Red Monkey Queen
08-07-2010, 07:50 AM
Yep, it's time to revive this topic from the previous board so I have an excuse to link to an article on the latest U.S. jobs report. (http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/aug2010/jobs-a07.shtml) After recovering slightly in March and April, the employment situation has resumed a pattern steady deterioration over the last three months. In July, the U.S. economy lost another 131,000 jobs on balance. Allow me to highlight some particularly significant quotes from the article:
The workforce participation rate—the percentage of the working-age population working or looking for work—fell to 64.6 percent in July, matching the lowest level since 1985.
An article at MarketWatch—with a subhead reading, “Millions have simply given up on a job”—pointed out that “[I]f the participation rate had remained above 66 percent as it did for most of the past decade, the jobless rate would be 12.2 percent today and there’d be 19.2 million people classified as unemployed, instead of 14.6 million.”
There are approximately five unemployed workers for every available opening.
A Pew Research poll published in late June found that more than half of all adults in the US labor force “have suffered a spell of unemployment, a cut in pay, a reduction in hours or have become involuntary part-time workers.” A Bloomberg National Poll revealed that more than 7 in 10 Americans believe “the economy is still mired in recession.”
Behind these innocuous words and phrases lies a reality of increasing misery for millions of people in the US. Some 50 million faced food insecurity last year, i.e., the inability at one time or another to put food on the table, according to the US Department of Agriculture. A recent study by the Rockefeller Foundation reported that 1 in 5 American households is financially insecure, i.e., has experienced a 25 percent decline in income from one year to the next, the highest level in a quarter-century.
Joblessness is now the major factor driving foreclosures and personal bankruptcy. Some four million homeowners are now in foreclosure proceedings, and banks will likely repossess more than one million homes this year. Unemployment is also leading to higher levels of stress, mental illness, and domestic violence.
It's interesting to note how starkly the plight of the capitalist class contrasts with this:
The AP noted, “Corporate net income rose sharply in the second quarter, but businesses aren’t using the proceeds to ramp up hiring. Companies in the S&P 500 index reported a 46 percent increase in net earnings for the second quarter, compared to a year earlier.”
“Businesses just don’t want to hire,” Allen Sinai, chief global economist at Decision Economics, told the New York Times. “Workers are too costly and it’s very easy to substitute technology for labor.”
Sinai “added that with corporate earnings rising partly on the back of cost-cutting, employers are reluctant to give up profits. ‘So while corporate earnings were spectacular,’ Mr. Sinai said, ‘the job market just stinks.’”
What's highlighted in these remarks is the fact that corporate profits and the economic and social well-being of working class people run in polar opposite directions. To the employer, you are an expense, not an asset. The current recovery in corporate profitability, as highlighted above, is the direct result of "cost-cutting" (i.e. you-cutting).
There is no need for unemployment to exist at all. The phenomena can and historically has been wiped out entirely by the replacement of anarchic capitalist 'production' methods with rational, socialist planning. Socialist planning guarantees everyone a place in the workforce (and one free of exploitation) while making for the distribution of the fruits of production according to human need, rather than for private accumulation.
The workforce participation rate—the percentage of the working-age population working or looking for work—fell to 64.6 percent in July, matching the lowest level since 1985.
An article at MarketWatch—with a subhead reading, “Millions have simply given up on a job”—pointed out that “[I]f the participation rate had remained above 66 percent as it did for most of the past decade, the jobless rate would be 12.2 percent today and there’d be 19.2 million people classified as unemployed, instead of 14.6 million.”
There are approximately five unemployed workers for every available opening.
A Pew Research poll published in late June found that more than half of all adults in the US labor force “have suffered a spell of unemployment, a cut in pay, a reduction in hours or have become involuntary part-time workers.” A Bloomberg National Poll revealed that more than 7 in 10 Americans believe “the economy is still mired in recession.”
Behind these innocuous words and phrases lies a reality of increasing misery for millions of people in the US. Some 50 million faced food insecurity last year, i.e., the inability at one time or another to put food on the table, according to the US Department of Agriculture. A recent study by the Rockefeller Foundation reported that 1 in 5 American households is financially insecure, i.e., has experienced a 25 percent decline in income from one year to the next, the highest level in a quarter-century.
Joblessness is now the major factor driving foreclosures and personal bankruptcy. Some four million homeowners are now in foreclosure proceedings, and banks will likely repossess more than one million homes this year. Unemployment is also leading to higher levels of stress, mental illness, and domestic violence.
It's interesting to note how starkly the plight of the capitalist class contrasts with this:
The AP noted, “Corporate net income rose sharply in the second quarter, but businesses aren’t using the proceeds to ramp up hiring. Companies in the S&P 500 index reported a 46 percent increase in net earnings for the second quarter, compared to a year earlier.”
“Businesses just don’t want to hire,” Allen Sinai, chief global economist at Decision Economics, told the New York Times. “Workers are too costly and it’s very easy to substitute technology for labor.”
Sinai “added that with corporate earnings rising partly on the back of cost-cutting, employers are reluctant to give up profits. ‘So while corporate earnings were spectacular,’ Mr. Sinai said, ‘the job market just stinks.’”
What's highlighted in these remarks is the fact that corporate profits and the economic and social well-being of working class people run in polar opposite directions. To the employer, you are an expense, not an asset. The current recovery in corporate profitability, as highlighted above, is the direct result of "cost-cutting" (i.e. you-cutting).
There is no need for unemployment to exist at all. The phenomena can and historically has been wiped out entirely by the replacement of anarchic capitalist 'production' methods with rational, socialist planning. Socialist planning guarantees everyone a place in the workforce (and one free of exploitation) while making for the distribution of the fruits of production according to human need, rather than for private accumulation.