2011 sees a society of mass poverty, and vast wealth on the other—tens of millions of people are impoverished and desperate, while a relative handful enjoy a quality life.
Government agencies and social service organizations document the tidal wave of human need in statistics that are increasingly mind-boggling: 50 million Americans live below the official poverty line, while another 100 million live in “near-poverty,” struggling to support themselves on incomes so low that they are one misfortune away from destitution.
Some 25 million workers are either unemployed or underemployed, 50 million live without health insurance, one out of every seven Americans receives food assistance. The number of self-employed Americans has fallen by two million over the past five years. Nearly six million of the jobless have been out of work for more than six months.
The jobs crisis has steadily worsened, not only year-to-year, but decade after decade. American capitalism continues to generate record corporate profits and wealth for the super-rich, but is less and less able to provide employment for working people.
According to a study by the McKinsey consulting firm, it took six months for the US economy to return to pre-recession job levels after the 1982 recession.
The duration of mass unemployment is the driving force of a social crisis that blights the future of young and old. One out of every four American children depends on food stamps. Some 1.6 million children were homeless at some point or other during this year. For young workers aged 18 to 24, jobless rates exceed the Depression level of 20 percent. Nearly 20 percent of all American men between the ages of 25 and 34 are now living with their parents.
The minimum wage is just as important now as it was in 1938, when the wage law was enacted as part of the Fair Labor Standards Act, with a promise of guaranteeing
workers “a standard of living necessary for health, efficiency and general wellbeing.”
Now we must fight for a living wage
The federal rate was 25 cents an hour, with states and local governments free to set their own minimums, as long as they are above the federal rate. Today’s rates are much higher, of course, although barely adequate. The federal rate is $7.25 an hour,
only about $15,000 a year for full-time workers before taxes and other deductions. Eighteen states, more than 100 cities and counties and the District of Columbia
have higher rates, but their rates also are clearly inadequate.
During his 2008 election campaign, President Obama proposed raising the minimum to $9.50 an hour by 2011. But even though that would merely adjust the minimum
wage for inflation, Congress and the White House have and will done nothing to make it happen.
Some of Obama’s Republican and Libertarian opponents in Congress actually have called for the minimum wage to be abolished, largely because their big money backers in
the restaurant business, who employ about 60 percent of all minimum wage workers, are against it, as are many other business and corporate interests
Meanwhile, those nearer the end of their working life have little to look forward to: according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute, 46 percent of all American workers have less than $10,000 saved for retirement, and 29 percent of all American workers have less than $1,000 saved for retirement.
Four million American families have seen foreclosure since the sub-prime mortgage crisis first erupted in 2007. 54 Million children live in poverty and harmlessness.
Nearly 12 million families occupy homes that are under water, financially speaking—the mortgage debt is more than the dwellings are worth in the depressed housing market.
The entire political segment , the Obama White House and Congress alike, are callously indifferent to the suffering of the population. These wealthy people cannot even relate to us filling us with American Dream non-sense.
While the vast majority of the American people confront increasing difficulty in meeting their basic social and economic requirements, the financial oligarchy lives in a different universe. These people have no empathy or understanding or even a acre about the human condition.
We needed to get rid of the two party-(one with two wings for a long time. We must change now and have a good Democratic Socialist Party in Office. The new American Revolution and change can only come from electing new political representative. Think American Labor Party=http://go.to/amlabor