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Labor Day 2010: America’s Workers Losing Ground
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The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) this week published three reports showing the extent to which America’s workers are losing ground this Labor Day: People are dropping out of the workforce because there are no jobs and those workers who have jobs are earning less.
First, there are not nearly enough new jobs. Nearly 15 million workers are unemployed, nearly a quarter of whom have been seeking work for more than a year. Even though unemployment rose slightly to 9.6 percent last month, it’s 0.5 percent less than it was last October. But that’s not because the economy has been generating that many jobs. EPI economist Heidi Shierholz found that the percentage of people who were actually employed held steady even as the population increased. Translation: The improvement in the unemployment rate has been almost entirely due to people dropping out of (or not entering) the labor force because of the lack of jobs. Check out Shierholz’s report, “Employment Growth Continues Subpar Performance,” here.
And those who are working are making less. Wages for the typical worker have collapsed. In “Recession Hits Workers’ Paychecks,” Shierholz and EPI President Lawrence Mishel show that workers who have managed to keep their jobs or find new ones during the economic downturn have suffered from stagnant or no wage growth.
Wages are growing half as fast as they were immediately prior to the recession. That’s true in almost all occupations. The numbers were worse for men than women. In fact, the median income for an average working household fell between 2000 and 2007 by more than $2,000. This report, which you can find here, is the first in a series of reports leading up to the launch of EPI’s much anticipated “State of Working America” volume and revamped website in January 2011.
Finally, EPI has released a handy new tool that gives a clear statistical picture of the recession in one place. Labor Day by the Numbers is a chart that lists pertinent facts about the economy in a quick, compact form with links to previous EPI reports.
For example, the section dealing with the unemployment rate shows the number of people who are jobless, the portion who have been unemployed for six months or a year, the number who are underemployed and other key facts. You can check out the chart here.
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17 Comments
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How can any American union member support AMNESTY, in the form of Comprehensive Immigration Reform, or the Dream Act for Illegal Aliens and not expect to lose ground? How does flooding the market with cheap Illegal Alien labor ensure an American union members Job and Wage security?
I would think that amnesty would be something that union members would desire, since there’s no legal way to employ the additional workforce, which forces them to work “under the table” for substantially lower pay than legal workers. Amnesty would “level the playing field”. There are “illegal immigrants” here whether there is amnesty or not, so it seems as though the logical way to deal with the additional workforce would be to make sure that they aren’t able to receive lower wages than “on the books” workers.
It probably makes more sense to go after the business practices of hiring undocumented immigrants, since those business are the ones forcing our current workforce to “lose ground” as you put it.
In response to hackenbush I as a union member do not want amnesty for those who broke the laws to come to this country. As it is our wages are being driven down in alot of industries as well as other benefits. If we give those who entered this country illegally total amnesty then it will be a never ending thing every 10 years. Also, if a union goes on strike those who are given amnesty will be able to cross a picket line and given a job without having to be outed as being illegal immigrant. Then we can all thank people like you for us not making gains in our contracts as we have 15 million additional people looking for work. The illegal immigrants would not think twice about taking our jobs as the corporate leaders out there know it is a dog eat dog world out there for us blue collar workers and the corporate leaders will capitalize on that very moment amnesty is granted. WE ALL LOOSE EXCEPT FOR THE RICH AND POWERFUL.
Our economy is in a tailspin, our leadership pushed universal healthcare without considering the economic fallout. As a thirty plus year union member I will never understand why we did not cut the healthcare dragon’s head off, i. e. use our legislative clout to increase the amount of md’s and dentists until we have surpluses of both. A shortage or scarcity drives prices up, an oversupply drives them down. I think the GM strike of the thirties opened the door for job based health insurance and the scarcity of doctors raised their pay excessively and others in the healthcare field benefitted. Building, financing, staffing and running more medical and dental schools would have cost a lot of money, but would have drawn more people to the union side and us closer to a real universal health plan but our leadership blew it. Now union numbers will continue to fall and the Republicans will get stronger. We’ve backed off the four day 32 hour workday mostly because we’ve seen what has happened in the European countries. To be strong union members and grow our leadership has to face economic realities. Our economy has to be viable, we have to control public debt, we need to spend money through our government, but spend it wisely not foolishly, our young people want jobs and a future without excessive debt. If the union movement wants to move forward we need to change our strategies. Unfortunately we’ll probably have a Republican majority in both houses next year the healthcare vote has caused this debacle I hope its not our Waterloo.
The “leaders” of organized labor are apparently going to do nothing new to effectively organize working people politically to end this impoverishment of millions of working people and their families.
It was announced last week (?) that the AFL-CIO, with the UAW, are giving 80 million dollars to Obama and the Democrats. In 2008, I think the amount was $50 million dollars.
Hard earned workers’ dues money is to be again squandered. This is throwing “good money after bad” in that conditions have become worse for working people under Obama. The foreign and domestic policies so hated under Bush are being now carried out by Obama. With “friends of labor” like Obama and the Democrats, with the anti-labor Republicans terrorizing everyone with their anti-social, anti-human barbaric ideology, working people are to be kept atomized and powerless this November and for the next two years.
The U.S. capitalist economy has been on the decline for the last 30 years, as real wages have remained stead if not actaully declined. Millions of jobs have gone to China, etc. as labor-intensive industry has often shut down completely.
The labor movement itself has been in decline for decades because it has ramained only a trade union movement, carrying out only a struggle for wages and benefits through labor union contracts.
But over the years, many of the economic supports that working people have come to rely upon have come from government legislation: local, State, and Federal government legislation. Thus the value of being an a member of an organized union has greatly declined for working people.
Some of the vital standards of living set by the government: Minimum wage laws (federal and state), Social Security and Medicare, Section 8 housing support, Food Stamps, OSHA work safety standards, etc.etc.
These have been necessary because the declining Capitalist economy will not voluntarily provide a good “living wage” job or benefits. Rather than provide such essentials, rather than take a substantial cut in profits, the investors would rather shut down and move to China. More profitable areas become attractive to capitalist investors. National government legislation, that makes worker regulations universal, tends to equalize the costs of labor across state boundaries as well.
Today, serious political struggle is needed for organized labor and unorganized working people to secure help for the crises we now face.
But to give the Democrats millions of dollars is like throwing money … and power … away to the corrupt pro-corporate politicians who have already been bought out by vast millions of dollars. In other words, the AFL-CIO 80 millions given to the Democrats cannot possibly compete against the hundreds of millions and even billions of dollars available to corrupt the Democrats, provide unending political advertising (as in California right now with the media blitz of billionaire Republican Meg Williams.)
Thus, if the AFL-CIO and organized labor is actually serious (which I no longer think they are) about organizing working people and struggling for political power, it must be an essential logical choice to call the formation of a new political party, free of corporate money and agendas, to secure the political power necessary to represent the economic needs of all working people.
Obama is now trying to further weaken the few “entitlements” of working people by attacking Social Security and Medicare.
Make no mistake, Obama and the Democratic party must be considered the “blass” enemy of all working people. People are now unemployed and being impoverished by the policies of Obama administration. Many will be dying not just in some foreign wars, but here in the U.S. The policies of Obama and the Democrats are essential the same originating with the Bush administration.
A new political party will become the vehicle for bringing together tens of millions of working poepl that have not been possible to organize into simple trade unions.
I agreed with you right up to “People are now unemployed and being impoverished by the policies of Obama administration.”
I think it could be argued pretty successfully that they’ve been unemployed and impoverished by the last 30 years or so of globalization, stagnant wages, decreasing unionization and the rise of the parasite financial “class” along with its accompanying upward motion of wealth. I don’t think the guy in office for less than two years with his milquetoast policies is to blame for the unemployment rate. His administration could be blamed for not pushing an appropriately sized or apportioned Keynesian stimulus package, opting instead for ineffectual tax breaks as promised in his presidential campaign, but not for *causing* the unemployment or poverty you’re seeing now.
No, that’s mostly the deregulation in the financial sector which can be blamed not just for the financial collapse, but also for the scared-crapless attitude of most companies, who have chosen to “run lean” by either outsourcing jobs or cutting jobs to hoard money so as to be able to look more profitable.
In California, we have increased the amount of Decline-to-State voters from 6% to 27% of the electorate and BOTH political parties are terrified at this fact. They continue to work feverishly to squash our influence in elections…
You are correct. The democrats support amnesty because it means more votes come election time. It is just political. Is it always political with politicians . They care nothing about the working people. They only care about being elected. Most of them do not need the money because most of them are millionares. They love the power and prestige. Screw them. I do not respect any of them.
Too bad those campaign finance reform laws haven’t been getting anywhere and corporations have the “right to free speech” in spending ungodly amounts of cold hard cash on getting the biggest corporate shill elected…
Yes, things get worse and worse for the American workers and the elite wealthy get richer and richer. But what are we doing about it? We need to be out on the streets – not causing violence and breaking the law – but aggressive non violent protesting. We have to keep up the pressure. Oh yes, and despite our general lack of enthusiasm for the Democrats, we have to save their ass, one more time, in November…
…If that happens, they owe us big time. And we, the average people, have to apply the pressure to them – constantly. Bailing out the richest amongst us doesn’t work. FDR had it right – how about a New Deal 2.0?
There was a sort of “New Deal 2.0″ in the works, called the “Workers’ Bill of Rights” : http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364×2848856
Unfortunately FDR died the next year, so it never went forward from there.
How will this influence the Labor vote this year?
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20015442-503544.html
If we let republicans win seats in the House/Senate the Obama administration will fail just like Rush Limbaugh wanted.Now,are we going to let that happen as voters?
Yes we are. You lose.
Eventually, I believe that it will soon come to this: either elections include a Labor Party, or they will become irrelevant, formal, ceremonial, or just stop taking place. The Democrats get people’s hopes up only to dash them in a series of bipartisan attacks on working people. All of the disasters that both the Democrats and Republicans have foisted upon us have been bipartisan – NAFTA, Iraq, Afghanistan, Medicare Drug Plan, ‘Health Reform’, Wall Street Bailout, and now the Deficit Reduction Commission (AKA – Committee to Come up With a Way to Destroy Social Security).
The Democrats do a very good job when they get elected of paving the way for the extreme right. They have a simbiotic relationship. They need each other, because on their own, noone would vote for them. They are the classic good cop – bad cop setup.
As long as the republicans can have there way the american worker will continue to lose ground , it’s what they do tear down the middle class , the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, it’s always been that way .
I don’t think Macromicro has really looked at the healthcare situation. Ity is the insurance companies who cause the high costs of medical care. You should look at your explanations of benefits from the insurance co. I notice on mine , that the amounts the insurance companies pay Dr.s or labs or medical facilities, does not come anywhere near what the actual charges are.. But yet the insurance companies rates just keep going up and up. When I look at what insurance pays for Dr’s I see , I wonder how they pay for the office people and technicians in their offices , let alone rent and medical equipment. The only people who pay full price for treatment are people who don’t have insurance.
There are many places in this country that needs more Dr’s, but having too many Dr’s will not bring down costs. They all have to make some level of income just like everyone else. When you have too many Dr’s there will not be patients enough to go around and somebody will be going out of business. Supply and demand may control costs on things we buy and sell.
Our fathers and grandfathers saved this country and others in WWII and came home and made this the greatest country in the world Americans were competing against each other for jobs and made all these successful copanies and the highest standard of living in the world. But the companies got greedy and wanted it all and are making Americans compete against all these almost sdlave labor countries.. The only way we can compete is to descend to their level. What kind of life would that be for Americans? Our country and government will not survive, if we continue down this path.