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Posted on 07/30/2013 3:42:05 AM PDT by onyx
President Obama is changing gears on the economy, highlighting income inequality as a growing problem in advance of pitched fall battles with congressional Republicans over funding the government and raising the debt ceiling. [WATCH VIDEO]
The focus is intended to make it easier for Obama to argue that new taxes on the rich — and not cuts to social spending — should be imposed to lower the deficit.
It also dovetails with Obama’s call for Congress to raise the federal $7.25 minimum wage and to end the automatic spending cuts known as sequestration.
“This growing inequality is not just morally wrong, it’s bad economics,” Obama said in remarks last week in Galesburg, Ill., where he began a new push on the economy.
“The income of the top 1 percent nearly quadrupled from 1979-2007, but the typical family’s incomes barely budged,” he said.
The president reiterated that message in an interview with The New York Times last week.
“If we stand pat, if we don’t do anything … income inequality will continue to rise,” he told the newspaper. “Wages, incomes, savings rates for middle-class families will continue to be relatively flat. And that’s not a future that we should accept.”
Obama is also discussing the matter in private.
During a meeting earlier this month with members of the Congressional Black Caucus, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) said he pressed Obama to issue an executive order requiring federal contractors to provide higher wages.
“He said it’s something that he would take a close look at,” said Ellison, the co-chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. “He should seriously look at doing that because he might be able to help a whole bunch of workers.”
Opponents of raising the minimum wage, including many Republicans and business groups, argue an increase would hurt small businesses already injured by the recession and slow recovery.
And if those small businesses cannot afford to pay the mandated boost, they will end up laying off workers, opponents contend.
There is evidence that income inequality has grown since the economic recession of 2008-2009.
Economists Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty found that between 2009 and 2011, 121 percent of income gains went to the richest 1 percent of the population, according to a report in CBS News.
The other 99 percent, the two said, saw their incomes fall by about half a percent over the same period.
When adjusted for inflation, low-wage workers are actually making less now than they did 50 years ago.
According to a June study from the Congressional Research Service, inflation-adjusted wages have declined from a peak in 1968 and now stand roughly 26 percent below that level when adjusted for price growth. Workers would have to make $10.70 now to make an amount equal to the purchasing power of 1968’s $5.65 minimum wage.
Labor statistics indicate that a relatively small portion of the working population brings home the minimum wage. According to the Labor Department, just 4.7 percent of the 75.3 million workers in the U.S. in 2012 received the minimum wage or lower. (Some wait staff earn less than the middle wage because a portion of their income is paid in tips.)
Of that population, roughly half are under the age of 25 — employees aged 16-19 make up one-fifth of all minimum wage workers.
If Obama can’t convince Congress to raise the minimum wage, he’d be the first president since Ronald Reagan to not sign a wage hike into law.
The minimum wage hasn’t been increased since 2009, when the final stage of a three-step increase approved by Congress in 2007 was implemented.
Before last week, Obama had talked little about the minimum wage since calling for it to be increased in his State of the Union address.
Growing income inequality “undermines the very essence of America,” he told the crowd in Galesburg.
The White House is also making a last stand of sorts on the sequester.
It pressed Congress to undo the cuts earlier this year to no avail, and now faces another year of significant budget cuts unless a deal can be reached to replace them.
Republicans have shown little sign that they would accept the elimination of tax breaks, particularly after the fiscal cliff deal at the beginning of the year raised tax rates on households with annual income above $450,000.
House Democrats are pushing to end the sequester and have offered legislation that would boost the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour and index it to inflation.
Proponents hope protests from fast-food workers, along with Obama’s calls, will galvanize public support.
Ellison and other liberal Democrats are backing strikes held by workers at McDonald’s and other restaurants demanding a $15 minimum wage, as well as the right to unionize.
“There is a groundswell movement going on,” Ellison said. “They’re pressed so hard to the wall that they don’t have any other choice.”
Ellison, who worked at a McDonald’s between high school and college, said workers in the industry earn every penny they make.
“I know it’s hard work. You come home bathed in grease,” he said.
“Economists Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty found that between 2009 and 2011, 121 percent of income gains went to the richest 1 percent of the population, according to a report in CBS News.”
My guess is that the top 1% had lost 95% of the 7 trillion dollars lost in stock market value 2008 to 2009.
A good basic, “I want list!”
Here is my amended list:
Then he won’t mind sending me his $400,000/yr?
“I want my 400K tax free.”
Great. I need a new Corvette.
“I want a best 4 wheel drive pickup made, tax free again.”
I’ll need all the back years, too. Same here
A $300,000 RV and a new boat will take more money. Oh, and new golf clubs.
“The RV is fine, I don’t want any more boats, just two of every Hobie Mirage Kayaks made this year and each year that comes around.”
“think I’ll need a small yacht. Maybe for a three-hour tour.”
I would take a free yacht docked/maintained for free with a good CO, helmsman, engineer and steward and free fuel for my trips. Of course these good sailors must be well paid by Uncle Sam and have excellent benefits at no cost to me.
Yes we were! ...and still are!
Freedom is gone here in the U.S. Chief Justice of the SCOTUS John Roberts ended it for good when he ruled that the fed govt can force one to do anything it wants at risk of a severe penalty. That is why the health care law has expanded from 2,000 pages to 20,000 pages; in another two years it will be 100,000 pages!
Naturally Americans do not want to admit that while they were barbequing their freedoms have evaporated... they will have to be wounded before they will admit they have lost the ball game. I told my son that this generation will go down in history as the most foolish generation of all time; they were given the most precious gift ever in the history of the world and they spit on it and tread it under foot - just like Esau: selling their birthright for a bowl of pottage - a govt handout.
It is gone now... the ballot box has never reclaimed it; get used to it and figure what we are going to do about it.
-PJ
I’ll believe him when my extremely underemployed self starts getting a check from the Obamas for half his income.
Female employees in the Obama White House make considerably less than their male colleagues, records show.
According to the 2011 annual report on White House staff, female employees earned a median annual salary of $60,000, which was about 18 percent less than the median salary for male employees ($71,000).
That’s what the Marxist thinks.
White House War on Wimmin!
Thanks. I was wondering if anybody had read it. :)
My first job in 1973 was 1.20 as the place I worked gave me 1 free dinner per shift.
Taught me to work fast and efficient but efficient first.
Does this mean I get to have Obama’s annual paycheck? Is it 400k a year or something?
“...leftists do not separate social and economic issues, to them they are the same thing...”
Not true. What you describe above is a political device: leftists use everyone and everything as a tool to achieve their final goal of total domination. Once they reach that goal there exists no morality on any level. In this way they are exactly like Islamists.
Conservatives are for freedom from government tyranny, and do not give away “free stuff”. We don’t buy or sell political influence. If rich donors want to donate money, fine; they shouldn’t expect us to ignore when they break the law.
Guess.
:)
I hear ya. I started at less than $5 an hour. I have changed jobs several times, gotten a college education, etc. My 5 buck an hour job was fun, no stress, but I wouldn’t make a career out of it.
Jees. The guy has some nerve.
H€LL! Nob is passing out dough in every imaginable way to hiz PEOPLE. He has made” you didn’t build that” come true for countless businesses all of whom have the newest equipment and facilities and plenty of guaranteed govt work thanks to affirmative action.
Some family businesses that took 2 to 3 generations to grow and accumulate assets have been equaled and matched by Obama built businesses during his presidency?
On the first of the month the hustle and bustle of spending that govt money kicks in and that’s got to be good for the economy don’t chou know.
Meanwhile what money in dollars that the rest of us have or are lucky enough to earn competing against the you didn’t build that money train is worth less due to the inflation which the my ministration won’t see. Social justice (that free bubble up and rainbow stew). How fitting.?
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