Poverty on the rise as economy stagnates

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Vol. 9, No. 12 DECEMBER 1991 50 1 IT'S OUR RIV This holiday season will be a dismal one for working people. Unemployment is rising while wages continue to slide. The U.S. economy is dead in the water, and the politicians-Democratic and Republican are unable to say how to get it moving again.

For 28 months in a row, the economy has grown very little or not at all. That's the longest period of stagnation since at least 1947. President Bush has declared that "the recession is over," but few people find cause to believe him.

On Nov. 15, the stock market plunged 120 points. Contributing to the panic on ment's announcement of a rise in business inventories while retail sales were going down. This indicated that manufacturers were producing more than people were able to buy.

As a result, more employers will seek to close down their production lines. Layoffs will increase. Unemployment lines will get even longer.

The effects of the economic downturn are startling: Median family income declined 2 percent ($709) last year. According to the Labor Department, hourly wages for nonsupervisory workers, adjusted for inflation, were lower in 1990 than in any year since 1964.

The Census Bureau reports that 2.1 million more Americans, including 840,000 children, fell below the official poverty line last year. This was the first annual increase in the poor since 1983. Ten percent of the population is forced to rely on government tood stamps.

Some regions of the country have been hit even harder by economic stagnation. In Georgia, for example, applications for food stamps have gone up 47 percent in three years. In New England, people considered to be living in poverty rose 28 percent from 1989 to 1990.

The situation for working people CENSORED promises to get much worse. Robert Greenstein, director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, points out: "Weak government policies to assist the recession's victims, including the weakest level of unemployment insurance protection in any recession since World War Il-along with budget cuts aimed at the the seriousness of the drive by the ruling poor that were passed earlier this year in a rich to roll back abortion rights. number of states-add to the likelihood of The failure of the Democratic Party-cona substantial rise in poverty in 1991." (TWU Express, Oct. 25, 1991.)

another indication of the same thing.

The debt crisis Economic recessions are a normal periodic development under capitalism. They come about because competing capitalists dragged along in tow. cannot tell when markets are saturated, and thus over-invest and over-produce. But the current recession has been prolonged by the mounting spiral of debt, which affects manufacturers, consumers, and the government.

During the last decade, U.S. corporations have gone on a borrowing spree, piling up against the gag rule. (continued on page 5, in “Strike deadline nears at United Airlines”)

Germany See p. 12 ENT in the 1960s and 70s.

That the initiative is now in the conservatives hands was graphically shown by the Thamae hearnos While the sancerus.

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