Going into midterms, Obama took credit for the 5.9% unemployment rate achieved by his administration.

“The United States has put more people back to work than Europe, Japan, and every other advanced economy combined.” Obama said. That progress, he added, has been “a direct result of the American people’s drive and determination, and the decisions made by my administration.”

Indeed, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported the 5.9% figure for October of this year, but what does it mean?

If you have a part time minimum wage job that you can’t possibly live on (and many of the jobs created during the Obama administration are that) you are considered employed. If you have a low-paying, full time job beneath your skills and education, you may be employed, but you are under-employed. If you gave up finding a job, you aren’t counted because you dropped off the unemployment rolls. The 5.9% unemployment figure may sound good, but when you take it apart, it becomes a meaningless measure of economic health.

Senator Bernie Sanders put it this way:

Real unemployment today is not 5.8 percent, it is 11.5 percent if we include those who have given up looking for work or who are working part time when they want to work full time. Youth unemployment is 18.6 percent and African-American youth unemployment is 32.6 percent.

Today, millions of Americans are working longer hours for lower wages. In inflation-adjusted dollars, the median male worker earned $783 less last year than he made 41 years ago. The median woman worker made $1,337 less last year than she earned in 2007. Since 1999, the median middle-class family has seen its income go down by almost $5,000 after adjusting for inflation, now earning less than it did 25 years ago.

The truth is that for the majority of Americans the economy is not getting better, and for many it feels like it’s going downhill. The outsourcing of jobs continues, wages are stagnated, and technology has made many jobs obsolete. Although gas prices have fallen, prices at the grocery store are rising. Kids are going to college, racking up debt, with a slim chance of getting a good paying job in their chosen field.

Elected officials and corporate owned media report that the economy is on the upswing, pointing to the booming stock market as proof we are in recovery. Yet stocks being in nosebleed territory have nothing to do with the real economy where people continue to struggle everyday.

The BLS Civilian Employment Population Ratio—what’s that?

The Civilian Employment Population Ratio is another more accurate measurement of what is going on in the economy. The BLS defines the civilian non-institutional population as persons 16 years of age and older who are not inmates of institutions (penal or mental facilities and homes for the aged) and who are not on active duty in the Armed Forces.

By this measure, you are considered employed if you (a) did any work at all in a week (at least 1 hour) as a paid employee, worked in your own business or profession or on your own farm, or worked 15 hours or more as an unpaid worker in an enterprise operated by a member of the family, or (b) didn’t work but had a job or business from which you were temporarily absent because of vacation, illness, bad weather, childcare problems, maternity or paternity leave, labor-management dispute, job training, or other family or personal reasons, whether or not you were paid for the time off or were seeking another job.

Even with the bar for what constitutes employment set quite low, according to this measure, 41 percent of all civilian, working-age Americans are without a job. Even though this index includes people all the way up to over age 75, and may include retirees, it paints a pretty grim picture. The University of California Santa Barbara interprets the chart as follows:

The employment population ratio fell during the Great Recession and has stalled at a low level since then. Combined with the stagnation in the real wage, this has meant that labor’s share of national income has fallen as the economy grew, as measured by per capita real national income. Of course, as labor’s share fell capital’s share has risen. As capital’s share has grown, inequity has worsened and the share of income going to the top 1 % is approaching 1/5 of US income excluding capital gains. If capital gains are included, the top 1% received 22.5% of income in 2012.

Perhaps the most damning comment on the Obama Administration failures comes from the Senate Committee on Finance, Senator Ron Wyden (D), Chairman. The following is a press release from October 8, 2014:

Fact Sheet: Obama Economy Boosts Wall Street, Not Main Street

When President Obama came into office, the national unemployment rate was 7.8 percent and rose to as high as 10 percent in October 2009. Today it is 5.9 percent, however:

• The number of people who are not in the labor force has grown, despite a growing working-age population, by 12.1 million.
• The number of people who are not in the labor force who want a job has grown by more than 640,000 during the Obama Administration. Many simply gave up on trying to find a job in the Obama economy.
• The employment-to-population ratio has remained consistently below 60 percent during Obama’s tenure and has barely budged and has been at 59.0 percent since June of 2014; in contrast, the ratio averaged 62.9 percent between the beginning of the year 2000 through when Obama assumed office.
• The labor force participation rate has continued to trend downward during Obama’s tenure, from 65.7 percent when he took office to its current low of 62.7 percent.
• Payroll job growth has been tepid over Obama’s tenure: it has averaged only 135,000 per month since the end of the recession.
• While over 7.4 million payroll jobs were lost during the recession, there has only been a net 4.7 million jobs created over Obama’s tenure.

All this data combined points to a nation in trouble. If Democrats want to remain relevant, they can start by being honest about the state of the economy, end their addiction to Wall Street influence and money, and begin to serve the people they were elected to represent.

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On November 23, Black Friday, workers in thousands of Walmart stores went on strike for higher wages and better benefits. On November 29, in New York City, hundreds of workers at fast food chains like McDonald’s, Domino’s, KFC, Wendy’s and Burger King went on strike demanding the ability to form unions and be paid at least $15 an hour. Currently, the median wage for a food service worker is $8.90.

Most workers at Walmart and fast food chains make so little they quality for food stamps. Huffington Post, reporting on the New York strike, quoted one worker, who after eight years at KFC, makes only $7.75 an hour. Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich reminds us that while jobs are slowly coming back to America, most are low paying providing little or no benefits:

The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that seven out of 10 growth occupations over the next decade will be low-wage—like serving customers at big-box retailers and fast-food chains. That’s why the median wage keeps dropping, especially for the 80 percent of the workforce that’s paid by the hour.

Reich notes that these jobs are not being filled by teenagers, but by adults who have to support themselves and their families.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median age of fast-food workers is over 28; and women, who comprise two-thirds of the industry, are over 32. The median age of big-box retail workers is over 30.

Reich makes two more important points: a) organizing makes economic sense for big-box and fast-food workers because their jobs can’t be outsourced, and b) wage gains can and should come out of the pockets of shareholders and top executives who can well afford it. The National Employment Law Project reports that corporations like McDonald’s are doing even better during the recession than before, and executive compensation is through the roof:

Its CEO, Jim Skinner, got $8.8 million last year. In addition to annual bonuses, McDonald’s also gives its executives a long-term bonus once every three years; Skinner received an $8.3 million long-term bonus in 2009 and is due for another this year. The value of Skinner’s other perks — including personal use of the company aircraft, physical exams and security — rose 19% to $752,000.

Yum!Brands, which operates and licenses Taco Bell, KFC, and Pizza Hut, has also done wonderfully well. Its CEO, David Novak, received $29.67 million in total compensation last year, placing him number 23 on Forbes’ list of highest paid chief executives.

Walmart—the trendsetter for big-box retailers—is also doing well. And it pays its executives handsomely. The total compensation for Walmart’s CEO, Michael Duke, was $18.7 million last year—putting him number 82 on Forbes’ list.

The wealth of the Walton family—which still owns the lion’s share of Walmart stock—now exceeds the wealth of the bottom 40 percent of American families combined, according to an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute.

When it comes to organizing, Reich admits low-wage workers face big hurdles. The majority  have only a high school degree, and unemployment among that group is very high—over 12 percent, so workers are even more fearful than usual of being fired for organizing. In addition, only half who are currently working qualify for unemployment because they are part-time or haven’t held the job that long.

“Deficit reduction” will hit low-wage workers the hardest

Reich and economists Paul Krugmann, and Joseph Stiglitz agree that deficit reduction is the last thing Washington needs to be doing right now. Why? Because cutting government spending reduces overall demand, further depresses the economy and guarantees that unemployment will remain high, especially among low-wage workers.

Austerity doesn’t stimulate the economy. Europe is a textbook example of how it worsens a recession. Austerity is a cash cow for the wealthy — a not so transparent way to cut benefits for ordinary people so they have less obligation to pay for them. Our elected minions of the corporate world know that, but they are hell bent on serving those with power and influence who want to further enrich them selves.

If the spending cuts Republicans and some Democrats want fall on low-wage workers—i.e. reducing unemployment insurance, food stamps, housing assistance, infant and child nutrition, child health care, and Medicaid—they will suffer even more.

Reich says the obvious: America’s low-wage workers are invisible in official Washington because they are unorganized.

Not only are they unorganized for the purpose of getting a larger share of the profits at Walmart, McDonalds, and other giant firms, they’re also unorganized for the purpose of being heard in our nation’s capital. There’s no national association of low-wage workers. They don’t contribute much to political campaigns. They have no Super-PAC. They don’t have Washington lobbyists.

But if this nation is to reverse the scourge of widening inequality, Washington needs to start paying attention to them. And the rest of us should do everything we can to pressure Washington and big-box retailers and fast-food chains to raise their pay.

The minimum wage needs to be a living wage. According to the National Employment Law Project, the number of the working poor now exceeds 47 million, driven in part by the steep erosion in wages throughout the economy:

Over the last forty years, the real value of the federal minimum wage has fallen by close to 30%. Even after the 2007-2009 federal increases, the minimum wage remains far too low to sustain working families.

If a national minimum wage was set at $12 to $15 an hour, the economy would bounce back with a roar, there would be increased demand for goods and services, and even those at the top would benefit from the ensuing robust economy.

I’m not holding my breath for the Walton’s to have a conversion experience. But the recent strikes tell me that low-wage workers and sympathetic consumers are beginning to understand that gross income inequality threatens the future of the United States. Stay tuned . . .

The post Fast food and big-box workers demand a living wage appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Political discourse in corporate controlled Washington DC is silent on the plight of the working poor. Big business, corporate profits and the minimum wage are, after all, very much related. In response to the election year silence on the growing rates of low paying jobs and poverty in the United States, community organizers in 30 cities are launching a coordinated effort to raise the minimum wage, demanding that businesses pay wages that allow people to not only survive but also revitalize their communities. The Nation reports:

Prince Jackson, a security guard at JFK, makes $1,000 per month. “Half of the money goes to rent,” Jackson told a crowd of union members and community activists gathered in New York City’s Union Square on July 24. “After all of my expenses I don’t have anything left. . . .I can’t explain how much I need the minimum wage to increase.”

Because many of the new jobs being created today are low paying, raising the minimum wage is crucial to keep more people from slipping into poverty.

An estimated 4.5 million workers in the United States make at or below the minimum wage, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics has estimated that seven out of the ten fastest growing occupations, such as in-home healthcare workers and retail workers, are typically low-wage. A coalition of labor unions and community organizations across the United States, led by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), coalesced around the issue on July 24, with actions in more than 30 cities. Organizers have also protested companies that have historically offered low-wage jobs, such as McDonald’s in Milwaukee and JC Penney in New York City, in addition to members of Congress opposed to or ambivalent about a minimum wage increase.

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TED is a nonprofit that began in 1984 as a conference bringing together people from the worlds of technology, entertainment, and design. Since then its scope has broadened to include anything it feels is an “idea worth spreading.” TED publishes video taped talks on its site by creative, cutting edge people who have something unique to say on practically any topic.

But recently, TED curator, Chris Anderson, declined to post a March talk by Seattle-based venture capitalist and Amazon.com investor Nick Hanauer, who dared to say that said the middle class, not wealthy financiers like himself, were the nation’s real “job creators.”

The organization invited Hanauer, the first non-family investor in Amazon.com, to speak about inequality at its university conference, and knew ahead of time the content of his talk. Hanauer told the audience that rising income inequality was harmful to society and that the rich should pay more in taxes.

TED curator Chris Anderson later told him that it was it was too politically controversial to publish on its site. Really?

Never mind. Someone just posted Hanauer’s talk on YouTube for all to see. It’s short and well worth watching. If the YouTube video is taken down, you can find the text of his talk here.

The post The income inequality speech TED doesn’t want you to see appeared first on Occasional Planet.

I am a progressive, and I identify with leftist politics. I want Medicare for all, free higher education for everyone, Social Security caps lifted and payments doubled. I want a peace economy rather than a war economy. I believe in high taxes, strong labor laws and I want money banned from the political process. But I don’t live in Europe. I live in the United States—the land of opportunity, Amazon and Walmart.

Intellectually I am against consumerism as a basis for our economuy, but, in real life, I’m an American, and the desire to consume is encoded in my DNA. I love ordering online because I get a good deal, and if I order enough, I get free shipping! I’m a socialist who loves not paying sales tax.

Like most Americans, I want my stuff cheap and I want it fast—and I haven’t wanted to think about the human cost of online buying. Sure, I know much of the stuff I buy is made in sweatshops in Asia, but I don’t have a choice because, you know, practically everything is made there. I tell myself that those countries will eventually catch up with us on human rights and worker rights. The human rights problems are “over there,“ not here.

Then, I read Mac MacClelland’s jaw-dropping story in Mother Jones, “I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave: My brief, backbreaking, rage-inducing, low-paying, dildo-packing time inside the online-shipping machine. “ In a brilliant piece of reporting, McClelland simultaneously rips the mask off online retail and the reality of the “economic recovery” in America. She writes about small towns in the Midwest where vast warehouses employ thousands of workers under horrendous working conditions so that you and I can get all that stuff we buy online cheap and fast. The large online retail outlets we all know and love, either own and operate these warehouses themselves, or they contract with other companies to provide storage and shipping services for them. McClelland has a gripping, compelling and important story to tell about work in these warehouses and human rights abuses in America today.

The standard shift in these warehouses is 8 hours, but “working more than eight hours is mandatory,” explains McClelland, who takes an undercover job in one of them where she ends up working mandatory 12-hour days during the peak pre-Christmas season. During that 12-hour day she gets two fifteen-minute breaks, and a 29 minute and 59 second lunch break. Like other workers, McClelland takes some of this precious time for anxiety filled pee breaks because she has to wait in long lines to use one of the smelly, dirty bathrooms.

McClelland reports that sometimes the backbreaking pace and unrealistic demands on warehouse workers cause them to break down and cry. “Well, what if I do start crying?” McClelland asked a seasoned worker. “Are they really going to fire me for that?” “Yes,” she says. “There are sixteen other people who want your job. Why would they keep a person who gets emotional, especially in this economy?” MeClelland further reports, if a worker manages to perform well enough to keep the job, there probably won’t be a promotion in his or her future. Workers stay temporary for years.

As a new hire, here’s what McClelland learned during training: “People lose fingers. Or parts of fingers. And about once a year, they tell us, someone in an Amalgamated warehouse gets caught by the hair, and when a conveyor belt catches you by the hair, it doesn’t just take your hair with it. It rips out a piece of scalp as well.”

McClelland on why people take these jobs: “The American job market isn’t great, people will take what they can get. ‘How’s the job market?’ a supervisor says, laughing, as several of us newbies run by. ‘Just kidding!’ Ha ha! ‘I know why you guys are here. That’s why I’m here, too!'”

After reading “I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave,” I took away the following:  First, I can’t put the genie back in the bottle. I will forever know the human cost of my wanting discounted items and fast delivery. I will know that the worker who fills my order is hounded and shamed with impossible demands to fill unrealistic quotas. In order to keep the job, he or she has to find, pick, pack, or ship items at breakneck speed, in massive, multi-football field sized warehouses for 10 to 12 hour days. Most warehouse workers take up to 600mg of Advil daily just to survive the painful toll the job takes on their bodies. Sometimes while retrieving items they get massive static electricity shocks from the huge multi story metal shelving—over and over again. All this for the handsome reward of eleven something an hour, with no benefits and forced overtime.

Second, after reading this, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the economic recovery is overrated. I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave is both an indictment of one of the fastest growing segments of the American economy, online retail, and a snapshot of what jobs are going to be like going forward in the United States. McClelland writes about the desperation of the unemployed and the kinds of jobs they are willing to take, many of which are low-paying, soul sucking, and/or backbreaking. These low paying jobs will actually increase, rather than reduce, the percentage of those in the U.S. living in near poverty—remembering, of course, that the official poverty level is absurdly low. The unemployment rate may be trending downward, but we may not have much to celebrate.

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If you had a dollar for every time a campaigning politician said that small businesses create most American jobs, you might have enough money to actually launch a small business. Politicians regularly claim that small businesses create between 60 and 80 percent of new jobs in this country. That particular political-economic axiom has become so entrenched in the national dialogue that it’s rarely challenged. But is the premise correct, are the numbers accurate, and do politicians really believe their own small-business rhetoric?

To start that discussion, you have to define “small.” It’s probably fair to say that, when politicians talk about “small businesses,” they’re hoping to conjure images of the kind of mom-and-pop shops idealized in movies from the 1940s and 50s. [Think of “It’s a Wonderful Life,” for example.] They would love for us to believe that corner markets, tiny family-run farms and one-or-two person home-office-based startups are the small businesses that they want to protect. Those are feel-good, sympathetic—but cynically created—images that perpetuate the idea that capitalism works for everyone and that government regulation of the “little guy” is what is killing American jobs.

Unfortunately, the facts of American economic life add up to a very different bottom line. First, that vaunted, sepia-toned image of small business is a distortion. The government agency charged with guaranteeing loans for “small” businesses—the inaccurately named Small Business Administration—defines a “small” business as one with fewer than 500 employees That’s not exactly your average, garage-based tech start up.

In addition, says economist Jared Bernstein, “although most companies are small—according to 2008 census data, 61 percent are small businesses with fewer than four workers—more than two-thirds of the American work force is employed by companies with more than 100 workers.  You can tweak the definitions, but even if you define small as fewer than 500 people…you still find that half the work force is employed by large businesses.”

If you redefine “small,” you get another result. For example, according to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal:

The European Union defines small- and medium-size enterprises as those with fewer than 250 employees. Small businesses, a subcategory, have fewer than 50 employees, according to European Commission spokesman Andrea Maresi. Define small businesses that way, and they created 32% of net new U.S. jobs since September 1992, when collection of such data began.

And, according to the Wall Street Journal’s analysis,

“Beneath the 65% figure cited by the SBA is a lot more job creation and destruction than is immediately evident. Businesses with fewer than 500 employees accounted for about three of four jobs created since 1992, according to a paper from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis published in April.  But many don’t last long. For instance, employers with fewer than four workers have accounted for roughly 5% of all private-sector workers since 1992, but 15% of all job creation and 15% of job destruction in the private sector in that period.

“But don’t small businesses at least fuel job growth,” asks Jared Bernstein in a recent New York Times Op-Ed. Answering his own question, Bernstein says:

 Sort of. It’s not small businesses that matter; but new businesses, which, by definition create new jobs. Real job creation, though, doesn’t kick in until those small businesses survive and grow into larger corporations. In fact, according to path-breaking work by the economist John C. Haltiwanger and his colleagues, once they accounted for outsize contributions by new and young companies, they found ‘no systemic relationship’ between net job growth and company size.

So, is all the rhetoric about promoting and protecting small businesses just a giant political hoax?  Not completely, if we believe the economists who say that small businesses that evolve into big businesses contribute to job creation. It’s also clear, though, that politicians use “small” in a calculated, deceptive way to give their words a populist ring. But bottom line, politicians probably aren’t really looking out for the mom-and-pop businesses they pretend to defend, because they don’t get big-buck, Citizens United campaign contributions from those little guys.

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It’s already being picked apart, peeled off, stripped down and pooh-poohed by Congressional Republicans, but President Obama’s job-creation plan still is seen as more workable than anything offered by Republicans so far. That’s the overall finding of a poll conducted recently by National Journal.

The overall margin of approval is slim—37 percent favor the President’s plan, to 35 percent for ideas proposed by Congressional Republicans and presidential candidates. And many have doubts that any of the competing ideas will work. According to National Journal:

The poll suggests that Americans remain unconvinced that either party’s agenda can significantly dent the nation’s longest period of sustained unemployment since the Depression. The share of Americans who said that Obama’s policies have compounded economic difficulties was nearly double the portion who said he has improved conditions. And just one-in-six said they expected the jobs plan he sent to Congress will significantly reduce unemployment. Yet, nearly half of those surveyed thought his plan would help somewhat, and the president still held a 37 percent to 35 percent advantage over congressional Republicans when respondents were asked whom they trusted more to revive the economy.

The proposal survey respondents like most was President Obama’s plan to reduce taxes for employers who hire new workers or give current workers a raise. Seventy-five percent said that this idea would be either highly or somewhat effective in creating new jobs. The President’s proposal to provide funds to prevent layoffs of teachers and first responders was the next most favored idea, with a 70 percent favorable rating.

The Republican proposal most favored by survey respondents was to pass a constitutional amendment to balance the federal budget and limit spending as a share of the economy. That idea received a 67 percent favorable rating.

[Personal interjection: Have Republicans actually offered a job-creation program other than “cut taxes on wealthy Americans and corporations, and pray that the money will magically trickle down to the rest of us and somehow create jobs?”]

Anyway, National Journal offers a handy chart that summarizes the questions and findings of the survey, where you can draw your own conclusions.

The post Survey says: Obama’s economic plan is better than GOP’s appeared first on Occasional Planet.

America could put hundreds of thousands of people back to work by implementing a proposed stimulus program called F.A.S.T. The acronym stands for “Fix America’s Schools Today,” and it’s a plan that even the most hard-line budget hawk should have a tough time saying no to.

Released in August 2011 by the 21st Century School Fund and the Economic Policy Institute [EPI], FAST could immediately allocate $50 billion to repair and retrofit America’s schools, putting carpenters, electricians, construction workers, building technicians, boiler repairmen, electrical workers, roofers, plumbers, glaziers, painters, plasterers, laborers, and tile setters back to work.

Do we need it? See for yourself. Drive around any American city, eyeball some schools, go inside, and look at the floors, ceilings, walls, windows and lights. Or just ask your kids: Is their school cool enough in the summer and warm enough in the winter? What’s the quality of life in their school: Are there safety gaps? Do the bathrooms function? What’s broken, but never seems to get fixed?

Infrastructure problems in America’s schools are well documented, and repairs are long overdue. [A report card issued in 2010 by the American Society of Structural Engineers gave America’s school infrastructure a D.] The average age of America’s 100,000 schools is 40. School districts under financial pressure—and who isn’t?—often look to maintenance as a place to cut. The result of “chronic deferred maintenance,” according to to the General Accounting Office [GAO] and the American Society of Civil Engineers, can be  “energy inefficiencies, unsafe drinking water, water damage and moldy environments, poor air quality, inadequate fire alarms and fire safety, compromised building security, and structural dangers.”

Estimates of the cost of repairing the wide range of infrastructure problems in America’s schools range from $270 billion to $500 billion. EPI asserts that:

…construction and building repair generally create 9,000‒10,000 jobs per billion dollars spent. Eliminating even half of the entire backlog and improvements could eventually create more than two million jobs, over a period of years. Addressing even one-tenth of the needed improvements could immediately create half a million jobs.

Given the grim outlook for residential construction and the fact that 1.5 million construction workers are unemployed, a project of this magnitude would put hundreds of thousands of them back to work, which would have a large positive effect on the economy.

Specifically, FAST funds would be used for:

• improving air quality and thermal comfort with improvements to heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems;

•  stopping interior damage, including mold, and reducing energy costs with roof replacement and repair;

• supporting technology, mechanical systems, and modern use of electricity with an electrical system modernization;

• reducing water consumption, eliminating lead in water, meeting ADA requirements with bathroom and plumbing upgrades;

• eliminating allergy and asthma triggers, making sure asbestos is contained or eliminated, and creating inviting classroom and school environments with plaster repair and painting;

• saving energy and increasing daylight with window replacement;

• improving the school grounds with improvements to outdoor learning and play areas, storm water management, landscaping, and environmental cleanup, when necessary;

• reducing ongoing heating costs with energy-efficient boiler replacement;

• installing solar panels, wind generators, and geothermal or other comparable clean energy generators; and

• planning the work outlined above and any similar modifications necessary to reduce the consumption of electricity and energy, especially fossil fuels, including natural gas, oil, water, or coal.

Any other uses of the funds would be prohibited.

How F.A.S.T. would be funded

Watching budget hawks weasel out of this plan will be interesting. Its proponents have worked out a funding strategy that makes a great deal of sense—plus, it conforms to the prevailing [and often heartless] dogma of “PAYGO,” which requires any new spending to be offset elsewhere in the Federal budget.

This part’s a bit wonky, but it’s a key component that helps makes this plan battle ready. According to EPI:

The fastest way to launch the program would be to add money to existing funding formulas, such as Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. All 16,000 public school districts, including public charter schools, receive funds under Title I. For example, $50 billion could be allocated among them.

The nitty gritty of implementation—such as how to prioritize which districts get money—is spelled out in much more detail in the full FAST proposal.

With regard to PAYGO, initial funds allocated for FAST could be offset by “eliminating fossil fuel preferences, as in President Obama’s FY2012 budget,” says EPI, clearly referring to tax breaks for already rich oil, gas and coal producers.  “Closing these loopholes raises $46 billion over 10 years.”

Jared Bernstein—a former economic adviser to Vice President Joe Biden, and one of the masterminds behind FAST, puts it this way:

“It’s a smart way to get a lot of people who really need jobs back to work, fix a critical part of our institutional infrastructure, save energy costs, provide kids with a better, healthier learning environment, and do so in way that everyone can see and feel good about each morning when they drop their kids at school.”

F.A.S.T. is logical, and it has a lot of hard-to-oppose, Mom-and-apple-pie appeal. The question is: Are those two attributes enough? Anyone who’s serious about a jobs program would be wise to get on board. [F.A.S.T. appears to dovetail nicely, by the way, with a jobs plan recently proposed by Illinois Congresswoman Jan Schakowski.] We await words and actions  from President Obama, Education Secretary Arne Duncan and enlightened lawmakers in support of this common-sense idea.

The post F.A.S.T. stimulus plan: Fix schools, put people back to work appeared first on Occasional Planet.

There are currently 14.9 million unemployed Americans. Now imagine if there were a cache of jobs out there, unskilled jobs that anyone needing work could just pick up and do. Jobs like assembling office furniture, making mattresses, sewing work uniforms together, and screen printing tee shirts. Jobs that created tangible things and would have that “Made in America” sticker. What if I told you these jobs existed, but you couldn’t have them? It’s true. Unless you’re incarcerated, these jobs are off limits.

Meet UNICOR, the federally owned, corporation friendly, American inmate employing, manufacturing hub. Using slogans like “Factories with fences” and “When the prisoners work, so does the system”, UNICOR has the mission to “employ and provide job skills training to the greatest number of inmates confined and to contribute to the safety of prisons by keeping its inhabitants constructively occupied.” Which it does by running about 100 factories in at least 30 states.

Corporations love UNICOR. Businesses like McDonalds (uniforms), Victoria’s Secret (lingerie), Eddie Bauer (wooden rocking horse assembly), Kmart (jeans), Dell (computer recycling), Honda (car parts until the United Auto Workers intervened), and even the U.S. Army (body armor, F-16 jet parts) have all used inmate factories. Where else in America can you legally pay workers $0.23- $1.15 per hour? Most factories also run 24 hours a day to deal with lower productivity levels. (The inmates just aren’t as highly motivated as other factory employees.) Inmate employees of UNICOR are also exempt from the Fair Labor Standards Act and as an added bonus you don’t have to worry about OSHA stepping in. Until 2004, there were no OSHA factory inspections. Even now because the factories are located in prisons OSHA can’t just pop by for surprise inspections. (Due to a string of lawsuits involving UNICOR’s recycling programs, that may be changing.) It’s no wonder that in 2010 net sales for UNICOR was $889 million.

UNICOR isn’t without its critics though. Last year the Army recalled 44,000 protective helmets manufactured by UNICOR for shoddy quality. (In response, they stopped making helmets.) Despite this the U.S. Army still (sometimes using no bid contracts) buys protective gear from them and then turns around and distributes it to other countries like Kuwait and Pakistan. Other quality control problems have been found with electrical wire, hazardous waste recycling, desks, chairs, laundry services, industrial metal bolts, and electrical switches.

Other complaints include:

• The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has tried to repeal UNICOR’s mandatory source status with claims that it infringes on private sector’s opportunities to compete for government contracts
• Studies show that UNICOR costs on average 13% more for goods & services than regular retailers
• Unlike other businesses, UNICOR doesn’t have to pay state, federal, or employee taxes
• Prisoners make complicated weapon parts and safety supplies for law enforcement

Despite all of this UNICOR is thriving. Thanks to an ever-increasing influx of inmates, there’s never a shortage of willing labor. Which is part of the real issue. Unemployment leads to crime. The lack of manufacturing jobs (combined with job loss due to unfair labor practices) causes unemployment, which helps fuel this cycle where UNICOR ends up being the only real winner. We need to find a balance between sustainable employment for inmates and something that is fair for the rest of the job market. Until then we’re being forced to settle for government run sweatshops.

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