Economy Getting Worse For Workers

George Bush keeps telling Americans that the economy is fine. I guess it is for his rich friends, because they've never had it so good. The millionaires and billionaires are making more money than ever, and if you've got that much money, why should you care what gas, food and housing costs? And these rich people are salivating at the thought that McCain might be elected president, because he offers nothing more than a continuation of the Bush economic policies.

For America's workers though, things just keep getting worse. The economy lost another 51,000 jobs. This is the seventh month in a row that the economy has lost jobs. In fact, the United States has experienced a decrease of nearly a half-million jobs since January. While the pool of potential workers has expanded, the number of available jobs is continuing to shrink.

There are currently 8.8 million unemployed Americans. That's 1.6 million more than just one year ago. And that's not even counting all of the part-time workers, many of whom are also looking for full-time jobs. There are 5.7 million of them -- 1.4 million more than 12 months ago.

That means there's probably 10 to 14 million people who are either unemployed or under-employed. This is not only bad for those people, but it's also bad for those workers who have full-time jobs. That's because it tends to depress wages that are already stagnant. Why should a boss give a worker a raise, when there's a ton of people who'd probably do the job for even less.

I know there are some racists and immigrant-haters out there who would love to blame this on undocumented immigrants, but they are not the cause. We are in this mess because the Republicans have pursued policies that favor the giant corporations, but leave the workers and small businessmen out in the cold.

It is time to change those policies, and the only way to do that is to elect a lot more Democrats -- both on the federal and the state level.