Human Needs Are Human Rights
• Our Security Lies in Our Fight for the Rights of All
• Massive Job Losses
• Youth Among Those Hardest Hit by Recession
• Hunger Worsens as Government Food Programs Fail to Meet Needs
• U.S. Infant Mortality Rate Worsens Relative to Other Countries
International Human Rights Day, December 10
Our Security Lies in Our Fight for the Rights of All
International Human Rights Day (IHRD) is celebrated worldwide on December 10. Events commemorate the day the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on December 10, 1948. Events worldwide in 2008 reflect demands by the peoples for governments to guarantee the rights of all and put in place the measures necessary to do so. This includes demands to end the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, end the occupation of Palestine and recognize the right of the peoples to be.
On this 60th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration, many events in the U.S. are defending the rights of immigrants, indigenous peoples and workers. The events are taking place at a time when the government refuses to recognize a modern conception of rights, where human needs are human rights and governments are duty-bound to guarantee human rights. Instead, the government is acting to protect the privilege of the rich to get richer. The government is now preparing to use the public treasury to pay the rich $7.5 trillion, according to facts compiled by business publication Bloomberg.com. President-elect Barack Obama has called for ensuring that “Wall Street thrives,” and Secretary Henry Paulson backed this by demanding that trillions more go to “stabilize and strengthen the financial system.”
Across the country the most basic rights of the people are being denied. Unemployment and hunger are greatly worsening, impacting women, children and youth. For 2007, 36.2 million people went hungry, 12.4 million of them children and 2008 is far worse. People are increasingly turning to food banks, with demand up 25-40 percent. In New York City alone more than 1.3 million people needed emergency food assistance.
Almost 70 percent of youth 16-19 were not able to find work this year, while people over 65 are being forced back to work. More layoffs have been announced, with more than 200,000 jobs being lost monthly.
Jobs, food, housing are human rights — enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights but not upheld by the U.S. Our security lies in defending the rights of all, not in protecting the privileges of the rich.
Americans are also taking their stand against the many government actions denying rights. These include the attacks on immigrants, using terrorist raids at workplaces and communities. They include rejecting the “war on terror” and its prison camps worldwide. People are demanding Close Guantánamo Now and close all such prison camps. There must be no “national security court” inside the U.S. — a plan to guarantee that those who support the government get privileges and those who oppose its crimes get civil death and indefinite detention. There can be no security in torture, secret prisons and the executive authority that imposes them.
On this December 10, let all stand together to defend the rights of all
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Massive Job Losses
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics on December 5 reported 533,000 jobs were lost in November. Not since December 1974, have so many jobs disappeared in a single month. Added to prior figures, the official number of unemployed persons is now more than 10.6 million. The unemployment rate rose to 6.7 percent, up just two-tenths of a percentage point from October, but up six-tenths over the last three months. The New York Times reports that the Bureau's November figures do not include those too discouraged to look for work any longer or the underemployed. Expanded to include this section of people, the unemployment rate rises to a record 12.5 percent, up 1.5 percentage points since September.
Already in October, the U.S. Labor Department had reported that unemployment increased in October from 6.1 to 6.5 percent, at the time the highest rate recorded since 1994. More than 420,000 men and women who had been working or seeking work in October left the labor force in November. The number of long-term unemployed in October, those out of work for 27 weeks or more, increased by a quarter of a million to a total of 2.3 million. This was 22 percent of the total unemployed in October, the highest proportion recorded in 25 years.
A total of 240,000 jobs were cut in October on a net basis, significantly more than had been anticipated. The Labor Department also revised its jobless figures for September, from the initially reported 159,000 net job losses to 284,000. Total employment has declined by 1.2 million people in the first 10 months of 2008, with more than half of these job losses taking place in the last three months. Economists estimate that the economy must generate an additional 100,000 jobs each month just to keep up with population growth.
Manufacturing and construction continue to lose jobs. Manufacturing employment declined by 90,000 in October, including employment in fabricated metal parts (11,000 jobs lost), furniture and related products (10,000) and motor vehicles and parts (9,000).
Construction employment fell by 49,000. The Labor Department said that since peak activity in September 2006, construction employment has fallen by 663,000. Construction had the highest unemployment rate of any industry, 10.8 percent, compared to 6.1 percent a year ago.
Retail trade employment declined by 38,000, with auto dealerships (20,000 jobs lost) and department stores (18,000) the worst affected.
Financial sector employment fell by 24,000 and is down by 200,000 jobs since its peak in December 2006.
According to the New York Times, only 32 percent of the officially unemployed are drawing state benefit checks because of the more stringent eligibility restrictions and other conditions imposed by governments at the federal and state level.
The Labor Department does not count people who have given up looking for work and those considered "marginally attached to the workforce," meaning they had not looked for work in the past month. Another 1.6 million people were in this category of unemployed workers in October.
The Labor Department's monthly report acknowledged that the number of "involuntary part-time workers" -- those who are unable to find full-time work, or those whose hours have been cut back to part-time levels -- increased in October by 645,000 to 6.7 million. When the involuntary part-time and marginally attached workers are counted, the unemployment rate stands at 11.8 percent, up from 11 percent in September and from 8.4 percent a year earlier.
Wall Street economists now anticipate that the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) will contract by 3.5 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008 (October-December) and 2 percent in the first quarter of 2009 (January-March) leading to an unemployment rate of 8.5 percent by the end of next year. Such GDP figures would mark the sharpest quarterly declines since 1981-82.
Layoffs Mount
GM and Ford continue to announce layoffs. On November 11, GM announced 2,000 more workers will be permanently laid off in 2009. This is in addition to the GM's March announcement to layoff 18,600 workers over the next year. About 3,900 of these took affect November 7. Ford announced another 2,600 layoffs in addition to the 7,750 announced in March.
In November, numerous other companies announced more mass layoffs. DHL Express, the country's third largest parcel delivery company, announced it was laying off 9,500 workers and shutting down hundreds of service centers. The cuts are in addition to the 5,400 jobs slashed last May.
The layoffs will devastate the small town of Wilmington, Ohio, where DHL is headquartered. About 3,000 of the town's 12,000 residents work directly for the company, while the remainder relies on it indirectly.
In early November Circuit City, the second largest electronics retailer in the U.S., announced that it was closing 155 of its retail stores and laying off 7,000 workers. On November 10, Circuit City filed for bankruptcy protection. It announced 700 layoffs among its corporate staff. Thousands more workers are likely to lose their jobs as a result of the bankruptcy proceedings.
On November 6, GlaxoSmithKline, the world's second largest drug maker, announced it was laying off 1,000 workers in the U.S.
On November 7, the nation's largest toymaker, Mattel, announced 1,000 job cuts worldwide, including more than 170 at its El Segundo, California, headquarters.
Canadian telecommunications firm Nortel has announced 1,300 layoffs. It is not yet clear where the layoffs will occur. Headquartered in Ottawa, Nortel has operations at dozens of sites in the U.S. and around the world.
The financial industry is also preparing a new round of mass layoffs for 2009 — as many as 150,000 worldwide and 70,000 in the U.S. alone — according to a November 10 report in the Financial Times.
Over the next few years, between 55,000 and 78,000 finance jobs may be lost in New York City according to a recent Federal Reserve Board survey. Financial sector layoffs for 2009 are likely to be made public later this month as major financial firms prepare their respective budgets for the coming year.
These layoffs are on top of the massive reductions that have already taken place or are currently underway in the financial sector. Citigroup is in the midst of laying off 23,000; the collapse of Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns has resulted in the loss of another 23,000 jobs; Merrill Lynch has fired 5,700; Morgan Stanley 4,400; and Goldman Sachs is dismissing 3,200 employees.
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Youth Among Those Hardest Hit
by Recession
From the fall of 2007 until October 2008, the share of 16-19 year olds working fell by 8 percent, the largest decline for any group. Given that the industries that most commonly employ youth and low-skilled workers, like retail and construction, are losing jobs, the prospect of returning to work is very slim. Among youth ages 16 to 19, access to part-time jobs, full-time jobs and summer jobs has been declining throughout this decade. By October, only 31.4 percent had held some sort of employment. For many, simply entering the workforce will be impossible.
In the year ahead, it is expected that teens will be thrown out of the labor market at record levels. This is due not only to insufficient new jobs and mass layoffs taking place in all sectors of the economy but also because people over 65 have to go back to work as their retirement benefits are too low to live on. People over 65 were the only age group that saw an increase in employment in October — mainly in part-time and retail jobs once filled by teenagers.
In addition, college graduates are finding it more difficult to secure jobs. The Wall Street Journal reported in October that U.S. employers intend to hire only 1.3 percent more graduates than last year, the lowest level in six years. Most companies are decreasing their presence on campuses at job fairs and similar activities. New York University reported 15 percent fewer companies. At the University of Tampa, there are 45 percent fewer Internet job postings.
For youth that do secure work, average wages have decreased by 10 percent in real terms over the past 30 years.
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Hunger Worsens as Government
Food Programs Fail to Meet Needs
An estimated 36.2 million people in the U.S. went hungry during 2007, about 12.4 million of them children. There was a 50 percent increase in the number of children going hungry compared to 2006, with a more than 60 percent increase in children consistently hungry -- about 700,000 children in 2007. The number of elderly people with low food security rose by 26 percent. The levels are actually higher, as the data does not include families that are homeless. The figures were reported in a study on food security conducted annually by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).
According to the study, of the 36.2 million people going hungry about one third of them faced the more severe "substantial disruption to their food supply." This represents a 40 percent increase since 2000 in the number of people in this category. For 2007, 11.9 million individuals fell into this "most hungry" group.
Of the 4.7 million families estimated to suffer from "very low food security," 98 percent worried that their food would run out before they got money to buy more. Some 94 percent reported that they could not afford to eat balanced meals. Often parents went without food so that the children could eat, or older siblings sacrificed so that the youngest children could eat. Despite these greatly worsening conditions, there are currently no plans to increase funding for government food programs and in fact it is possible they will be further cut.
Research has shown that hunger and malnourishment have a profound impact on the mental and physical development of preschool and school-aged children. They are more likely to exhibit higher levels of chronic illness, anxiety and depression, and learning disabilities stemming from the impact of hunger on the brain. The growing uncertainty about the ability to provide adequate food is devastating for parents and families, both physically and mentally.
In 2007, the federal poverty line was set at $21,027 for a family of four, an amount known to be inadequate to provide for sufficient food and nutrition, as well as housing, utilities and other necessities. In households where income fell below this line, food insecurity stood at 37.7 percent. It is estimated that at least 10 million more people will be forced into poverty in the U.S. if current trends continue.
The rate of food insecurity was 22.2 percent for African-American households and 20.1 percent for Hispanic households. Food insecurity was also more prevalent in households headed by a single parent where there were children -- 30.2 percent for those headed by women, 18 percent for those headed by men.
Measured over three years, from 2005 through 2007, the states reporting the highest figures for hunger were Mississippi (17.4 percent), New Mexico (15 percent), Texas (14.8 percent), and Arkansas (14.4 percent).
Food Stamp and Food Bank Use Increasing
The conditions of hunger for millions of families is greatly increasing while existing government programs -- the Food Stamp Program, the National School Lunch Program and the Special Supplemental Nutritional Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) -- and help from food pantries and soup kitchens remain far too limited to meet the needs of the families, especially women and children. As well, governments at the state and federal level have eliminated many general assistance programs. And government fails to ensure those eligible for the programs receive them -- only about 40 percent of families eligible actually receive the benefits.
Current figures from the USDA show that a record number of Americans, some 30 million, now receive food stamps, benefits available to low- or no-income people. That total will surpass the previous record set in the wake of the Hurricane Katrina disaster in 2005. The number of those using food stamps rose 9.6 percent, or some 2.6 million people, from August 2007 to August 2008. The total is expected to continue rising sharply. Already in 25 states, at least one in five children is receiving food stamps.
The average U.S. household spends $184 per person a month on food. The average monthly food stamp benefit per person is $95. The maximum monthly amount for food stamps for a single individual is $176, the minimum, $14. A family of four can receive a maximum of $588, a family of eight, $1,058.
Families receiving the benefits must have an income under 130 percent of the federal poverty level. Families with savings of more than $2,000 are disqualified from receiving food stamps.
The Department of Agriculture (USDA) reports that 39 percent of food stamp recipients have an income of half or less of the federal government's poverty figure, and some 15 percent have no income whatsoever. Approximately 70 percent of the households in the program, now officially known as the Simplified Nutrition Assistance Program, have no "countable resources" -- i.e., cash and investments.
Income levels needed to sustain a family of four are estimated to be at least twice the official poverty level. In the New York City area, for a four-member family, the Economic Policy Institute's "Family Budget Calculator" puts the figure at $68,000; in the Los Angeles-Long Beach area at $54,000; and in the Detroit-Livonia-Warren, Michigan, area at $44,000. If this more-accurate measure were used, the percentage of Americans living in poverty would be at least 30 percent.
As layoffs spread and food, health, housing and heating costs remain high, cities across the country are also reporting significant increases in the use of food banks, up more than 30 percent in many areas. In New York, reports Food Bank for New York City, as of 2007 more than one in five children (397,000) were relying on soup kitchens and food banks, up 48 percent from 269,000 in 2004. Approximately 1.3 million residents relied on emergency food in 2007.
CBS News reported that 10,000 people showed up for an annual Thanksgiving food giveaway in Los Angeles on Tuesday, November 25. "In Dallas, the number of food shelf visits is up 25 percent," CBS commented. "It is up 33 percent in Chicago and 41 percent in Los Angeles, according to Feeding America and the Los Angeles Food Bank.
"At one food bank in Los Angeles they are working 18 hour days and shipping 1 million pounds of food out to food pantries every week, but it is still not enough to meet the growing need."
Visits to food pantries in Washington, DC are up "20 percent to 100 percent," according to the Washington Post, and "calls to the Capital Area Food Bank's hunger hotline have jumped 248 percent." Most of the calls are from people who never used the service before.
Donations to food banks have climbed nationally about 18 percent, but demand has grown by 25-40 percent, says Feeding America, one of the groups organizing nationwide to provide food. Activists in the field are expecting the levels of hunger to increase far more. James Weill, president of the Food Research and Action Center said, "There is every reason to think the increases in the number of hungry people will be very, very large, based on the increased demand we are seeing this year at food stamp agencies, emergency kitchens, Women, Infants and Children clinics, really across the entire social service support structure."
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U.S. Infant Mortality Rate Worsens
Relative to Other Countries
VOR is posting below excerpts from an October report on infant mortality entitled, "Recent Trends in Infant Mortality in the United States." The report was issued by the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics.
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Infant mortality is one of the most important indicators of the health of a nation, as it is associated with a variety of factors such as maternal health, quality and access to medical care, socioeconomic conditions, and public health practices. [...]
In 2005, the U.S. infant mortality rate was 6.86 infant deaths per 1,000 live births, not significantly different than the rate of 6.89 in 2000, based on data from the linked birth/infant death data set.
Data from the preliminary mortality file estimate an infant mortality rate of 6.71 for 2006, a 2 percent decline from the final rate in 2005.
The 2000-2005 plateau in the U.S. infant mortality rate represents the first period of sustained lack of decline in the U.S. infant mortality rate since the 1950s. [...]
The impact of infant mortality is considerable: There are more than 28,000 deaths to children under 1 year of age each year in the United States.
How Does the United States Compare with Other Developed Countries in Infant Mortality?
In 2004 (the latest year that data are available for all countries), the United States ranked 29th in the world in infant mortality, tied with Poland and Slovakia.
Infant mortality rates were generally lowest (below 3.5 per 1,000) in selected Scandinavian (Sweden, Norway, and Finland) and East Asian (Japan, Hong Kong, and Singapore) countries. In 2004, 22 countries had infant mortality rates below 5.0.
The United States' international ranking fell from 12th in 1960 to 23d in 1990, and to 29th in 2004.
International comparisons of infant mortality can be affected by differences in reporting of fetal and infant deaths. However, it appears unlikely that differences in reporting are the primary explanation for the United States' relatively low international ranking.
Are There Differences in Infant Mortality Rates Between Racial and Ethnic Groups?
In 2005, there was a more than threefold difference in infant mortality rates by race and ethnicity, from a high of 13.63 for non-Hispanic black women to a low of 4.42 for Cuban women.
Infant mortality rates were above the U.S. average for non-Hispanic black, Puerto Rican (8.30), and American Indian or Alaska Native (8.06) women.
These differences may relate in part to differences in risk factors for infant mortality such as preterm and low birthweight delivery, socioeconomic status, access to medical care, etc. However, many of the racial and ethnic differences in infant mortality remain unexplained.
The infant mortality rate did not change significantly for any race/ethnicity group from 2000 to 2005.
The only race/ethnicity group to achieve the Healthy People 2010 target goal (4.5) as of 2005 was the Cuban population (4.42).
Has the Percentage of Preterm Births (An Important Risk Factor for Infant Mortality) Increased from 2000 to 2005?
Preterm birth (births at less than 37 completed weeks of gestation) is a key risk factor for infant death. The percentage of preterm births has increased rapidly in the United States in recent years. From 2000 to 2005, the percentage of preterm births increased from 11.6% to 12.7% — a 9% increase. [...]
The overall percentage of preterm births has increased in the United States since the mid-1980s. Although a portion of the increase is due to increases in multiple births, the percentage of preterm births also increased among single births.
How Has the Increase in Preterm Births Affected the U.S. Infant Mortality Rate?
In 2005, 68.6% of all infant deaths occurred to preterm infants, up from 65.6% in 2000.
Very preterm infants accounted for only 2% of births, but over one-half of all infant deaths in both 2000 and 2005. Because the majority of infant deaths occur to very preterm infants, changes in either the percentage of these infants or in their infant mortality rate can have a large impact on the overall infant mortality rate.
The infant mortality rate for very preterm infants was 183.24 infant deaths per 1,000 live births in 2005, not significantly different from the rate in 2000 (180.94), halting a long-term decline.
The plateau in the U.S. infant mortality rate from 2000 to 2005 was largely due to the combination of the increase in the percentage of very preterm births and the lack of decline in the infant mortality rate for these births. However, the increase in the percentage of late preterm births has also had an impact. In 2005, the infant mortality rate for late preterm births was three times that for term births (37-41 weeks).
What Is the Impact of Preterm-Related Causes of Death?
In 2005, 36.5% of infant deaths in the United States were due to preterm-related causes of death, a 5% increase since 2000 (34.6%). Preterm-related causes were those where the cause of death was a direct consequence of preterm birth, and 75% or more of total infant deaths attributed to that cause were preterm.
From 2000 to 2005, the percentage of infant deaths from preterm-related causes increased significantly for non-Hispanic white, non-Hispanic black, Asian or Pacific Islander, and Mexican mothers.
The impact of preterm-related infant mortality was high for all racial and ethnic groups. However, some groups were disproportionately affected. For example, nearly half (46%) of infant deaths to non-Hispanic black women, and 41% of infant deaths to Puerto Rican women were preterm-related, compared with 32% for non-Hispanic white women.