As the middle class struggles with joblessness, H1N1, tax burdens and rising prices, the common man often wonders, “What the heck is that so-called ‘Middle Class Task Force’ doing?” Is it all a façade of progress? Checking in this month, it appears they’ve been throwing some ideas around at least.
On Tuesday, the Department of Labor expressed their support for the Healthy Families Act, which would “allow millions more working Americans to earn up to 56 hours per year of paid sick time to care for themselves or their families.” According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 39% of working Americans do not get paid sick leave. Last year, Ted Kennedy pioneered the bill, but given the recent H1N1, the newest legislation would add another five paid sick days for employees who were instructed to stay home.
Last Thursday, Biden sat in for a roundtable discussion at the Center for American Progress in Washington DC to get some ideas – preferably ideas that “don’t cost anything” – about how to address the choppy waters American workers find themselves in.
“Why is it when productivity raced ahead by almost 20%, 19% at the beginning of this century, middle class folks actually lost ground?” Biden said he’s confident we’ll come out of this recession but he wants the middle class to be in a better position than they were going in.
Comments