Jobs Report: More Bad News Calls for Change
March 9, 2013
by Randy Shannon
Progressive Democrats of America, PA Coordinator
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported a large increase in jobs in February as compared to January. At the same time the January jobs data was revised lower, which gave a boost to the February number. Let’s look at what happened to the people behind the numbers.
This graph shows two sets of data: the Employment to Population ratio and the Labor Force Participation rate. These are updated with February data.
They show that the percent of the population employed has not changed in February. The Employment-Population ratio was unchanged at 58.6% in February (black line).
It also shows that fewer members of the labor force are working.The Labor Force Participation Rate decreased to 63.5% in February (blue line). This is the percentage of the working age population in the labor force.
How can this be true with all the jobs added and the drop in the unemployment rate that the corporate media is advertising?
The answer starts with the rise in the number of long term unemployed shown in this second graph. According to the BLS, there are 4.8 million workers who have been unemployed for more than 26 weeks and still want a job. This is up from 4.71 million in January.
Long term unemployment is a violation of the UN Declaration of Human Rights. Long term unemployment is the ugly reality of dead end capitalism. The media doesn’t like to talk about this issue. These folks don’t count when calculating the unemployment rate.
The composition of the new jobs also contributes to the happy headline numbers. The February report shows that the number of part-time workers increased while the number of full-time workers decreased. Voila! more jobs. In February according to the Household Survey, the number of full-time jobs declined by 77K from 115,918 to 115,841 while part-time workers rose from 27,467 to 27,569, or 102K.
The income disparity is getting worse and the spending power of working people is further declining while more jobs are being created. This is not the stuff that makes for an economic recovery. The impact on working families is shown in this graph of wages and salaries compared to the value of the fruits of our labor (GDP).
The point of sequestration and austerity is to drive this line lower and lower to make corporate profits higher and higher. This thinking is natural for owners of finance but it is flawed because profits can only be realized when workers consume the output of their own labor.
The graph titled ‘multiple job holders’ shows an interesting development raised by blogger Zero Hedge: “But the most surprising development in February from a quality standpoint was that the number of multiple job-holders rose by a massive 340K, which just happens to be a record. One wonders: how many actual people got new jobs, as opposed to how many qualified single individuals ended up getting more than one job in February in order to boost that much needed weekly income to sustainable levels.”
This last graph should be familiar to those who’ve read It’s Time to Fight for Full Employment. This shows the slow paced advance out of the depths of the employment recession that began in 2007. This is a much longer and deeper employment recession than any since the Great Depression. It is evidence that the system isn’t working any more and those in control have lost control.
The rise in jobs just this year has come at the cost of $1.2 trillion in US government debt. Most of this debt was transfers to the big global criminal banks that are speculating in stocks, bonds, and politicians while calling for more austerity for working people.
The political servants of the wealthy, now in power, must be replaced by political servants of the people. Then our capital can be invested in productive enterprises, our social fabric can be repaired, and the criminal banks can be liquidated.
A Congress controlled by Progressive Democrats can pass HR 1000, the 21st Century Full Employment Act, that will tax Wall Street speculation to create a jobs and training fund controlled by the Department of Labor. Such a Congress will pass HR 676, the Medicare for All Act that will put everyone on Medicare, save $billions and create 3 million new jobs in the healthcare sector. Such a Congress will pass S 332,the Climate Protection Act, that will tax carbon to fund consumer rebates and transfer energy production from climate killing carbon burning to renewable solar, wind, and geothermal energy, another huge job creation project.
Voters in the PA 12th Congressional District are ready for a progressive Democrat to represent them in Congress. They have shown that corporate Democrats who oppose equal rights for women, who don’t support the top of the ticket, who oppose EPA protection for our air and water, and who cater to the right, can’t win elections anymore. Union members, young people, minorities, and women want to move our district out of the past and into a future of jobs, healthcare, and a sustainable environment.
Thanks to Calculated Risk for some of the charts. To join Progressive Democrats of America, go to http://www.pdamerica.org.
It’s Official: Banks Too Big to Fail are Too Big to Jail
By Robert Borosage
Beaver County Blue
March 7, 2013 – For years, the Obama Administration has been pummeled for failing to bring criminal charges against a single major Wall Street bank or a single leading Wall Street banker for what the FBI termed an “epidemic of fraud” that blew up the entire economy. Investigations revealed the banks committed routine fraud in peddling mortgage securities they knew were garbage, trampled basic property laws, laundered money from Iran, Libya and Mexican drug lords, conspired to game the basic measure of interest rates and more. Yet, time after time, the Justice Department and regulatory agencies settled for sweetheart deals, with no admission of guilt, no banker held accountable, and fines that were the equivalent in earnings of a speeding ticket to the average family.
Yesterday Attorney General Holder stated openly what was already apparent. The Justice Department believes that Too Big to Fail Banks are Too Big to Jail. Criminal indictments against banks or leading bankers might endanger the economy and thus were too big a risk.
Here’s what Holder said
“I am concerned that the size of some of these institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them when we are hit with indications that if you do prosecute, if you do bring a criminal charge, it will have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy,” he said. “And I think that is a function of the fact that some of these institutions have become too large.”
Holder was responding to questions by Republican Senator Charles Grassley about why the Justice Department brought no criminal charges against the large British bank HSBC after it admitted laundering money for parties in Iran, Libya and Mexican drug lords.
Continue reading It’s Official: Banks Too Big to Fail are Too Big to Jail
McDonald’s ‘Guest Workers’ in Harrisburg Area Stage Surprise Strike
McDonald’s Workers in NYC
By Josh Eidelson
Beaver County Blue via The Nation
March 6, 2013 – Alleging unpaid wages and repeated retaliation, McDonald’s workers in central Pennsylvania launched a surprise strike at 11 this morning. The strikers are student guest workers from Latin America and Asia, brought to the United States under the controversial J-1 cultural exchange visa program. Their employer is one of the thousands of McDonald’s franchisees with whom the company contracts to run its ubiquitous stores.
“We are afraid,” striker Jorge Victor Rios told The Nation prior to the work stoppage. “But we are trying to overcome our fear.”
The McDonald’s corporation did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The J-1 visa program is officially intended to promote educational and cultural exchange. But advocates allege that J-1, like the other guest worker programs that collectively bring hundreds of thousands of workers in and out of the United States each year, is rife with abuse. The National Guestworker Alliance (NGA), the organization spearheading today’s strike, charges that such programs—whose future is intimately tied up with the fate of comprehensive immigration reform—offer ample opportunities for employers to intimidate workers, suppress organizing and drive down labor standards.
“McDonald’s is just the latest in a long line of corporations that have hijacked the US guest worker program to get cheap, exploitable labor, and that’s what the students are,” NGA Executive Director Saket Soni told The Nation. “The conditions are horrific, but have become the norm for guest workers.”
The workers are striking over what they charge are rampant abuses at their stores in Harrisburg and nearby Lemoyne and Camp Hill. According to NGA, the visiting students each paid $3,000 or more for the chance to come and work, and were promised full-time employment; most received only a handful of hours a week, while others worked shifts as long as twenty-five hours straight, without being paid overtime. “Their employer is also their landlord,” said Soni. “They’re earning sub-minimum wages, and then paying it back in rent” to share a room with up to seven co-workers. “Their weekly net pay is actually sometimes brought as low as zero.”
Continue reading McDonald’s ‘Guest Workers’ in Harrisburg Area Stage Surprise Strike
GOP Worships the ‘Hand,’ Disrespects Those Who Work With Them
By Leo Gerard
Beaver County Blue via HuffPost
March 4, 2013 – The invisible hand of the market, which the GOP worships as an infallible god, is curled into a fist and is pounding America’s lowest-paid workers.
Those workers have complained about the grinding poverty level of minimum wage. Wal-Mart warehouse workers and New York fast food workers recently demonstrated. They’re fed up. Well, they would be if they could afford enough to eat. President Obama responded, asking Congress to raise the minimum wage, which was last increased to $7.25 an hour in 2009.
Republicans, the party of NO, replied to Obama’s request with a surly, "No way!" Respect the hand, they said, referring to their beloved spectral regulator of the market. Government, Republicans said, must not tell business what to do, must not "burden" business by requiring it to pay a little more. Republicans never mention the burden under which 18 million minimum wage workers struggle, working full-time for $15,080 a year, barely enough to feed, clothe and house themselves. That’s because Republicans revere non-humans — corporations and invisible hands — while denigrating and disrespecting humans who work with their hands to serve food, care for the elderly and stock shelves.
The disrespect could be heard in Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s voice as he derided 47 percent of all Americans as "takers." That huge number Romney despises includes minimum wage workers – 84 percent of whom are 20 or older — whose children receive immunizations and antibiotics through Medicaid because employers paying minimum wage virtually never provide health insurance.
Continue reading GOP Worships the ‘Hand,’ Disrespects Those Who Work With Them
Defeated Rep. Mark Critz to Work as Energy Lobbyist
Former One Term Congressman Mark Critz Joins Astroturfed Energy Firm
February 26, 2013
By Sean Kitchen
When will the revolving door in politics stop spinning? No one may never know, but in the mean time, former Congressman Mark Critz just became the latest corporate democrat to sell out and become a lobbyist. Mr. Critz has found a job with EIS Solutions, a “grassroots (according to PoliticsPA) energy lobbying firm”. According to Politics PA, he’ll be a Senior VP in right smack in the middle Shale Country – or Johnstown, PA. Here’s an excerpt from the article.
“As a former Member of Congress and district director for Congressman John Murtha, Mark Critz has the experience and relationships at the local level to help difficult projects get approval,” EIS Solutions President Wade Haerle said. “Mark knows how to navigate local politics and governmental bureaucracies at the state and federal levels and will be an asset to clients seeking to build local support for energy related projects in the coal and natural gas industries.”
“It was an honor to serve the people of Western Pennsylvania in Congress where I had the opportunity fight for jobs and economic development,” Critz said in a company press release. “Development of our energy resources is vital to growing our regional economy and making our nation independent of foreign sources of energy. I look forward to working to make sure that our region develops these resources in a safe, responsible manner while working to grow our economy and meet our energy needs.”
What Politics PA fails to mention is that Mark Critz was fairly generous with the natural gas industry in PA. While in the House, his voting record energy issues included him voting “yea” on the: “No More Solyndra Act,” “Stop the War On Coal Act,” extending the Keystone XL Pipeline, and to amend the Clean Water Act. Over the past year I had a couple of twitter battles with Critz and one time he stated something along the lines that solar energy production is worse for the environment than fracking for natural gas. So it looks like that this is a match made in heaven for the “democrat.” Mr. Gibson also fails to mention that this “grassroots” effort that Critz is joining an astroturfed – an energy funded – lobbying group.
Continue reading Defeated Rep. Mark Critz to Work as Energy Lobbyist
Pitt Students in Solidarity with Garment Workers
University of Pittsburgh heats up over sweatshops
By Alex Zimmerman
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Feb. 24, 2013 – When Joe Thomas dropped off a letter signed by 25 student organizations at University of Pittsburgh chancellor Mark Nordenberg’s office, he thought he’d get a response.
When he didn’t get one, he helped persuade 24 more student organizations — including Pitt’s student government board — to drop off letters themselves.
"We were dropping off letters just about every day," Mr. Thomas said.
The letters ask Pitt to affiliate with the Worker Rights Consortium, an independent monitoring organization that works with 180 universities across the country to investigate factories where university-licensed apparel is manufactured.
Continue reading Pitt Students in Solidarity with Garment Workers
The Minimum Wage Would Be $21.72 An Hour If It Rose With Productivity Since 1968
From boldprogressives.org
Activists are mobilizing around President Obama’s call to raise the minimum wage to $9.00, and polling shows that Americans across the political spectrum agree with such a policy.
But here’s an interesting fact about what the minimum wage could be instead. The Center for Economic and Policy Research’s John Dewitt looked at what the minimum wage would be if it simply rose with productivity — that is, if workers were actually paid for the increasing amount of output — since 1968, and found that it would be almost 3 times what it is now:
Since 1968, however, productivity growth has far outpaced the minimum wage. If the minimum wage had continued to move with average productivity after1968, it would have reached $21.72 per hour in 2012 – a rate well above the average production worker wage. If minimum-wage workers received only half of the productivity gains over the period, the federal minimum would be $15.34.
Even Obama’s modest plan to raise the minimum wage is expected to face intense opposition from Big Business and its lobbyists.
US Capitalism Redistributing Wealth ‘Upward’
Nine Economic Facts That Will Make Your Head Spin
By Lynn Stuart Parramore
Beaver County Blue via Alternet.org
Feb 18, 2013 | How much will you need for medical expenses in retirement? What does it cost to keep 2.5 million Americans behind bars? Here are a few facts and figures that might surprise you.
1. Recovery for the rich, recession for the rest.
Economic recovery is in rather limited supply, it seems. Research by economist Emmanuel Saez shows that the top 1 percent has enjoyed income growth of over 11 percent [3] since the official end of the recession. The other 99 percent hasn’t fared so well, seeing a 0.4 percent decline in income.
The top 10 percent of earners hauled in 46.5 percent of all income in 2011, the highest proportion since 1917 – and that doesn’t even include money earned from investments. The wealthy have benefitted from favorable tax status and the rise in stock prices, while the rest have been hit with a continuing unemployment crisis that has kept wages down. Saez believes this trend will continue in 2013.
2. Half of us are poor or barely scraping by.
The latest Census Bureau data shows that one in two Americans currently falls into either the “low income” category or is living in poverty. Low-income is defined as those earning between 100 and 199 percent of the poverty level. Adjusted for inflation, the earnings for the bottom 20 percent of families have dropped from $16,788 in 1979 to just under $15,000. Earnings for the next 20 percent have been stuck at $37,000.
States in the South and West had the highest proportion of low-income families, including Arizona, New Mexico and South Carolina, where politicians are eagerly shredding the social safety net.
Continue reading US Capitalism Redistributing Wealth ‘Upward’
Why We Like Elizabeth Warren!
Elizabeth Warren Grills Banking Regulators at First Hearing
By Rachel Rose Hatman
Yahoo News
Democrats eager to see consumer champion Elizabeth Warren take Wall Street’s biggest banks to task got their wish on Thursday when the newly elected Democratic senator made her debut at a Senate Banking Committee hearing.
"What I’d like to know is tell me a little bit about the last few times you’ve taken the biggest financial institutions on Wall Street all the way to a trial," the Massachusetts lawmaker said to applause, speaking to the federal regulators gathered for a hearing on Wall Street reform.
No witnesses spoke up.
Warren raised her eyebrows. "Anybody?" she asked.
Thomas Curry, head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, spoke up: "We’ve actually had a fair number of consent orders. We do not have to bring people to a trial…"
"I appreciate that you say you don’t have to bring them to trial," Warren said. "My question is, when did you bring them to trial?"
"We have not had to do it as a practical matter to achieve our supervisory goals," Curry said.
Warren moved on to the rest of the panel, knowing full well that none of the regulators present have brought a Wall Street bank to trial.
"I’m really concerned that ‘too big to fail’ has become ‘too big for trial,’" Warren later said.
Warren ousted Republican Sen. Scott Brown in November in a hard-fought campaign. She was President Barack Obama’s first pick in 2011 to head up the government’s newly established Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an entity the former Harvard University law professor and attorney helped create. But Republicans in Washington essentially killed her nomination, citing her record of taking on big banks and Wall Street. That opposition helped boost Warren’s reputation and led Democrats nationwide to embrace her decision to run for U.S. Senate.
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