Occupy Wall Street has been protesting Wall Street greed and political corruption and cronyism for almost two months. Those of the OWS movement are often called the 99% and they are represented by millions of forgotten, neglected, ignored, and scorned Americans.
The forgotten include the homeless:
- 1.6 million people, is the number of people who were homeless from October 2009 through September 2010.
- One out of 50—or about 1.5 million—American children are homeless each year (at one time or another), according to a 2009 study by the National Center on Family Homelessness.
- About 40% of homeless men are veterans, although veterans comprise only 34 percent of the general adult male population, according to research on veterans by the National Coalition for Homeless. On any given night, 200,000 veterans are homeless.
The neglected include nearly 30 million under and unemployed Americans:
- 3.9 million unemployed Americans who are no longer considered unemployed, since they haven’t looked for work recently. They would be looking for work if the jobs were available.
- Another 6.0 million are considered long-term unemployed. These jobless Americans have been looking for work for 6 months or more.
- Millions of jobless cannot collect unemployment benefits. Only 1/3 of all unemployed are eligible to collect benefits.
Millions of financially struggling Americans are simply ignored:
- The 99ers are the unemployed who have exhausted all available unemployment benefits; up to 99 weeks in some states. More than two million workers have been without work for more than 99 weeks – a record number. Some unemployed become 99ers after as little as 60 weeks. Tim Wallace estimates "we can safely assume that 3,058,152 people have exhausted all benefits.”
- From the NYT: Employment rates for new college graduates have fallen sharply in the last two years, as have starting salaries for those who can find work. What’s more, only half of the jobs landed by these new graduates even require a college degree, reviving debates about whether higher education is “worth it” after all.
Meanwhile, college graduates are having trouble paying off student loan debt, which is at a median of $20,000 for graduates of classes 2006 to 2010.
Student loans cannot be discharged in bankruptcy and its burden can follow a person for life, to the point of garnishing Social Security payments.
The scorned are all the above plus those that haven’t made the top 1%.
Herman Cain was cheered when he “characterized the (OWS) movement as un-American and charged that ‘if you don't have a job and you're not rich, blame yourself’." Unfortunately, not all Americans are in a position to have a job and be rich.
They don’t all have access to the ear of an elected representative who is looking for a large campaign contribution.
Not all Americans can get jobs because there are 8 unemployed or underemployed workers per job opening. The “official “rate is 4.3 jobless per available job, but that rate disregards “real” unemployment.
Fewer Americans have a chance to improve financially, since income/economic inequality is rising with no relief in sight. According to a recent CBO report:
CBO finds that between 1979 and 2007:
- For the 1 percent of the population with the highest income, average real after-tax household income grew by 275 percent (see figure below).
- For others in the 20 percent of the population with the highest income, average real after-tax household income grew by 65 percent.
- For the 60 percent of the population in the middle of the income scale, the growth in average real after-tax household income was just under 40 percent.
- For the 20 percent of the population with the lowest income, the growth in average real after-tax household income was about 18 percent.
The top 1% are running away with most of America’s wealth and leaving the bottom 99% in their dust. The US has the greatest income inequality since just prior to the Great Depression.
Congress has been unable or unwilling to address any of these issues. The Republican controlled House ignores all jobs bills designed to create jobs, except for proposing more tax breaks for the so called “job creators.” Democrats have been inept in their fight for the middle class and continually blame the Republicans for being obstructionist, but the Republicans were able to push through their own legislation when they controlled Congress and the White House in the Bush II years. Democrats aren’t able to go to the lengths of Republicans to pass legislation and that shows their weakness.
It’s a fact that the Obama reelection campaign hopes to raise $1 billion and that the 2012 election cycle will cost more than $6 billion "It's safe to say that, given that we had a $5 billion cycle in 2008, it will certainly be more than that and very likely over $6 billion, which is just an astonishing growth rate," said Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks campaign spending.
Who is going to get the undivided attention of a candidate for office? Will it be the 1% or the 99%? It’s much easier for campaigners to garner large contributions from a small pool of super-wealthy than it is to hustle small donations from millions of contributors. The system is designed to assist the top at the expense of the bottom. “In 1950, the ratio of the average executive's paycheck to the average worker's paycheck was about 30 to 1. Since the year 2000, that ratio has exploded to between 300 to 500 to one.” Needless to say, those huge executive compensation packages allow for a large political influence that isn’t framed for the benefit of the worker.
OWS is represented by the struggling groups mentioned above as well as the following America ns: The 1 in 7 living in poverty, the 1 in 5 children living in poverty, the 1 in 5 who don't have health insurance, the 1 in 7 who are mortgage delinquent, the 2/3 who live paycheck to paycheck, and the 46 million who use food stamps. You can view stories of the 99% at: http://wearethe99percent.tumblr.com/
With continued OWS protests throughout the nation, there’s an increasing chance that those in power will see the benefit of changing the rules of the game to allow all Americans to participate fully in America’s economic growth going forward and not just a select few.
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