Commentary

What would you do if, despite working full-time, you didn’t earn enough to cover the basics? What would you do if, after buying groceries and covering the rent, you had to decide which expenses to delay? Your choices: an essential car repair, a vital doctor appointment, or safe, nurturing child care. Do you fix the car so you can get to work on time? Do you finally see the doctor, preventing your health issue from spiraling into a medical crisis?

“Earned wage access” is marketed as a means of making it easier for workers to get their paychecks before payday. In reality, these so-called EWA advances are exorbitant loans that harm workers by putting them in a worse financial position than before they borrowed money in the first place. With “fees” and “tips” that the lenders require or solicit, EWA advances are loans with interest rates that regularly exceed 100%, and often exceed 300%, far above interest rates allowed by Maryland law.

In election season, we are inundated with campaign messaging and rhetoric that is light on policy solutions to the most pressing issues facing small business owners like me. As the CEO of Strum Contracting, a family- and African American-owned business that my father founded in 1987, I have seen firsthand how the small-business landscape has shifted and evolved.

Recently, the Sentencing Project, a nonprofit that advocates for reduced imprisonment and criminalization of youth and adults, issued a report that suggested that youth offenses are declining based on data showing that arrests in Baltimore City of juveniles have been on the decline since 2022. In an attempt to discredit the concerns I have expressed about youth offenders in our city, the report identifies me directly: Recently, the Sentencing Project, a nonprofit that advocates for reduced imprisonment and criminalization of youth and adults, issued a report that suggested that youth offenses are declining based on data showing that arrests in Baltimore City of juveniles have been on the decline since 2022.

Last month, CVS Health CEO Karen Lynch stepped down amid the drugstore chain’s disappointing earnings while financially struggling Walgreens announced it’s closing about 1,200 stores. Philadelphia-based Rite Aid recently emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy closing hundreds of stores and wiping away billions in debt.

In my two and a half years as a columnist at the Baltimore Banner, I have written increasingly about the intersection of race and gender, from parenting to politics. But recently, you may have noticed that my topics have been less controversial and more congenial. I’ve interviewed the “Golden Bachelorette,” considered learning to can tomatoes and written about bad Halloween candy.

Based on 58 multi-hour interviews and more than 7,000 documents, the independent bipartisan panel President Joe Biden assigned to analyze the Secret Service after the attempted assassination of Donald Trump this summer issued a grim warning: Without fundamental reforms to the agency, what happened in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13 “can and will happen again.” These changes, even more than the specific events of the rally, ought to be the focus going forward.

Howard County voters will have the opportunity to vote on ballot Question A this year. Question A summarizes a charter amendment approved by all five members of the County Council in July. Approving Question A would allow the County Council to create an independent Office of the Inspector General. Passage of Question A would enable the appointment of a citizen board by both the executive and legislative branches of the local government, ensure that the Office of the Inspector General is funded and authorize the office to access independent legal advice.