President Obama announced on June 9 an extension of the Pay-As-You-Earn program, which caps student loan payments at 10 percent of a borrower’s income, to as many as 5 million additional people. “Some higher education and additional skills,” the President told what was certainly a spontaneously assembled group of members of key midterm election demographics, “are going to be your surest path to the middle class.”
The President made an even bolder claim as he spoke in the East Room of the White House, “Everything I do is aimed toward reversing those trends that put a greater burden on the middle class and are diminishing the number of ladders to get into the middle class.”
Putting aside how ridiculous the term “middle class” is, the “trends” that President Obama referenced are very real – but neither he nor any other ruling class politician is in a position to reverse them.
To deal first with the problem of student loan debt, the executive order does not involve any outright forgiveness of the over $1 trillion students and former students owe to the big banks. The payment schedule might become a little bit easier, but no one is going to feel an immediate reduction in their debt burden.
The fact that Obama and Democratic Party strategists think that promising students that they will only have to lose 10 percent of their income to debt collectors will energize the youth vote indicates just how extreme this problem is. It won’t be solved with half-measures.
Another thing to consider: global capitalism is still stuck in the worst crisis since the Great Depression. In addition to regular crises associated with what bourgeois economists call the “business cycle”, capitalism also periodically crashes in larger, systemic crises that require the reorganization of the prevailing economic order. The managers of this system have not yet figured out exactly what this restructuring will look like, but one thing is clear: there will be fewer jobs, and the ones that still exist will mostly pay very poorly.
Nearly half of the jobs created since the “recovery” in official employment began in February 2010 pay less than $13.33 an hour. Alongside this trend is an explosion in temporary work as well as long-term unemployment. The official unemployment rate, which drastically understates the true extent of the problem, for people under 25 is about twice as high as it is for the general population.
Then there’s underemployment. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that only 27.1 percent of jobs created by 2022 will require a college degree. The President’s “surest path” can’t fit a lot of people.
This doesn’t even touch mass incarceration, deportations, endless war, etc. It’s no wonder that, according to a CNN poll taken two weeks ago, 63 percent of people think that “most children in this country will grow up to be worse off than their parents.”
We have no future under this system – let’s fight for one where we do.
