Trumka at Netroots Nation: New Industrial Policy for a Globalized World
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka laid out a 21st century U.S. economic policy at today’s lunchtime keynote session at Netroots Nation before a diverse crowd of 2,000 progressive political activists. Restoring the nation’s middle class in part means returning to a “real economy”—one in which we make things, rather than move around complex financial products, Trumka said. Strengthening U.S. manufacturing must be part of the process to reverse five decades of stagnating wages.
We have to think big and we have to go big. We have to let go of this notion that we can’t compete in this world. We can compete. Other countries are already doing this and so can we. We can’t get left behind.
Speaking as part of a panel on Building a Progressive Economic Vision, Trumka outlined the need for the the nation to invest in infrastructure, implement fair trade policies, change our tax policies, enact comprehensive immigration reform and reform our broken labor laws. The full panel included consumer advocate Elizabeth Warren, progressive Florida Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson, Center for Community Change Executive Director Deepak Bhargava, Green for All’s Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins and National People’s Action Executive Director George Goehl. (Watch it here.)
Study: Wealth Gap Between Blacks, Whites Quadrupled
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A disturbing new study shows African American families have fewer economic resources to fall back on during this economic crisis than do white families, mainly due to discrimination and tax policies that favor the rich.
The study by the Institute on Assets and Social Policy at Brandeis University reveals that the wealth gap between blacks and whites has more than quadrupled over the course of a generation from $20,000 to $95,000. The researchers studied the same set of families over 23 years (1984-2007) and found that white families were able to build assets-what you own minus what you owe, excluding home equity-while blacks essentially lost assets. In fact, a typical white family is now five times richer than its African-American counterpart of the same class.
That means blacks had little or no money to start businesses, send children to college or ensure a secure retirement, the authors say. In fact, because many low-wealth families are forced to turn to high-interest rate credit for emergencies, about 25 percent of all African Americans owe more than they own. Read the entire study here.
Where Things Are Made
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AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka is a key speaker at tomorrow’s Building the New Economy conference here in Washington, D.C. United Steelworkers President Leo Gerard and economist Jeff Madrick also are among the keynote speakers.
To our nation’s peril, the free trade orthodoxy continues to ignore a fundamental economic fact: It matters where things are made. Over the past decade, the U.S. industrial base has suffered an unprecedented decline. The loss of more than 5 million manufacturing jobs and the closure of over 50,000 manufacturing facilities have undermined our nation’s technical capacity to innovate and to make things, while at the same time decimating our middle class.
