Why is Government Trying to Cripple the Second Largest Employer in America?

I do a lot of shipping for my business, therefore, I must interact with the post office on a daily basis. Over the past year or so, many of the items I ship come back stamped, "return to sender" falsely claiming there is no such address, amongst other equally irritating reasons.  This had never happened before, so I asked one of the postal workers, "What's going on, here?"  He told me ever since they've had to lay off their top tier employees, errors abound.  So I decided to do some research and here's what I found.

Firstly, if you depend upon the  mainstream media for news about the post office, the second largest employer after Walmart, you're led to believe the post office is on its last legs.  Politicians claim it's in crisis and therefore USPS must layoff thousands of workers and reduce services, right down to taking the courtesy scotch tape off the counter. However, the truth of the matter is the self-supporting post office has been doing very well over the last couple of years despite email, due mostly to the booming e-commerce sector and the ever increasing number of people shopping online...all of those items must be shipped!

Second, since 1981--under the Reagan administration--the postal service has been required by law to be entirely self-sufficient.  In other words, the post office receives NO taxpayer funding, while having to adhere to caps on the rates they can charge.

Third,  if that wasn't enough, under the Bush administration, Congress passed the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 (PAEA)  forcing USPS  to “prefund its future health care benefit payments to retirees for the next 75 years in an astonishing ten-year time span” — meaning that it had to put aside billions of dollars [$5.5 billion per year] to pay for the health benefits of employees it hasn’t even hired yet, something “that no other government or private corporation is required to do.”  As of now, they have set aside $50 billion to pay for future retiree health benefits.  How many corporations can claim the same?

Although, President Obama had nothing to do with this outrageous burden put upon the post office, he hasn't done anything to remedy the situation.  In fact, Obama pushed for the end of Saturday delivery in his budget proposal  even though the institution receives NO funding from the government. Meanwhile, another attempt is being made to put profit ahead of public interest:  H.R. 2748: Postal Reform Act of 2013 by Rep. Darrell Issa and S. 1486: Postal Reform Act of 2013 by Sen Thomas Carper.

Most of us take the Post Office for granted because it's always been there. However, aside from the great number of people it employs and the convenience it provides, when you consider that the cost of mailing a letter to any area in the country cost only .46 cents versus mailing that same letter to any area in the country through let's say, UPS or Fedex--which cost at the very least costs $9, it becomes clear just how important this institution is. In addition, few realize that the post office actually delivers packages for UPS and Fed Ex (25% of all packages) to places they refuses to go, for instance, rural and other non-profitable areas. The USPS has always been and will continue to be a VITAL connection for those who live in rural areas.

Also, keep in mind, the post office is the only government bureaucracy mentioned in the Constitution.

“In June 1788, the ninth state ratified the Constitution, which gave Congress the power “To establish Post Offices and post Roads” in Article I, Section 8. A year later, the Act of September 22, 1789 (1 Stat. 70), continued the Post Office and made the Postmaster General subject to the direction of the President. Four days later, President Washington appointed Samuel Osgood as the first Postmaster General under the Constitution. A population of almost four million was served by 75 Post Offices and about 2,400 miles of post roads.

The Post Office received two one-year extensions by the Acts of August 4, 1790 (1 Stat. 178), and March 3, 1791 (1 Stat. 218). The Act of February 20, 1792 (1 Stat. 232), continued the Post Office for another two years and formally admitted newspapers to the mails, gave Congress the power to establish post routes, and prohibited postal officials from opening letters. Later legislation enlarged the duties of the Post Office, strengthened and unified its organization, and provided rules for its development. The Act of May 8, 1794 (1 Stat. 354), continued the Post Office indefinitely.

The Post Office moved from Philadelphia in 1800 when Washington, D.C., became the seat of government. Two horse-drawn wagons carried all postal records, furniture, and supplies.

The last three decades have proved that the world’s most efficient mail system not only does quite well on its own, but even in the face of Machiavellian forces trying its absolute best to destroy the well-established fundamental part of our society.

Links:

Don't Shrink the US Post Office; Expand It!

Community and Postal Workers United

Delivering for America

Delivering the Truth: Postal Service Myths and Facts

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Are We Slowly being Converted to a Part-time Worker Society?

To be sure, job cuts--and some might say, massive job cuts--are a daily event, but what about jobs created? According to the Household Survey, of the 953,000 jobs created in 2013, 77%, or 731,000 are part-time (full-time=35 hours or more per week, part-time=less than 35 hours per week) so as Zero Hedge has been saying for over three years, the workplace in America is radically changing right before our eyes, although, unlike Zero Hedge, I certainly don't think Obamacare is the reason behind the transition to a part-time work force. Jobs were sent away a long time ago and our current economy was/is a creation decades in the making. Don't forget that the financial crisis started under 'W' who started two wars, created the TSA, passed the Patriot Act, pushed for the bailouts, and spent more than every president prior to him.

Moreover, we're fighting for full-time jobs that should be paying at least 40-60k but are instead paying 15-30k with less benefits and no job security, not to mention, the huge student loan debt that most people have to pay off no matter what kind of job they get.

Sadly, for the first time ever, this generation will not be better off than its parents, and paradoxically, the cost of living can be higher, much higher for the poor, a segment of our population that is growing larger everyday, a segment of our population that our younger generations can look forward to inclusion because Good luck finding full-time employment!

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As Full-time Employment Becomes a Relic, Part-time Server Jobs Explode!

Sky-high college debt, unpaid internships, part-time low-wage jobs with no benefits, no medical insurance...does any of this sound familiar? Well, that's what's facing our young generations. As for older generations, the only thing they have going for them are shorter sentences. In fact, I heard one middle-aged woman say that she and her husband plan on mugging a postman. At the very least, they'll get three square meals a day. You know, "Club Fed". Although, I think those cushy accommodations are reserved for top 1%. If you have to mug a postman, you are definitely not in that category.

Meanwhile, media "analysts," politicians and academics paint a very rosy picture, telling us a "robust" recovery is on the way, maybe even as early as 2014. Really? For whom?

Therefore, it should not surprise anyone that manufacturing jobs continue to collapse , however...

... not to worry, there are enough below-minimum-wage server jobs to take their place. It would appear that all the depressed unemployed, underemployed and fearing-for-their employment are self-medicating.

The bottom line, college degrees, for the most part, are/will be about as useful as used toilet paper. So, forget about sending your kids to college; just teach them to say, "Would you like fries with your order?"

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Undermining the Quality of Jobs in America:The Trend Toward the Part Time Work Force.

Let's face it, American jobs are much less rewarding and secure than those of our parents and/or grandparents. For one generation after WWII until approximately 1973 American workers, empowered through union contracts, achieved a somewhat harmonious balance with their employers. Good wages, benefits and expectations of job security were the norm there for a while.

In contrast, in addition to the fact that wages have not been/are not increasing in line with expenses despite increasing productivity and skyrocketing executive pay, today's employees are now viewed merely as factors of production, subject to the whim of their employer for the most part. Workers can be fired arbitrarily, forced to work off the clock,  forced to work as so-called independent contractors or part-time, etc.   American workers have truly become an afterthought or invisible. So, why, in the world's most affluent nation, are so many corporations squeezing their employees dry? The answer in a nutshell, greed.

According to New York Times reporter Steven Greenhouse, since 2006, the U.S. has cut a million full-time jobs while adding more than 500,000 part-time jobs. Eager to cut costs in a very competitive global economy, the explosion of sophisticated scheduling software make it simple for today's employers to align staffing to customer traffic, therefore making it easy to increase the use of part time work.  Lower hourly wages, unpredictable hours, and few if any benefits make this trend anything but advantageous to workers.

“Over the past two decades, many major retailers went from a quotient of 70 to 80 percent full-time to at least 70 percent part-time across the industry,” said Burt P. Flickinger III, managing director of the Strategic Resource Group, a retail consulting firm.

Moreover, our national statistics underestimate involuntary part-time employment because they only ask if you work  35 or more hours per week. It doesn't matter whether or not that 35 hours is a result of one job, two jobs, three jobs or four jobs... if your hours add up to over 35 hours, you're classified as full-time.

The Affordable Care Act will only worsen this  part-time trend as employers do not have to pay that shared responsibility fee if their workers average fewer than 30 hours per week. Big incentive for employers to substitute part-time positions or full time.

The bottom line is that the fear of unemployment and the fear of falling back from the "middle class" into the ranks of the poor are being used by employers to take unfair advantage of working people. It's created an atmosphere of abusive treatment and total disrespect for working people that now permeates our society and the globe.  This increasing trend to part-time workers is of course, fueling the income gap/income inequality, funneling more profits and capital gains to those at the top.

About 50% of the population is now poor or near poor and there are not enough jobs to get them out of the hole. Gone are the days of earning a living wage with benefits.

A comment exchange from Zerohedge:

"I remember back in the 1970s that the futurists thought our biggest problem would be finding things to do with all our spare time, as computers were going to radically increase productivity and we'd all be working part-time. Of course they assumed that workers would see most of the benefit of that increase in productivity...

"Damn, I'm glad to see somebody else mention this. It was hugely accepted in the 60s and 70s that the benefits of automation would be shared throughout society and we would all be working fewer hours while also enjoying a higher standard of living.

But nobody imagined the kind of wealth accumulation that we see today. Nobody imagined something like a Walmart where one family acquires $100 billion in wealth on the backs of millions of minimum wage workers.

Also that was a more idealistic time. Back then we didn't know just how cold-blooded and greedy people can be. Most rich people are perfectly happy to put the screws down on workers and drive wages down below a subsistence level if it means they can buy a 10th luxery car or a 5th mansion or whatever. There are no limits to the greed of those who are already well off it seems.

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Did You Know Failing to Join Facebook Means You are a Psychopath?

Not only are you a potential mass-murdering psychopath, good luck getting a job, because employers are wary of individuals without Facebook profiles. They want to read all of your comments and look at all of your pictures. "Peeping Tom", anyone?  This is nothing but an effort by Big Brother to increase the social acceptability of what would've been - just years ago - considered very creepy behavior. It's a total violation of privacy. In fact, the lack of a Facebook account, more than likely, translates to a mature person, who chooses to use his or her time wisely, someone who is beyond petty schoolyard drama.

"I asked Kluemper about the “personality red flags” that their reviewers looked for. He was a little vague but said that a person with obvious mood swings, who is overly emotional in their postings would not be an attractive candidate. Meanwhile, a person with a lot of Facebook friends who takes a lot of crazy photos would be rated as extroverted and friendly — which are attractive qualities in a candidate.

Key takeaway for hiring employers: The Facebook page is the first interview; if you don’t like a person there, you probably won’t like working with them. The bad news for employers, though, who are hoping to take the Facebook shortcut: “So many more profiles are restricted in what the public can access,” says Kluemper.

Oh, and according to the German magazine Der Taggspiegel "James Holmes and Norwegian mass murder Anders Behring Breivik have common ground in their lack of Facebook profiles".

Here is an interesting comment article:

"At my company we do not hire people who do not have Facebook accounts or who make their Facebook accounts inaccessible to H.R. and security personnel. It's very simple, we are looking for a certain type of employee, one who lives a lifestyle that is compatible with our values and corporate mission. If you have anything you need to hide, then seek employment elsewhere. Job seekers, remember that your Facebook is a marketing tool, and the product you are marketing is yourself. Every single post you make, every picture you upload, everything you 'Like,' it's all subject to employer scrutiny. What employers are looking for are physically fit, morally upright, non-political individuals who have enough discretion to avoid posting comments about controversial topics, and who do not feel it necessary to post pictures that might bring discredit to themselves or the organizations they are affiliated with.

- Jim Thompson, Seattle, WA , 08/8/2012

The real message here is, conform, conform, conform...or else!

Links:

Facebook can tell you if a person is worth hiring.

Beware, Tech Abandoners. People Without Facebook Accounts Are 'Suspicious.'

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Carnival Cruise: Sweatshops at Sea

From Corpwatch:

Carnival Cruise staff on UK ships are paid $1.20 (75p) an hour in basic wages, according to new documents seen by the Guardian newspaper. Moreover, P&O Cruises withhold passengers' tips unless crew hit performance targets which work out to roughly 15% of wages, unless they get at least a 92% favorable rating from customers.

These wages are below the minimum level recommended by the Joint Maritime Commission of the International Labour Organization which was set at US $555 a month for salaries paid out after January 1, 2012.

“Unfortunately, because the shipping industry is largely unregulated, (workers) wages will normally depend on the kind of contract (they) have signed,” notes the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF) web page for seafarers.

The $1.20 an hour wages are for staff on P&O Cruises sailing out of Southampton in the UK. The tour operator began life as Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company which operated the world's first passenger ships starting in 1822 with trips to Iberian Peninsula, and tours in 1844. The UK company merged with Carnival Corporation of Florida in 2003 to create the world’s largest cruise ship operator with annual revenues of $15.8 billion in 2011 and profits of $2.2 billion.

Today most of the workers aboard P&O are from India and the Philippines. Tours in July advertised on the site for the Carnival Legend range between $2,798 and $6,458 per passenger for a 12 day trip around northern Europe. A quick calculation suggests that P&O workers would need to work for almost 500 days to pay for a cruise themselves, assuming that they did not spend a single penny of their wages.

David Dingle, CEO of Carnival UK, told the Guardian that staff were "much happier" and many of them earned over £1,000 a month ($1,600). Some passengers were skeptical. One - Rob Bygrave of Sherborne, Dorset - told the newspaper that "grown men were in tears" after hearing about the new pay scheme.

"It's high time the disgraceful practice of allowing the shipping industry to pay poverty wages to workers who don't live in the UK was stopped,” Brendan Barber, general secretary of the Trade Union Congress told the Guardian. “Exploitative rates of pay for those working on British ships have no place in a modern society."

An estimated 1.2 million people work at sea. For them working on board a ship has never been an idyllic operation. Over 200 years after the men of the HMS Bounty rebelled against their captain for mistreatment (commemorated in a number of books and films like Mutiny on the Bounty) activists say that the ship workers are still exploited routinely.

“It’s a sweatshop at sea,” says Paul Chapman, former port chaplain, founder of the Center for Seafarers' Rights, and author of “Trouble on Board: The Plight of International Seafarers.” “A ship owner can go any place in the world, pick up anybody he wants, on almost any terms. If the owner wants to maximize profit at the expense of people, it’s a piece of cake.”

“Cruise ships maintain a degree of glamour and opulence. Advertising projects images of fun and carefree times. Those of us living in port cities see impressively clean, bright and huge ships glide into our harbours, offloading passengers anxious to spend money at stores, restaurants, and with tour operators,” writes Professor Ross A. Klein of Memorial University of Newfoundland in Canada who runs http://www.cruisejunkie.com/.

In an article titled “High Seas, Low Pay, Klein adds:

“The reality for many cruise-ship workers, however, is certainly not carefree, nor fun. While the working conditions for officers, cruise staff, and those working in the shops and casinos are adequate, if not good, the experience of those working in the dining room, cleaning rooms, in the galley, and below deck is quite different. These workers are often paid substandard wages, have marginal accommodations, survive on inadequate food, and live under a system that is rife with abuse and uncertainty.”

The ITF has been fighting to get European countries to adopt the Maritime Labour Convention that would require ships to maintain minimum labor standards on board ships. The UK is yet to ratify the convention.

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The Diminishing Returns of a College Degree

Not all that long ago, a college education in America ensured not only a job, but elevated socio-economic status. In fact, just as recently as 2007, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers, more than half of all  college graduates who had applied for a job received an offer by graduation day, albeit, without the elevated socio-economic status. In 2008, that percentage fell to 26%, and in 2009, less than 20%.  Moreover, not all that long ago, one person - usually, the father, even without a college degree - could provide for a family of six, eight, and even ten. Today, it takes two people, sometimes working two jobs, to support a family of four.

Meanwhile, student debt is the only sector growing at an ever-increasing rate since the 2008 financial crisis. The average annual tuition at a private nonprofit four-year college is about $35-40,000! So, now that student debt has reached the $1 trillion mark - the second biggest debt sector for US households - leaving college grads with unprecedented levels of college debt, not to mention, the youth unemployment rate in the US is rivaling many third-world countries, is a college education really worth it? Could it be that those who choose not to attend college may actually end up earning more than their college-degreed counterparts?

Over 17 million Americans with college degrees are doing jobs that require less than the skill levels associated with a bachelor’s degree according to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics. For instance, over 317,000 waiters and waitresses have college degrees (8,000 of those, doctoral or professional degrees), 80,000 bartenders, and over 18,000 parking lot attendants.

It should be more than obvious that public policy designed to create more college graduates isn't really concerned with sustainable jobs for future graduates. The purpose of the policies is to prop up the education bubble and the lending industry that supports it.

So, maybe it's time to reexamine our assumptions about the necessity of a college education, those ideological templates we use to understand the world, especially when, according to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, the US has one of the highest number of employees working in low wage jobs of high paying industrialized nations. One out of every four Americans employed work in jobs that pay less than $10 per hour.

Between NAFTA, tougher bankruptcy laws, the repeal of Glass Steagall, bubbles galore, and and a financial system that might as well be a roulette wheel, the best we can hope for is a low-wage recovery. Newly added jobs are coming from lower paying sectors while productivity increases and profits filter to the top of the economic class. 3,500,000 high-wage jobs lost during recession and only 179,000 have been added so far. Therefore, a college degree that's risen anywhere from 500-1000% since 1970,  in inflation adjusted dollars, is sure to sap  future earnings with few exceptions.

Older Americans are 47 times richer than younger Americans.

In 1984, households headed by people age 65 and older were worth just 10 times the median net worth of households headed by people 35 and younger.

But now that gap has widened to 47-to-one, marking the largest wealth gap ever recorded between the two age groups.”

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Narcissists Best Suited for Job Interview Success

Well, this should come as no surprise, especially considering the state of our globe. Narcissists, who are most likely to find employment it appears, no doubt, run the show. Being the first in line for job, to be sure they're first in line for promotions, and therefore, climb the ladder, quickly.

The business workplace is tailor made for the superficial charm of the vain and overly self-involved.

This is because narcissists come across as being confident, and engaging when speaking. Narcissists are also able to promote themselves in the interview setting as well.

"This is one setting where it's OK to say nice things about yourself and there are no ramifications. In fact, it’s expected,” Peter Harms, assistant professor of management at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and co-author of the study, said. "Simply put, those who are comfortable doing this tend to do much better than those who aren't."

Narcissists were also highly rated because of their use of gestures and smiles. These gestures and actions were determined to further establish the likability and credibility of the interviewee in the eyes of the interviewer.

“This shows that what is getting (narcissists) the win is the delivery,” Harms said. “These results show just how hard it is to effectively interview, and how fallible we can be when making interview judgments. We don’t necessarily want to hire narcissists, but might end up doing so because they come off as being self-confident and capable.”

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21-Hour Work Week?

The 40-hour work week standard has spanned more than 50-years, despite the rapid pace of technological advancement, which, as it increases efficiency, reduces the need for human labor. So, why are we still working 40 plus hours per week?

Well, after WWII, it was decided that the US should actively promote economic growth in order to provide Americans with 40-hour jobs, so corporations eagerly ramped up their advertising and production, while the federal government invested in infrastructure to stimulate that economic growth.

Well, 50-years later, thanks to a more than willing consumer society, we've more than doubled productivity to the point where economic growth has become a cancer on society. On the planet. As Michael Coren at Fast Company says, "It catches people in a cycle of consumerism and consumption where they "live to work, work to earn, and earn to consume things."

But is it really necessary to stimulate this malignancy in order to create jobs? In order to keep the 40-hour work week? Because evidence has shown, that beyond a certain point, economic growth does not increase our well being. It's time to rein in the growth because well-being has taken a huge nose-dive over the last 30 years.

So, what about reducing the standard work week from 40-hours? It's not as far-fetched as you might think. The New Economics Foundation (nef) has produced a study that encourages a 21-hour work week in order to "reset" societal and political norms.

A ‘normal’ working week of 21 hours could help to address a range of urgent, interlinked problems: overwork, unemployment, over-consumption, high carbon emissions, low well-being, entrenched inequalities, and the lack of time to live sustainably, to care for each other, and simply to enjoy life.

However, given prevailing wages and expenses, Americans might need three "full-time" jobs to make ends meet. Undoubtedly, in creating a 21-hour work week, developing "a new economic model that will help to engineer a ‘steady-state’ economy and address problems of transition to 21 hours" would be required.

Nevertheless, as good as reduced work week might sound, if the powers that be even consider this option, one must wonder, what's in it for them? More power? More wealth? After all, that's the only thing these people care about.

For instance, could this be the bait that lures us into a cashless society? Where all purchases are made by credit cards, charge cards, or microchip. What's so bad about that? Well, the establishment of international economic order, a one-world currency that gives the ruling class supreme power.

You see, as George Carlin calls it, the "Ownership Class" - when the 400 richest Americans have more wealth than the poorest 150 million Americans - has learned that it's much easier to create circumstances which lead to the masses begging for the change the elite class desire; rather than imposing these desired changes on hostile citizens.

In conclusion, while the 21-hour work week sounds like a solution to a multitude of problems, as Picasso once said, "Every positive value has its price in negative terms... the genius of Einstein leads to Hiroshima." The "Ownership Class" have consistently proven Picasso, right, time and again..

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Sluggish Job Growth with Backlog of Nearly 14 million Unemployed Workers

Given the enormous scope of the unemployment problem, this minimal level of job creation will keep us mired in disastrously high unemployment.

At the current sluggish rate of job growth, the unemployment rate will stay disastrously high.

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Screwflation: Screwing the Middle Class

"Screwflation", a term coined by Wall Street guru, Doug Kass, describes how falling wages and rising costs of basic goods are screwing squeezing the middle class. Moreover, the culture of greed that has escalated over the last three decades, leaving an unprecedented redistribution of wealth from the middle class to the top one percent has negated any possibility of a robust  middle class America in the future. 

This younger generation of Americans -  saddled with college and housing debt, yet scarce job opportunities - now face the highest unemployment since World War II.   To make matters worse, older Americans are forced to stay in their jobs longer, limiting employment prospects even more.

The American middle class under stress.

• Middle-income jobs are disappearing from the economy. The share of middle-income jobs in the United States has fallen from 52% in 1980 to 42% in 2010. Middle-income jobs have been replaced by low-income jobs, which now make up 41% of total employment.
• 17 million Americans with college degrees are doing jobs that require less than the skill levels associated with a bachelor’s degree.
• Real wages have stagnated over the past two decades, and in recent months, have actually fallen. Over the past year, nominal wages grew only 1.7% while all consumer prices, including food and energy, increased by 2.7%.
• Wages and salaries have fallen from 60% of personal income in 1980 to 51% in 2010. Government transfers have risen from 11.7% of personal income in 1980 to 18.4% in 2010, a post-War high. There are 8.5 million people receiving unemployment insurance and over 40 million receiving food stamps.
• Health care spending increased from 9.5% of personal consumption in 1980 to 16.3% in 2010.
• The average cost of one year of college is $21,000. After adjusting for inflation, it has risen 72% since 1990.
• The share of personal consumption spent on food and energy has risen from 13.4% in 2002 to 15.3% in 2010.
• Household net worth declined from $65.7 trillion in the second quarter of 2007 to $56.8 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2010. The middle class, which has much more of its net worth tied up in home equity, has borne the brunt of this decline.
• Over the past three decades, household debt as a share of disposable income increased from 68% to 116%.

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Most of Unemployed No Longer Receiving Benefits Yet Can’t Get Employed Unless Already Employed

Currently, America's unemployed are no longer receiving unemployment benefits.  Moreover, nearly two million out-of-work Americans will be cut off from federal unemployment insurance in January alone unless Congress renews the programs before they expire on December 31st, according to a recent report from the National Employment Law Project (NELP), and more than six million could face premature cut-off over the course of 2012.

Early last year, 75 percent were receiving checks. The figure is now 48 percent - a shift that points to a growing crisis of long-term unemployment. Nearly one-third of America's 14 million unemployed have had no job for a year or more.

Congress is expected to decide by year's end whether to continue providing emergency unemployment benefits for up to 99 weeks in the hardest-hit states. If the emergency benefits expire, the proportion of the unemployed receiving aid would fall further.

The ranks of the poor would also rise. The Census Bureau says unemployment benefits kept 3.2 million people from slipping into poverty last year. It defines poverty as annual income below $22,314 for a family of four.

Here's the kicker: Some businesses and recruitment firms are telling would-be job seekers that they can’t get a job unless they already have a job.

Links:


Legislation to renew federal unemployment insurance for 2012 has been introduced in U.S. House and Senate

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The Real Unemployment Rate is 23%

The Shadow Government Statistics reports that as of August 2011, the real unemployment rate is at 23%.

The seasonally-adjusted SGS Alternate Unemployment Rate reflects current unemployment reporting methodology adjusted for SGS-estimated long-term discouraged workers, who were defined out of official existence in 1994. That estimate is added to the BLS estimate of U-6 unemployment, which includes short-term discouraged workers.

The U-3 unemployment rate is the monthly headline number. The U-6 unemployment rate is the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) broadest unemployment measure, including short-term discouraged and other marginally-attached workers as well as those forced to work part-time because they cannot find full-time employment.

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The $upreme Court Rules in Favor of the Corporate Thieves

Corporate control of the justice department reared its ugly head again today.  The Supreme Court, once more, sided with large corporations,  as it dismissed a massive class-action lawsuit that charged Wal-Mart with systemic gender discrimination.  This ruling strengthens the divide-and-conquer strategy of the power elite by eliminating the possibility of citizens to collectively seek justice against the enormously powerful corporation.  The individual's access to the justice system is even more limited now that a higher burden of proof  is required before an employment discrimination class action can be certified.

“Those without means to hire an attorney or pursue a claim rely on class-action lawsuits to level the playing field and change the policies and practices of elite corporations. The court’s sharply divided ruling has made it more difficult for these individuals.” -- Wade Henderson of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

The U.S. might still rank as one of the top nations insofar as income and wealth go, but the distribution is so massively skewed in favor of the top 1%, it's the epitome of deceit.  Exclude the wealthiest 1%, and let's see where we rank...most likely, at the very bottom.  Thanks to the  $upreme Court ruling, low-level hourly employees, of whom many  live at the  poverty level, without insurance, are now at the mercy of Wal-Mart and/or any of the large corporations who do not respect their employees.

Individual women can still sue Walmart. But their options and opportunities will be limited by their isolation and economic circumstance. As Walmart Watch notes: Walmart Associates live on poverty-level wages and often do not have access to benefits. Walmart’s average sales associate makes $8.81 per hour, according to IBISWorld, an independent market research group. This translates to annual pay of $15,576, based upon Walmart’s full-time status of thirty-four hours per week, well below the poverty line for a family of four. Additionally in 2010, Walmart’s health insurance covered only 54 percent of their associates while tens of thousands of associates qualify for Medicaid and other publicly subsidized care.”

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Worse Than the Great Depression!

The working class faces the worst jobs crisis since the Great Depression. This depression "recession" is not your typical cyclical downturn that will eventually rebound.   Over 20% of this country's workforce is either underemployed or completely unemployed.  House prices and wages continue to decline.  Nearly 14 million Americans are looking for work, and about 6.2 million Americans, 45.1% of the unemployed in this country, have been jobless for more than six months...that's worse than at the time of the Great Depression. What's more, over "1 million of the long-term unemployed have run out of unemployment benefits, leaving them without the money to get new training, buy new clothes, or even get to job interviews.

Nevertheless, the wealthy took their treasonous tax cuts wherever they could reap the highest return without any concern whatsoever about the state of the American economy.  Never mind that those tax cuts will cost the average taxpayer much more than the cost of the bailouts.

So, what's the solution?  Well,  balancing the budget on the backs of working families - slashing trillions of dollars in social spending - of course.  It doesn't matter that trillions of dollars have disappeared into thin air, and that  proof of the Federal Reserve's unprecedented support to foreign banks during the worst part of the financial crisis is finally released.   The international capitalist elite continue to exploit  the economic crisis - that they caused - to the fullest extent, using it as a giant club to bash the average taxpayer.

Mass unemployment and the eventual elimination of the social safety net will create such desperation that people will take poverty-wage jobs without benefits.  Third world, anyone?

Links: 

Economic Policy Institute (EPI) - The EPI pointed out that the labor force participation rate remained at its lowest point of the recession and that the labor force in May was smaller than it was a year ago, by about 500,000 workers, even though the working-age population grew by 1.9 million in that period. In other words, the improvement in the unemployment rate over the last year (from 9.6 - 9.1%) is due to would-be workers deciding to sit out the economic storm”.

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Measuring Invisible Unemployment.

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41% Unemployment Rate?

We, as individuals, left alone to our own devices, are not highly efficient mechanisms for survival. We depend on the organized cooperation of huge numbers of people to guarantee our material survival. As economist and author, Robert Heilbroner said, "We are rich, not as individuals, but as members of a rich society, and our easy assumption of materials sufficiency is actually only as reliable as the bonds which forge us into a social whole."

In other words, we're all in this together and anyone who thinks they're "self-made" is a damned fool. No one does it alone.

So, when 41% of working adults are out of work ("the real unemployment number is, by definition, the proportion of working-age adults who aren't employed"), our economy is not functioning properly no matter what we're told. The civilian employment-population ratio -  the real employment rate - is currently at about 59%,

Meanwhile, with so many people out of work, and while average tax-paying Americans are bailing out organized wealth, while organized wealth is doing their best to undermine our efforts at  survival.

Take the Tea Party, who presents itself as a grass roots "populist uprising against vested corporate power" when it's really covertly coordinated by billionaires for billionaires.

Five hundred people attended the summit, which served, in part, as a training session for Tea Party activists in Texas. An advertisement cast the event as a populist uprising against vested corporate power. “Today, the voices of average Americans are being drowned out by lobbyists and special interests,” it said. “But you can do something about it.” The pitch made no mention of its corporate funders. The White House has expressed frustration that such sponsors have largely eluded public notice. David Axelrod, Obama’s senior adviser, said, “What they don’t say is that, in part, this is a grassroots citizens’ movement brought to you by a bunch of oil billionaires.”

Links:

Unemployed Friends - is a great forum with resources for the unemployed and it also contains a forum where unemployed Americans can share their stories and support each other.

Where Service Jobs Will Be -- tracking where new jobs will be created in America. Today, I look at the sector of the economy that accounts for the largest share of all jobs - the service class.

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ELANCE, the Ebay for Services

E-lance, coined by MIT Sloan School of Management's Thomas W. Malone, author of The Future of Work: How the New Order of Business Will Shape Your Organization, Your Management Style and Your Life stands for Electronically Connected Freelancers which Thomas Malone uses to describe what the future economy might look like, an "e-lance economy."

Much like movies are made now, where producers, directors, actors, writers, technicians come together temporarily to work on one project and then disband only to rearrange in other ways to work on other projects, Mr. Malone envisions an economy where more and more companies will operate in the same way.

"We're in the dawn of the e-lance economy, E-lancers are electronically connected freelancers. They work together on project teams for a day, a week, a month, or longer -- and then disperse and recombine to work on other projects." -- Thomas Malone

Elance, Inc. took Mr. Malone's acronym to name their company and has embodied this concept. They are one of the few pioneers working toward providing the infrastructure that's needed for this kind of economy to succeed. Elance, Inc. is an online market place where services -- software development, graphics design, language translation, market research or anything that can be transmitted electronically -- are bought and sold. E-lancers post information regarding their skills, fees, and the date they can deliver and if they get the job, can download the materials to do the project, and get paid for it through this site. Like Ebay, Elance tracks the reputation of the freelancers by allowing previous clients to rate their performance.

Elance envisions its future as a workspace where both buyers and service providers from around the world can make Elance their own.

Watercooler is the Elance blog.

Elance University

Related sites:

Get a Freelancer

oDesk

Guru

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Top 30 Elite of the Online Employment Industry

Absolutely Healthcare - largest specialized health care / medical job site on the Internet putting healthcare / medical job seekers in touch with health care / medical facilities, staffing companies, travel companies, and recruiters to facilitate their job search.

All Healthcare Jobs - Medical careers in nursing, allied health, pharmacy, physician employment, executive, rehab and laboratory

BioSpace - Biotech and pharmaceutical news and jobs

CareerBank - Jobs and career resources specifically finance, accounting, insurance, banking, and mortgage.

CareerBuilder - All the job search and career building tools and resources you will ever need.

Career Journal - Wall Street Journal's career information and job searching site.

College Recruiter Internships and entry level job positions for recent college graduates.

Computer Jobs - Tech jobs for IT professionals

Craig's List - All encompassing online job search

Dice - Career hub for tech insiders.

Employment Guide - All encompassing employment guide.

Execunet - Executive job search and recruitment site.

H Careers - Hospitality field

Health Career Web - full service healthcare job site

Health E Careers - Quality healthcare careers including Administration, Operations, Allied Health, Biotechnology, Dental, Nursing, Pharmaceutical and Physician or Doctor Specialties

Indeed - One search. All jobs.

Job - Career power tools.

JobCircle - Helping jobseekers and employers connect

Jobing - Local jobs, local employers, local people, and other job resources.

Jobs in Logistics - Logistics jobs and quality logistics candidates

The Ladders - Premium job site created exclusively for $100k+ people looking for $100k+ jobs.

LatPro - Job board for spanish and bilingual professionals.

Monster - extensive job database

Net-Temps - Net-Temps is the leading job board for temporary, temp-to-perm and full time employment through the staffing industry.

6FigureJobs - Leading Online Executive Career Portal

Simply Hired - Very simple and effective job search engine building the largest online database of jobs on the planet.

SnagAJob - The #1 source for hourly employment.

Vet Jobs - VetJobs is the leading Internet niche job board for reaching the 14 million military veterans currently in the work force, as well as the 250 thousand active duty military personnel who transition each year, and their family members.

Workopolis - Workopolis is Canada's leading provider of Internet recruitment and job search solutions.

Yahoo Hot Jobs - All encompassing job search site.

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100 Best Companies to Work For.

Full list

Rank	Company	Job growth	U.S. employees
1	Google	60%	8,134
2	Quicken Loans	68%	4,920
3	Wegmans Food Markets	4%	35,302
4	Edward Jones	5%	31,451
5	Genentech	9%	10,842
6	Cisco Systems	17%	32,160
7	Starbucks	15%	134,013
8	Qualcomm	15%	10,095
9	Goldman Sachs	10%	13,764
10	Methodist Hospital System	11%	10,481
11	Boston Consulting Group	8%	1,543
12	Nugget Markets	20%	1,322
13	Umpqua Bank	25%	1,788
14	Network Appliance	25%	4,481
15	W. L. Gore & Associates	6%	5,211
16	Whole Foods Market	11%	41,385
17	David Weekley Homes	-11%	1,450
18	OhioHealth	4%	11,254
19	Arnold & Porter	-3%	1,272
20	Container Store	5%	3,019
21	Principal Financial Group	3%	13,438
22	American Century Investments	-5%	1,694
23	JM Family Enterprises	4%	4,609
24	American Fidelity Assurance	1%	1,376
25	Shared Technologies	28%	1,401
26	Stew Leonard's	13%	2,282
27	S.C. Johnson & Son	0%	3,419
28	QuikTrip	-5%	9,630
29	SAS Institute	-1%	5,153
30	Aflac	5%	4,475
31	Alston & Bird	0%	1,762
32	Rackspace Managed Hosting	38%	1,443
33	Station Casinos	6%	14,920
34	Recreational Equipment (REI)	19%	9,137
35	TDIndustries	19%	1,595
36	Nordstrom	0%	49,769
37	Johnson Financial Group	12%	1,259
38	Kimley-Horn & Associates	9%	2,368
39	Robert W. Baird	0%	2,093
40	Adobe Systems	8%	3,900
41	Bingham McCutchen	0%	1,652
42	MITRE	5%	6,037
43	Intuit	11%	7,635
44	Plante & Moran	0%	1,522
45	Children's Healthcare of Atlanta	3%	5,427
46	CarMax	13%	14,223
47	J. M. Smucker	7%	3,042
48	Devon Energy	15%	3,368
49	Griffin Hospital	4%	1,133
50	Camden Property Trust	-5%	1,894
51	Paychex	7%	11,622
52	FactSet Research Systems	21%	1,102
53	Vision Service Plan	6%	2,052
54	CH2M HILL	-2%	15,674
55	Perkins Coie	6%	1,629
56	Scripps Health	6%	11,223
57	Ernst & Young	4%	25,947
58	Scottrade	13%	1,584
59	Mayo Clinic	4%	41,004
60	Alcon Laboratories	6%	6,848
61	Chesapeake Energy	15%	5,752
62	American Express	4%	30,162
63	King's Daughters Medical Center	13%	2,934
64	EOG Resources	17%	1,388
65	Russell Investments	5%	1,267
66	Nixon Peabody	9%	1,728
67	Valero Energy	-8%	17,488
68	eBay	13%	7,769
69	General Mills	-2%	17,090
70	Mattel	2%	5,000
71	KPMG	8%	22,857
72	Marriott International	-2%	123,203
73	David Evans & Associates	9%	1,085
74	Granite Construction	6%	4,650
75	Southern Ohio Medical Center	7%	2,032
76	Arkansas Children's Hospital	8%	3,283
77	PCL Construction Enterprises	18%	3,558
78	Navy Federal Credit Union	15%	6,069
79	National Instruments	3%	2,353
80	Healthways	42%	3,730
81	Booz Allen Hamilton	7%	17,650
82	Nike	4%	14,570
83	AstraZeneca	5%	12,810
84	Stanley	7%	2,756
85	Lehigh Valley Hospital & Health Network	9%	8,420
86	Microsoft	8%	47,645
87	Yahoo	16%	7,915
88	Four Seasons Hotels	21%	12,851
89	Bright Horizons Family Solutions	7%	14,660
90	PricewaterhouseCoopers	5%	29,818
91	Publix Super Markets	5%	142,084
92	Milliken	-8%	8,800
93	Erickson Retirement Communities	14%	10,248
94	Baptist Health South Fla.	4%	9,838
95	Deloitte & Touche USA	7%	36,517
96	Herman Miller	14%	6,063
97	FedEx	8%	228,211
98	Sherwin-Williams	1%	29,554
99	SRA International	6%	5,200
100	Texas Instruments	-1%	15,051

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