Figures pouring out from the government itself show unemployment/underemployment at all time highs since the Great Depression. The national unemployment rate is almost 10%, the national underemployment rate is closer to 20%. 14.9 million people are unemployed. And new figures show that the unemployment rate among young people is higher than 25%. In numerous, populous states, the official unemployment rates are well over 10% including California, New York, Florida, and the basket case of basket cases, Michigan. Even in Nevada you have better odds at being unemployed than at winning a hand of blackjack (getting rid of Hapless Harry Reid might be the one bright spot about this whole story). When FDR came into office, he immediately began, mostly within his first 100 days in office, giant programs to mobilize the unemployed: the CCC, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the WPA and so on. When Bill Clinton became President he also initiated job growth programs almost immediately. Almost 10 million jobs have been lost in the last year. Where are your job programs, President Obama?
Here's some really distressing information about unemployment figures for young people. Note the figures are for August and those for September are likely to be worse:
This August, the teenage unemployment rate — that is, the percentage of teenagers who wanted a job who could not find one — was 25.5 percent, its highest level since the government began keeping track of such statistics in 1948. Likewise, the percentage of teenagers over all who were working was at its lowest level in recorded history.
http://www.nytimes.com/...
Note, too, that the unemployment rate for minorities--not for minority youth--such as Blacks and Hispanics is significantly higher than the overall percentages. For Blacks, the unemployment rate is 17%. No doubt figures for September, due to be released on October 2nd, will be even worse. Dedrick Muhammad, an expert at the Institute for Policy Analysis, spoke last month (his figures are low) about how the recession has impacted the black community in an interview with Amy Goodman of Democracynow:
AMY GOODMAN: Dedrick Muhammad, the unemployment figures in Black America?
DEDRICK MUHAMMAD: Yeah, the unemployment, right now, officially is about 15 percent for African Americans. Now, there’s been some interesting work by the Economic Policy Institute that have estimated that by 2010, if you look at African Americans who are unemployed and underemployed—that means those who might also have had to go from a full-time job to a part-time job—that up to 40 percent of African Americans will have experienced underemployment or unemployment by the end of 2010.
And when you have a community such as the African American community, where up to 80 percent of African Americans don’t even have a savings that would last them three months, you can see how devastating this recession and, as we’re calling it, a depression of African Americans and how long-term these effects could be on this community.
JUAN GONZALEZ: And in terms of the government’s attempts to assist average homeowners and working people, what do you think is needed?
DEDRICK MUHAMMAD: Well, what I think is needed is—I mean, you know, we had—there was about $800 million American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which has done some good things for middle- and working-class people. But the problem is that the federal government also saw it fit to put $8 trillion behind the financial institutions which were irresponsibly lending out money and then leveraging out those loans. And so, we need a commitment at least as equal to the financial industry that’s been profiting for so many decades as we do to those who have been suffering under, again, much of that exploitation and a trickle-down economics that has really put middle- and working-class people behind the eightball for, again, decades.
Source: http://www.democracynow.org/...
It should be obvious that the economic bailout that the administration pushed through earlier this year was inadequate and really was a bailout not so much for Main St. as for Wall St. The people who really were assisted, and assisted immediately by the Obama Administration were Obama's friends and pals over at Goldman Sachs, and other banks and Wall St. Here's what Michael Moore said about this recently in an interview at Democracynow.org:
MICHAEL MOORE: Well, you know, the day that President Obama named Timothy Geithner as Treasury Secretary, and actually before that, when he brought Robert Rubin in on the campaign, former head of Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, and also Larry Summers—if you don’t know who that is, he’s a very famous feminist from Harvard University. When Obama did this, I thought, OK, you know, instantly, in order just—I do this all the time. In order to sort of prevent myself from sinking into a deep pit of despair, I start, you know, spinning it in my head.
Well, OK, maybe Obama is like me and everybody else: you know, he doesn’t understand derivatives and credit default swaps. So he’s going to the people who helped, you know, create this system. And then I thought, and maybe he’s like my dad. Maybe he’s like, you know, OK, you made this mess, come in here and clean it up. And so, who better to go to than these guys? You know, the large banks, they hire bank robbers, former bank robbers, to advise them on how to prevent bank robberies. And really, again, who better to do that than a bank robber? Well, who better to help fix this mess than the people who helped to create it?
Now, that’s my hope. But as I point out in the film, President Obama received an enormous amount of money from financial institutions, employees of those institutions. And the employees of Goldman Sachs were his number one private contributor, donating almost a million dollars to his campaign.
http://www.democracynow.org/...
The Geithner-Obama-Goldman Sachs fix cost taxpayers $2.5 TRILLION by the way. We've even heard hints coming from the administration that a bailout of newspapers is forthcoming.
So once again, where are the job programs for average Americans, Mr. President? They don't need bailouts, they just want jobs.
Here are some ways that the government could help the unemployed/underemployed:
- start a massive green/conservation project like the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) aimed at the unemployed. They would work in national parks, build structures necessary there, put up electricity lines in rural areas, clear roads and brush,etc. Payment would be at least minimum wage. This project alone could put 250,000 people to work (as it did under FDR).
- start some major works projects. DOUBLE the amount set aside for the new mass transit/train system. Set aside $10 billion more for work on bridges and roads and other infrastructure projects.
- start some projects in the health sector. We need more doctors, nurses and health technicians. Set up 100 new medical/nursing schools around the country. We have excellent medical schools but they are relatively small in number. For example, Northern California, I believe, has only 3 medical schools (UC Davis, UCSF and Stanford) for about 10,000,000 people. We train far too few people: ask all current medical schools to double their output within five years and give them the funding to make this possible. Some of the medical personnel and training should be targeted towards rural areas which desperately need healthcare personnel. Build 1,000 new hospitals. These kinds of projects would also bring health costs down as we now have an artificial labor market for doctors (numbers held down by the AMA to increase wages).
- do the same in education. Set aside $5 billion for teachers to go back to school to get higher degrees and better training. Build 10,000 new schools. Bring in older and semi-retired people as "mentors" to help teachers in the classroom. They could help in giving lessons, in grading papers, etc.
- Set up a permanent program for unemployed young people (not just a summer program). Fund it with more than the niggardly $1.5 billion this program got last year. This program could also help reduce crime rates by taking unemployed kids off the streets.
- Set up and fund an artist program for the poor and unemployed. This was one of the most successful of the New Deal programs. These artisans could paint/build murals for libraries, schools etc.
- Set up a government bank that lends directly to small businesses and individuals that want to set up small businesses. Private banks today simply are not lending money in spite of the TARP payouts to them. Small business has traditionally been the major source of employment for workers.
- Set up a program whereby tech savvy people would train people in the inner cities in computer graphics, design, IT etc. Lots of good jobs go wanting in those areas now for want of sufficiently trained people.
I'm sure other readers here could come up with lots of worthwhile projects along similar lines.
HOW TO FUND THE FOREGOING:
a) cut the fat out of the military budget. Do we still need bases in Germany and Japan? in Britain? They cost billions a year. Do we need all of the latest weapons systems at this financial crunch time? Put some of them off.
b) impose a new tax rate for the wealthy: those making more than $500,000 a year. (Effectively undo the Reagan and Bush tax cuts to the wealthy). 1% of our population controls 90% of its assets. That's wrong.
c) make corporations pay their fair share. Lots pay NOTHING because of tax writeoffs under our unfair tax code. Establish a minimum corporate tax (say 10% of earnings--no deducations after that point). Reform our tax code and make it simpler and more progressive.
d) tax corporate bonuses. Goldman wants to pay its execs $2.5 million per person in bonuses? Fine. 75% of it should go to the government by way of a salary bonus tax.
UPDATE #1: Robert Reich on unemployment & trickle down economics.
Former Labor Secretary (under Bill Clinton) is somebody who knows something about unemployment and labor. He's now a Professor at UC Berkeley and had this to say about our current econommic situation. I especially like his "trickle down economics" didn't work under Reagan and isn't working now comments:
The problem is, our newly expanded government isn't doing much for average working Americans who continue to lose their jobs and whose belts continue to tighten, and who are getting almost nothing out of the rising Dow because they own few if any shares of stock. Despite the happy Dow and notwithstanding the upbeat corporate earnings, most corporations are still shedding workers and slashing payrolls. And the big banks still aren't lending to Main Street.
Trickle-down economics didn't work when the supply-siders were in charge. And it's not working now, at a time when -- despite all their cries of "socialism" -- big business and Wall Street are more politically potent than ever.
SOURCE: http://www.alternet.org/...