The Debates

[Martina]

Debt that we pay because corporations and the super wealthy do not pay is unnecessary and can be stopped easily and at once. We have to make corporations and rich folk pay their fair share. And we have to stop fighting expensive wars. We do not need another dot com bubble to get us out of debt.

Reducing debt would free some money to help reduce the problem of unemployment, which is the more important issue. Full employment would end the debt crisis in a few years. There is a gallup poll out today that says that only 45 percent of Americans over 18 have full time jobs.

We have got to get money into the economy from the banks, meaning force them to lend again, especially to small businesses. And we have to make sure that public sector jobs are not cut to the bone, which means stimulus spending. And we must repair our crumbling infrastructure.

The jobs we do have are low end jobs. It is ironic that Romney was talking about flexible scheduling. That is a high end problem. Here's what most women in the economy are encountering:

Rather than being long and relentless, work hours in hourly jobs, especially low-level ones, are often scarce, fluctuating and unpredictable. Sales associates and restaurant servers might be scheduled for 7 hours one week and 32 the next. Hotel housekeepers might work Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday one week, and then Sunday, Thursday and Saturday the following week. Schedules are often posted just a few days in advance. And women in hourly jobs are likely to have less input than men in determining their work schedules, according to national surveys.

The lack of stability is especially hard on parents. Unpredictable work schedules leave them scrambling to arrange child care and reluctant to volunteer for school events or to schedule doctor’s appointments. They make it tough to establish the household routines that experts tell us are essential for healthy child development, like bedtime rituals, homework monitoring and family meal times. Unstable hours also result in unstable earnings, a nightmare for parents on tight budgets.

Well-educated women have benefited from the growing gap between workers who have college degrees and those who don’t. But low-paid women have been left vulnerable by cuts to safety net programs. In 2011, nearly half of the households headed by single mothers who worked part-time or part-year were poor (46.8 percent), compared with 8.9 percent of households headed by single mothers who worked full-time, year round.

The different pressures on salaried and hourly workers arise from companies’ trying to maximize productivity. . . .

To do that, the government must reform the Fair Labor Standards Act. Enacted in 1938 — decades before women’s labor force participation became the norm — the law established a minimum hourly wage but did not guarantee minimum weekly hours for any job (though unions may bargain for minimum hours). This reform would encourage employers to make full use of their hourly employees instead of overhiring, at low cost, a pool of on-demand shift workers.

We tax to get money to reach meaningful full employment and reduce the debt. End of story. Taxes on the wealthy and an end corporate tax breaks. And we need to improve the working conditions for all workers, which means regulation, so that the jobs we do have actually make it possible for people to live and raise a family. It's crazy that working people in this country live in poverty so that a few can become super wealthy instead of just wealthy.