June, 03 2011, 08:42am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Bruce Mirken, Greenlining Institute Media Relations Coordinator, 415-846-7758
Weak Job Numbers Show Need for Foreclosure Relief, Advocates Say
Today's weak jobs numbers -- 54,000 new jobs created, a sharp drop from recent months and below economists' projections -- underscore the need for much more aggressive foreclosure relief efforts centered around reducing the principal of underwater mortgages, policy experts at The Greenlining Institute said today.
WASHINGTON
Today's weak jobs numbers -- 54,000 new jobs created, a sharp drop from recent months and below economists' projections -- underscore the need for much more aggressive foreclosure relief efforts centered around reducing the principal of underwater mortgages, policy experts at The Greenlining Institute said today.
The new jobs data come on the heels of a succession of grim economic reports, including a sharp May decline in consumer confidence and a drop in the Case-Shiller 20-City Home Price Index to a new post-bubble low. Recent data indicate that 28 percent of home sales are now foreclosures, the highest level in a year, while one quarter of mortgages are "underwater," meaning borrowers owe more than the home is worth. In some areas, underwater rates of up to 80 percent have been reported.
"This is an emergency," said Greenlining Institute Community Reinvestment Director Preeti Vissa. "The ongoing foreclosure crisis is well on the way to dragging the whole economy into a double-dip recession if strong action isn't taken immediately."
The continuing flood of distress sales, Vissa noted, is depressing home values, making it difficult for workers to relocate in search of job opportunities and damaging vast sectors of the economy that depend on housing. "There is no economic stimulus more effective than a strong housing market, which ripples through almost every sector of the economy," Vissa said. "Effective foreclosure relief based on principal reduction isn't just help for people struggling to keep their homes, it's a vital lifeline for the whole economy. We can't wait any longer."
Today's weak jobs numbers -- 54,000 new jobs created, a sharp drop from recent months and below economists' projections -- underscore the need for much more aggressive foreclosure relief efforts centered around reducing the principal of underwater mortgages, policy experts at The Greenlining Institute said today.
The new jobs data come on the heels of a succession of grim economic reports, including a sharp May decline in consumer confidence and a drop in the Case-Shiller 20-City Home Price Index to a new post-bubble low. Recent data indicate that 28 percent of home sales are now foreclosures, the highest level in a year, while one quarter of mortgages are "underwater," meaning borrowers owe more than the home is worth. In some areas, underwater rates of up to 80 percent have been reported.
"This is an emergency," said Greenlining Institute Community Reinvestment Director Preeti Vissa. "The ongoing foreclosure crisis is well on the way to dragging the whole economy into a double-dip recession if strong action isn't taken immediately."
The continuing flood of distress sales, Vissa noted, is depressing home values, making it difficult for workers to relocate in search of job opportunities and damaging vast sectors of the economy that depend on housing. "There is no economic stimulus more effective than a strong housing market, which ripples through almost every sector of the economy," Vissa said. "Effective foreclosure relief based on principal reduction isn't just help for people struggling to keep their homes, it's a vital lifeline for the whole economy. We can't wait any longer."
LATEST NEWS
Majority of Americans Want Halt of US Weapons Bound for Israel: Poll
"Everyone knows that the U.S. could end this today if we wanted to," said one analyst.
Mar 05, 2024
A new poll released Tuesday revealed that a majority of Americans want to the U.S. government to stop supplying the Israeli military with weaponry to carry out its brutal assault on Gaza that has killed over 30,000 Palestinians, most of them civilian men, women, and children.
As organizers called on Democratic voters in at least seven states to vote "uncommitted" on their Super Tuesday primary ballots on Tuesday to help push the Biden administration to demand a permanent cease-fire in Gaza, the YouGov poll provided another measure of Americans' growing outrage over their government's material and political support for the "genocidal" campaign by Israel's far-right government.
Commissioned by the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), the poll of 1,000 U.S. adults asked respondents whether they agreed with the statement: "The U.S. should stop weapons shipments to Israel until Israel discontinues its attacks on the people of Gaza."
Fifty-two percent of people said they agreed with the statement, while just 27% said they disagreed.
CEPR co-director Mark Weisbrot noted that while the call for a cease-fire "can mean different things to different people... the support for halting weapons shipments is specific and unambiguous."
Less than two weeks after scientists projected that at least 6,500 people would likely die in Gaza in the coming months even in the case of an immediate, permanent cease-fire, Weisbrot said many Americans may have "already moved past" the idea that a cease-fire is sufficient.
"Support for stopping U.S. weapons shipments to Israel has gained traction in recent days," noted CEPR, "as the Gaza death toll has surpassed 30,000 people, about two-thirds of them women and children."
Since the Biden administration's approval of weapons shipments to Israel since October, Israel has decimated civilian infrastructure across Gaza while also blocking nearly all humanitarian aid, leaving the entire population facing "crisis-level hunger" that is approaching famine in some areas.
"We have the power to stop this. Everyone knows that the U.S. could end this today if we wanted to," said Weisbrot, posting a video of European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell calling on U.S. President Joe Biden and other Western leaders to "provide less arms" to Israel, considering Biden's stated belief that too many civilians are being killed.
We have the power to stop this. Everyone knows that the U.S. could end this today if we wanted to. This is Josep Borell, the highest official of the European Union in charge of foreign policy, telling the United States government that they need to do something, like cut weapons… pic.twitter.com/F9y8zwgPxj
— Mark Weisbrot (@MarkWeisbrot) March 5, 2024
Tuesday's poll revealed that ending weapons shipments for Israel is popular across the political spectrum.
Sixty-two percent of people who voted for Biden in 2020 agreed that the U.S. should end shipments, while only 14% disagreed.
CEPR pointed out that "Among those who did not vote in the 2020 presidential elections—a key group containing voters that both Democrats and Republicans would like to turn out this year—fully 60% agreed that the U.S. should block weapons shipments."
The latter result is one "that the Biden campaign should be worried about," said Weisbrot. "These are the voters Biden needs to turn out to expand his base."
People who voted for former Republican President Donald Trump in 2020 were the only group in which a majority opposed halting weapons shipments, with 55% saying the shipments should continue. Thirty percent said they should stop.
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New Rule Under Biden Would Save Americans $10 Billion in Credit Card Fees
"CFPB's new rule demonstrates that policymakers can—and must—take on predatory, deceptive behavior and act as a strong check on corporate power."
Mar 05, 2024
As part of the Biden's administration's efforts to eliminate so-called "junk fees," the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has finalized a rule that would cap credit card late fees at $8.
The average credit card late fee is $32, so the savings for consumers could be huge. The CFPB estimates that, once it takes effect, the new rule will save Americans over $10 billion a year.
"For over a decade, credit card giants have been exploiting a loophole to harvest billions of dollars in junk fees from American consumers," Rohit Chopra, director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, said Tuesday. "Today's rule ends the era of big credit card companies hiding behind the excuse of inflation when they hike fees on borrowers and boost their own bottom lines."
For over a decade, credit card giants have exploited a loophole to harvest billions of dollars in junk fees from consumers. Today, the @CFPB is closing this loophole and reducing the typical credit card late fee from $32 to $8. https://t.co/yCD7RjZN2p
— Rohit Chopra (@chopracfpb) March 5, 2024
The corporate watchdog Acountable.US praised the move but also noted that it will likely "run into immediate legal and legislative attacks from big banks."
"Big banks have no need to nickel and dime everyday families with hidden, high-cost late fees based on the massive profits they brag about to wealthy investors," said Accountable.US' Liz Zelnick. "Bank industry lobbyists claim junk fees teach responsibility, but families who are price-gouged with late fees as high as $41 buried in the fine print only get a hard lesson in corporate greed."
There's already been some pushback, as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce says it plans to file a lawsuit to block the rule. The lobbying group called the rule "misguided and harmful."
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who proposed and established the CFPB, praised the move in a tweet and said it was the "government working for the people, not the big banks."
The CFPB, in its push to reduce or eliminate junk fees, also plans to heavily reduce how much banks can charge for debit card overdraft fees. The new rule for credit card late fees is expected to take effect in June.
"Junk fees, like the excessive late fees credit card companies charge, are yet another tactic corporations use to prey on customers and juice their profit margins even further," said Bilal Baydoun, director of policy and research at the Groundwork Collaborative. "CFPB's new rule demonstrates that policymakers can—and must—take on predatory, deceptive behavior and act as a strong check on corporate power."
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Poor People's Campaign to Lawmakers: If You Want Our Votes, Work to End 'Death by Poverty'
"We are putting politicians in every state on notice," said Rev. Dr. William Barber.
Mar 05, 2024
Leaders of the Poor People's Campaign delivered its policy agenda to lawmakers at statehouses across the United States on Monday and warned that if elected representatives don't act, they won't get the votes of low-wage workers who were integral to the defeat of former President Donald Trump four years ago.
Monday's actions, which included visits with state lawmakers from both major parties, were part of a broader 42-week mobilization of poor voters that the Poor People's Campaign announced last month.
"Do not listen to those who say poor and low-wage voters are apathetic about politics or marginal to election outcomes," Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, national co-chair of the Poor People's Campaign, said during a rally in North Carolina over the weekend.
"Poor and low-wage voters have the power to change electoral outcomes up and down the ballot in November," said Barber, pointing to the slim 2020 margins in key battleground states such as Michigan and Arizona. "We are putting politicians in every state on notice: If you want our votes, you must legislate to end the crisis of death by poverty in America."
The agenda that organizers presented to state lawmakers on Monday calls for immediate action to abolish "poverty as the fourth-leading cause of death in the U.S.," end "voter suppression in all its forms," raise minimum wages to a living wage, guarantee healthcare and affordable housing for all, bolster worker protections, and more.
"We are seeing from state houses all over the nation that we will not be silenced or ignored anymore," Von Allen Goodman, tri-chair of the Massachusetts Poor People's Campaign, said during a rally in Boston on Saturday.
"When our politics makes it easier to get a gun than to get food, quality education, living wages, or healthcare, then there's a problem with the soul of our nation."
The Poor People's Campaign estimates that there are around 85 million poor and low-wage eligible voters across the U.S.—roughly 30% of the country's electorate. In 2020, according to a study released by the campaign and its allies, 168 million Americans who voted had an annual household income of less than $50,000.
Research published last year in the Journal of the American Medical Association estimated that a decade or more of uninterrupted poverty is linked to 295,000 deaths per year in the U.S.—roughly 800 deaths per day. That made long-term poverty the country's fourth-leading cause of death in 2019, behind heart disease, cancer, and smoking.
"In our campaign across the country, poor and low-wage allies have decided that we are not accepting the silence from the media and political establishment that ignores 800 daily deaths of poor and low-wealth people," said Barber. "Poverty by America is an abolishable and unnecessary reality that can be eradicated by enacting policies that address the interlocking injustices of systemic racism, systemic poverty, ecological devastation and the denial of healthcare, militarism, and the false moral narrative of religious nationalism."
"When our politics makes it easier to get a gun than to get food, quality education, living wages, or healthcare," he added, "then there's a problem with the soul of our nation."
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