UFCW President Joe Hansen on President Obama's Plan to Put Americans Back to Work

Last night, President Hansen released the following statement in support of President Obama's jobs plan:

“President Obama’s plan for job creation, including a private fund to rebuild our roads and schools, a tax cut for companies that hire workers and help for the long-term unemployed, is a good start. The nation’s job crisis demands leadership from President Obama, but he cannot revive the economy alone. Bold leadership is also needed from Republicans in Congress and the business community in order to create jobs that can support a family and rebuild the middle class.

 “We will never win the future by turning a blind eye to the devastating impact of unemployment and underemployment on our country. It is time for Republicans in Congress to put our country ahead of politics and support the president’s plan to put Americans back to work. It is also time for America’s business leaders to make a patriotic commitment to invest in good jobs in America and provide their employees with decent wages and benefits with the end goal of giving the middle class the purchasing power it needs to revive the economy.

 “The wasted economic potential of the millions of Americans who are unemployed or underemployed is a national tragedy. But the tragedy goes deeper than statistics alone. In all this turmoil, many Americans believe they will never achieve the American dream of owning a home, sending their children to college or retiring comfortably. If Republicans in Congress and America’s business leaders continue to put corporate profits ahead of job creation, our country will never fully recover from this downward economic spiral.”

As American as Apple Pie, Corporate Greed and Unemployment

Something very strange is happening in corporate America.

In corporate America, business is booming, and the rich are getting richer. But in the America we know, unemployment is still bad, and is holding steadily in the double digits in many parts of the country. People still need jobs, more than ever.

How can these two Americas both exist at the same time? How can we reconcile growing profits with no new jobs? "The problem," writes Harold Meyerson, isn't merely the massive economic downturn:

It's also that big business has found a way to make big money without restoring the jobs it cut the past two years, or increasing its investments or even its sales, at least domestically.

How can this be? What, have businesses turned into a bunch of amateur magicians or something? Are they pulling money from hats and pockets and sleeves? Nope, says Meyerson. It's even easier than that:

Ever adaptive, they have evolved a business model that enables them to make money even while the strapped American consumer has cut back on purchasing. For one thing, they are increasingly selling and producing overseas. General Motors is going like gangbusters in China, where it now sells more cars than it does in the United States. In China, GM employs 32,000 assembly-line workers; that's just 20,000 fewer than the number of such workers it has in the States. And those American workers aren't making what they used to; new hires get $14 an hour, roughly half of what veterans pull down.

The GM model typifies that of post-crash American business: massive layoffs, productivity increases, wage reductions (due in part to the weakness of unions), and reduced sales at home; increased hiring and booming sales abroad. Another part of that model is cash retention. A Federal Reserve report last month estimated that American corporations are sitting on a record $1.8 trillion in cash reserves. As a share of corporate assets, that's the highest level since 1964.

Great. So basically, companies are going overseas for work and refusing to invest in their companies here at home. Meanwhile, they rake in the profits while ordinary Americans continue to experience record and long-term unemployment due to the vast shutdown of the private sector job market. As the Washington Independent reports:

There are more than 30 million people left without work at some point during the course of the recession; 14.6 million are currently unemployed. As many as 4 million people have exhausted the maximum weeks of federal and state unemployment benefits.

But companies don't care. They no longer seem to feel the slightest obligation--to workers, to families, to communities. The last vestiges of the mantra of shared responsibility, of investment in America, seems to have vanished along with our pensions and our 401ks. Look at the workers at the Mott's factory in Williamsburg, NY, forced on strike because their highly profitable employers decided to take advantage of the recession to try to cut workers' benefits and wages, and freeze their pensions.

But the Republicans who want to blame the unemployed for their unemployment, who tried to deny them an extension of jobless benefits, who keep pushing corporate tax breaks for companies already flush with cash--these members of Congress might be in trouble come this fall. The unemployed are starting to organize, to get involved politically, to become a force and to make their voices heard. And what they have to say might send a loud and clear message to corporate America about how much greed we'll tolerate in this country: not a lot, and not for long.

Another Meme Debunked: Immigrants Not Actually Taking Our Jobs

"They're taking our jobs!" It's the most common refrain heard in the the narrow dialogue and screaming matches that pass for debate on immigration, on cable news shows and faux-populist rallies alike. It's the one supposedly irrefutable argument, the one that immigration opponents use to try to stoke the fears and anger of the under or unemployed--especially in this troubled economy.

It's not a new refrain. It's been heard throughout our history during periods of immigration of various groups, like the Chinese, to the United States. It's a dangerous phrase that implies a delicate balance between "us" and the "other," the immigrant, which "they" are tipping by coming into our country and taking all the jobs. It's a phrase that cuts off all debate and has even some reasonable, otherwise compassionate people nodding in agreement.

And now we find out it's not even true. From the Des Moines Register today:

With the Obama administration and Congress expected to push ahead with immigration reform, it's important that lawmakers and the public shape policy changes based on fact rather than fears.

It has perhaps seemed logical to assume that the willingness of many foreigners - particularly those here illegally - to work for low pay takes jobs away from Americans. But it turns out that having a large number of recent immigrants in a location doesn't necessarily correlate with a lot of native-born workers being unemployed, based on an analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data.

That analysis, done by the Immigration Policy Center, shows that "there is little apparent relationship between recent immigration and unemployment rates at the regional, state, or county level."

The report shows, for example, that:

Recent immigrants make up 8.4 percent of the population in the Pacific region (California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska and Hawaii), but just 2.8 percent of the population in the East North Central region (Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin). Yet, the regions had similar unemployment rates of 10.8 percent in the Pacific region and 10 percent in the East North Central region as of March 2009.

Another example: In New Jersey, recent immigrants account for 7.3 percent of the population, but in Maine they are just 0.8 percent. Nonetheless, the states' March unemployment rates respectively were 8.3 and 8.l percent.

The report found the highest unemployment rates are in counties in manufacturing centers and rural areas, which generally draw fewer recent immigrants.

The tradition of blaming job loss on immigrants is one we ought to lose in a hurry. Unemployment is very real problem, but it's not the fault of immigrants. We need problem-solving, not scapegoating, to fix our economy and implement meaningful immigration reform in this country.