QUOTE
Hidden Unemployment Increasing
Posted by Jill Hussein C., Brilliant at Breakfast at 6:12 AM on July 31, 2008.
There's more than one way to push people out of the workforce and out of the mainstream.
There's more than one way to push people out of the workforce and out of the mainstream. One of the most cost-effective ways is to move people from full-time to part-time work. These people don't inflate and enlarge the unemployment figures because they are at least marginally employed, and they tend not to cost employers too much money, because in many companies, part-time employees are ineligible for health insurance.
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Workers who see their pay cut in half and their benefits terminated are more likely to accumulate debt just to make ends meet. They're more likely to put off medical and dental checkups and procedures. They're more likely to enter foreclosure. And this benefits overall American society -- how? Yes, reduced payroll costs can help companies get through the quarter without causing Jim Cramer to jump up and down and screech about them on his television show. But is this the best solution for reduced profits? Or are companies just killing the goose that laid the golden egg.
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Is this what we've come to? That people have to beg for donations? We see it everywhere. Here in northern NJ, a foundation has been set up to help local families dealing with family members who are injured or ill. Coin collection cans and pancake breakfasts abound. Here in Blogtopia (&trade Skippy), those needing help ask for it, and the community responds. This is the Republican dream society, in which individuals are reliant on the kindness of strangers, and the ability of strangers to help out. But is this the country we want to live in; one in which employees with health insurance are in danger of being fired because they are too expensive, in which private health insurance is prohibitively expensive, and where people in need of surgery are reliant on the five dollar donations of other people in similarly threatened straits?
Cutting staff is an easy way to make the balance sheet look better to the financial analysts in the short run. But after you get through the quarter, then what? Who buys your products? Who pays the taxes to perpetuate the Iraq War in perpetuity? And what happens to the sick people who have been let go?
Alternet Blog LINK
Posted by Jill Hussein C., Brilliant at Breakfast at 6:12 AM on July 31, 2008.
There's more than one way to push people out of the workforce and out of the mainstream.
There's more than one way to push people out of the workforce and out of the mainstream. One of the most cost-effective ways is to move people from full-time to part-time work. These people don't inflate and enlarge the unemployment figures because they are at least marginally employed, and they tend not to cost employers too much money, because in many companies, part-time employees are ineligible for health insurance.
...
Workers who see their pay cut in half and their benefits terminated are more likely to accumulate debt just to make ends meet. They're more likely to put off medical and dental checkups and procedures. They're more likely to enter foreclosure. And this benefits overall American society -- how? Yes, reduced payroll costs can help companies get through the quarter without causing Jim Cramer to jump up and down and screech about them on his television show. But is this the best solution for reduced profits? Or are companies just killing the goose that laid the golden egg.
...
Is this what we've come to? That people have to beg for donations? We see it everywhere. Here in northern NJ, a foundation has been set up to help local families dealing with family members who are injured or ill. Coin collection cans and pancake breakfasts abound. Here in Blogtopia (&trade Skippy), those needing help ask for it, and the community responds. This is the Republican dream society, in which individuals are reliant on the kindness of strangers, and the ability of strangers to help out. But is this the country we want to live in; one in which employees with health insurance are in danger of being fired because they are too expensive, in which private health insurance is prohibitively expensive, and where people in need of surgery are reliant on the five dollar donations of other people in similarly threatened straits?
Cutting staff is an easy way to make the balance sheet look better to the financial analysts in the short run. But after you get through the quarter, then what? Who buys your products? Who pays the taxes to perpetuate the Iraq War in perpetuity? And what happens to the sick people who have been let go?
Alternet Blog LINK