Compiled by Annabelle Gurwitch
Whose economy is it anyway? Jobless rate in America is the lowest since 2001; but since 2001, 95% of working people in America’s wages have been flat or falling. Only the top 5% have shared in the economic growth. Real wages and salaries makeup the lowest share of the GDP since 1947, corporate profits are the highest they’ve been since the 1960’s.
Where’s my gold watch? You won’t be receiving a gold watch if you were working for any of these companies:
- AOL said so long to 5,000. Employees in Aug 06.
- Intel cut its ties to 10,000 employees in Sept 06.
- Ford offered 75,000 workers buyout packages in October, and announced that 14 plants will close by 2012 eliminating 30,000 jobs.
- GM also offered buyouts to 100,000 workers if they said goodbye to their jobs.
- Dupont declared in the week before Labor Day that new workers will no longer receive defined benefit pension plans and more tenured employees’ pensions will be reduced. And uh, we’re not offering health care either - Happy Labor Day!
Ratio of average CEO salary to the average American worker is now 435 to 1
People who are unemployed stay unemployed fifty percent longer than they did in the seventies, and only about half as many receive unemployment insurance as did so in 1947.
Actress and humorist ANNABELLE GURWITCH, best known to television audiences for her many years as the co-host of the cult favorite “Dinner and a Movie” on TBS.
She is currently a contributing writer and commentator on “Day to Day” on NPR.
Her film FIRED is currently playing in select theaters: http://www.firedthemovie.com/
http://www.internationalfilmcircuit.com/fired/playdate.html
