We need to keep truly representative lawmakers in place this November
WASHINGTON, DC – It’s been a dismal recovery, at best, since the so-called end of the Great Recession in 2009. All these years later, the American people continue to feel the impact of what has been arguably the greatest economic downturn the U.S. has experienced since the Great Depression of 1929 to 1939.
“Maybe we can’t feel an improvement because there has been no improvement in the financial conditions of U.S. households, despite government claims that the recession is over and that the nation is well on the road to recovery. Look at the facts: the growth in Gross Domestic Product so far this year is depressingly low; median household income is down; the experts tell us that the federal deficit is at an ‘historically unprecedented’ high; and, while government unemployment statistics indicate that there are jobs out there for those who want them, there is also evidence that underemployment remains a major concern for all of us,” according to Dan Weber, president of the Association of Mature American Citizens.
In 2008, 61 percent of Americans considered themselves in the middle and upper-middle class, today only 51 percent feel that way, says Jim Clifton, Chairman and CEO of the Gallup organization. Clifton says that “25 million people are invisible in the widely reported 4.9% official U.S. unemployment rate.”
The Gallup CEO put it in simple, if not dramatic terms in a recent opinion article he wrote: “Let’s say someone has a good middle-class job that pays $65,000 a year. That job goes away in a changing, disrupted world, and his new full-time job pays $14 per hour — or about $28,000 per year. That devastated American remains counted as ‘full-time employed’ because he still has full-time work — although with drastically reduced pay and benefits. He has fallen out of the middle class and is invisible in current reporting.”
Clifton’s rationale is valid, says Weber. The administration is using smoke and mirrors to bolster its claims that new jobs have been created by the millions during its tenure. “But statistics don’t lie. The real unemployment level in the U.S. is considerably higher than what the government is reporting. Gallup for example figures real unemployment is at an unacceptable 9.7 percent. It is time that the country wakes up to the fact that new, conservative, forward-thinking leadership is needed if we are to fix the fiscal fiasco that has been foist on us.”
Weber says the “potential vagaries” of the new administration whether it is led by Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump needs the balance of a Congress dedicated not to ideology, but to practical solutions.
“That’s why the focus in November should be on the candidates for the Senate and the House. We need to keep truly representative lawmakers who care more about running the country in an efficient, productive manner and oust the ideologues who desire only to impose budget-busting socialist and progressive notions of what America should look like. If we don’t keep these considerations in mind as we cast our ballots this year, we stand to lose not just our heritage and the legacies of our Founding Fathers, but the future of America as a force for good in the world. It’s time to get out the vote.”
