That racial stereotyping hides the real cause and scale of economic damage to blue-collar and white-collar Americans families amid the rising wealth of the technocratic globalized elite which dominates the Democratic Party and at least half of the GOP.
.. That government failure is exemplified by the housing bubble, which destroyed a huge percentage of wealth held by black Americans.
A 2011 report by the Pew Research Center showed that the median wealth of black American households dropped by 53 percent because of the property bubble. The mid-point median of black American wealth crashed from $12,124 in 2005 to just $5,677 in 2009, according to the Pew report.
.. White Americans suffered far less from the bubble because many had already paid off their mortgages, because their debts were a small percentage of their income, and because whites had more assets in the stock market and other sectors outside the housing market. Still, the median wealth of white households also dropped by a huge 16 percent, from $134,992 in 2005 to $113,149 in 2009.
.. Meanwhile, wages for all men have remained flat for the past 44 years since 1973, according to the Census Bureau.
.. when Obama settled into the White House during the housing implosion, his economic policies helped very clever people invest their way back up to more wealth. The New York Post described the process:
The years 2008 through 2015 should be known as the Great Fleecing.
During that time, the greatest transfer of wealth in the history of the world occurred. Some $4.5 trillion was given to Wall Street banks through its Quantitative Easing program, with the American people picking up the IOU … Who did this help? The 1%, and pretty much only the 1%.
.. The report does not discuss how technology is concentrating wealth among higher-skilled people, and it omits any talk of globalized outsourcing. It also avoids family stability and it ignores the topic of immigration, which has flooded the nation’s marketplace with cheap labor that effectively imposes a 5 percent tax on labor — and then transfers $500 billion a year to company owners and investors.
.. the report then lists a series of unrealistic demands, including a massive tax increase on the wealthy, a massive financial grant to children that could be spent when they become adults, more house-buying aid for poor people, a higher minimum wage, and “a federal jobs guarantee [that] would function similarly to the Works Progress Administration of the 1930s.”
.. But many people of all colors who cannot get through college are falling behind because technology, work, and business are becoming more complex. This increasing complexity ensures that an increasing share of income and wealth goes to people who are smart enough to arbitrage the increasing social and technological diversity, regardless of color.
.. the Democratic elite prefers to import foreign voters rather than accept the equal social status of all blue-collar Americans... four million Americans turn 18 each year and begin looking for good jobs. However, the government imports roughly 1 million legal immigrants to compete against Americans for jobs... That Washington-imposed policy of mass-immigration floods the market with foreign labor, spikes profits and Wall Street values by cutting salaries for manual and skilled labor offered by blue-collar and white-collar employees. It also drives up real estate prices, widens wealth-gaps, reduces high-tech investment, increases state and local tax burdens, hurts kids’ schools and college education, pushes Americans away from high-tech careers, and sidelines at least 5 million marginalized Americans and their families, including many who are now struggling with opioid addictions.
Questions on salary history banned in Philadelphia; Pa. and federal governments may follow suit
Laws banning employers from asking for salary history during job interviews are beginning to grow in popularity.
Philadelphia council passed legislation making the practice illegal on grounds that it perpetuates pay discrimination, Philly.com reported.
Philadelphia’s mayor has said, through a spokesman, that he will sign the bill into law, making it the first such city law in the nation.
“Base the salary offer on the job, what the job is worth and what the applicant brings in experience and ability,” Councilman Bill Greenlee told Philly.com. Greenlee sponsored the ban.
The argument is that women and minorities are given lower salaries at their first jobs, and then forced to carry that inequity throughout their careers. The new ban would force employers to set salaries based on the job at hand, rather than the employee’s current income.
Similar bills has been introduced in the Pennsylvania and New Jersey state legislatures, and have already been enacted in Massachusetts.
New York City employers won’t be able to ask for your salary history anymore
Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat, signed a bill on Thursday that makes it unlawful for those involved in the hiring process to inquire about what an applicant currently makes — a measure that takes aim at the gender pay gap.
“This is about fixing a broken history. This is about overcoming years and years of discrimination that held people back,” de Blasio said at the signing ceremony.
The law will go into effect in October. In the meantime, businesses that look for talent in one of the country’s largest labor markets will need to reexamine their hiring practices.
“This will require employers to change their job applications, employ new practices in terms of hiring, [and] retool how they engage in the salary discussions with prospective employees, focusing on salary expectations rather than current salary,” said Kathleen McLeod Caminiti, a New York attorney with Fisher Phillips who represents employers.
More than 20 states, from California to Georgia to Vermont, are considering similar legislation that would bar employers from asking about a job applicant’s pay history, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. New York City joins Massachusetts and Philadelphia, which already have those laws on the books.
Such bills look to address a real problem. Women earned 79.6 cents for every dollar men made in 2015, according to data released by the Census Bureau last year.
Proponents say asking an interviewee about her salary history compounds the problem.
“If you have a practice that relies mostly or completely on someone’s prior salary in setting pay, that disadvantages women who may not negotiate as much as men, and will perpetuate any disparity that already existed,” said Maya Raghu, director of workplace equality at the National Women’s Law Center.
Suzy Welch: What to say when a job interviewer asks, ‘What’s your current salary?’
Suzy Welch: Here’s the best answer to ‘What’s your current salary?’