9-01-05, 10:24 am
As President Bush stews about losing vacation time to the tragedy of Katrina, economic reports that came out late last month show that he has more than tens of thousands of homeless, a health crisis, and tens of billions in damage to worry about. A stagnant jobs pictures, growing poverty, and general economic hardships are becoming the main features of life in America under Bush and the Republicans.
The problem is that the Republican Party’s economic policies of tax cuts for the rich, high deficits, huge subsidies for wealthy corporate campaign donors, cuts in social spending and no solutions for the health care coverage crisis and grinding recession have produced a climate of very real fear of the future for working families.
But economic hardship and insecurity don't apply across the board. Earlier this week, an analysis of CEO pay between 2003 and 2004 done by United for a Fair Economy and Institute for Policy Studies (UFE/IPS) shows that as a ratio to workers' pay it has grown 301-to-1 to 431-to-1. In real numbers: CEOs rake in an average of $11.8 million as compared with $27,460 for the average worker.
If workers' pay had grown at this rate, the lowest paid among us would be earning about $23 per hour instead of $5.15.
This growth has really been fueled by the excess doled out to the CEOs of the largest military related corporations, especially since 9/11. Since September 2001, reads the report, 34 publicly traded US corporations among the 'top 100 defense contractors with 10% or more of their revenues from defense contracts – companies such as United Technologies, Textron, and General Dynamics – average CEO pay increased 200 percent from 2001 to 2004.'
Some such as David H. Brooks, CEO of bulletproof vest maker DHB Industries, have been blatant in their profiteering off of the lives of men and women being put in harm’s way in Iraq based on lies and manipulation of public opinion. Brooks raked in $70 million last year, a raise of over 13,000 percent over his 2001 salary.
According to the UFE/IPS report Brooks also sold $186 million in his company’s stock last year, just months before the US Marines lodged an official complaint about the effectiveness of the bulletproof vest his company sold them.
Companies with the most underfunded pensions for their employees paid their CEOs 72 percent more than the average company. Forty-six large companies that took in a combined $30 billion in pure profit in 2003 paid no federal income tax. CEOs at these companies, led by Pfizer's Hank McKinnell, took home $12.6 million last year.
War, low wages, underfunded pensions, and exploiting tax loopholes have been a boon for the top CEOs.
The study examines the cost of living in more than 400 communities adjusting for differences in living standards in different regions. For example, in Pittsburgh, a family of two adults and two children need about $43,500 in annual income to maintain a 'modest standard of living.' In rural Nebraska, they need just over $31,000. While in Boston, expenses for a family of four run higher at $64,656.
In New York, the report shows, a family of two adults and one child require $50,652, in Jersey City, $48,012, and in rural Oregon, $33,348. A family of five in Chicago needs more than $54,000.
The study computed the total cost of housing, food, child care, transportation, health care, taxes, and other major living expenses peculiar to each region or city. This is the 'modest standard of living.'
The results of the study are alarming, not just because it showed that prices of basic necessities are climbing rapidly, but also because the study revealed that higher than expected rates of families in each of these regions and cities simply don't earn enough to meet the minimum needed for a modest standard of living.
Over 42 percent of working families in urban areas, according to the study's results, do not earn enough to meet this minimum standard. In suburban and rural areas, respectively, 23.3 percent and 30.5 of families do not earn enough to meet this minimum standard.
Overall, 20 percent of families headed by a full-time, full-year worker did not bring in enough income to meet the minimum standard.
New Census Bureau numbers reveal that inflation-adjusted median income for the country remains 3.8 percent lower than what it was in 1999. And real incomes for typical working families have fallen five years in a row, despite the Republican Party’s claim that we've been in an economic recovery since 2001.
The Census Bureau also reported an increase in poverty in 2004, growing to 12.7 percent. Since Bush has taken office and the Republican agenda has been implemented, 5.4 million more persons, including 1.4 million children have been added to the poverty rolls.
If the collapse of working families’ incomes isn't enough, Families USA, a non-partisan organization that promotes universal health care, says that 2004 saw a significant increase in the number of people without health coverage. Under the Bush administration, reads a Families USA press statement in part, 'the number of uninsured Americans has escalated from 41.2 million in 2001 to 45.8 million in 2004.'
The result of this grim economic picture is that most people in the country are feeling the pinch of insecurity like never before. According to a survey of working families conducted for the AFL-CIO by Peter D. Hart Research Associates, a strong majority (54 percent) also say they are more worried and concerned about being able to achieve their economic and financial goals in the near future.
Health care and retirement security top the list of major concerns, with 68 percent and 65 percent, respectively, saying the country is on the wrong track on those issues. Almost 60 percent expressed concern over their ability to retire with financial security.
Workers also expressed serious distrust in the people who run the companies they work for. About two-thirds of those surveyed said they can't trust employers to treat workers fairly. And nearly 7 of 8 respondents said that tougher laws are needed to protect workers' rights.
So as President Bush ponders how he can turn the tragedy on the Gulf Coast into another tax cut for the rich or a war on Iran, and as the business elites at the National Association of Manufacturers headed by John Engler ponder how to turn the hurricane into a 'business opportunity,' working people a struggling to scrape by.
A strong, united labor movement, protections for worker rights such as the Employee Free Choice Act, real investment in social spending, universal health care, anti-poverty programs and job creation as well as serious control of runaway CEO pay are some important benchmarks that need to be reached in order for working families to regain their economic footing.
Don’t expect the Republicans to lift a finger.
--Reach Joel Wendland at jwendland@politicalaffairs.net.
