Public Comment

When the Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) announced that the most recent official unemployment rate is 4.9 percent, the enthusiasm was widespread. According to a survey of economists by the Wall Street Journal, the majority claimed that we are finally close to full employment. The news that the economy is doing very well has been reported not only by the business journals but uncritically by the go-along mass media as well. Moreover, a high level official of the Federal Reserve Bank believes that the economy is doing too well. He complained that "we may not have enough unemployment". Indeed, many public officials and economists agree because they are worried about inflation. But since their sympathies are with business, it is higher wages more than higher prices that makes them anxious. 

However, both unemployment and poverty have been widespread for a long while. In fact, millions of working people have given up looking for work because they have been unable to find a job. So they are not counted as unemployed. If the estimated 13.6 million long term discouraged workers are included, the official unemployment rate would be over 16 percent, which is almost at a depression level. It is not surprising, then, that over 30 percent of the homeless are in the streets because they lost their jobs. 

The Chief Executive Officer of the Gallop Poll, commenting on the absurdly underestimated official unemployment rate, claims that the figures are "extremely misleading" and "it is a big lie". Of course it is a big lie. BLS is certainly aware that millions of unemployed have given up looking for very legitimate reasons. 

Certainly truth is not among the clients of the BLS. But why does the BLS routinely provide the public with false estimates? The unhappy and unavoidable explanation is that the federal government mainly panders to the expectations of private enterprise. What business wants is a low wage workforce and conditions that make labor organizing extremely difficult. These objectives are best achieved not only when there is a substantial labor surplus. The excessively optimist propaganda being presented to the public and to Congress serves to discourage a collective political response. After all, why fix what is not broken. Also, the mythology of full employment justifies the import of foreign low wage workers at the expense of qualified domestic job seekers. 

Thanks to the federal government, which has looked the other way, there are 6.5 million undocumented immigrants who have crossed the border and work in the United States. Many of these workers have replaced domestic employees. Undocumented workers rank among the nation's most vulnerable and exploited workers. These immigrants are victims of unpaid wages, dangerous work, and uncompensated workplace injuries. It is no surprise, then, that business prefers these employees rather than the many available domestic American workers, who had been accustomed to higher wages. Although the federal government has joined business in complaining about a labor shortage, their actual agenda on behalf of business has been to drive down wages 

To recruit skilled foreign labor requires more planning and coordination between business and government. Here is where official government data is particularly important. As an illustration of how business and government work together, let's take a look at how the high tech industry with government cooperation has successfully exploited the myth of full employment. Drawing from government data, the industry has persuaded Congress, or more likely pretended it has been persuaded, that a severe shortage of trained and skilled technology workers exists. In response to the fictitious claims of a skilled labor shortage Congress passed legislation known as H1B, which allows business to hire up to 65,000 foreign workers per year. The law, nevertheless, does not require a business to prove that it is unable to recruit domestic workers. Just as well. If government insisted on evidence, business couldn't provide any. 

Because Hi Tech recruits H1-B workers year after year, the cumulative impact is substantial. In Silicon Valley, foreign workers in the high tech industry constitute 75 percent of the work force. But the industry is still not satisfied. To support its appetite for more foreign workers, it is asking Congress to increase the lid. 

Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton supported the industry's request. Rather than siding with skilled domestic workers who were or will be replaced by foreign labor, she instead supported tripling the annual import of skilled foreign labor to 195,000 per year. In fact, in an email released by WikiLeaks she told a group of Wall Street executives that any kind of limit on immigration is "fundamentally un-American". So among the reasons Hillary lost votes was that many workers who were worried about losing their jobs did not think that Hillary as President would attempt to protect them. Unfortunately, it appears that their fears were justified. 

Her request was at odds with the Democratic Party's platform which she endorsed. The relevant section reads "we are committed to doing everything we can to build a full employment economy".  

Several members of the U.S. Senate had a very different perspective. Ten U.S. Senators including Bernie Sanders requested that the H-1B program be investigated. In a letter that they sent to several federal departments, they complained that some of the large corporations deliberately laid off thousands of American workers so that they can be replaced by lower wage workers with H1-B visas. In fact, according to their complaints, many American employees are being forced to train foreign workers who were taking their jobs! Obviously, the industry's insistence that there is a shortage of domestic workers is 100 percent propaganda. Clearly, both the deception and mistreatment of working people are immense. 

So what are the options? Unfortunately, too many Americans, who are deeply concerned about how badly things are going, have been willing to elect a right wing candidate for President. Obviously, Bernie Sanders would have been by far the much better alternative. But the Democratic Party establishment engaged in illegal and unethical practices to deprive Bernie of the nomination. 

However, no matter who is elected, the combined power of government and business against the interests of working people presents tremendous hurdles to overcome. So to stand a chance of successfully addressing the many specific problems that workers and their families confront requires building a formidable political movement. 

But to achieve a morally equitable society in which coping with one crisis after another is no longer the usual situation, we should also consider a vision that poses an alternative to capitalism. Human needs rather than the profit motive should mainly guide how we live. Indeed, we should engage ourselves in a serious campaign to move our society in a socialist direction. If this sounds like pie in the sky, please recall the very positive public response that Bernie Sanders received when he talked positively about socialism. Undoubtedly, achieving a socialist economy would entail a long and arduous climb. However, to believe that the severe and chronic problems that workers and their families suffer can be adequately dealt with in a capitalist society is a delusion