The Guy Just Doesn't Get It

Or

President To Low Wage Workers, "Go Screw Yourselves"
by James Glaser
February 10, 2010

The "guy" is President Obama. What he doesn't get is that the American people desperately what a President who doesn't lie to them.

Now we know President Obama is a very smart man, and he knows what is going on in this country, but still he tries to spin the truth, and make things sound better than they are. Yesterday, National Public Radio I heard the President talking about working with the Republicans on a Jobs Bill, and how much we all know it is needed because almost 10% of Americans are out of work.

You know that is just plain old bull shit. You know it, I know it, and the President knows it, too. That less than10% figure is the one Washington puts out there because they do not want to admit the real figure which is more than twice that.

Yesterday, in the New York Times Bob Herbert, wrote about the people who face high employment losses. Close to 10% unemployment isn't even close for a large segment of America. Here is how Herbert explained unemployment figures for the last quarter of 2009:

The highest group, with household incomes of $150,000 or more, had an unemployment rate during that quarter of 3.2 percent. The next highest, with incomes of $100,000 to 149,999, had an unemployment rate of 4 percent.

Contrast those figures with the unemployment rate of the lowest group, which had annual household incomes of $12,499 or less. The unemployment rate of that group during the fourth quarter of last year was a staggering 30.8 percent. That's more than five points higher than the overall jobless rate at the height of the Depression.

The next lowest group, with incomes of $12,500 to $20,000, had an unemployment rate of 19.1 percent.

Just maybe, Barack Obama is an elitist, and he really has no idea of what is going on with the low wage American worker, but I don't believe that. I think the President does not want to admit how bad things are, and that neither he nor the Republicans have a plan to help these workers.

So, the President and the Congress will continue to pretend that the unemployment rate is less then 10%. Which in all honesty is like telling out of work Americans to go screw themselves.

Now, if you think the numbers Herbert uses are higher because he is including the "underemployed," those who are not working full time, here is what Herbert says.

When the data about underemployment is factored in—meaning individuals who are working part time but would like to work full time, and those who have stopped looking but would take a job if one were available—the picture only worsens. In the lowest group, the underemployment rate was 20.6 percent, compared with just 1.6 percent in the highest group.

So, the underemployment numbers have to be added to his first figures not subtracted, which means we are in much worse shape than Washington has ever let on.

Once again, the people at the bottom of the income ladder are hurting the most, and nobody in Washington is even talking about helping those folks. Spinning the numbers is the best they can come up with. President Obama talked about doing things differently, but it is the same old way of doing it. Shame on the President.

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