U.S. workers

Disabled Workers - Valuable Resource Treated Like Pond Scum

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I'll never forget one day at a start-up. The CEO was designing a new company building. He was ranting, raving about elevators, storming up and down the halls, on his phone. He was talking to his attorney, demanding to find a legal way to not have an elevator in the new building. Why? Supposedly to save costs, but also to deny a disabled applicant needing an elevator, due to being in a wheelchair, a job. He spent thousands of dollars on attorney fees, studying the law, all to avoid putting in an elevator.

With that, I give you this Wall Street Journal article, Disabled Face Sharply Higher Jobless Rate:

The government's first detailed look at disabled workers' employment shows they are far more likely than the overall work force to be older, working part-time or jobless.

The average unemployment rate for disabled workers was 14.5% last year, the Labor Department said Wednesday, well above the 9% rate for those without disabilities. By the Labor Department's count, there were roughly 27 million Americans 16 years or older with a disability last year.

The employment situation doesn't appear to have improved this year: The unemployment rate for those with disabilities had risen to 16.4% as of July.

Robert Reich Speaks a Basic Truth - Federal Aid should help firstly U.S. workers

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At last someone states the obvious. ex-Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich wrote on his blog:

Whether it’s stimulus or bailout, policy makers must remember that American companies aren’t the same as American workers – and our first responsibility is to the latter.

I have felt like a lone drummer, pounding, over and over again that any government expenditures should be tied to U.S. citizens, U.S. workers. That's the whole point, to generate income, to stimulate through Keynesian economics. In Buy American, I pointed out how, due to global labor arbitrage and multinational corporations, very easily the United States could be stimulating it's trade deficit, other nation's GDP and not U.S. domestic income.