Media
owes workers info
Allison
Eaton
The
economic situation in the United States
is ill, and the media's failure to keep
us informed on the basic facts is disappointing.
As the gatekeepers of information, the media
decide what we do and do not know. Irresponsibility
on their behalf equates to the masses not
knowing or understanding many of the major
issues we face. Unemployment is rooting
itself into the lives of more good and hardworking
people every day.
The
numbers are staggering. During the last
week in August the Employment and Training
Administration reported that 413,000 claims
for unemployment insurance were filed, an
increase of 15,000 from the previous week.
Since
March 2001, 3.3 million private sector jobs
have flown out the window, a 2.9 percent
overall job loss over the past 29 months.
According to the Economic Policy Institute,
a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank that
aims to broaden the discussion about economic
policy to include the interests of low and
middle-income workers, this decline has
been the largest loss of jobs since the
Great Depression.
The
news media favor their political and profitable
interests more than the public's interest.
If media outlets kept the public better
informed, more individuals would have the
opportunity to partake in the discussion
of economic policy, furthering democracy
by infusing economic policy with more public
interest. Keeping the public better informed
would lead to a decrease in mass consumption,
people would understand that the labor market
is weak and not showing any signs of improvement.
One
of the biggest problems today is that most
people in this country don't have much of
a voice in the economic debate. Globalization
has sparked many evolutionary changes in
the workplace, and this, along with an ever-escalating
wage inequality only furthers the necessity
for the average American to acquire more
than just stock market knowledge.
But
this is what we get, even though most Americans
aren't involved in the stock market. Everything,
even the media, is catered towards those
who have money. Why? Because they are the
ones who can consume products from companies
sponsoring the media outlets that have hefty
price tags. Increased sales equal happy
companies who will continue spending big
bucks on more advertising. It's a win-win
situation for the media and the companies,
but Americans who are stuck working hard
just to make ends meet are left out in the
cold.
I'd
like to bet that the number of diligent,
hard working people in this country outnumber
those in the midst of some corporate ladder-climbing
scheme in which they work less but earn
more money than the rest. In the world of
corporate America people who are higher
on the corporate ladder get paid more but
do less than those on the bottom rung.
Absurd
as it sounds, it is all true. Wage inequality
is rampant -- the rich get richer and the
poor stay poor. The Congressional Budget
Office recently released income growth data
collected over a 21-year period spanning
from 1979 to 2000. The findings showed
that high-income households saw a 184 percent
increase in gross income, while middle and
low-income households saw growth in the
same context of only 12.5 and 6.6 percent.
Even if economic policy during those 21
years wasn't catered to favor the rich,
it did.
Something
needs to change; the people need to be better
informed.
Think
tanks like the Economic Policy Institute
make their research findings available to
the public, the media and economic policy
makers. The irony of economic policy favoring
the upper class exists because the majority
of Americans who work hard are ill informed.
They have no time to seek out information
because they are too busy struggling to
pay their credit card bills, keep a roof
over their heads and food on the table,
as well as provide medical insurance for
their families. These people need the news
media to provide that information to them
and the news media is letting them down.
A
report released Sept. 5 by the Bureau of
Labor Statistics states that almost every
industry has reportedly been cutting jobs
rather than hiring new employees despite
numerous indicators that economic activity
is gaining momentum. In August alone, it
states, payrolls in every industry shrank
by a total of 93,000, the seventh consecutive
month of job losses this year. Furthermore,
payrolls have fallen by a stumbling 1.1
million since the recession recovery began
in Nov. 2001, making this the worst recovery
in terms of employment since the bureau
began keeping track of such data in 1939.
Meanwhile,
self-serving politicians keep passing economic
policies that do nothing to help those who
can't win for losing. The Bush administration's
Jobs and Growth Plan, a tax-cut package
that took effect this July, was projected
to stimulate economic growth enough to create
5.5 million jobs by the end of 2004, equating
to 344,000 new jobs created every month
beginning at the time of implementation
through Dec. 2004.
The
president's economic advisers didn't hit
the target with this one. The Jobs and Growth
Plan has fallen off course. Those 93,000
jobs which were reportedly lost tacked on
to the 344,000 jobs the plan was supposed
to create makes the shortfall of their plan
equal a total loss of 437,000 jobs for the
month of Aug. alone.
And
the employed are suffering side effects
from all of this as well. Unemployment rates
are having a negative affect on wages.
The Economic Policy Institute has found
that the first half of 2003 was marked by
a steady increase in the unemployment rate
across the nation, causing wages to increase
at a slower rate than that of inflation.
This sharply contrasts the same six month
period just last year, directly after the
end of the recession, in which wage growth
was faster than inflation rates.
Instead
of filling our newspapers and news hours
with pompous filler and the same old tired
news stories we need the cold hard facts.
If I hear one more thing about the recall
or the since-day-one shortcomings of the
Bush admin-istration's plans to rebuild
Iraq, I just might have to rethink my major.
We need an in-depth analysis, and predictions
and suggestions as to how we might go about
surviving this unemployment problem that's
sweeping the nation. All of this talk of
stimulation this, Dow Jones that is getting
old; let's talk about the government's self-interest
based shortcomings. Only then can job market
security become possible.
Allison
Eaton is a journalism major at Cal State
Long Beach.
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