Frances Moore Lappé, Bruce T. Boccardy
Common Dreams
Our government’s and corporate media’s failure to capture the true extent of unemployment creates a distorted narrative about work that feeds bewilderment and self-recrimination.
Mainstream measurements create an artificially low unemployment number. Alternative methods are necessary to get a better picture of what is really going on in the labor market.
Dean Baker, Sarah Karp
Center for Economic and Policy Research
Aspects of the report are disturbing. Over the last year, the black unemployment rate has risen 0.2 percentage points to 6.7 percent and the white unemployment rate has dropped 0.4 percentage point to 3.1 percent. The rise is all among black men.
One of the most remarkable demonstrations of the deep-seated radicalism of “ordinary people” has been all but forgotten, even by historians: namely, the Workers’ Unemployment Insurance Bill.
This assault on typical workers’ bargaining power in recent decades has indeed made it harder to spark wage growth. But this doesn’t mean that you give up—it means you try harder!
Poverty is deepening, the standard of living is declining in the US, wages remain stagnant and inequality is worsening. Meanwhile the national unemployment rate has hit historically low levels. What explains this anomalous state of the US economy?
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