For all the bemoaning about the the lack of bi-partisanship and abundant political rancor, there is one thing both political parties just revel in: the rah-rah cheering over the notion that the United States is Number One in the world and leading the pack. Well, facts are a bitch, especially when it comes to the reality: globally, the U.S. is leading the way in charting a path of harshness, austerity, and poverty for millions.
The facts come in a huge report just issued yesterday by the International Labor Organization (ILO) called “World Social Protection Report 2014-15: Building economic recovery, inclusive development and social justice”. Weighing in at a hefty 364 pages (with detailed charts and stats), it’s easy to drown in its analytical language and miss the big picture so I’ve pulled out just a few pearls to tell a story.
The report is one thing, even if the ILO, because its partners include employers and government, has to be diplomatic (so it has people like me to be not so diplomatic): it’s a chronicle of economic warfare against workers, a lot of stupidity and the triumph of ideology and greed over basic decency and economic sense. It’s an indictment of the failure of governments and the failure of the so-called “free market”
What else can you say when we live in a time of the greatest combined generation of wealth in human history but:
Only 12 percent of workers globally receive unemployment pay.
24 percent of people in Europe–123 million people–live in poverty.
51 percent of people receive a pension but most can’t live on that pension.
How did this happen? Not like a natural phenomena, like the sun rising in the east:
In 2014, 122 countries are limiting their public expenditures in terms of GDP, at a time when populations are most in need. Fiscal consolidation measures have contributed to increases in poverty and social exclusion in several high-income countries, adding to the effects of persistent unemployment, lower wages and higher taxes. The resulting depressed household income levels are jeopardizing domestic consumption and demand, and slowing down recovery.
This is the stupidity–no, madness–some of us have written about for a number of years: after the greed and irresponsibility of the financial elites crashed the entire global economy, destroying the livelihoods of tens of millions of people and obliterating trillions of dollars in wealth (a crime for which bankers did not serve with jail time and not only were never shown the door but kept their jobs with higher pay and perks), governments should have been spending more for jobs.The opposite happened.
Austerity (“fiscal consolidation”) was the order of the day.
So, it should not be surprising that, every few months, there is yet another rumbling in the economic data showing that the economy is not healthy or growing.
So, back to where I started: the U.S.
These two charts tell an important story (I’ve added the arrows and apologies for the small size). The first chart is one for “non-health public social protection expenditure for people of working age” which basically means unemployment benefits, employment injury benefits, disability benefits and maternity protection. The second chart is “public social protection expenditure on child and family benefits (excluding health)”:
And:
Both charts show the percentage of gross domestic product a country spends–which is a reflection of the value a country places on these protections.The U.S. certainly leads the way…to the bottom. It ranks in the bottom third in both categories among high-income countries. In employment protection, below such powerhouses as Estonia, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Cyprus, Poland, Croatia and, uh, the Russian Federation. On kids and families, it stares up at Luxembourg, Lithuania, Malta and, of course, the great challenger to U.S. global dominance…Aruba–though, in fairness, the U.S. does outpace the global killer “B”s…Barbados, Bahamas and Bahrain.
So, every time you hear some politician invoke his or her love for children or the sanctity of the family and parenting, stick the above charts in his or her face.
This is the tragedy: there cannot be a decent global society, with decent work for all, if the largest economy in the world is a laggard and is pulling the rest of the world down to a lower level of fairness.
At the UN briefing on the report, I heard one sentence sum this up. It came from Selim Jahan, director of the Human Development Report Office. He said: “Social protection is a development issue, not a welfare issue”.
Meaning, decent work, and all the things that come with it, are not handouts or some safety net for marginalized people.
It’s all stuff you need to have a thriving economy.
