Government doctors inflation report

“Figures lie and liars figure” describes well the U.S. Department of Labor report on the April inflation rate. According to an Associated Press article, “Consumer prices slowed in April despite the biggest jump in food costs in nearly two decades.” How is this possible?

Fuel and food are being excluded from inflation figures despite their skyrocketing prices.

The Department of Labor’s policy makers stopped including food and energy in the calculation of the inflation rate beginning in February 2000. According to their shaky reasoning, there is too much seasonal volatility in the price of these items to accurately calculate trends in inflation. However, this new figure—the “core inflation”—is still referred to in media reports as the same old inflation.

For poor and working people, food and energy are core daily costs. There is seasonal variation in the price of some items, but the rising cost of food and gasoline over the last several years has changed from seasonal blips to sharply increasing trends. Workers are being forced to choose between heating or cooling their homes and feeding their families. The national average price of gasoline rose by 40 cents in April.

On top of the misreported sharp rise in the cost of living the DOL reported a drop in the average weekly wages of workers for the seventh consecutive month. Not only are prices rising, but also wages are falling at the same time.

This so-called “core inflation” obfuscates the impact of these “non-core” costs on the working class while the ruling class reaps magnificent profits. ExxonMobil and Chevron, two companies selling the “non-core” item oil, made almost $60 billion in profits in 2007. Congress recently passes a veto-proof farm bill granting generous subsidies to farmers already benefiting from high food prices.

Without a struggle against the growing poverty of the working class, the capitalist class will be content to make money from misery. The capitalist politicians vying for the presidency may make grand pronouncements about the rising cost of fuel, the mortgage foreclosure catastrophe and the growing economic crisis. But once in office, they are beholden to those who bankroll their campaigns—the same corporate interests that profit from workers’ suffering.

If Obama, Clinton and McCain truly wanted to ease the afflictions of the working class, they would call for an immediate increase in the minimum wage. They would call for a tax on profits of the largest corporations to fund a jobs program. The Fortune 100 corporations made $366 billion in profits in 2007.

The presidential and vice presidential candidates of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, Gloria La Riva and Eugene Puryear, not only have a program that speaks to the needs of poor and working people, but have a real track record of struggle. They are not bankrolled by ExxonMobil, CitiBank or the Hospital Corporation of America. They call for an immediate increase of the hourly minimum wage to $15.

To fundamentally address poverty, unemployment, homelessness and hunger, society will have to be re-organized on a socialist basis eliminating corporate profits completely. All the wealth created by the labor of the working class could then be used to meet human needs of jobs, housing, education and food.

It will take more than voting for any candidates to make that kind of a change—it will take a struggle. Join the PSL in the struggle for socialism.

To find out more about the La Riva / Puryear campaign, click here.