Obama’s “jobs program”: Poverty wages and mass unemployment

[IndianaGreen]

Obama’s “jobs program”: Poverty wages and mass unemployment

10 July 2010

In a series of speeches and interviews this week, the Obama administration signaled a further shift to the right in its social and economic policy, abandoning even its minimal stimulus proposals under pressure from the financial-corporate elite.

On Wednesday, President Obama announced the formation of a panel, called the President’s Export Council, to coordinate the administration’s pledge to double US exports over the next five years. He touted the increase in exports as the key to reviving the economy and creating jobs.

He spoke before a White House gathering dominated by corporate executives, and packed the 19-member panel with the CEOs of some of the largest and most powerful US corporations, including Boeing, Ford, Xerox, UPS, ADM, Verizon and Walt Disney.

On Thursday, he spoke at a small Kansas City electric truck factory to promote his economic policy.

Obama made not a single reference in either speech to the failure of Congress to extend emergency jobless benefits, depriving millions of long-term unemployed workers of any income. Nor did he note Congress’ failure to approve additional federal Medicaid aid to the states, which will result in hundreds of thousands of new public employee and teacher layoffs and further cuts in education and other essential services.

In both speeches, Obama made repeated assertions that the economy is “headed in the right direction” and “moving forward,” in spite of mounting signs of an economic slowdown that negates any prospect of significant job growth.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/jul2010/pers-j10.shtml