Robert Kuttner: Address the Jobs Crisis, Build a Movement

[marmar]

Published on Monday, July 11, 2011 by Demos
Address the Jobs Crisis, Build a Movement

by Robert Kuttner


Does anyone care about the American middle class? The working middle class -- especially its younger members -- now faces a prolonged period of high unemployment, declining wages, and diminished public services.

Meanwhile, the cost of things that you need to enter the middle class, like college tuition and affordable health care, keep outstripping paychecks. The housing crisis is somehow stripping asset values from those who do own homes without offering many bargains to aspiring young homebuyers, because banks belatedly have tightened credit requirements.

As unemployment keeps rising and the economy faces a period of prolonged stagnation, political elites of both parties can only yammer about debts and deficits. But reducing the deficit before we get a recovery going will only worsen joblessness, cut back essential public services, and deny government the needed tools to produce an economic recovery.

What's needed is a mass movement to shake the dominance of the austerity lobby. Here's a start: the Change to Win labor federation has begun a 12-city organizing tour, working with the House Progressive Caucus, to throw a spotlight on continuing joblessness combined with the failure of government to clean up banking abuses. ..............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/07/11-5