a post office. Post offices are located in every neighborhood and every community, and it would help you. You'd be able to get an end of the month loan if you can't afford enough money for groceries or for a bill. We will keep working on your behalf, Laura. I know you're in touch with my staff, so we will keep working on getting new housing and getting you the support you need.

Brian: Matt in the West Village, you're on WNYC with Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. Hi, Matt.

Matt: Hi, good morning. I have a really big problem with changing the mandate of the Federal Reserve. We had a perfectly good piece of legislation through Congress with the Humphrey-Hawkins Act for full employment. Because Congress couldn't get their act together and pass or enable legislation in funding, they basically went by the wayside. Instead, what they did they had the Federal Reserve try to solve a social problem or a fiscal problem. I really believe that the Congress, that's their mandate.

I take the traditional view, Congress has the responsibility to keep the economy going through fiscal spending and fiscal responsibility. The Federal Reserve controls the money supply, the discount rates, and the things that keep the banking industry. I don't totally disagree with what she wants to do, community banking is great. Making FDIC insurance, [unintelligible 00:19:50] use that, be able to provide free checking to people of need, all the things are great ideas, but the Congress can't just keep throwing social programs at the Federal Reserve. Thank you.

Brian: Thank you, Matt. Senator.

Kirsten: Thank you, Matt. Right now, the Federal Reserve does not have that mandate, and they're doing nothing except for propping up banks. They are not helping communities. They are not helping the economy at large. I do support full employment. In fact, I am writing legislation concerning guaranteed jobs that basically says if you are unemployed or underemployed, you are guaranteed free or low-cost job training at a community college or a state school, in careers that have jobs available in your region.

This idea is something I worked out over the last year and it would allow for anyone who needs a job to actually get a job through training and to have it be in a field that's growing where they can continue to increase their abilities and pay. We do that in not-for-profits around New York and in community colleges already. One of the not-for-profits in the Bronx called Per Scholas wanted to make sure people who were underemployed or unemployed could get access to the STEM fields, science, technology, engineering, and math fields.

They trained over 800 workers in computer technology, building and fixing computers, cybersecurity, coding. These are higher-paying jobs that allow people to earn their way into the middle class. I do support full employment. I think you need to tackle the issue of poverty and underemployment on multiple levels and I think you need to tackle some of the structural challenges like institutional racism in the economy and in access to capital issues. I have several bills to do that.

We have another bill called the RESTART Act, which supports small and mid-sized businesses. The ones that are suffering right now in New York like theatres, venues, restaurants that have been hit the hardest, and it will allow them to get low or no-interest loans and grants to rebuild. We want to help all these different sectors in New York because our economy is collapsed. I think the Federal Reserve after a nationwide pandemic, and hopefully, if we can avoid a depression, should be used to making reducing inequality part of its mission and ensure that racial economic disparities aren't ignored, and really require robust reporting on disparities and labor force trends. Those are the kinds of things that the Federal Reserve can do that has never done and I think it would make a difference.

Brian: I know that one of the criticisms of the Fed and the way they've even done their current job managing interest rates is that they've been too quick in the past to raise interest rates if they saw a whiff of inflation on the horizon to tamp that down, when that has the racially disparate impact of keeping unemployment higher than it would otherwise be. It is Black and Latinx people who are the most affected by that often first laid off, last rehired, in any economic downturn. There's a racial impact of what appears on the surface to the Fed members to be neutral, which is just preventing inflation by keeping interest rates down. It's part of what we have to do as a nation on everything now, which is to look at the hidden racial disparities on policies that look race-neutral, right?

Kirsten: Right. It can use the existing authorities to begin to do that to close racial employment and wage gaps and report on how those gaps are changing over time. It has some of the authorities to do this, it's just never used it. The five biggest banks in the country overwhelmingly control banking services, and it's not working, it's not working for working people, it's not working for people of color. We have to begin to attack that directly. We also are trying to legislate the PPP funds, the funds for businesses. We want that to go to more of the community investment vehicles like the CDFI. These are the goals we have to focus on, Brian, in light of how this pandemic has disproportionately harmed communities of color and has really exacerbated the inequalities that were already in the system. I think these are the kinds of things that can make a difference.

Unfortunately, what the Republicans are doing McConnell, back to your first question, McConnell, all he wants to do is do business liability. He is literally more interested in tax deductions for lunches, and blanket liability than giving money to small businesses and single moms and homeless people. He just cannot put his mind around where the need is. He just keeps, again, servicing his donors and servicing big businesses and the entities that are surviving right now. Again, back to the question of getting money out of politics.

Brian: I was just going to say that compassion in your Daily News op-ed really jumped out at me that the McConnell proposal would do things for business owners and the better off like doubling the tax deduction for business lunches. I didn't realize that was in there until I read your piece, doubling the tax deduction for business lunches while failing to expand food assistance. That's quite a contrast when you put them together like that.

Kirsten: Exactly. It's all about who they care about, what their priorities are. Again, this is what's rotten about politics in America. This is what's corrupt about Washington is that too many people care more about their donors and big business than they do real people or everyday people that need help. They have a lens on their lives and what the responsibilities are that is absolutely corrupted at its core. I think, Brian, until we literally get money out of politics and have publicly funded elections like my democracy dollars proposal, you're never going to be able to solve these problems.

You try and you put out these good ideas then you try to get people to support them, but when it comes down to it, they serve their donors. Even Republicans sometimes admit it. You remember the tax cut when you heard Republicans say, "Well, we have to pass this $1.5 trillion tax break because if we don't, our donors will kill us." They just said it out loud. We are up against real corruption and that's what we have to fight against. These are just ideas about how to rebalance the system, so it begins to work for working people

Brian: Thea in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC with Senator Gillibrand. Hi, Thea.

Thea: Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my call. I'm a domestic violence victim. I've been unemployed because of COVID-19 since May. I had to unwillingly move out of my apartment because I was being stalked and harassed on a daily basis. I had to move into temporary housing. I still don't have a job. I have been working with Safe Horizons trying to get grants and things that can help me with the moving costs that I had incurred and I'm using the $600 a month just trying to stay on my feet. I'm getting nowhere. It took me over a month to get an Order of Protection, finding anybody to help me even get an Order of Protection.

I stood outside the courthouse for weeks just trying to get in to get an Order of Protection. At this point, I can't get anybody to help me through the grant process. I can't get people at Safe Horizons, even people to call me back because everything's down. I'm also learning that Safe Horizon works directly with the NYTD Sheriff's department, which is very uncomforting because it's a prosecuting system. Cops are out looking for people to arrest. Now--

Brian: How can the Senator help you do you think, Thea?

Thea: I'm looking for help. I love everything that I'm hearing, what the Senator is saying, but I'm also a member of all of these groups that we're talking about, but I'm not getting any help. I'm calling because I'm desperate. There's these programs that I can't seem to-- I'm a smart person, I'm not dumb. I don't know how a woman who has five children is trying to even function with trying to get help from the program.

Brian: Thea, hang on one second. I will take your contact information off the air if you want to get it, and Senator, I know you were so good last month with the woman who called who was living out of her car, who actually called you back to thank you earlier in this segment.

Kirsten: It was the same Laura.

Brian: It was the same Laura. I didn't realize that until she said, "That was me."

Kirsten: I recognized her voice actually. Thea, please stay on the line. After the show, I will get your contact information. We will help you off air. We work with our domestic violence shelters across the state. We work with every not-for-profit that helps domestic violence survivors. We will find the support that you need. I'm so sorry that you have to go through this. I will tell you, your experience is being shared by women across the state. Our domestic violence shelters are seeing a multitude of more need than ever before because when people are stuck home because of COVID, unfortunately, abusers abuse. There's a lot of people that staying home is the most unsafe place they can be. I will work very hard to find you a place to live and to find you the support you need. We will try to get you an attorney so that you can get your Order of Protection quicker.

Brian: It's one of the horrible paradoxes of the COVID era. People are asked to stay at home more to protect themselves from the virus and to protect others, yet when people are at home more, those who are being subjected to domestic violence are going to be subjected to more domestic violence, and we are seeing that.

Kirsten: Yes, amongst spousal abuse and child abuse. It's a very tough time, I care very much and I will make sure you are protected.

Brian: We'll take one more call before we run out of time with Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Orin in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hello, Orin.

Orin: Hello, thank you for taking my call. The Census Bureau announced Monday that it will cut short its nationwide count by a full month, which raises concerns that the 2020 tally will be a rushed, incomplete picture of the American population, I'm wondering what your-- This is really an urgent problem because the funding that is based on the count will affect us for the next decade.

Brian: I'm glad you brought that up, Orin because we haven't dealt with it yet on the show. Senator Gillibrand, how could they even do that? Just out of the blue, President Trump can snap his fingers and say, instead of stopping the counting period for the census at the end of October, we're going to stop it at the end of September. They can just do that?

Kirsten: I think it's outrageous. We are sending a bipartisan letter to congressional leadership requesting that the COVID package include an extension to the statutory deadlines for the delivery of all the apportionment data and redistricting files for that census. What Trump is doing is so outrageous, because historically the hardest to reach households, and undercounted populations are generally minorities, undocumented immigrants, rural residents, low-income households.

This is just another cynical instance of Trump basically discriminating against immigrants, minorities, and low-income communities. Literally making sure their voices aren't heard and that they aren't counted. I believe it is critical that every person is counted, because, as you know Brian, the census determines how federal money gets spent. If you don't accurately count New York and every New Yorker, then we won't get the services we need. We won't get the resources we need. We won't be able to recover from the pandemic.

Every formula, whether it's for food assistance, whether it's for housing, whether it's for healthcare, they're all population-based, so they can be need-based. If we don't get counted, then our voices are being silenced. The consequences of stopping early is that millions of people across this country will not be counted. Right now, only 63% of households have responded to the census so far. We have a long way to go to get it to 100%, and I'm very concerned. Senator Murkowski is working with us, so it's a bipartisan letter. We're going to try very hard to statutorily require the census to be completed and to have the dates be pushed out.

Brian: Senator Kirsten Gillibrand joins us here on the Brian Lehrer Show on New York Public Radio as a senator from New York monthly. Senator Gillibrand, we always appreciate your time and you answering phone calls from our listeners. Talk to you in September.

Kirsten: Thank you, Brian. God bless.

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