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Today's
Stories
Septemeber
17, 2004
Ray McGovern
Gossing
Over the Record
Patrick Cockburn
The New Iraqi Economy: Baghdad's Thriving Kidnapping Industry
Greg Bates
Nader's Victories: a Mid-Campaign Assessment
September 16,
2004
Landau / Hassen
Meet
the New Villain: Syria
Joanne Mariner
Inside
Darfur: a Photo Essay
Patrick Cockburn
US
Offers Conflicting Accounts of Baghdad Bloodbath
Greg Moses
Four Million Children Might Be News
Joshua Frank
Nader in the Battleground States
Christopher Brauchli
The Bush Drug Lottery Flops
David Himmelstein
Folke Bernadotte: a Rosh Hashonah Remembrance
Website of the Day
The Abu Ghraib Index
September 15,
2004
Patrick Cockburn
Hell
on Haifa Street
Ron Jacobs
Oppose War, Not Just Bush
David Lindorff
Blanking Out Dissent
Joanne Mariner
Talking About Darfur: Is Genocide Just a Word?
Angela Godfrey-Goldstein
An Open Letter to Madonna: Please Don't Support Israeli Apartheid
Dave Zirin
Is the NFL Ready for Us?
Yigal Bronner
"They
Are Building Walls Around Us"
Sex,
Drugs & the Blues!
Serpents in the Garden
CounterPunch's
Sizzling New Book on Culture and Sex is Now Available
Click here to purchase
September 14,
2004
Gary Leupp
The
Problem of Chechnya
Jennifer van
Bergen
What's
Wrong with Torture?
Stan Goff
Wake Up and Smell the Jungle Rot
Patrick Cockburn
The
Punishment of Fallujah: US Precision Strickes...on Ambulances
Anis Memon
Nader
in Michigan
Michael Donnelly
The Nuance Comes Off: Former Naderites Beg for Kerry Votes
Werther
Zell Miller: the Peckerwood Pericles
Website of
the Day
Osama Bin Forgotten?
September 13,
2004
Gabriel Kolko
Elections,
Alliances and the American Empire
Phillip Cryan
How Do You Say "Death Squad?": Language in Colombia's
War
Patrick Cockburn
One of Baghdad's Bloodiest Days: "I'm a Journalist! I'm
Dying! I'm Dying"
Noah Leavitt
The War on Civil Liberties
Robert Jensen
Highjacking Catastrophe: Bush, the Neo-Cons and 9/11
Mike Whitney
Alan Greenspan: Fed-Master to the Wealthy
John Chuckman
Stop Talking About the "Election"
Mike Burke
Kerry/Edwards Website Censors Discussion of Israel/Palestine
Issues
CounterPunch
Wire
The Quotations of David Cobb: "I Don't Care How Many Votes
I Get"
Website of the Day
Keep It In Your Pants: the Bush Plan to Combat Teen Promiscuity
September 11
/ 12, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Swatting
at Flies
Fred Gardner
Yet Another Prozac Scandal
Saul Landau
When Our Assassins Go Free
Jennifer Van Bergen
How to Beat Bush: a Simple Strategy for the Average American
Roger Burbach
/ Jim Tarbell
The Real Dead Enders: Iraq and the Crisis of Empire
Christopher Reed
9/11 in an Historical Context: a Minor Event When Compared to
Worldwide War Casualties
Francisc Catalin
An ABC of American Interventions
Carl Estabrook
Big Science and Government Terror
Bernard Chazelle
Anti-Americanism: a Clinical Study
Sharon Smith
Third Party Blues
Dave Lindorff
Perhaps This Time We're the Silent Majority
Mike Whitney
Fallujah: an Iraqi Beslan?
Frederick B.
Hudson
Their Sons Perished in the Flames, But Not Their Faith
Mickey Z.
Round Up the Usual Suspects: a Look Back at 9/11
Ron Jacobs
Redneck Music for the New Century
Greg Moses
Soap Opera Moments in Texas School Funding Trial
Benjamin Dangl
/ Andrew Kennis
An Interview with Leslie Cagan
Poets Basement
Del Papa, Albert, Gelman
September 10,
2004
Patrick Cockburn
Disappointment
at Samarrah?
Michael Donnelly
Democrats v. Democracy
Alan Farago
Mosquitoes in a Hurricane
Doug Giebel
Karl Rove's Terror Playbook
Mike Whitney
Bob Graham's Political Tsunami
David Domke
God's
Will, According to the Bush Administration
September 9,
2004
Joe Bageant
Karaoke
Night in Bush's America
Ed Kinane
Abducted in Baghdad
Peter Bohmer
The Cuban Revolution: Present and Future
Todd May
The Emerging Case for a Single-State Solution
Jeremy Scahill
The New York Model: Indymedia and the Text Message Jihad
Joshua Frank
Green House Party Gasses
Fran Shor
The Crisis in Public Dissent: When Protest is Considered a Terrorist
Act
Patrick Cockburn
Welcome
to the Dirtiest City in the World: Despair in Baghdad
Website of
the Day
Liberty Street Protest: No to War at Ground Zero
September 8,
2004
Patrick Cockburn
This
Doesn't Smell Like Victory: A War on Two Fronts in Iraq
Dave Lindorff
Bush Confuses; Kerry Mute: Spinning 1000 Dead
Bulent Gokay
Russian and Chechnia After Beslan
Lisa Viscidi
Land Reform and Conflict in Guatemala
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Byrd's Eye View
Mike Whitney
Afghanistan: American's Drug Colony
Stan Goff
Body
Count: 1001
Website of
the Day
Bush and the Love Doctors
September 7,
2004
Diane Christian
Hostage Tactics: a Game of Mortal Poker
Joshua Frank
Greens
Unravel from Within
Patrick Cockburn
Fallujah
Erupts Again: US Death Toll in Iraq Nears 1000
Ron Jacobs
Bush and Putin: "We're Not Girlie Men"
Chris Floyd
Cry Havoc: Bush's Own Personal Janjaweed
Dr. Carol Wolman
No Blood for Oil at Paul Bunyan Day Parade
John Ross
The
Politics of Darkness North / South
September 6,
2004
Alexander Cockburn
An
Anti-Labor Day That Lives in Infamy: How Many Democrats Voted
For Taft-Hartley?
Ralph Nader
The
Cruel Legacy of Taft-Hartley: a Labor Day Call for Rights for
Working People
Lee Sustar
What's Driving the Attack on Pensions?
Kathleen and
Bill Christison
Dual
Loyalties: the Bush Necons and Israel
September 4-5,
2004
Alexander Cockburn
Elephants
and Gramsci
Ted Honderich
The
Way Things Are
Sasan Fayazmanesh
The
Holy Empire: Who We Are and What We Do
Douglas Valentine
What the World Should Know About Guantanamo
Patrick Cockburn
New Iraqi Police State Flexes Its Muscles
Gary Leupp
Neo Cons Under Fire
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: the Hempstead T-Shirt
William A.
Cook
The
Day of the Lemming
Dave Zirin
Kobe Bryant and the Price of Freedom
John Chuckman
The Day the World Ended
Karyn Strickler
God Save the Endangered Species Act
Vanessa Jones
Bad Day with an Ikea Cup
Mike Whitney
Kerry: the "Better" War Candidate
Mark Donham
Dear John (Kerry): Start Explaining and Fast
Mickey Z.
McBypass Nation: Feeling Clinton's Pain
Alan Farago
Can the Everglades be Fixed?
Poets' Basement
Landau and Albert
September 3,
2004
Jeffrey St.
Clair
High
Plains Grifter: Jesus Told Him Where to Bomb
Rahul Mahajan
Bush's RNC Speech: an Annotated Response
Carl Estabrook
The
Book of Slaughter and Forgetting
Joshua Frank
The Florida of the Northwest: Oregon Dems Sabotage Nader Again
Gary Leupp
Music to My Ears: Sunday's March
James Hollander
Deja Vu in Manhattan: Assisted Political Suicide?
Mark Engler
Republicans
Among Us: a Week at the RNC, Inside and Out
Jesse Sharkey
Making Students and Teachers Pay for the Crisis in Education
Jane Stillwater
Calling the Cops on Your Own Kid
Stephen Green
Serving
Two Flags: the Bush Neo-Cons and Israel
September 2,
2004
Jeffrey St.
Clair
High
Plains Grifter: Part 3: More Pricks Than Kicks
Max Gimble
Et Tu, Menchu? Extrajudicial Killings and Clandestine Graves
in Guatemala
James Petras
President Chavez and the Referendum: Myths and Realities
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush and the Afghan Electoral Model: "If They Want to Vote
Twice, Let Them"
Todd Chretien & Jessie
Muldoon
Will the Democrats Expel Zell Miller?
Jack Random
Spite and Venom Day: the Turncoat and the Profiteer
Alan Maass
The Real Vietnam
Christa Allen
Contre Bush
Website of
the Day
[Redacted]
September 1,
2004
Alexander Cockburn
The
Stench of Doom
Kathleen and Bill Christison
Poor Larry Franklin
Dave Lindorff
Kerry's Litmus Test
Josh Frank
Protest in White: Not All of New York Rises Up
John L. Hess
Moles, Scoops and Flip Flops
Mike Whitney
Deconstructing Arnold
Jack Random
Kindergarten Night at the RNC
Andrew Wilson
War on the Pachyderms: Why Do Elephants Hate Us?
Jeffrey St.
Clair
High
Plains Grifter: Part Two: Mark His Words
August 31,
2004
Joseph Nevins
Escapism
and Global Apartheid: The Dominican Republic & the NYTs
Matt Vidal
Beyond
Bush's Rhetoric on the Economy
Neve Gordon
Kerry and the Middle East
Dave Lindorff
Bush
the Peace Candidate?
Mike Whitney
NPR Leads the Charge for War Against Iran
Jack Random
Opening Night: Playing the War Card
Jeffrey St.
Clair
High
Plains Grifter: the Life and Crimes of George W. Bush (Part One)
CounterPunch Photo of the Day
Pete Seeger in NYC
August 30,
2004
Justin Podhur
The
Disappeared Mayor
Shaun Joseph
The
Hypocrites at TheNaderbasher.com
Mike Whitney
Israeli Moles in the Pentagon: What More Could They Possibly
Want?
Ron Jacobs
Live, From New York: the Majority of Protesters Claimed No Candidate
David Lindorff
Sunday in Manhattan: the Sound of Marchin', Chargin' Feet, Boy
Dave Zirin
USA Basketball: The Team White America Loved to Hate
Sam Husseini
Israeli Spying on the US: a Long History
August 28 /
29, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Zombies
for Kerry
Patrick Cockburn
Najaf Ceasefire Good for Iraq, But Weakens Allawi and US
Ray McGovern
Blowing Smoke on Intelligence
Dr. Juan Romagoza
From El Salvador to Abu Ghraib: Reflections of Torture Survivor
Ray Hanania
An Israeli Spy in the Pentagon? Ridiculous!
Fred Gardner
Eddie Lepp Busted by DEA: Facing Life for Growing Medical Pot
Diane Christian
Big Men: the Better Leader Lets You Live
William S. Lind
The Desert Fox
Paul D'Amato
The Left Takes a Dive for Kerry
Joshua Frank
Greens at the Crossroads
Mickey Z.
Media Declares War on Anti-War Protests
Winslow T. Wheeler
Sen. McCain's Pork Chops: an Exchange
Justin E.H.
Smith
The New Age Racket and the Left
Thomas St. John
Burning Slaves at the Stake: On "Sinners in the Hands of
an Angry God"
Ali Tonak
Help the NYPD?
Mark Engler
New York Says "No"
Justin Felux
Haiti: the Attica of the Americas
Poets' Basement
Gelman, Albert, Ford and Hamod
August 27,
2004
Gary Leupp
Neocon
Musings
Robin Cook
The
Ghosts of Abu Ghraib
Diane Christian
Disarming
Michael Donnelly
Situational Democracy: the Show Me the Green Party?
Jack Random
4F and Other Heroes: an Army of War Resisters
Mike Ferner
"To the Swift Boats!"
Mazin Qumsiyeh
7000 Palestinian Political Prisoners
Veronza Bowers, Jr.
"You Won't Be Leaving Tomorrow"
August 26,
2004
M. Shahid Alam
The
Clash Thesis: a Failing Ideology?
Diane Christian
War
Rules: Bush is No Sun Tzu
Derek Seidman
"They're As Bad As Wal-Mart:" Starbucks Workers Get
Organized
David Lindorff
Court to RNC Protesters: Drop the Rally
Christopher
Brauchli
Signs of Dissent: the Bush in the Bubble
Stew Albert
Reporting Suspicious Activity
Mark Donham
Judgement in Athens: Give the Koreans Their Day in Court
Saul Landau
Pinochet:
the Al Capone of the Southern Cone
Website of
the Day
The Kerry 527 Ad You'll Never See
August 25,
2004
Amelia Peltz
Can
I Have 9.8 Seconds of Your Time?
Noah Leavitt
Defining and Redefining Torture
Ron Jacobs
Takin' It to the Streets: It's Not About the Election, It's About
Democracy
James Brooks
Coronado Crosses the Jordan
Akiva Eldar
How to Win the Jewish Vote: Turn Gaza into a "Mini-Afghanistan"
Gemma Araneta
Chavez's New Brand of Populism
Philip Cryan
Uribe's Boys: the Death Squads of Colombia
CounterPunch Wire
Cheney Opens the Closet Door
August 24,
2004
Jeremy Scahill
John
Kerry: the Warchurian Candidate
Gary Leupp
"We
Want Them to Go Away"
David Domke
God
Willing: an Echoing Press and Political Fundamentalism
William Loren Katz
The Meaning of Hugo Chávez: Black and Indian Power in
Venezuela
Jonah Gindin
With Chavez? Reading the International Private Media
Fran Schor
Denying Atrocities: From Vietnam to Fallujah
Joe Bageant
Driving
on the Bones of God
Website of the Day
The Great America Lockdown: a Primer for the RNC
August 23,
2004
Winslow Wheeler
Don't
Mind If I Do: Porkbarrel and the War on Terror
John Pilger
Bush
May Be the Lesser Evil
Stan Goff
Swift
Boat Dogfight
Bill and Kathleen
Christison
Notes
from the West Bank: Build, Demolish, Rebuild
Mike Whitney
The Unraveling of Afghanistan
William Blum
Brave
New World of Iraqi Sovereignty
Ralph Nader
A Letter to the Washington Post: a Shameful and Unsavory Editorial
August 21 /
22, 2004
Cockburn /
St. Clair
"They
Want Blood:" The Bi-Partisan Origins of the Total War on
Drugs
Landau / Hassen
Failing
the Mission? Form a Commission
Brian Cloughley
The
Bush Team in Iraq: Moral Cowardice, as Practiced by Experts
Josh Frank
Nader as David Duke? The ADL Wants You to Think So
Mike Whitney
Reincarnating Mengele: the Torture Doctors of Abu Ghraib
Ron Jacobs
Day Labor Blues
Mickey Z.
Shooting at Whales: 40 Years After Tonkin
Fred Gardner
Dr. Wolman Comes Out: The Cannabis Consultants
Dave Zirin
Uprising in Athens: Iraqi Soccer Team Gives Bush the Boot
Josh Saxe
Witnessing Police Brutality in LA
Yanar Mohammed
Letter from Baghdad: a Democracy of Killings and Bombings
Helen Williams
Ali's Story: a Taste of Reality from Baghdad
Michael Donnelly
Elemental and NaturalForests, Fire and Recovery
Elizabeth Schulte
The Crisis in Affordable Housing
Poets' Basement
Adler, Albert, Virgil, Ford and Krieger
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante
Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click
Here for More Stories.
|
September 17, 2004
An Autopsy
of the American Dream
The
State of Working America
By
LEE SUSTAR
Propagandists for Corporate America
often point to the long-term growth in family income as evidence
that the American Dream of constantly rising living standards
still exists. Yet a closer look at the statistics in the State
of Working America, the new report on the American economy
put out by the Economic Policy Institute, shows that increases
in family income in recent decades have come about almost entirely
as a result of women's additional work in families where men
also hold jobs.
The trend towards greater female
participation in the workforce began during the long economic
expansion following the Second World War. The women's movement
pushed open the doors to some traditionally male-dominated, better-paying
jobs for women.
Since the early 1980s, however,
married women have increasingly felt financial pressure to work
as a result of stagnant or declining wages. By the year 2000,
some 47.7 percent of all families were two-earner, married-couple
families, up from 41.9 percent in 1979. This trend kept median
family income growing, if slowly, over this period--but it masked
the stagnation or decline in men's real wages.
This is particularly true for
those in the poorest 20 percent of the population. Over the 1979-2000
period, income for this group increased 7.5 percent thanks to
married women's income. Without it, income would have plunged
13.9 percent. Better-paid workers faced the same pressures. Their
income grew 24 percent over the same period, but without wives'
earnings, the gains would have been just 5.1 percent.
The higher income came at a
cost. Moderate- and middle-income families saw their total work
hours increase by the equivalent of three months a year, ratcheting
up the pressure to obtain affordable child care and generally
raising the level of family stress. Overall, household work hours
increased 11 percent between 1975 and 2002 as families scrambled
to compensate for stagnant wages.
In fact, it took until 1997
for the median hourly wage to surpass the previous high level
of 1979. The tight labor markets of the late 1990s boom did lift
real hourly wages by an average of 1.8 percent a year between
1995 and 2000--the fastest such growth since the late 1960s.
Real hourly wages continued
to grow, though slowly, during the recession and after--but the
decline in hours worked led to a drop in annual wages from 2000-2002.
The recession of 2001 and the weak recovery led to a sudden drop
in work hours, especially for workers whose income was in the
bottom fifth, or quintile.
Hours for those workers dropped
by 6.7 percent in the 2000-2002 period. For workers in the second-lowest
quintile, the decline was 2.9 percent. The reduction in work
hours hit family income hard, resulting in a real decline of
2.4 percent between 2000 and 2002. The drop in work hours exposed
how nearly two decades of stagnant wage growth made workers more
vulnerable to the effects of recession--even when they held onto
their jobs.
Jobs and
joblessness
THE SHARP downward swing in
wages and family income since the mid-1990s--along with the impact
of the terrible job market--highlights the harsh impact of free-market
policies on the U.S. working class. Since the late 1970s, U.S.
workers have seen the quality and security of their jobs continuously
eroded through deregulation of industry, privatization of public-sector
jobs, cuts in social spending, "flexible" labor policies
and free-trade deals.
Known as "neoliberalism"
to much of the world, these policies have been pursued by both
Republican administrations (Ronald Reagan's and George W. Bush's
tax cuts and frontal attacks on unions) and Democratic ones (Jimmy
Carter's deregulation of airlines and telecommunications, and
Bill Clinton's championing of NAFTA and abolition of the federal
welfare system).
The combined effect of these
policies has given employers the leverage to compel workers to
toil harder and longer for less, while the gains of higher productivity
have flowed away from labor to capital. Again, this is a long-term
trend that began in the late 1980s--and accelerated as pre-tax
profit rates peaked in 1997 at their highest level since the
1960s.
The increase in capital's share
of overall income in this period meant that the economic gains
of higher productivity went overwhelmingly to the top. The authors
of the State of Working America calculate that in the boom year
of 2000, for example, the increase in pre-tax returns on capital
compared to 1979 levels was the equivalent of a $56.8 billion
transfer from labor to capital.
This squeeze on income continued
during the recession and weak recovery up to 2003, the authors
found. "These shifts from labor to capital are large, comparable
in size to the loss of wages for the typical worker due to factors
such as the shift to services, globalization, the drop in unionization
or any of the other prominent causes of growing wage inequality,"
the authors wrote.
The 1990s boom did benefit
the lowest-paid workers in the U.S. The percentage making poverty-level
wages fell from 30.5 percent to 25.1 percent--the lowest level
since 1973. Apologists for the Clinton boom--and now the Bush
bust--use such figures as evidence that a rising economic tide
lifts all boats.
The problem is that the boats
of the working poor are leaky--and easily sink in rough economic
seas. As the authors of the State of Working America put it,
"Those earning very low wages still represented 9.8 percent
of the workforce in 2000, 4.9 percent more than in 1979...[A]
large share of the workforce, roughly a fourth, still earns poverty-level
wages."
The author's analysis of wages
by race and gender also sheds light on the interplay of racism
and sexism in the low-wage, Wal-Mart economy. Some 30.4 percent
of Black workers earned poverty wages in 2003. For Hispanic workers,
the figure was 39.8 percent. White male workers have also suffered
from some of the same trends. About 15.1 percent of white men
earned poverty-level wages in 2003, while another 10.6 percent
were close to the poverty line.
Black men in particular have
suffered disproportionately from the loss of good paying, unionized
manufacturing jobs in such industries as auto and steel. What
authors call a "dramatic downward shift" for Black
men can be seen as a statistical reflection of the deindustrialization
of the inner cities in Detroit or Gary, Ind.
This trend is sometimes obscured
by the fact that a visible layer of Black men--thanks to the
civil rights and Black Power movements--have been able to break
into well-paid skilled or professional jobs. Vastly greater numbers
of Black men, however, are forced to take service jobs that pay
miserably--if they can get work at all.
Black unemployment at the height
of the economic boom in 2000 was still 7.6 percent, double the
3.5 percent figure for whites. It shot into double digits in
the recession of 2001. Measured another way--from the standpoint
of workforce participation--the real unemployment situation for
African American men is simply shocking. Black men's participation
in the workforce was 73.7 percent in 1973, but only 67.7 percent
in 2000--and it dropped to 64.1 percent in 2003 as the recession
rapidly drove large numbers of African American males out of
the labor market.
This is the sharpest expression
of what the State of Working America authors call the "missing
workers"--some 2.5 million people who, based on population
growth and the experience of the late 1990s, should be in the
workforce, but who were forced to the sidelines by the worst
jobs picture since the Great Depression of the 1930s. If these
people were included in the official statistics, the jobless
rate in June 2004 would have been 7.3 percent, rather than the
5.6 percent figure calculated by the federal government.
And the job losses didn't end
with the end of the recession. They continued for the first two
years of the recovery, with the technology industry crash leading
to white-collar layoffs and global overcapacity in industry that
triggered 41 consecutive months of losses in manufacturing jobs.
By June 2004--39 months after
the last economic peak--job gains were just 0.2 percent, by far
the weakest gain at similar points following recessions since
the Second World War. This is why long-term unemployment among
the jobless reached the highest percentage since the recession
of 1983, when the unemployment rate was much higher.
The bad news on jobs doesn't
end there. The net increase in employment in recent months is
made up of jobs that typically pay less and have fewer benefits
than ones that were eliminated.
Some 13 percent of all jobs
created since growth in employment resumed have been in the temporary
employment industry. This is part of a larger trend called "nonstandard
employment"--those who work part-time, are self-employed
or are under contract. These jobs typically pay about 10 percent
less than their full-time counterparts, and they are much less
likely to have benefits such as health insurance--adding to the
numbers of the 45 million without health care coverage.
About 31 percent of women and
22.8 percent of men were in this category in 2001. The authors
of the State of Working America view this as part of a trend
towards "just-in-time" work, which includes the tendency
of employers to force overtime work out of existing employees
rather than hire new workers. The push towards labor "flexibility"
is a hallmark of neoliberalism--and it's driving the Bush administration's
attempt to rewrite overtime pay rules to exclude millions of
workers.
Inequality
THE OVERALL impact of these
trends has been, unsurprisingly, to dramatically increase social
inequality. The statistics are stunning. The wealthiest 1 percent
of all U.S. households control one-third of the wealth of the
entire country, while the bottom 80 percent of household have
just 16 percent.
Turns out that the claims during
the late 1990s about popular ownership of stocks were so much
hype--the top 1 percent of stockowners hold nearly half of the
total value of all stocks, while the bottom 80 percent have just
5.8 percent. The percentage of households with net wealth of
$10,000 or less was 30.1 percent in 2001--not much of improvement
from the 34.3 percent in 1962.
Wealth statistics also show
the reality of racism in the U.S.--with the average Black household
having a net worth of just 14 percent of the average white household
(largely due to the disparity in home ownership). As the authors
of the State of Working America put it, "The data on net
worth reveal the highly unequal distribution of wealth by class,
which is further exacerbated by race.
"A large share of the
population has little or no net worth, while over the last 40
years at least, the wealthiest 20 percent has consistently held
over 80 percent of all wealth, and the top 1 percent has controlled
close to 40 percent."
But for tens of millions of
workers, their wealth--mainly homes--isn't free of risk. Mortgage
debt totaled 74 percent of all debt by 2003. Overall, debt was
114.5 percent of disposable annual income. In other words, people
spend more than they earn.
The banks know that this isn't
a stable situation--which is why they've been pushing hard for
a "bankruptcy reform" bill that would keep people permanently
on the hook for debts. The bill has bipartisan support and would
have passed years ago but for a push by Republican conservatives
to gain exceptions for anti-abortion activists who are forced
into bankruptcy by lawsuits.
Where's
the debate?
THE WORSENING conditions facing
working people in the U.S. are only discussed superficially in
mainstream political debate--especially during the 2004 presidential
campaign. While Democrats hammer George W. Bush for a terrible
performance on jobs, there's an underlying bipartisan consensus
shaped by the corporate backers of both parties--which is why
significant numbers of Democrats in Congress backed Bush's tax
cuts.
So don't expect Democrats to
raise proposals for a government-funded jobs creation program,
an increase in the minimum wage big enough to lift millions out
of poverty, or a nationalized, universal health care system.
Fortunately, the State of Working America provides an invaluable
tool for those who do want to expose the endless attacks on the
working-class majority--and to organize to do something about
it.
Lee Sustar is a regular contributor to CounterPunch
and the Socialist Worker.
He can be reached at: lsustar@ameritech.net
Weekend
Edition Features for August 7 / 8, 2004
James Petras
The
Anatomy of "Terror Experts": Meet the Mandarins of
Abu Ghraib
Fred Gardner
Run
Ricky Run: Football, Pot and Pain
Justin Delacour
Anti-Chavez Pollsters Panic: Fix Numbers; Reinvent Venezuela
Brian Cloughley
Persecuted by All; Supported by None: Who Would Be A Kurd?
Joshua Frank
The
Outsider: a Talk with Ralph Nader
Iain A. Boal
On "Shame": Warmed-Over Orientalism and Racist Projection
Chris Floyd
All About Eve: Open Season on Women in DC and Rome
Andrew Fenton
Fighting for Democracy and Justice in Haiti
Aseem Shrivastava
Saga of an Anguished Afghan
Neil Corbett
See Cuba: Sometimes a Cigar is Just a Cigar, Mr. Bush
Carol Miller
/ Forrest Hill
Rigged Convention; Divided Party: How David Cobb Won with Only
12% of the Vote
Tarek Milleron
Breaking the Principled Voter
Donald Macintyre
The
Battle of Najaf
Ron Jacobs
Spirits of The Dead: Why I Love My Petty Bourgeois Tendencies
Mickey Z.
Kid
Gavilan's Grave: Propaganda Scores a TKO
Poets' Basement
Adler, Ford and Albert
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