Channel: Economy
Wall Street at Front of Line for Swine Flu Vaccine
Just when you think you can’t be shocked by Wall Street outrages, we hear Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and other Wall Streeters are getting supplies of the H1N1 (swine flu) vaccine, while school kids, pregnant women and the chronically ill are being turned away at clinics around the country because there is a shortage of the vaccine.
NBC reported that Goldman Sachs received the same amount of swine flu vaccine as Lennox Hill Hospital that serves a huge population of low- and middle-income New York families.
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center received 200 of the 27,400 doses that it requested for its workers, according to the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. The Associated Press reports that while Citigroup received 1,200 doses and Morgan Stanley 1,000,
manager Linda O’Hanlon at Uptown Pediatrics in Manhattan said her office has received 500 doses so far—not enough for a practice with almost 7,000 patients.
“We have about 800 appointments” set up for patients who want to get vaccinated, she said.
Hell No! We Won’t Send Our Tax Dollars to China
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United Steelworkers (USW) President Leo Gerard is outraged—as we all are—over the news that a planned $1.5 billion Texas wind farm—seeking financing with U.S. stimulus money—will create only 30 permanent jobs here, but 2,000 jobs in China.
Taking candy from a baby: A consortium of Chinese and American companies goes to Washington and announces plans to build a $1.5 billion windmill farm in west Texas using $450 million in U.S. stimulus funds, which will create 2,330 jobs—2,000 of them in China.
The baby—Washington’s Energy Dept., specifically—doesn’t cry or whine or spit in the consortium’s face. That’s what’s really wrong with this story.
Obama Signs Unemployment Insurance Extension
Long-term jobless workers finally have some relief, with President Barack Obama signing legislation today to provide up to 20 extra weeks of unemployment insurance (UI) benefits for workers who exhaust their benefits before finding new work. The bill had been held up for almost six weeks as Senate Republicans blocked several attempts to bring it to a vote.
Obama’s signature came just hours after it was announced the nation’s unemployment rate had soared to 10.2 percent in October, from 9.8 percent in September.
The legislation provides an additional 14 weeks of benefits to unemployed workers in all states and an additional six weeks for jobless workers in states with an unemployment rate of 8.5 percent or higher.
U.S. Jobless Rate Shocking: 15.7 Million Workers Unemployed
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Stunningly bad news on the nation’s jobless rate today: Unemployment worsened in October to 10.2 percent, a huge jump from 9.8 percent in September. That’s 15.7 million jobless workers, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Worse, the unemployment and underemployment rate is a shocking 17.5 percent—more than 27 million American workers without full-time jobs.
The construction, manufacturing and retail industries had the biggest losses, with 62,000 construction jobs lost in October, 61,000 in manufacturing and 40,000 in retail. Health care and temporary employment were the only bright spots, with health care jobs increasing by 29,000 and temp jobs by 44,000.
Biden: Strong Unions Needed to Build Middle Class
The nation cannot rebuild its middle class without strong unions, Vice President Joe Biden said today. Biden said he and President Obama believe it is impossible to grow the middle class without growing unions.
Biden, who chairs the White House Task Force on Middle Class Families, met with a panel of scholars assembled by the Center for American Progress (CAP) and Economic Policy Institute (EPI) to discuss the challenges facing America’s middle class in the 21st century economy.
At the live webcast event, EPI President Lawrence Mishel said unions set standards in the workplace. Decent standards help ensure “employers are not competing to see who can make the jobs worst, but who can make the products better,” Mishel said.
Maine, Washington Defeat Referendums on Tax Extremism
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In Maine and Washington State, voters Tuesday overwhelmingly told the extremist right-wing, anti-worker crowd to take their efforts to cripple state governments and slash vital services and shove them.
In both states, the so-called Taxpayer Bills of Rights (TABOR)—long a part of the reactionary holy grail—went down by double-digit margins. Maine voters said “No” by a 60-40 margin and TABOR was defeated in Washington 55-45. It was the third time in recent years Mainers saw through the hype and said “No” to Tabor.
According the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center (BISC):
The Grover Norquist, Club for Growth, Glenn Beck, Tea Party crowd tried to use the bleak budget picture as an opportunity to ratchet down even harder as states look to find the revenue necessary to protect priorities, create jobs, and get their economies going—but voters rejected that failed approach again….
House Set to Act Fast Now that Senate Finally Passed Jobless Aid Extension
BREAKING: The U.S. House of Representatives this afternoon passed the unemployment insurance extension bill, by a 403-12 vote. The bill is on its way to President Barack Obama who could sign it as early as tomorrow.
After weeks of Republican stalling and obstruction that cost hundreds of thousands of jobless workers their unemployment insurance (UI)—the Senate last night approved extending UI to workers who have lost or will lose their benefits by the end of the year.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) promised to move quickly—as early as today—to ensure a House vote on the bill so President Obama can sign the legislation and get the checks moving again. Said Hoyer last night:
For too long, Senate Republicans blocked progress on extending unemployment insurance, which would provide immediate and tangible help to those who need it most, while also boosting our economy. Democrats remain focused on doing everything we can to assist Americans struggling to make ends meet and extending unemployment benefits is part of that effort. Now that this legislation has passed the Senate, I will bring it to the House Floor for a vote.
Join Biden in Live Webcast on the Economy and the Middle Class Today
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Click here at 10:30 a.m. EST to join Vice President Joe Biden as he hosts a live webcast with a panel of leading scholars to discuss the unique challenges facing America’s middle class in the 21st century economy.
This special Center for American Progress (CAP) and Economic Policy Institute (EPI) event will cover economic developments and trends affecting middle-class families, including changes to the overall labor market in recent decades, shifting gender roles, the need for a work-and-life balance in today’s economy, economic inequality and mobility, and the increased gap between productivity and wages.
Biden is chairman of the White House Task Force on Middle Class Families that President Barack Obama established in January to ensure the administration’s economic recovery effectively raises the living standards of middle-class families and those aspiring to be in the middle class.
Click here to watch.
‘Economy Track’ Tells Story Behind the Numbers
The nonprofit Economic Policy Institute (EPI) has launched an interactive tool for anyone interested in looking beneath current economic data to find out what’s really happening with jobs and the economy. The new online feature, “Economy Track,” offers easy-to-understand charts built on government statistics and enhanced with exclusive EPI data.
For example, Economy Track illustrates how unemployment is higher for African Americans and Hispanics than for whites, higher for men than for women, and much higher for blue-collar workers than for those with white-collar jobs.
Users can focus on unemployment and underemployment trends by state, race/ethnic group, gender, occupation and education level.
Clean Energy Could Create 850,000 New Jobs
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With more than 2 million U.S. manufacturing jobs lost since the beginning of this recession in December 2007, a new report says developing a clean energy economy in the United States could create some 850,000 new manufacturing jobs.
The report, “Building the Clean Energy Assembly Line: How Renewable Energy Can Revitalize U.S. Manufacturing and the American Middle Class,” by the Blue Green Alliance, recommends major policy changes to build markets for clean energy and provide the financing and capacity building to create clean energy jobs.
Speaking at a telephone press conference today, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said federal policies gave a boost to the auto, medical and other industries, and they can do the same for clean energy.
Clean energy can revitalize U.S. manufacturing. Clean energy technology utilizes many of the same components manufactured for the auto industry. Done right, clean energy policy will create new demand for…manufacturing.
