- The corporate media doesn't talk about it much, but
the United States is rapidly on its way to becoming three separate
nations.
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- First, there are a small number of incredibly wealthy
people who own and control more and more of our country. Second, there
is a shrinking middle class in which ordinary people are, in most
instances, working longer hours for lower wages and benefits. Third, an
increasing number of Americans are living in abject poverty -- going
hungry and sleeping out on the streets.
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- There has always been a wealthy elite in this country,
and there has always been a gap between the rich and the poor. But the
disparities in wealth and income that currently exist in this country
have not been seen in over a hundred years. Today, the richest 1 percent
own more wealth than the bottom 95 percent, and the CEOs of large
corporations earn more than 500 times what their average employees make.
The nation's 13,000 wealthiest families, 1/100th of one percent of the
population, receive almost as much income as the poorest 20 million
families in America.
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- While the rich get richer and receive huge tax breaks
from the White House, the middle class is struggling to keep its head
above water. The unemployment rate rose to a nine-year high of 6.4
percent in June, 2003. There are now 9.4 million unemployed, up more
than 3 million since just before Bush became President. Since March,
2001, we have lost over 2.7 million jobs in the private sector,
including two million decent-paying manufacturing jobs -- ten percent of
our manufacturing sector. Frighteningly, the hemorrhaging of decent
paying jobs is now moving into the white-collar sector. Forrester
Research Inc. predicts that at least 3.3 million information technology
jobs will be lost to low-wage countries by 2015 with the expansion of
digitization, the internet and high-speed data networks.
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- But understanding the pain and anxiety of the middle
class requires going beyond the unemployment numbers. There are tens of
millions of fully employed Americans who today earn, in inflation
adjusted-dollars, less money than they received 30 years ago. In 1973,
private-sector workers in the United States were paid on average $9.08
an hour. Today, in real wages, they are paid $8.33 per hour -- more than
8 percent lower. Manufacturing jobs that once paid a living wage are now
being done in China, Mexico and other low-wage countries as corporate
America ships its plants abroad.
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- With Wal-Mart replacing General Motors as our largest
employer, many workers in the service economy not only earn low wages
but also receive minimal benefits. Further, as the cost of health
insurance and prescription drugs soar, more and more employers are
forcing workers to assume a greater percentage of their health care
costs. It is not uncommon now that increases in health care costs
surpass the wage increases that workers receive -- leaving them even
further behind. With the support of the Bush Administration many
companies are also reducing the pensions they promised to their older
workers -- threatening the retirement security of millions of
Americans.
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- One of the manifestations of the collapse of the
middle class is the increased number of hours that Americans are now
forced to work in order to pay the bills. Today, the average American
employee works, by far, the longest hours of any worker in the
industrialized world. And the situation is getting worse. According to
statistics from the International Labor Organization the average
American last year worked 1,978 hours, up from 1,942 hours in 1990 -- an
increase of almost a week of work. We are now putting more hours into
our work than at any time since the 1920s. Sixty-five years after the
formal establishment of the 40-hour work week under the Fair Labor
Standards Act, almost 40 percent of Americans now work more than 50
hours a week.
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- And if the middle class is having it tough, what about
the 33 million people in our society who are living in poverty, up 1.3
million in the past two years? What about the 11 million trying to make
it on a pathetic minimum wage of $5.15 an hour? What about the 42
million who lack any health insurance? What about the 3.5 million people
who will experience homelessness in this year, 1.3 million of them
children? What about the elderly who can't afford the outrageously high
cost of the prescription drugs they need? What about the veterans who
are on VA waiting lists for their health care?
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- This country needs to radically rethink our national
priorities. The middle class is the backbone of America and it cannot be
allowed to disintegrate. We need to revitalize American democracy, and
create a political climate where government makes decisions which
reflect the needs of all the people, and not just wealthy campaign
contributors. We need to see the middle class expand, not
collapse.
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- - Rep. Bernie Sanders of Vermont is the only
Independent in the U.S. House.
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- Unless otherwise noted, all original content and
headlines are © BuzzFlash.
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- http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/03/09/04_sanders.html
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