A couple of hours ago,
in another Kossack's diary (one which I highly recommend--you might want to recommend, too), I responded to another Kossack's comment about "change taking time." Summing it up, I said that it's easy for people that are
not suffering to say that. But, IMHO, it's mind-boggling to me that some--even in this community--may appear so callous in light of the many
manmade catastrophes that are playing out on Main Street, millions of times a day, right now.
The President recently commented about how we averted catastrophe. For many that's true. But, for scores of suffering millions in this country it didn't resonate. Even today, once again, we're reminded of this truth.
Today's manmade catastrophe du jour is brought to us by obstructionist GOPer Kentucky Senator Jim Bunning, on behalf of his paymaster, the status quo. Many dozens of diaries have referenced this travesty, including Kossack Verbalpaintball, just today, HERE and HERE, a couple of days ago. Read all about it in an editorial in yesterday's NY Times:
Clueless in Kentucky
NY Times Editorial
February 27, 2010
...This week, Mr. Bunning single-handedly shot down a one-month extension of unemployment benefits, along with a federal subsidy for the unemployed to maintain health coverage. Two weeks earlier, Mr. McConnell, the minority leader, objected to a one-week extension to give senators time to draft a longer-term package.
--SNIP--
Senator Bunning once cared about the unemployed. When the benefit was due to expire in November, he joined a unanimous vote to extend it until the end of February. "Kentucky has been hit hard by the current economic downturn," he said at the time. It still is, but Mr. Bunning refused to consider the extension unless it was paid for with funds from the fiscal stimulus plan. For years, Mr. Bunning didn't seem to have a problem with blowing up the deficit for the Iraq war and tax cuts. Now he's a deficit hawk when it comes to average Americans.
Maybe he's preoccupied. At one point during a debate on the issue Thursday night, he complained about missing the Kentucky-South Carolina basketball game.
Democrats must now defeat Republican attempts to lace the benefits extension with things like protecting the rich from the estate tax. To avoid a repeat of this nonsense every few weeks, unemployment benefits should be extended until the end of the year. Perhaps by Monday somebody can educate Senators Bunning and McConnell about Kentucky's unemployment rate.
From Calculated Risk, this morning:
1.2 Million to Lose Unemployment Benefits Today
Sunday, February 28, 2010
by CalculatedRisk on 2/28/2010 08:59:00 AM
Just a reminder ...
From John Schmid at the Journal Sentinel: Unemployment benefits for 1.2 million Americans could expire Sunday
Nearly 1.2 million unemployed Americans ... face an imminent cutoff of government unemployment checks if Congress cannot pass emergency legislation to extend federal benefits before funding expires Sunday.
The National Employment Law Project (NELP) released a report in early February showing:
1.2 million jobless workers will become ineligible for federal unemployment benefits in March unless Congress extends the unemployment safety net programs from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). By June, this number will swell to nearly 5 million unemployed workers nationally who will be left without any jobless benefits.
Calculated Risk reminds us that 5.6 million people are currently accessing federal unemployment extensions, including 34-53 weeks of Emergency Unemployment Compensation and/or 13-20 weeks of Extended Benefits. We're also reminded that the Extended Benfits program is normally funded 50 percent by the states, many of which have, simply, run out of funds.
CR tells us the original plan was to pass a 30-day extension and thne another bill this coming month to extend benefits for a year. But, the plan's changed to focus upon passing the larger bill this week. But, to limit the damage on Main Street, Congress must act swiftly so that benefits will be retroactive to March 1st.
Among many records relating to the suffering currently being experienced on Main Street, there's a record 6.31 million workers who've been unemployed for more than 26 weeks. These folks still want a job. Here's the link to the accompanying graphic: Unemployed Over 26 Weeks Click HERE for image in new window.
Lastly, CR reminds of that this is a record (records go back to 1948) 4.1% of the civilian worforce.
# # #
About 10 days ago, I posted a diary discussing a series of posts made by David DeGraw over at Alternet.org, entitled, "We Have Not 'Averted' Catastrophe..."
A few days later, Kossack gjohnsit wrote about this and quoted DeGraw in a much better, highly-rec'd diary right here, Junk economics and the rape of the middle class.
From my diary on February 18th...
David DeGraw, the author of, "The Economic Elite Vs. The People of the United States of America," has a short series on our economy running over at Alternet at the moment. The first installment appeared on Monday (SEE: "The Economic Elite Have Engineered an Extraordinary Coup, Threatening the Very Existence of the Middle Class"); a second section of it was posted on Wednesday (SEE: "
The Richest 1% Have Captured America's Wealth -- What's It Going to Take to Get It Back?."). In those posts, to date, I would have to say that the sheer amount of facts with which he hits us are at least as powerful as a machine gun aimed at our entire society.
That being said, please make no mistake that I'm a strict advocate of NONVIOLENT change within our society, despite the implied and inferred threats of violence made by others.
But, to even begin to ignore or downplay the devasting fallout from the ongoing Quiet Coup is just wrong, IMHO.
Scores of millions of Americans don't have the luxury of TIME. It's an issue of survival for them, right now.
So, here are just SOME of the inconvenient facts (links to the substantiating data may be found within the links to the first two DeGraw's posts, linked above) conveyed in DeGraw's posts, to date. Some of the stats are a couple of month's old, but it's the collective set of facts which confirms the existence of "the catastrophe" and delivers the intent and the overwhelming truth behind both DeGraw's message, and the stark realities as they differ from the, IMHO, ill-founded concept that we're not experiencing a catastrophe, ALREADY.
As De Graw tells us, it's about the: "Casualties of Economic Terrorism, Surveying the Damage." Here are DeGraw's stats:
1.) America is the richest nation in history, yet we now have the highest poverty rate in the industrialized world...50 million Americans currently live in poverty.
2.) 50 million people need foodstamps to eat.
3.) 50% of all American children will use foodstamps at some point in their childhood.
4.) 20,000 people are being added to these totals everyday.
5.) In 2009, one out of five households didn't have enough money to buy food.
6.) In households with kids, this statistic increased to 24%.
7.) We have 50 million people living without health insurance.
8.) 1.4 million Americans filed for bankruptcy in 2009; this is an increase of 32% versus 2008.
9.) Medical bankruptcies are responsible for approximately 60% of all bankruptcies. Over 75% of all people who file bankruptcies due to medical costs have health insurance.
10.) We have the most expensive health care system on the planet; we're forced to pay twice as much for it as other developed countries; but we rank only 37th in the world in terms of quality of care.
11.) Americans have lost approximately $5 trillion from their pensions and savings since this economic crisis began.
12.) We've lost $13 trillion in home value during this period, as well.
13.) "During the first full year of the crisis, workers between the age of 55 - 60, who have worked for 20 - 29 years, have lost an average of 25% of their 401k."
14.) Personal debt has risen from 65% of annual income in 1980 to 125% today.
15.) 5 million people have lost their homes, already.
16.) 13 million families are expected to lose their home by 2014.
17.) Currently, 25% of all American homeowners are "under water," owing more on their homes than they're worth.
18.) Deutsche Bank predicts that 48% of U.S. homeowners will be underwater by the end of 2011.
19.) Every day, 10, 000 U.S. homes go into foreclosure.
20.) Homelessness is dramatically increasing, with over 3 million Americans currently considered homeless.
21.) The fastest growing segment of the homeless population is single parents with children.
22.) The U.S. prison population is now 2.3 million. We incarcerate more people (as a percent of our population) in the U.S. than anywhere else in the world.
23.) A recent study by the Hartford Advocate tells us that a new prison opens every week somewhere in America.
24.) Government statistics really don't tell us the entire story. Take the unemployment rate...
From DeGraw, directly...
Mass Unemployment
The government unemployment rate is deceptive on several levels. It doesn't count people who are "involuntary part-time workers," meaning workers who are working part-time but want to find full-time work. It also doesn't count "discouraged workers," meaning long-term unemployed people who have lost hope and don't consistently look for work. As time goes by, more and more people stop consistently looking for work and are discounted from the unemployment figure. For instance, in January, 1.1 million workers were eliminated from the unemployment total because they were "officially" labeled discouraged workers. So instead of the number rising, we will hear deceptive reports about unemployment leveling off.
On top of this, the Bureau of Labor Statistics recently discovered that 824,000 job losses were never accounted for due to a "modeling error" in their data. Even in their initial January data there appears to be a huge understating, with the newest report saying the economy lost 20,000 jobs. TrimTabs employment analysis, which has consistently provided more accurate data, "estimated that the U.S. economy shed 104,000 jobs in January."
When you factor in all these uncounted workers -- "involuntary part-time" and "discouraged workers" -- the unemployment rate rises from 9.7 percent to over 20 percent...
--SNIP--
...Even based on the "official" unemployment rate, just to get back to the unemployment level of 4.6 percent that we had in 2007, we need to create over 10 million new jobs, and most every serious economist will tell you that these jobs are not coming back...
25.) Millions of Americans are at a point where their unemployment benefits are now coming to an end.
26.) More workers have been out of work for a lengthier period of time than at any time since they started tracking these statistics.
27.) A record 20 million Americans qualified for unemployment insurance in 2009.
28.) Without federal intervention, 27 states would have run out--or did run out--of funds to cover these claims.
29.) 40 state unemployment programs are expected to go broke.
30.) It is projected by many that millions of Americans will remain unemployed for very extended periods of time. (They already are.)
31.) More than six people are looking for work for every job that's available.
32.) Americans are already the most productive workers on the planet; productivity increased by annualized rate of 9.5% in the third quarter of 2009, alone, but labor costs decreased by 5.2%.
33.) As a result of #32, above, some companies are now experiencing record profits. 78% of the 220 of the companies in the S&P 500 had "...'better-than-expected profits' with earnings 17 percent above expectations, 'the highest for any quarter since Thomson Reuters began tracking data.' "
34.) According to the US Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics, household income fell by 3.8% in 2008, and that was while the unemployment rate was at 5.8%
35.) "With the unemployment rate now at 10 percent, median income has been falling at a 5 percent rate and is expected to continue its decline."
# # #
Yeah, I realize that "change takes time." So, let's start with those one million-plus folks wondering how they're going to eat this week; because, right now, for them, it's an unaverted, manmade catastrophe.