OUT OF SIGHT

The unemployed in the US number 14 million. Lose your job, and it will take roughly nine months to find a new one.

''There used to be a sense that unemployment was rich soil for radicalisation and revolt,'' Nelson Lichtenstein, a professor of labour history at the University of California, Santa Barbara, said. ''That was a motif in American history for a long time, but we don't seem to have that any more.''

The jobless are, politically speaking, more or less invisible. With apologies to Karl Marx, the workers of the world, particularly the unemployed, are also no longer uniting. Unemployment doesn't necessarily beget apathy. Even so, numerous studies have shown that unemployment leads to feelings of shame and a loss of self-worth. And that is not particularly conducive to political organising. As Heather Boushey, an economist at the Center for American Progress, puts it, rather bluntly: ''Nobody wants to join the Lame Club.''

In 2010, about 46 per cent of working Americans who were eligible to vote did so, compared with 35 per cent of the unemployed. It's partly because of the greater dispersion of the unemployed, and partly because of the weakening of the institutions that previously mobilised them.

''There's an illusion that grass-roots activity just begins spontaneously, that people get mad and suddenly say, 'I'm not going to take it anymore!''' says Michael Kazin, a historian at Georgetown University. ''But that's not how it happens.'' Intellectuals used to play a big role in organising labour. In the 1930s, Communists and Socialists were a major force. Later, labour unions stepped in. But today's unions are not set up to serve the unemployed; they generally organise around workplaces, after all. Today, many unions are fighting for their own survival. They no longer provide such support for non-members.

http://www.smh.com.au/business/out-of-work-out-of-sight-the-forgotten-people-20110710-1h8xz.html

American Nightmares

Touched on the American Dream and the lack of thereof for many of the black population but of course the real American nightmare is not simply restricted to race .

Michigan, by some calculations, has lost 400,000 jobs in the past seven years. That's in a state whose population is only 10 million. Detroit is seeing unemployment running at nearly 8%, twice the national average. The number of homes in the city "foreclosed" - or repossessed by mortgage lenders - is among the highest in the country. An economic storm is hitting this state - falling property prices, a credit crunch, a shrinking tax base and rising oil prices.

"This is ground zero when it comes to poverty..." an organiser at Gleaners Community Food Bank, a charity which provides food to needy people, reported .

A marked increase in the number of professional workers who are seeking food assistance.

Daniel Wolfe worked in civil engineering for 22 years. He lost his job eight months ago. Daniel had been earning $90,000 a year . Daniel and Cynthia thought of themselves as middle class. He was laid off when the state government cut back on contracts to private companies. His unemployment benefits expired. Much of that money had been spent on trying keep up the family health insurance. And his savings disappeared . In the course of eight months, Daniel and his family have gone from prosperity to poverty. Daniel and his wife Cynthia collect free groceries from a charity food bank .

"To find myself in a position where I couldn't afford a gallon of milk, I couldn't afford a loaf of bread - it was very humbling," he says. "For want of a better term it made me feel like a loser...I think we're on the poverty line right now..."

So will Michigan's pain spread to the rest of the country?

"Keep an eye on Michigan . I believe what's happening here could happen to the rest of America ..." - Augie Fernandez at Gleaners food bank

Hat-tip to PB at World Socialist Movement Forum for link