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Article Artículo

Workers

"Two American Families" Struggle in Worthwhile New Film

Last night after watching my weekly fix of dancing contests on TV, I clicked around the channels and found myself engrossed in a new Frontline documentary hosted by Bill Moyers, "Two American Families."  It's a fascinating profile of two Milwaukee families, one black and one white, struggling to stay in the middle class over 20-plus years.  It brings to life -- with human faces and heartbreaking stories -- many of the statistics and analyses that CEPR produces about working people in this country.

My CEPR colleagues' frequent work work to define and examine the decline of "good" jobs in America came to mind throughout the film, as these families' stories mirror what the data indicates.  In CEPR's reports, a "good" job is defined as $19 per hour with employer-provided health insurance and an employer-sponsored retirement plan. When we first meet the families in the early 1990s, three of the four parents have lost "good" union jobs in manufacturing (close to $20 per hour and benefits).

The film documents their struggles over the next two decades to find similar jobs to replace the ones they lost, and after watching them all bounce from one insecure, low-wage job to another, it appears that none of the parents ever manage to do so.  They work days, nights, and multiple jobs -- usually manual labor -- and yet continually face financial hardship, even foreclosure and divorce.

By the end of the film, we get to see how the eight children across the two families have turned out as adults.  From the descriptions of their work situations, it appears that only one (the eldest son in the Stanley family) definitely has a "good" job -- $45,000 per year assisting the Milwaukee common council president. Two of his siblings may have "good" jobs (we don't learn enough to know for sure) -- a sister who's working at a county clerk's office in Virgina, and a brother who, after failing to find work in Milwaukee, is in Afghanistan working for a military contractor.

CEPR and Nicole Woo / July 10, 2013

Article Artículo

Latin America and the Caribbean

World

“They are going to do everything they can to get Snowden. But I think they will lose.” – Mark Weisbrot Interview in Greek newspaper Eleftherotypia

CEPR Co-Director Mark Weisbrot did an interview via email with one of Greece’s leading daily newspapers, Eleftherotypia last week. The interview, which occurred prior to the news that Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia had offered political asylum to Edward Snowden, appears in Eleftherotypia today. Mark’s original responses, in English, appear below:

Eleftherotypia: Why do you think Snowden did it?  He has destroyed his life now. Does he have a very high sense of justice or is there something else behind it?

Mark Weisbrot: I think he explained his reasons very eloquently in his first public interview, with Glenn Greenwald, and especially this:

I’m no different from anybody else. I don’t have special skills. I’m just another guy who sits there, day to day, in the office, watches what happening­, and goes, "This is something that’s not our place to decide. The public needs to decide whether these programs and policies are right or wrong."

I think he strongly believes this.  He is against the idea of government deciding major issues of public policy in secret.

What will happen to him? How do you see the asylum requests developing?

He has at least three countries -- Bolivia, Ecuador, and Venezuela -- that are almost guaranteed to give him asylum.  There are numerous others that would give him asylum or refugee status if he showed up in their territories, which includes their embassies.  So the main problem right now is transportation.  But I think that will be resolved, sooner or later.

Will the U.S. use the carrot-and-stick policy in order to make sure no country offers him asylum so they can get him back to face justice?

They are trying very, very hard to do that. But they are losing -- contrary to what you might read or hear in the international media.  First, as I mentioned, there are several countries willing to give him asylum or refuge. This includes Russia, which he rejected because of their conditions. Second, they cannot push everyone around indefinitely. France in particular was embarrassed by this latest episode where they blocked Evo Morales' plane from passing through their air space, on the false rumor that Snowden may have been aboard. Spain, which considers its relations with Latin America to be important especially because of its large investments and commerce there, also paid a price for being Washington's thug in this case. So there are costs to their strategy.

CEPR / July 08, 2013