‘I Am Not Your ATM’
Working people have plenty to be angry with Wall Street about. A $700 billion bailout. Toxic assets and loan guarantees to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars. A financial crisis and credit crunch. Billions of dollars in six- and seven-figure bonuses to the Wall Street executives who got us into this mess.
Unemployment reaching 10 percent. A mortgage crisis extending far beyond subprime loans. Abusive credit and debit card fees. More than five job-seekers for every one job.
Wall Street has treated Main Street as a giant ATM—gambling with the economy, then coming back with their hands out for help. But somehow, no matter how much help the banks need to survive, they always have the resources to fight proposals to regulate them or get them to pay their fair share.
Snow? Oh, No. It’s Still the Economy
Here are a few tidbits worth noting from around the nation’s economic scene.
Bob Herbert at the New York Times puts the sorry U.S. unemployment rate in clearer–and more painful–perspective today, pointing out how the workers losing jobs are those who had almost no income to begin with.
The highest group, with household incomes of $150,000 or more, had an unemployment rate during that quarter of 3.2 percent. The next highest, with incomes of $100,000 to 149,999, had an unemployment rate of 4 percent.
Contrast those figures with the unemployment rate of the lowest group, which had annual household incomes of $12,499 or less. The unemployment rate of that group during the fourth quarter of last year was a staggering 30.8 percent. That’s more than five points higher than the overall jobless rate at the height of the Depression.
U.S. Jobless Rate Now 9.7%, but Millions Fear Losing Unemployment Insurance
The U.S. unemployment rate fell from 10 percent to 9.7 percent in January, with 14.8 million workers now without jobs. Employment continued to decrease in construction and transportation and increase in retail, health care and temp work, according to U.S. Department of Labor data out this morning. Unemployment among black workers continued to worsen.
When both unemployed and underemployed workers are counted, there still are 25.5 million people without jobs or full-time work.
As AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says:
We welcome the news that unemployment dropped to 9.7%, but we shed another 20,000 jobs last month, following a revised 150,000 loss in December. These numbers underscore what we have been saying all along. Working families need bigger and bolder actions—in the short, medium and long term—to create jobs in the immediate future—or we risk permanent scarring of our economy and our workforce.
Among the worst aspects of the nation’s unacceptably high unemployment rate—and there are many—the growing numbers of long-term jobless workers is something that can, and must, be addressed immediately. Long-term U.S. unemployment (those without a job for 27 weeks or longer), with more than 6 million unemployed workers out of a job for more than six months. In January, the number of long-term unemployed workers worsened, to 6.3 million workers.
But the unemployment insurance (UI) extension for millions of workers expires Feb. 28, unless Congress—specifically, the Senate—takes action.
Danger: Falling Middle Class
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Jack Cafferty at CNN this week asked viewers one of his seemingly routine questions. But the responses to: “How has definition of ‘middle-class American’ changed?” reveal a cataclysmic shift in our nation’s economic identity.
Gary from El Centro, Calif., summed up the vast majority of the nearly 200 responses when he replied:
You should ask this question of the three or four people in the country still remaining in the middle class.
The comments reflect more than the run-of-the-mill griping about taxes or middle-aged discontent. They demonstrate a visceral understanding of the deep forces underlying the dramatic change that in recent decades has eroded the solid financial footing of America’s working families—America’s middle class.
In short, the American public knows what most lawmakers in Washington and policymakers around the country have yet to figure out: The nation is losing its middle-class backbone and bifurcating into a have/have not country.
The Rich Are Different. They Have Jobs
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Goldman Sachs, one of the Wall Street firms that got the H1N1 flu shot well ahead of millions of America’s school children, sent this health tip in a memo to its pampered, out-of-touch execs: “Resist the urge to open your own car door; let your driver do it.”
Yo, Jeeves. While you’re at it, dust around the edges of those massive CEO pay packages. Because according to a report released today by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), top executives at four companies that jettisoned their employee pension plans received $49.5 million in retirement and severance benefits in the years before the companies filed for bankruptcy, while retirees saw their benefits cut by as much as two-thirds.
Yet Wall Street bankers are making that cash flow keeps coming: Yesterday, writes David Dayen, Senate Republicans bowed low before their corporate masters and delayed a move by Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) to immediately take up a bill that would freeze all credit card rates, charges and fee increases.
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.
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.
Senate Clears the Way for Vote on Aid for Jobless Workers
After weeks of obstruction by Republican Senate leaders, millions of jobless workers who have or who will soon run out of unemployment insurance (UI) benefits may finally have a chance to grab an economic lifeline in the form of extended UI benefits.
The U.S. Senate yesterday approved a procedural motion that clears the way to a vote on legislation (H.R. 3548) that would provide an additional 14 weeks of benefits to unemployed workers in all states and up to 20 weeks in states with especially high jobless rates.
The Senate could vote as early as tomorrow, but a Thursday vote is more likely. Call your senators today and urge them to take swift action and pass H.R. 3548. You can call the Capitol switchboard (202-224-3121) and ask to be connected to your senators or click here to find your senators’ office numbers.
Unemployment Insurance Must Be Extended for Struggling Workers
With 26 million U.S. workers unemployed or underemployed, and the long-term jobless rate the highest since 1981—hundreds of thousands of struggling workers need relief. The U.S. Senate is expected to take action next week on an extension of unemployment insurance (UI).
Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) says struggling workers will receive a much-needed boost from the UI extension—and workers whose UI has already run out will see it resume:
Our proposal from the outset has been simple: Let’s support those families who have been hardest hit by the recession. In the almost three weeks since Republicans first began to delay this measure, over 150,000 Americans have lost their unemployment benefits. Those Americans, and the thousands of others who will lose their benefits if we don’t act, need us to act now. It cannot be overstated how critical this assistance is to workers.
Showdown in Chicago: Thousands Protest Bankers
UPDATE: Check out photos and a video from today’s rally.
More than 5,000 people are packing the streets of downtown Chicago this morning, chanting, marching and rallying against Big Bankers and financial institutions that have taken taxpayer money and are using it to give big bonuses to CEOs and to lobby against financial reforms that would ensure they don’t go back on the public dole.
The crowd is marching to the Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers, site of the American Bankers Association meeting, to protest the banking industry’s greed and irresponsibility that crippled our economy, leaving millions of workers behind.
After the house of cards they built collapsed, bankers and the financial industry took $700 billion in taxpayer funds for a bailout. But rather than reform their failed practices, they want to go back to business as usual—with the chance of again precipitating another financial collapse and need for taxpayer bailout in coming years.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, who is joining union members and allies at today’s events, has a clear message to bankers: You work for us.
