Newark, NJ – Hurricane Sandy struck the New York/New Jersey/Connecticut area with full fury on Oct. 30. The region is the country’s largest and densest concentration of population. Sandy was the worst storm to hit it in recorded history.

Millones de personas se encuentran sin trabajo. Aquellos que dieron de baja están siendo evacuados de sus hogares porque sus hipotecas están siendo ejecutadas, perdieron seguros de salud y luchan cada vez mas duro para sobrevivir. El desempleo entre la juventud esta muy alto. Incluso los graduados universitarios se ven forzados a vivir en la casa de sus padres. Muchos no pueden hacer mensualidades a los préstamos universitarios. Millones de inmigrantes, ambos documentados e indocumentados, son dados de baja y sin poder trabajar, se ven obligados a abandonar el país después de haber trabajado años en los EU.

Right wing hypes fear of a ‘fiscal cliff’ to extend tax cuts for the rich

The federal government is on course for large spending cuts and tax increases starting January of 2013. This comes from a combination of three things: the end of some of the Obama administration stimulus that began in 2009; the end of large tax cuts, especially for the wealthy, done under the Bush administration; and automatic spending cuts designed to reduce the federal budget deficit. While some of the tax increases would not fully take effect until April 2014, and others could be reversed, the right wing is using fears of a ‘fiscal cliff’ to try to extend tax cuts for the rich and block planned cutbacks in military spending.

Millions of people are out of work. Those who are laid off are being foreclosed out of their homes, losing health care, and finding it harder and harder to make ends meet. Youth unemployment is particularly high. Even recent college graduates are forced to live in their parents’ homes. Many are unable to make payments on their college loan debt. Being laid off and unable to find work, millions of immigrants, both documented and undocumented, are forced to leave after years of working in the U.S.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has been attacking the Obama administration for “cutting” Medicare, and Romney has promised to restore these cuts. While Romney is saying that he will protect Medicare, in fact he is protecting health insurance companies, while out-of-pocket costs for seniors will go up.

In April of 2012, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) did a report on the impact of Republican Congressman Paul Ryan’s budget proposal, which was later passed by the House of Representatives, on health care. An analysis of the CBO report by Fight Back! shows that this plan would shift the burden of health care to poor, elderly and disabled people. This would cause millions of poor, seniors and disabled people to lose insurance and it would cause millions to pay much more for health care.

Another reason to march on the RNC

San Francisco, CA – While millions of retired Americans are struggling to make ends meet and millions more working people who have been laid off don’t know how or if they can ever afford to retire, laid-off corporate executives are living in another world. Take General Electric Vice-Chairman John Krenicki, who is 50 years old and retiring at the end of 2012 because of GE’s restructuring plans. GE will be paying him $89,000 a month for the next ten years (about a million dollars a year, or $10 million total), after which he can receive GE’s executive pension. In addition, Krenicki is getting stock options and stock valued at almost $15 million, and a bonus of almost $3 million, for a total golden parachute worth almost $28 million. In exchange, Krenicki promised GE that he wouldn’t work for a competitor for three years.

Another reason to march on the RNC

San Francisco, CA – While millions of retired Americans are struggling to make ends meet and millions more working people who have been laid off don’t know how or if they can ever afford to retire, laid-off corporate executives are living in another world. Take General Electric Vice-Chairman John Krenicki, who is 50 years old and retiring at the end of 2012 because of GE’s restructuring plans. GE will be paying him $89,000 a month for the next ten years (about a million dollars a year, or $10 million total), after which he can receive GE’s executive pension. In addition, Krenicki is getting stock options and stock valued at almost $15 million, and a bonus of almost $3 million, for a total golden parachute worth almost $28 million. In exchange, Krenicki promised GE that he wouldn’t work for a competitor for three years.

San José, CA – On July 6, the U.S. Department of Labor announced that only 80,000 net new jobs were created in June. This was less than most mainstream economists predicted and far less than what is needed to put the millions of unemployed back to work. So it was no surprise that the official unemployment rate stayed the same from May to June, at 8.2%.

Most of the countries in the euro-zone, which includes most of the major economies of Europe (Great Britain and Switzerland being two notable exceptions), are now in a recession. The zone’s largest economy, Germany, is rapidly slowing. This growing crisis of overproduction among the capitalist economies of Europe is having a worldwide impact, with Asian economies and the U.S. being affected by slowing trade and growing fears of another financial crisis.

On June 1, the Labor Department reported that only 69,000 net new jobs were created in May, less than half of what economists had expected and less than a third of the relatively strong job growth of the December through February period. Immediately the Republicans and the Romney campaign blamed President Obama and his policies, especially the health care reform act. The Democrats and the Obama administration quickly fired back, blaming the Republicans for blocking their economic stimulus proposals in Congress.

San José, CA – On June 1, the Department of Labor released its monthly report on unemployment and employment for May, 2012. The report said that only 69,000 jobs were added in the U.S. economy in May, less than half of what professional economists had been predicting. Even worse, the report revised earlier estimates of job growth in March and April down by another 49,000 jobs.

San José, CA – In the first five months of this year, more than 400,000 jobless workers have been cut from collecting unemployment insurance benefits under the Federal Extended Benefits (EB) program. Another 100,000 will also lose their benefits when the EB program ends at the end of May, bringing the total to more than a half million unemployed who will be losing their benefits.

San José, CA – On Feb. 29, federal Extended Unemployment Insurance benefits will end unless Congress agrees to continue the program. Republicans in Congress are threatening to block the extension unless they are able to cut benefits and make federal workers pay for the cost of the program.

San José, CA – On Dec. 22, the leadership of the Republicans in the House of Representatives said that they would sign on to a bipartisan compromise to renew federal Unemployment Insurance benefits. This compromise had passed the Senate by an 89-10 vote earlier in the week. The House Republican action came after intense pressure from the unemployed, Democratic politicians and even Republican Senators after the House of Representatives had voted down the compromise bill on a 229-193 vote on Dec. 20.

San José, CA – On Dec. 9, Republican Congressman Dave Camp of Michigan introduced a bill, H.R. 3630, that would cut federal extended unemployment insurance benefits from a maximum of 73 weeks to only 33 weeks. In addition, the bill allows for a number of new hoops for jobless workers to jump through in order to get unemployment insurance benefits, including mandatory drug testing.

San José, CA – On Friday, Dec. 2, the U.S. Department of Labor said that the official unemployment rate fell to 8.6% in November, from 9.0% in October. Despite being the lowest unemployment rate since March of 2009, the fall in the unemployment rate was mainly due to the more than 400,000 jobless workers who gave up looking for work and were no longer counted as unemployed.

St. Paul, MN – Chanting “Money for human needs, not for stadiums,” members of the Welfare Rights Committee, the Minnesota Coalition for a Peoples' Bailout and supporters from OccupyMN gathered outside Senate Taxes and Local Government and Elections committee hearing, Nov. 29, at the State Capitol building. The committee was holding an informational hearing on proposals to build a new stadium complex for the Minnesota Vikings football team owner – a New Jersey real estate developer named Zygi Wilf.

_Second of four-part series _

Editor’s note: This is the second article of a four-article series. The first article was titled, “ Who are the one percent?” This article describes the working class, who make up most of the 99%. The next article will be about the rest of the 99% who aren’t part of the working class. The last article will talk about how the history of racism and national oppression is important to understanding what is behind the 1%-99% divide and how the 1% enriches itself while maintaining its privilege and power.

On Dec. 31, funding for extended federal Unemployment Insurance will expire. If funding is not renewed, almost 2 million jobless workers will be cut off from their benefits in January and almost 4 million more will lose their benefits by the end of May, 2012 – all at a time where the official unemployment rate is still 9%.