Inequality is a major problem of our country and of our economy. As one example of the issue, private equity companies make fortunes by closing up business at home and moving that business some where else. This takes place at the the expense of everyone else who loses big time in terms of losing their pensions, losing their homes, losing their incomes - among many other loses (health care, dignity, etc.).
When workers in the United States lose their job, it is not just that immediate income that disapears, it is very likely the prospects of future income that are seriously jeopardized. If one is able to find another job to replace the one just lost, it is likely at less pay and with fewer benefits.
The newspapers act as cheerleaders for the wealthy elite and manipulate the economic data to demonstrate that the economy is growing and that employment is growing. Meanwhile, there are millions of people in this country who want jobs but have given up looking or who would like full-time work but cannot find it in this disfunctional economy.
There are more than 2 million Americans 'workers' who have been unemployed for more than six months and are still looking for a job. A full quarter of all unemployed workers are what we call 'long-term unemployed'... and that' using 'official' statistics... reality is quite different and would include those who have given up the search for a job.
Many 'faithful' Americans are waiting for their income to keep up with the cost of living in this country. But, because of slow employment growth, wage growth doesn't exist. While corporate profits have grown, middle-class workers must adjust to rising costs and stagnant wages.
After supporting big banks and corporations with free loans, the federal reserve has raised interest rates in an effort to halt fictious inflation. Both government debt and corporate debt is growing as revenue and sales shrink.
Unemployed and under-employed people do not have money to spend. Retail operations are feelling that effect. As the Christmas shopping season ends, so do many retail jobs and retail careers.
The Ohio-based chain The Limited, shut their doors at shopping malls across the United States. The company had 235 stores nationwide and 4,000 employees began the process of layoffs in December and then closed their stores on in January.
Macy’s announced it was closing 68 stores and eliminating more than 10,000 jobs. Sears also said it will shut down another 150 Sears and Kmart stores, after poor holiday sales. Kohls and JC Penney have recently had mass layoff of employees.
No place is safe for the American worker. The Big Three Detroit-based automakers are also removing American workers, including the elimination of entire shifts while getting rid of more than 3,000 jobs in their assembly plants.
The IRS continues to favor corporations over people by allowing 'tax loopholes' through which corporations make a fortune by shipping American jobs overseas.
The Carrier plant in Indianapolis is closing and moving production to Monterrey, Mexico. The move will eliminate at least 1,400 jobs in Indianapolis.
The Nabisco plant in Chicago , makers of Oreo cookies and other processed foods, was closed and moved to Mexico. Approximately 300 jobs were lost.
Verizon has plans to move call center jobs to Mexico and to the Philippines.
The list of job loses goes on and on: Lexington, Kentucky-based Lexmark International is laying off 320, or 10 percent, of its software business employees...Data-storage company Seagate Technology Inc. has cut 155 jobs at its Shakopee, Minnesota facility... Alorica will cut 200 jobs at its customer communications center in Utica, New York... Dole Packaged Foods will close its Stockton, California frozen yogurt product plant, eliminating 30 hourly and supervisory jobs.
"General Electric was still a leader in outsourcing, going from 125,000 manufacturing jobs in the US in 2000 to just 50,000 jobs in 2010. A Wall Street Journal study found that GE, along with 10 of the largest multinational corporations, eliminated 2.9 million American jobs while creating 2.4 million jobs overseas between 2000 and 2010. In the two years following the global economic recession, American corporations cut 500,000 jobs in the US while creating 729,000 jobs elsewhere. Research shows that from 2008 to 2012 US firms with the lowest effective tax rate shed over 60,000 jobs. GE is among those 14 companies and their announcement to send even more jobs overseas is further proof that our lawmakers serve as bag-men for these corporations at the expense of taxpayers and workers alike.
The problem is corporate welfare without accountability. If loans and tax incentives create quality, well-paying jobs, that’s good for all concerned. But when companies take billions in tax dollars, loan guarantees and incentives, yet do not create or sustain jobs then the real term for what they are doing is corporate theft. That is what General Electric is engaged in: the theft of billions in taxpayer dollars with nothing to show for it but a shuttered factory in Houston."
So, as the corporate media boasts of a growing economy and a bright outlook for corporate profits, it really appears that the average working person in this country is in for a struggle.
In the 20th century, housing was the average American's route to building financial equity, but housing suddenly became a burden and is not even considered an option for those struggling to find decent fulfilling work.
Hard work isn't doing it for Americans... we are the only country in 'the Americas' without a national paid parental leave benefit. The average is over 12 weeks of paid leave everywhere in North American and South America. In Europe the average benefit is over 20 weeks. We are the only industrialized nation in the whole world without a mandatory option for new parents to take parental leave.
The data is everywhere one looks and is easy to find... The United States is the only country out of 134 industrialized countries having no laws setting the maximum length of the work week. This results in over 80 percent of males and over 65 percent of females forced by circumstances to work more than 40 hours per week. Americans work 137 more hours per year than Japanese workers, 260 more hours per year than British workers, and 499 more hours per year than French workers.”
The truth is that the American worker is 400 times as productive today as compared to 1950. That means that the American worker should have the same standard of living today as in 1950 by working only 11 hours per week. Clearly anyone can see that this is not the case. Today, the average worker earning a minimum wage is middle aged and is struggling between multiple jobs to attain a basic survival level standard of living.
Economically, for the average working American, things do not look very good in this new year, and that's the truth !!!
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Tuesday, January 10, 2017
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