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Unemployed Become a Political Football
GOP hysteria throws goodness, and American families, under the bus.
Fifteen million Americans are currently unemployed, and nearly half of that number has been actively and fruitlessly seeking employment for longer than six months. The depth and breadth of our labor market crisis is the greatest in over 50 years.
Though the unemployment rate dropped slightly in June from 9.7 percent to 9.5 percent, this is deceiving.
As noted economist Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research explains, joblessness receded slightly only because 652,000 Americans left the labor force in June. Additionally, the number of employed workers fell by over 300,000 and the "establishment survey" of businesses, used by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, shows that average hourly wages and workweek hours are declining.
Thank goodness for unemployment insurance, which helps cushion us from abject poverty in the face of such a dearth of jobs. At least Congress consistently does one thing right. Historically, both sides of the aisle have been able to agree that when unemployed workers are unable to find jobs due to no fault of their own, a decent society provides a cushion so that they can weather the storm until able once again to contribute to rebuilding our economy.
Wait...Goodness is telling me that it has no reason to be thanked--Congress hasn't consulted it. In fact, Republicans and deficit-hawk Democrats have not only turned their backs on goodness, but on the nation's 15 million unemployed people, and the children and families who depend upon them.
Even though economists of all stripes and allegiances understand that unemployment benefits are among our most effective tools in a job crisis and the current recession, lawmakers are betting that fanning the flames of deficit hysteria will get them re-elected in the fall. Despite attempts to extend critically needed, but expiring, unemployment benefits, the Senate has once again let us down. Republicans filibustered attempts to help American workers. Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, a Democrat, joined them, leaving Senate Dems one short of staving off a bit of suffering to millions of us before leaving town to enjoy their own sumptuous Fourth of July picnics.
Then there's Sharron Angle, the GOP nominee vying for Majority Leader Harry Reid's Nevada Senate seat. She sparked uproar akin to Rep. Joe Barton's disgraceful apology to BP when she suggested that the unemployed in our country are spoiled. Following a barrage of criticism, she attempted trying to rewrite these comments with this puzzler as to what she really meant: "What has happened is the system of entitlement has caused us to have spoilage with our ability to go out and get a job...There are some jobs out there that are available. Because they have to enter at a lower grade and they cannot keep their unemployment, they have to make a choice now."
As reported by the National Employment Law Project, the Economic Policy Institute, and the Department of Labor, there are nearly five workers actively vying for every one available job.
So, c'mon. We may be jobless, we may be angry and frustrated that jobs have disappeared and there is seemingly no political will to create more through a second stimulus, we may be plunging increasingly into poverty through no fault of our own. We may be dismayed that goodness has been abandoned by many on Capitol Hill. But we aren't stupid. And we aren't spoiled, and our children don't deserve the long-term effects of poverty that Congress is foisting upon them in bids for votes in the fall elections.
Angle and the filibustering Republicans-plus- Nelson are out of touch and playing a dangerous game. Though they may ultimately lose office, the most immediate and devastated losers in their game are millions of Americans and their families who have been kicked to the curb, as their unemployment benefits expire.
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38 Comments so far
Show AllThe Republicans and Nelson know that the Democrats will take more heat from the voters for passing TARP, Obamacare and other corporate welfare programs than the Republicans will take for denying unemployment insurance payment extensions.
Key-rect!
Ben Nelson should be unemployed
As one of the millions of Americans who has now been unemployed for more than a year, (this week marks my one year anniversary) I can report that I have sent over 500 resumes to job postings. I have 2 Masters Degrees and many years of experience. Overqualified? Maybe. Willing to take a lower level position? Yes.
I paid into the UI system and now I am taking it out. I am not content to sit back and do nothing, nor have I turned down any offers.
It is an awful job market. Only someone with a job would throw stones.
It is amazing that in Nevada, a state with one of the highest unemployment rates, a politician is able to make an issue out denying unemployment benefits.
The lunatics have taken over the asylum.
Aimlow Joe was here.
http://www.aimlow.com
Aimlow, i am really sorry for your situation. its truly a crime, exacerbated by a Congress that ignores you and millions more of us. Its maddening and disgusting what they are doing....
best of luck to you...
karen
One thing that happens with the "overqualified" is the very obvious. Most people will take any job. They WANT to work. The employer however looks and sees the qualifications and says "This guy/gal will leave as soon as something better comes along".
Why would such a firm pay someone 12 bucks an hour if there are thousands more looking for that job who are more likley to stick around?
This is one thing a lot of people do not understand when they see someone with a lot of experience or degrees out of work. They immediatley attribute it to laziness or "being too good to take job XXXXX"
Maybe job applicant needs to avoid mentioning their qualifications. Get rid of those letters after you name! Describe youself as having a HS edication and nothing else, and in the resume or job application, change titles like "Project Engineer" to "Clerk" or "Technician".
It is called a "felxible work force". The Capitalists love it!
The Republicans and the Democrats don't give a damn whether you live or die. The middle of the month is near and they are breathlessly awaiting their envelopes with the next installment of pay-off money.
You've got the Callous Corporatists on the one hand and the "Compassionate" Corportatists on the other. It's like a professional wrestling puppet show.
Mordechai, i agree with you more than i care to admit, cuz i find it so dismaying. what do you think can help? can real stories, real faces, etc make a difference for some on the hill? for enough of them? do you think its all without hope?
karen
The article's writer seems to be assuming that Obama and the leadership in either party actually has any empathy or compassion for the unemployed, or for anyone below the donor class of those making over $250K/yr.. What a silly, naive, delusion. Mordichai's right on the money with his post!
UU, I am not sure I assume it, but I do know some members personally who actually not only feel empathy but have even walked in those shoes at one time. they are, though, few. and I more hope that empathy is there than assume it. I also think that even when the right intentions and empathy are indeed present, that too often the political expediency trumps.... But, yes, I may not be as cynical as some, it is true. ....too depressing....
karen
Which do we care about more, democracy or capitalism? If we care about democracy, why is China our number one trading partner? Since China embraced capitalism on her borderlands we can't buy enough of their slave-wages labor product. But if you want to know what China thinks of democracy, google 'Tiananmen square'. If you shop at Walmart, you are sending our corporations a message: you don't care about democracy abroad as long as you can buy cheap cr*p. And if you don't care about democracy abroad, how strong is your commitment to democracy at home?
"Sharron Angle...suggested that the unemployed in our country are spoiled." They sure are, compared to the Chinese. But its possible that what Angle really means is that they are spoiled in that they get to vote for more than one party each election. Hey, Sharron! Maybe the 'spoiled' unemployed are a good place to show us what you mean by 'Second Amendment Solutions' to our broken democracy!
ubrew, maybe we can at least hope that nutcases like Angle will bring down this extreme rightwingnut trend that the teaparty has engendered. And our responsibility, it seems to me, is to capture that populist fear and anger and direct it positively
karen
Have the Dems tried to pass a stand alone UI extension yet?
Part of the problem is that the Dems have tied UI extension to a larger jobs bill.
Last I checked they had not tried to pass a stand alone extension.
It looks like this political football game has two sides kicking the unemployed around the field.
dims and repugs, the dick and dock parties in the US. corrupt, unrepresentative,war mongering and condescending. That Ms. angle character is a real jackass. i guess people who have been made homeless and have to eat catfood are just really spoiled.
i really can't stand the a hole, self important repugs and dicky crats also.
start supporting the green party people. this is the best example why our political system is crap in the US.
matt in galveston
mathew, i agree that a third party is needed. the greens rock.
karen
I agree! And I'll bet a majority of the electorate would support breaking out of the duopoly into a multi-party system. But how do you get people to vote for a candidate that they really like and admire but don't want to vote for them because it would be "throwing the vote to the republicans?" If every democrat, for example, who wished for Kucinich but settled on Clinton or Obama because Kucinich didn't have a chance in hell of winning, then he probably would have won! Every single person I talked to during the primaries said they loved Kucinich but wouldn't vote for him because he "couldn't win." How do you convince people otherwise?
they did try and it hasn't yet worked because of the insistence by deficit hysterics on both sides of the aisle. its frightening the state of things now...these folks MUST know that the stimulative effect of UI will be erased by offsets, yet they insist on offsets to gain political points...
karen
The people in the "financial services industry" (and I know them well, having at one time worked in the world headquarters of one of the too-big-to-fail banks for eight years, in a position where I could peek behind the scenes and see how policies and products are made and sold), don't believe it's a problem.
They're cut off from struggles of ordinary people who work (or look for work) and make do with less. They have enough money to live comfortably in their McMansions and drive their gas guzzling SUVs, buying extra cars for their teenage children, and their investments earn money or don't lose enough to cause them any appreciable lifestyle discomfort. They're decent enough people in their daily interactions; their criminality comes at one or two remove. Just like the insurance bureaucrats who turn down people's medical procedures, they do not experience the suffering their work activities cause, so it's easy for them to deny their complicity. They will even agree with the notion that "greed" is the cause of much of the planet's problems, but they don't see themselves as embodying greed in any way -- why they even give to charity.
Listen to the spokespeople for some of the so-called conservative candidates when they talk about unemployment "enabling" people to live without working. None of them have ever had to try to live on the pittance that unemployment insurance pays, so they can believe that we who don't have jobs are just snickering while we collect benefits that we shouldn't be entitled to.
Until they begin to actually suffer (and by that time it will be WAY too late for the rest of us), they will continue on as they are.
The moral code of our Age:
"If I don't do it, someone else will and it may as well be me who makes a buck on the deal."
Break it down to its basic elements. The system is insane. You want to talk about "generational theft" to re-coin a phrase used in recent parlance by deficit hawks? This planet is being rendered if not uninhabitable, at the very least not habitable by more than a billion or two humans. This has been and may still be preventable, though I have my doubts.
And while I can we identify with the anger you feel, I believe a higher justice would be served by stripping these bastards of their wealth and titles, and dropping them into middle America to struggle to survive with the rest of us. Maybe set up something like the Witness Protection (and relocation) Program, only for assholes. In the end I fear that we only waste our energies plotting revenge against the ruling elite. I'm afraid we have bigger fish to fry.
CommonSenseParty,
we could restore a higher income tax for the wealthy as a start, no?
karen
Paranoid Pessimist,
it is highly disturbing this seeming inability to empathisize with the suffering of others. Do you think that hearing real stories, seeing real faces would help move some of these folks or no? i know there will always be the ideologues and creepies, but don't you think the Dems should have/could have done a much better job at grabbing the populist moment?
karen
You are 100% right, Paranoid. It's disgusting to read some of the recent financial columnists. Case in point: Jeremy Siegel's whining about how unemployment benefits reduce the incentive to take a new job. He cites a recent Chase Bank "study" indicating these benefits increased the unemployment rate by "up to two percentage points." So now people are using a scum-of-the-earth consumer-cheating corporation's so-called study to bolster their hard-hearted attitudes toward the working class. If jobs ARE being declined, most of them would be low paying, possibly exploitative-type work, which thrives during times like these. Actually the figure Chase conjured up was 1.5%, which still leaves over 8.5% unemployed suffering, NOT turning down jobs. Just cyphers for humans like Mr. Siegel, and not-human Chase bank, who charges these unfortunate people over 25% interest rates if they happen to owe them money & miss a payment.
Republicans are eager for this sort of "research" and come to think of it, probably they commissioned it.
I've said this elsewhere, but I'll say it here as well: This war is almost over. The corporations are obviously in charge of the so-called democracy, and the Supreme Court just handed them the atomic bomb.
When you are on the losing side of a war, you choose your battles very, very carefully, because you can't afford to dilute your effectiveness. In this light, should progressives really be fighting for the under-employed, the underpaid, the uninsured, the poor, the fringe, the undereducated? I mean, given the vast preponderance of voter majorities that constitute just these population groups, isn't that the function of a democracy? Why are progressives having to fight these battles at all, unless that democracy is broken?
Reform the democracy, or nothing gets reformed. Dylan Ratigan has a four step plan (share half of all private/corporate campaign finance donations with less endowed candidates, candidates must communicate all conflicts of interest, place a seven year hiatus between public service and related private service, and incorporate open primaries everywhere to recognize that the difference between GOP and DNC is that they both pretend to gate-keep our democracy, and we end up losing for it.) We progressives can either stand united behind the idea of taking back our democracy, or fritter our numerical advantages away on a list of issues that grows every day. When you look behind the curtain, there is really only one issue here: our democracy is broken.
Reform the democracy, or nothing gets reformed. You can reform stuff temporarily, but the moneyed powers will be right back at it next election, and they have the votes (which is the $$$ in this corrupted democracy, not the people).
There ain't any fix....
Everything is going to continue to get worse,,,,,and worse..
education, the ecology, wages, employment, wars and death,
police state fascism......we get the whole works , we earned
it..
But while they still give us the facade...
how about some black vindication..
Van Jones/Cynthia McKinney.....2012....
they won't make it, but a good ticket...
Anyone on Common Dreams still believe we can vote ourselves
out of a catasrophe? well, we can't, it's over folks.
We will look like Nigeria , Congo, you know , those places
we feel sorry for, it could never happen here,
we are aren't just going to get there, we fast tracking there.
Whats going to stop, because they care about us??
the elections?...well optomist, what? It's over, get used to
it. Better find a place to get some food seeds, might be able to hold on a year or so more than some...
Obama going to save you?, Grayson, Whitehouse, Feingold,???
We're screwed........there is nothing you can do about it!!!
So go vote......because you believe it still makes a diff....
It will give you something to believe....
but remember we are not just another Banana Republic
that has no where reached bottom yet...
food in the garbage cans is going to look good even to those
that are still clinging to middle class status...........
The facade for some isn't over.....because they haven't had
to accept this fact quite yet....three more years,
right in your face....or sooner..............................
I hope not too many of us sink to your level of pessimism and callousness. It's been worse than this for America. It's worse than this right now elsewhere. It only gets to the point you describe (It's All Over)when everyone surrenders. Why surrender? And btw, it's never all over.
We need a movement that believes in itself and believes in possibility and that is willing to fight for change. So Obama turns out to be less than hoped for? Boo Hoo. Kick his ass out of office in 2012 and replace him with some one who can do what needs to be done. Democrats are just like Republicans? T.S. Fire them and replace them. They weren't always that way.
That's how you administer the kind of ass blistering rude awakening the party is begging for. Shit can them all!
Obama was bought right off the shelf. Untested. Unexamined. His qualifications were totally superficial. So learn. Support politicians of substance. Don't expect change. Make change.
Drive a stake into the heart of the Democratic party with new young candidates. Can't find one? Be one. Spread their candidacies online. Third parties take too much time. We have no time. Confiscate the Democrats and restore order to the country.
It can be done. Unless we despair. Despair is exactly what the rich and powerful are hoping for. People who are exhausted. People who surrender. People who stop fighting. People like ...
Unemployed people, seriously underemployed people, and self-employed people who don't make money to speak of have all been effectively destroyed by the system and these types of people can do few if any of the things that Walt recommends. Come on, get serious; the whole point of “unemployed” is that the system has stated that you are not welcome in it. This means that you are not going to be able to do much of anything in that system. Little if any “crashing of the party” is allowed, sorry.
Your post is way too close to blaming the victim for my tastes (and I know for a fact I speak for the majority at this particular web site). So I agree with BABOON, whose point put in my terms is that once the system defeats you (and assuming there isn't any revolution in the offing) it is time to make your own system at the micro level. He's right, because it makes no sense to try to improve a system that has defeated you and has almost or actually literally spit you out onto the curb. That's one Goliath that no David is going to beat.
Also, it’s not despair to resign from the system that rejected you (and scores of millions of others) and to make your own little system to the extent possible. It’s actually the smartest thing and a very hopeful thing to do.
I bookmark important information, some of which Common Dreams misses (no single site can get it all) here:
http://www.unityprogress.blogspot.com
I squeeze in about 5,000 words a month myself here:
http://www.unity-progress.blogspot.com
Baboon, do you think there is NOTHING that can be done? how do i tell my child that? I tell him he's gotta do SOMETHING. no??
karen
It is not merely difficult to get a job for which you are overqualified. As GwNorth says, "This guy/gal will leave as soon as something better comes along." So it's bad for the employer. If you somehow mange to hide your skills and education, you still leave "when something better comes along" and the employer is stuck for having invested in you.
But ultimately it is also immoral to take a job for which you are greatly overqualified because that displaces someone of lesser skill who is rıght for that job. So they take one below their qualifications and so on and so on. And who gets f+++ed? Surprise! The poorest among us, the lowest on the skill scale, the ones with the least support.
Liars like Angle and Nelson ignore reality. It's how they hold office.
Y
Walt
we need a system that rewards good works and truth-telling and penalizes the liars...sigh...not in this lifetime. But we can work for electoral reform, overturning/voiding of Citizens United ruling, creation of third party, etc. At least trying to be proactive...keeps spirits up if nothing else!
karen
And this surprises you? The Repbulican ilk in Congress didn't care about the 48+ million without medical insurance, so what would make you think that a mere 15+ million out of work citizens would faze them? This is about regaining power at everyone's expense. I hope they fail miserably.
Know your enemy.
http://coyotesings.wordpress.com/
Our so-called "Representatives" have either never worked a day in their lives or have forgotten what it is like. They sure the Hell aren't working now, so what are we paying them for?
Throw 'em all out in Novemeber!
Let's say, conservatively, there are 17 million unemployed -- unable to get a job unemployed -- what if 17 million dollars was spent on a jobs program to get these people working? That's a tiny drop in the ocean compared to the trillions spent on unnecessary wars, or the Wall Street bailouts. Or better, why not just give every unemployed person a million bucks? It would certainly go far to jump-start the economy!
I am kidding, of course (but kidding on the square).
Angel, exactly! we need a public jobs program like the WPA...Yesterday!! I would love to see some leadership on this from the Obama Administration..
karen
Know your enemy.
http://coyotesings.wordpress.com/