10:20:05, 9:06 am
A new study by the Center for Economic and Policy Research authored by economist John Schmitt shows that only 25.2 percent of American workers have a job that pays at least $16 per hour and provides health insurance and a pension.
The report, 'How Good is the Economy at Creating Good Jobs?' found that between 1979 and 2004 the share of American workers in good jobs remained unchanged at about 25 percent, despite strong economic growth over that period. The report defines a 'good job' as one that offers at least $16 per hour or $32,000 annually, employer-paid health insurance and a pension. Since 1979, inflation-adjusted GDP per person increased 60 percent, but the percentage of workers in good jobs remained unchanged at about 25 percent.
'The U.S. economy has failed to convert long-term economic growth into better jobs,' said Schmitt. 'Despite huge improvements in the average educational level our workforce, most American workers still don't have a job that pays a decent wage and provides health insurance and a pension.'
The study also found that 26.6 percent of the workforce is in a job that pays poorly and offers neither health insurance or a pension.
Read the report here: http://www.cepr.net/publications/labor_markets_2005_10.pdf
OneWorld.net reports that the United Nations Human Rights Committee, which began a review process this week of human rights around the globe has asked US-based organizations to provide it with reports on the human rights situation in the US. The committee made this request after the Bush administration failed to submit its own report.
The review is meant to determine nations' compliance with the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which the US ratified in 1992. The treaty outlaws torture, degrading treatment of prisoners, and demands equal lawful treatment of all persons.
Since 1992, the US government has failed to provide a report on the situation. Previously the committee simply ignored this failure and moved on. This year, however, the committee sought reports on the treatment of nationals and non-nationals under the USA PATRIOT Act provisions and detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, Iraq and Afghanistan.
OneWorld.net reports: 'The move represents a new level of intensity by the United Nations to hold the United States accountable for what is widely seen by rights groups as an increasing disregard of human rights by the US government at the highest level, and at the same time an elevation of the status of NGOs within the UN system.'
The request for information went to several organizations including the ACLU and the World Organization for Human Rights USA. Both organizations and others have submitted reports and have testified in hearings held this week. Organizations that testified talked about the US government's use of torture against detainees, racial profiling and political repression, and other breaches of US and international law authorized by the Bush administration.
Human rights advocates also rejected attempts by the US Ambassador John Bolton and the Bush administration to weaken anti-torture conventions and other agreements aimed at reducing wars of aggression.
Venezuelanalysis.com reports that Venezuela’s National Institute of Statistics (INE) says that poverty will drop dramatically by the end of 2005. Similarly, unemployment dropped 0.6 points, from August to September (11.5 percent) of this year.
INE director Elias Eljuri said that Venezuela’s poverty rate is expected to drop to 35 percent by the end of the year, down from 47 percent for 2004.
Critical poverty, the level at which people cannot afford to cover their basic needs, dropped to 10.1 percent in the first half of 2005, down from 18 percent the previous year. According to Eljuri, this means that poverty has now dropped to a level below what it was before Chávez came into office, in 1999, when the INE registered the poverty rate to be at 42 percent.
Unemployment has also dropped by 3 full points since this time last year.
Double-digit economic growth has fueled the declining unemployment and poverty rates. In 2002 and 2003, Venezuela’s economy suffered collapse due to the US-backed 2002 coup and big business-backed lockout that shutdown the country’s oil industry. Both events were attempts to remove democratically elected President Hugo Chávez from power.
A statement by Dave Hamilton, director of Club's Global Warming and Energy Program, charges that the Inhofe Refinery Bill (S.1772) does not propose real, productive solutions to our current energy problems. Instead, it 'offers more handouts to the oil and gas industries.' The bill is meant to sunsidize building refineries to increase domestic gasoline production in order to lower prices.
But as Hamilton points out, 'This bill is based upon the false premise that rising gas prices and America's oil dependence can be solved by removing environmental safeguards.' He adds that the government has received only one permit request for a new oil refinery in the past 30 years. 'Oil refineries are not being built,' Hamilton says, 'because the industry doesn't want to build them – not because environmental laws are holding them back.'
With rising gas and heating oil prices, heating bills are expected to triple even quadruple in many places this winter. But, rather than 'offer real solutions to lower energy bills and cut America's dependence on oil, the Republican leadership in Congress is trying to exploit this crisis by preparing legislation that will waive environmental laws for new refineries, open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and our coastlines to oil and gas drilling, and funnel even more taxpayer dollars to the oil industry,' Hamilton concludes.
A real solution, Hamilton offered, would be to strengthen energy standards for cars and trucks by raising fuel consumption standards. He also urged Congress to look at subsidizing building improvements that will help families make heating more efficient in their homes.
