U.S. Poverty, Home Repos Soar, 300 Economists, Policymakers Say Time to Act BIG
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Two bad economic reports this morning reinforce today’s call by 300 economists and policymakers urging the president and Congress to “redouble efforts to create jobs” through investment in infrastructure, sending aid to the states and creating public service jobs.
First, the bad news.
- U.S. poverty hit its highest rate since 1994, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. In 2009, one in seven people were in poverty, and one in five children were in poverty.
- U.S. home seizures reached a record for the third time in five months in August as lenders completed the foreclosure process for thousands of delinquent owners, according to RealtyTrac Inc. Bank repossessions climbed 25 percent from a year earlier to 95,364. RealtyTrac sees a record 1.2 million repossessions this year, up from just under 1 million last year, with more than 3.2 million homes in some stage of foreclosure.
Such data make all the more relevent the statement by 300 prominent economists, “Don’t Kill Growth and Jobs in the Name of Deficit Reduction.” In short, the statement urges the president and lawmakers:
Time to Restructure Mortgages, Bank System
The home foreclosure crisis and the implosion of the nation’s banking system are so closely linked the federal government must address both at the same time—and time is running out, says Damon Silvers, a member of the congressional oversight committee examining how the U.S. Treasury Department is spending taxpayer money in the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) to help bailout the financial system.
At a field hearing of the Congressional Oversight Panel on Friday in Prince Georges (P.G.) County, Md., Silvers, who is associate general counsel of the AFL-CIO, pointed out that policymakers seem to forget that what happens on Main Street affects the rest of the world.
Corporate Greed Behind Opposition to Employee Free Choice
Pundits, journalists and even economists have strained to find the reasons for our nation’s economic meltdown, stumbling over tortured concepts like “structured investment vehicles” and “collateralized debt.”
The underlying problem is much simpler. In fact, it can be described in six words: The corporate search for cheap labor.
While some people may have overextended themselves by taking out loans on their homes or piling up credit card debt for non-essentials, millions of Americans had no choice but to survive through debt. They needed to pay for health care, college tuition and car repairs. Why? Because even working two or three jobs, they aren’t paid sufficiently to support their families. Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren repeatedly has discussed how the majority of personal bankruptcies happen after a medical crisis or job loss, rather than because of too many 124-inch flat screen TV sets.
