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Economy Brings Bad News for Workers
The rosy predictions of Bush administration officials and Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan can't offset the gloomy economic outlook that working families face.
Analyses by the Economic Policy Institute, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Sen. John Kerry and others all point to a loss of jobs, falling incomes for working families and skyrocketing health care costs.
Two years ago, President Bush declared that more than 6 million jobs would be created between January 2001 and August 2004. Instead, more than a million jobs have been lost. In February 2003, the nation was told that the president's tax cuts would create, on average, 306,000 jobs per month. Instead, job growth has been minimal, with the president 3 million jobs in the red, the Kerry campaign pointed out. Of the jobs that have been created, nearly 90 percent are in low-wage industries, according to Merrill Lynch.
EPI's annual report, "The State of Working America," found that working families have lost ground since 2000, mainly due to the "jobless recovery." The recession, which officially began in March 2001, affected a diverse group of workers, EPI said. Hurt were "young and old, less educated to highly educated, laborers to professionals. Manufacturing jobs were lost for a record 41 consecutive months," the report found. Companies' demand for offshoring has increased, especially in information technology, putting more jobs at risk, EPI said.
A new study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities looked at who is winning in the current economy and found that, since the end of the recession in late 2001, 47 percent of the real income growth has gone to corporate profits and just 15 percent to wages and salaries. This marked the first time since the recovery following World War II that corporate profits got a bigger share of income growth than workers, the report said.
The number of Americans without health insurance grew to 45 million, the U.S. Census found, while the cost of family health care premiums jumped 49 percent between 2000 and 2003, the Kaiser Family Foundation said. Bush administration policies also have reversed the success of the Clinton administration in lifting people out of poverty: in the Clinton years, 6.4 million escaped poverty level earnings. Between 2000 and 2003, however, another 4.3 million people fell into poverty, resulting in a total of 36 million, the Census found.
For more information on these reports, go to www.epinet.org and www.cbpp.org.
Analyses by the Economic Policy Institute, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Sen. John Kerry and others all point to a loss of jobs, falling incomes for working families and skyrocketing health care costs.
Two years ago, President Bush declared that more than 6 million jobs would be created between January 2001 and August 2004. Instead, more than a million jobs have been lost. In February 2003, the nation was told that the president's tax cuts would create, on average, 306,000 jobs per month. Instead, job growth has been minimal, with the president 3 million jobs in the red, the Kerry campaign pointed out. Of the jobs that have been created, nearly 90 percent are in low-wage industries, according to Merrill Lynch.
EPI's annual report, "The State of Working America," found that working families have lost ground since 2000, mainly due to the "jobless recovery." The recession, which officially began in March 2001, affected a diverse group of workers, EPI said. Hurt were "young and old, less educated to highly educated, laborers to professionals. Manufacturing jobs were lost for a record 41 consecutive months," the report found. Companies' demand for offshoring has increased, especially in information technology, putting more jobs at risk, EPI said.
A new study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities looked at who is winning in the current economy and found that, since the end of the recession in late 2001, 47 percent of the real income growth has gone to corporate profits and just 15 percent to wages and salaries. This marked the first time since the recovery following World War II that corporate profits got a bigger share of income growth than workers, the report said.
The number of Americans without health insurance grew to 45 million, the U.S. Census found, while the cost of family health care premiums jumped 49 percent between 2000 and 2003, the Kaiser Family Foundation said. Bush administration policies also have reversed the success of the Clinton administration in lifting people out of poverty: in the Clinton years, 6.4 million escaped poverty level earnings. Between 2000 and 2003, however, another 4.3 million people fell into poverty, resulting in a total of 36 million, the Census found.
For more information on these reports, go to www.epinet.org and www.cbpp.org.