America needs economy that works for all people

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080118/OPINION01/801180319/1008

Friday, January 18, 2008
Labor Voices

Richard Trumka

We're reading about it every day now: In neighborhoods across America, families are being forced to abandon their homes as their mortgages jump higher than they can bear. Others are watching in disbelief as their home values drop.

And now the mortgage crisis has spiraled into the overall economy so fast that officials at every level and from both sides of the aisle in Congress are calling for a much-needed emergency economic stimulus package.

But let's not forget that the economy was not working for working people long before there was a mortgage crisis. The subprime crisis, in fact, is a direct result of the failures in our financial system and the deep imbalances that already existed in our economy -- propelled by the policies of the Bush Administration.

Contrary to President Bush's statement that "The fundamentals (of the economy) are strong," our economy has deep structural problems. No economic reform package will work unless it addresses those root problems.
Economy not working

Nobody knows this better than working families. A whopping 72 percent of Americans do not think the economy is working, according to a recent poll by Gallup. Voters in Michigan shouted a big "amen" Tuesday, telling researchers the economy was the most important issue to them in this election.

For the first time, working people are not back to where they were before the last recession, even as a new one may be beginning. Families are bringing in a thousand dollars less in real (adjust for inflation) income than in 2000. We've watched inequality rise, ironically, along with productivity.

The number of people filing for bankruptcy has jumped 68 percent since 2000, and we've lost more than 3 million manufacturing jobs during the same period. The promise of so-called free trade was that information jobs would replace manufacturing jobs. But we've lost 16 percent of information jobs since 2000.

Meanwhile, 47 million Americans have no health coverage, and the rest of us struggle to pay for insurance that may not even cover us when we need it.

Yet on the other side of the economic fence, chief executives have no reason to worry about their homes -- or their second, third and fourth homes. CEOs make almost 400 times as much as an average worker. In December, the CEOs of the top five financial institutions got their end of the year bonuses -- $38 billion. And that's just the bonus.

FULL story at link.