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The U.S. Department of Labor reported June 17 that the number of people applying for unemployment benefits rose by 12,000 to 472,000, the highest number in a month.
The U6 unemployment rate at the end of May was 16.6 percent. The U6 number tracks those on unemployment and seeking work, as well as people who have given up looking for a job and those who are employed in a part-time position but looking for full-time work.
The economic crisis and associated unemployment rates are entirely a product of the capitalist system. In their drive for ever-greater profits, the capitalist class of bank and business owners, and the government that supports and bails them out, view working people as expendable sources of labor.
While the working class—the rest of us—struggle in our day-to-day lives against budget cuts, evictions and ever-increasing privatization of social services, the capitalist class rakes in huge profits.
Eleven workers lost their lives in the explosion at the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig that continues to leak unimaginable amounts of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. In the meantime, British Petroleum made $93 million every day in the first quarter of this year, and BP CEO Tony Hayward spent the weekend of July 19 and 20 watching a yacht race with his family.
According to an AP story on June 20, corporate earnings rose 31 percent in the first quarter of 2010. During the same period, real estate firm RealtyTrac reported that foreclosures increased 7 percent over the fourth quarter of 2009, and 35 percent over the first quarter of that same year.
For over two years, Washington and Wall Street have been pushing the myth that they are working to create new jobs and reduce unemployment. They put forward small measures to give the appearance of action. Current jobs and spending programs are extremely limited at best. They do not create enough jobs and, by requiring proof of immigration status and making convicted felons ineligible, do not allow many in the most oppressed sectors of society access to jobs they do create.
The ruling class wants a recovery and economic stability, but the empty promises of the politicians who do their bidding do not create jobs for the millions out of work. In fact, the economy, lacking planning and democratic control, may slip deeper into recession or depression. Economic stability and capitalism are antithetical.
Capitalism cannot provide for the working and poor people of the world, because it does not have their interests in mind. The alternative is socialism, a system where the labor of the people provides for the needs of the people—housing, health care, education and more—and everyone able to work is guaranteed a job.
