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GOODJOBS NEWSLETTER:
SUPPLEMENT 4, Decemberl 2013
A REPORT TO DONORS, SUPPORTERS AND FRIENDS
By Trudy Goldberg, Chair, NJFAC
The Continuing Jobs Crisis: For
years NJFAC has called attention to the chronic unemployment that
blights the lives of millions of individuals and families, even
in the best of times. We have been deeply concerned about
this problem -- even in times of relatively low official unemployment.
For example, in 2000, when the official unemployment
rate reached 3.9% and was at its lowest in 30 years, there were
still 13 million people who wanted jobs but couldn't find them.
These included the officially unemployed, those who were forced
to work part-time though they wanted full-time work, and those
who wanted work but were not counted officially because they weren't
actively searching. Although the chronic problem broadly affects
many types of workers, it's far worse for African Americans, the
young, and people with disabilities. For example,
in 2000, official unemployment for African Americans was 7.6%
-- higher than the present general unemployment rate that we consider
a continuing crisis. Over the last fifty years since civil
rights marchers demanded jobs for all and a living wage in 1963,
high unemployment has been the dominant reality for African Americans,
even in periods of so-called economic recovery.
The November 2013 report of the Labor Department
registers the high unemployment rate that is becoming
a "new norm." Official unemployment-just the people
who are earning less than $1 a week in paid employment
and actively searching for work-is 7.0%, numbering 11 million
people. Another 13.3 million are either forced to work part-time
because they can't find full-time work or want a job but aren't
actively looking.
Following the October 2013 employment report, Paul
Krugman, New York Times economic columnist and Nobel
Laureate in Economics, wrote:
Five years and eleven months have now
passed since the U.S. economy entered recession. Official unemployment
remains high, and it would be much higher if so many people
hadn't dropped out of the labor force. Long-term unemployment
. is four times what it was before the recession
These dry numbers translate into millions of human tragedies-homes lost, careers destroyed, young people who can't get their lives started. ("The Mutilated Economy New York Times, November 8, 2013).
The damage doesn't stop with losses to individuals
and burdens to families. The economy suffers long-term damage-lost
potential output, atrophy of skills and work habits, reduced business
investment as a result of weak sales, and the consequent reduction
in business starts and in research and development. High unemployment,
moreover, is a drag on wages. In 2012, 18 million people
- or nearly one out of every five workers - worked full-time,
year-round yet earned less than the poverty level for a family
of four ($23,050 in 2012).
NJFAC'S PROGRAM. We work
to overcome unemployment and low wages-and the many social problems
it causes. Our chief approaches are:
- Public Education regarding the magnitude of this problem, its grim effects, its causes, and how it can be solved
- Developing Policy Solutions to the problem of unemployment and related ills
- Organizing and Outreach to other people and organizations, to promote policy solutions to the jobs crisis, including organizing actions and events on the grassroots level
PUBLIC EDUCATION. Our public education is accomplished
through articles, publications and presentations to community
and academic audiences that cut through the misinformation and
disinformation put out by media pundits and too many of our politicians.
Our much-visited website in a source of excellent information
and is widely recognized as a trove of valuable data and analysis
about jobs, the economy, and policy solutions to mass unemployment.
We are completing the redesign of our website to facilitate easier
access to our information and promote greater engagement by users.
NJFAC has striven to overcome a major impediment to the solution
of unemployment: the fact that the public is not aware that it
is perfectly possible to overcome this problem. For a number of
years NJFAC has insisted that our roads need repair, our bridges
are dangerously eroding, children need more teachers, working
parents lack affordable child care, millions lack health care,
and the very existence of our planet demands conversion of our
energy system to green. And we have proclaimed:
All these needs can and should be met by federal
action-as was done during the 1930s when the New Deal put
millions to work doing useful jobs that have made a lasting contribution
to our country-roads, bridges, schools, libraries, housing, parks,
arts, culture and much more. These jobs, we maintain,
partially pay for themselves because workers with decent jobs
pay more in taxes and don't need unemployment compensation or
food stamps. Tax revenues from corporations, banks and other who
have benefited from bailouts and economic recovery without doing
their part to create jobs can pay for the remaining costs. We
must convince the public that an updated New Deal model-paying
living wages and treating all jobless workers fairly-is well within
the competence of our country-one far richer than it was when
the Roosevelt administration put millions of desperate, unemployed
people to work in the service of the nation.
We are appalled at the loss of lifeline benefits for over a million jobless workers-and several million more who would otherwise be eligible in 2014. These benefits should, of course, be restored, but NJFAC believes the New Deal model for job creation is a preferable policy for extended unemployment. Persons out of work for extended periods of time should have the opportunity to work and to collect a paycheck, and a nation with so many unmet needs should have the benefit of their services.
POLICY SOLUTIONS. We compile lists of pending policy and legislative proposals for job creation, and we make these widely available. We've reached out to labor, community and religious organizations all over the country with our information.
Contributing to NJFAC's goal of convincing the
public that government job creation is a solution to unemployment
is a new piece in our Uncommon Sense series: "We
Need a WPA for Our Time" by Nancy Rose, author of Put
to Work: The WPA and Public Employment in the Great Depression.
Rose, Professor Emerita of Economics at California
State University at San Bernardino, writes that continuing high
levels of unemployment call for a large-scale job creation programs
like the Works Progress Administration (WPA) of the 1930s. Conventional
wisdom often dismisses government job creation as inefficient
or "make work" and a waste of taxpayers' money.
But Rose's detailed evaluation tells a different story.
Public employment programs are part of our U.S. heritage.
Rose shows how past programs worked and can be adapted
to 21st century needs, enhance living standards and provide
decent-paying jobs for the unemployed. "We Need a WPA for
Our Time" is available on the NJFAC website at http://www.njfac.org/us16.htm
NJFAC successfully proposed language that has been incorporated into HR 1000, the 21st Century Full Employment and Training Act, introduced by Rep. John Conyers, Jr., (D-MI), This transformative federal legislation embodies the NJFAC view that unemployment is curable by government action. HR1000 would create a national public service jobs program to complement job creation efforts in the private and nonprofit sectors. The aim of this bill is full employment: to provide a job to any American who seeks work, and to ultimately create a full employment society.
NJFAC focuses on the problem of unemployment
but has long been concerned with the strength of workplace benefits
like social security and unemployment insurance. Particularly
in the absence of full employment-but necessary even with it,
are programs that offset low wages like Food Stamps and the Earned
Income Tax Credit. Thus, in the spring of 2013, NJFAC responded
to the "fiscal cliff" problem with a statement and a
leaflet that it continues to distribute: The so-called
"fiscal cliff" is a manufactured "emergency"
designed by conservative deficit hawks to shrink government, destroy
public sector unions, and erode the social safety net. After
calling attention to the cuts or threatened rollback to Unemployment
benefits, Meals on Wheels, Head Start, and Housing Assistance,
NJFAC countered: "NOT MORE BELT TIGHTENING,
but DIRECT GOVERNMENT JOB CREATION. Calling
for no more cuts is a weak response. WE MUST DEMAND
JOBS!"
ORGANIZING AND OUTREACH . NJFAC
both initiates public events and actions and joins with like-minded
organizations to spread the word:
Expanding our Network: NJFAC's part-time community organizer, Logan Martinez, has been expanding our network with labor, community and anti-poverty activists all over the country, particularly in regard to jobs legislation. We are planning local actions and events aimed at putting jobs issues on the front burner where they belong. We ask you to be in touch with Logan (loganmartinez2u@yahoo.com) to let him know about your jobs-for- all actions or to connect you with such advocacy in your area. We need your help to keep this important organizer in the field.
Memorial March on Washington.
NJFAC endorsed the Washington March on August 24, 2013
commemorating the 1963 March for Jobs and Freedom.
We prepared a special leaflet for the march, Our Jobs
Crisis and the March on Washington, that was distributed
at the march by NJFAC members. June Zaccone of
the NJFAC Executive Committee represented us on the Steering Committee
of the Laborfightback Network and drafted their jobs and freedom
demand for the March (available at http://www.laborfightback.org/index.htm
.).
It's sad to realize that the economic demands of 50 years ago remain unmet and that unemployment is much higher now than in the 1960s. Furthermore, civil rights gains are challenged, notably by the recent Supreme Court decision curtailing the Voting Rights Act of 1965 as well as the severe incursions on affirmative action.
A 21st Century Economic Bill of Rights.
Along with the Columbia University Seminars Program, the Roosevelt
Institute, The Nation, Demos, Dollars and Sense,
the Workers' Defense League and several other organizations, NJFAC
co-sponsored a conference at Columbia University on October 18
in New York City entitled, A 21st Century Economic Bill
of Rights. In the mid-1940s, recognizing that wartime
government spending had created full employment, President Roosevelt,
in his annual message to conference proposed a Second or Economic
Bill of Rights guaranteeing the right to useful work at wages
that would provide food, clothing and recreation; protection against
unemployment and economic insecurity in old age; good education,
decent housing; and adequate medical care. This Economic or Second
Bill of Rights was needed, according to Roosevelt, because "The
political rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution proved inadequate
to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness."
The Conference was planned and organized by Sheila
Collins, Helen Ginsburg and Trudy Goldberg, co-chairs of the Columbia
University Seminar on Full Employment, Social Welfare and Equity
(who also serve on the Executive Committee of NJFAC). The keynote
speaker was Representative John Conyers, Jr. Leading economists,
academics, trade unionists and journalists spoke about the means
of achieving what FDR considered "the paramount right"
to employment. NJFAC is considering a project that would further
public recognition of the necessity of economic rights and the
demand for what Roosevelt held to be the "paramount right"-the
right to useful, living-wage work. In a paper delivered
at the conference, Goldberg and Collins developed a scorecard
on the extent to which the rights proposed by FDR have been assured,
and made the case for some additional ones needed in a 21st Century
Bill of Economic Rights - notably collective bargaining rights,
security in childhood, and a sustainable environment. See
"A 21st Century Economic Bill of Rights: A Score Card and
A Proposal," at http://www.njfac.org/21stCEcoBillRights.pdf
We continue to accomplish our goals
because of your continued financial support for this work.
To all who have recently donated to support NJFAC!! THANK YOU
for making this critically important work possible!!
And if you haven't given yet--please support us now. As
we pointed out in our recent appeal letter, NJFAC has never had
the ample funding that we really need to do this important work.
Every aspect of our work could be productively expanded -- public
education, policy analysis, and outreach and organizing. Will
you please give a generous gift of $50, $100, $250, $500 or more
to help support our work? Or make an introduction to other
donors or funders you know? All gifts to NJFAC are tax-deductible.
You can contribute through our website, www.njfac.org
where it says Donate! or send your check to NJFAC,
Box 96, Lynbrook, NY 11563.
Thanks very much for your continuing help and
support!
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