Workers Are Falling Behind

Economic Recovery has become the latest claim to fame of our NEOCON government. They point to official figures showing a growth in the country's output (GDP). They talk about growth in the number of jobs measured by the numbers of employees that employers are reporting. If you listen to the minions of the right you would believe that we live in what Dr. Panglos call "..the best of all possible worlds.."

However, the rose colored picture takes on a different light when we dig a little deeper into the recovery. on January 5th of this year the Morning Call of Allentown, PA reported that wages were not keeping up with inflation. This means that people's real ability to spend on goods and services is falling. How are they then able to maintain their living standards? The answer is simple: They are dipping into savings and they are going deeper into debt. In many instances people are using Home Equity credit lines to maintain their current consumption spending. They are in fact mortgaging their homes to buy movie tickets, eat out, buy Christmas gifts, and go on vacation. Our NEOCON leaders keep saying that being stake holders will allow people to have a better future. However, if that stake holding is mortgaged for current consumption the retirement years will be even bleaker than the proposed cuts in Social Security would warrant. Re-mortgaging means that people who should have had their homes paid for at retirement time, will still have to pay debt while they experiencing lower incomes due to retirement.
NEOCONS tell us about job growth. However, the employment figures do not say how many of the jobs are full time and how many are part time. Several months ago the Philadelphia NPR radio station had a morning program where the guests talked about the growth in jobs. A listener called the program to find out how the number of employed people were counted. He stated that he had four part-time jobs with 4 different employers in order to make a full time income. He asked: "...How many times am I counted in the employment figures..?" After hemming and hawing and trying to distract the listeners with comments about whether the listener was paid on a W-2 or a 1099, the right wing guest admitted that the statistics would count the listener as four employed people. Given this situation, is anybody rally able to say that the country is better off?

The NEOCON Nirvana has turned out to be the 19th century. Workers' requiring multiple jobs to make ends meet, multiple income households, and falling real wages are leading the U.S.A to third world status. The third world is a place where the rich get richer and "...to hell with everybody else..."