The WaPo had an interesting article yesterday about our lost decade:
There has been zero net job creation since December 1999.
No previous decade going back to the 1940s had job growth of less than 20 percent. Economic output rose at its slowest rate of any decade since the 1930s as well.
Middle-income households made less in 2008, when adjusted for inflation, than they did in 1999 -- and the number is sure to have declined further during a difficult 2009.
WaPo: Aughts were a lost decade for U.S. economy, workers
More on where we have been, where we are, where we need to go, and how to get there, after the fold.
"This was the first business cycle where a working-age household ended up worse at the end of it than the beginning, and this in spite of substantial growth in productivity, which should have been able to improve everyone's well-being," said Lawrence Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank.
WaPo: Aughts were a lost decade for U.S. economy, workers
On September 16, 2008, as the stock market melted down, Democratic Presidential Nominee Barack Obama identified this as final verdict on a failed economic philosophy:
So let’s be clear: what we’ve seen the last few days is nothing less than the final verdict on an economic philosophy that has completely failed. And I am running for President of the United States because the dreams of the American people must not be endangered any more. It’s time to put an end to a broken system in Washington that is breaking the American economy. It’s time for change that makes a real difference in your lives.
The real problem:
The real locus of the problem was never the financial economy to begin with, and the bailout of Wall Street was a sideshow. The real problem was on Main Street, in the real economy. Before the crash, much of America had fallen deeply into unsustainable debt because it had no other way to maintain its standard of living. That's because for so many years almost all the gains of economic growth had been going to a relatively small number of people at the top.
2009: The Year Wall Street Bounced Back and Main Street Got Shafted
Richard Trumka, head of the AFL-CIO, talks about How We Got Here:
Our current economic crisis is just a symptom of larger long-term weakness and inequality in our economy, Trumka said, and good jobs are the solution:
Remember, wages have been stagnant for years, so people had to start borrowing...we got to the point where people just couldn’t borrow any more and the economy just sort of collapsed at that point...we reached the limit of that. Debt can’t continue to be the engine that fuels the economy.
When we talk about stimulating or rebuilding the economy, Trumka asks, we need to ask: "To what end?" If we’re just rebuilding the old broken economy—with an under-regulated financial sector taking precedence over the real economy—then we haven’t really gotten anywhere. We need an economy where productivity is rewarded and prosperity is fairly shared.
AFL-CIO Blog, Trumka Answers Your Questions, Lays Out Economic Vision, 12/16/09
We need an end to the Great Class Stratification. And that will take a fight.
The fundamental problem we face:
As long as income and wealth keep concentrating at the top, and the great divide between America's have-mores and have-lesses continues to widen, the Great Recession won't end -- at least not in the real economy.
2009: The Year Wall Street Bounced Back and Main Street Got Shafted
A short-term solution:
AFL-CIO has a plan:
We have to put America to work--at good jobs that support families. We've tried out the everything-must-go, trickle-down, bubble economy for the past decade, and it's been a disaster. If we're really going to have a recovery--not just a recovery on Wall Street or for the big banks, but for real people--we absolutely must create new jobs.
Richard Trumka, quoted in my diary, NAACP, La Raza, and AFL-CIO Call on Obama to Create More Jobs (from Trumka interview with HuffPo)
The Plan is here:
America Needs Jobs Now
I'll just highlight it:
- Extend the lifeline for jobless workers.
- Rebuild America’s schools, roads and energy systems.
- Increase aid to state and local governments to maintain vital services.
- Put people to work doing work that needs to be done.
- Put TARP funds to work for Main Street.
Details here:America Needs Jobs Now
A long-term solution (not the only one, but an important part of an overall solution):
Barack Obama's Labor Day Message 8/31/08
America was built by its laborers, but today our workers are struggling just to get by in an economy that no longer works for them. That’s why we can’t afford four more years of the failed George Bush economic policies—policies that Sen. McCain has proudly embraced and promises to continue.
It’s time we had a president who will stand up for working men and women by building an economy that rewards not just wealth, but work and the workers who create it. It’s time you had a partner in the White House who knows that the struggles facing working families can’t be solved by spending billions of dollars on more tax breaks for big corporations and wealthy CEOs, and that hardworking families need immediate relief....
It’s time you had a president who honors organized labor—who’s walked on picket lines; who doesn’t choke on the word "union"; who lets our unions do what they do best and organize our workers; and who will finally make the Employee Free Choice Act the law of the land.
That is the choice in this election. We can choose to remain on the path that has abandoned workers and gotten our economy in so much trouble, or we can reclaim the idea that in America, opportunity is open to anyone who’s willing to work for it.
In case you missed it, he said he would finally make EFCA the law of the land:
and who will finally make the Employee Free Choice Act the law of the land
And in his Labor Day Message on 09/07/09, now President Obama reiterated his support for the EFCA:
And just as we know that we must adapt to all the changes and challenges of a global economy, we also know this: in good economic times and bad, labor is not part of the problem. Labor is part of the solution.
That's why Secretary Solis has made it a priority at the Labor Department to protect workers-your safety, your benefits, your right to organize and bargain collectively. It's why some of the first executive orders I issued overturned the previous administration's attempts to stifle organized labor. It's why I support the Employee Free Choice Act-to level the playing field so it's easier for employees who want a union to form a union. Because when labor is strong, America is strong. When we all stand together, we all rise together.
Obama :Labor Day Speech Before AFL-CIO, 09/07/09
Creating union jobs and growing unions will be an excellent start to building a new economy. The old one failed and merely rebuilding it, as we have in much of 2009, is the wrong direction.
Congress needs to pass a real jobs bill modeled on the AFL-CIO proposal. They need to pass a real EFCA. Democrats must act to allow working people to help themselves. And this President must lead on these issues and fulfill the promises he made.