Sen. Warren focuses attention on plight of middle class

As the nation’s economy continues to climb out of the Great Recession, corporate profits and the stock market are at record highs, yet American workers are working harder to earn wages that aren’t keeping pace with the rising costs of energy, housing and a college education.

Elizabeth Warren

“Rich people are doing well, giant corporations are doing well and the middle class is still just getting hammered,” U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren said in an interview on MSNBC’s Morning Joe news program.

Warren is teaming up with U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Maryland) to launch the Middle Class Prosperity Project, an initiative aimed at developing legislative strategies to improve the economic prospects of American workers.

“What is happening is that corporate executives and shareholders are getting more of the corporate profits while Americans are working harder but getting less,” Cummings said in the MSNBC interview last week. “But yet still, the costs of housing and education and health care are going up while their wages are stagnating.”

Warren and Cummings are not yet pushing specific pieces of legislation. Their aim, initially, is to spark national conversation about the middle class.

“What we’re trying to do is get some focus on what’s happening to America’s working people, what’s happening to the middle class, and remind people that the middle class is in trouble because of deliberate policy choices made in Washington,” Warren said. “That means we can make changes here in Washington. And that’s what we want to do.”

While low-wage jobs and high-paying jobs have increased during the seven years of Barack Obama’s presidency, the number of middle-income jobs has declined, according to a Reuters analysis of labor statistics.

And even as working productivity increases, worker compensation as a share of national income is at a 60-year low, according to Jared Bernstein, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities who is collaborating with other economists on the Middle Class Prosperity Project.

Strapped

On top of that, Warren pointed out that Americans owe $1.2 trillion in college debt, with 69 percent of students graduating with a debt averaging $26,000 per student. Yet, Warren notes, the federal government earns a profit on student debt. Between 2007 and 2012, the government earned $66 billion from student loan interest.

“In other words, what we are doing right now is we are taxing young people who are trying to get an education,” she said.

Warren and Cummings are running the project out of the House Committee on Government Oversight and Reform. An inaugural forum was scheduled for Tuesday evening, featuring prominent economists including Bernstein of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities; Beth Ann Bovino, U.S. chief economist at Standard & Poor’s Rating Services; Yale Professor of Economics and African American Studies Gerald Jaynes; and Columbia University Professor Joseph Stiglitz.

Warren and Cummings hope to develop concrete policy changes to help improve the plight of the middle class. They’re planning to hold several forums with leading economists and may launch a speaking tour as well, according to Cummings.

The main thrust of the project is to increase awareness of how federal policies affect the middle class, Warren said.

“How are we going to get Washington to work again for working families?” she said during the MSNBC interview. “The answer is we’ve gotta get out there and stir it up a little bit. We’ve gotta be out there talking about these issues and get people all across the country to call their congressman, to call their senator to raise some sand about this.”

“Not only must the Congress be informed, but the American public must be informed,” Cummings added. “I would consider it political malpractice if we didn’t push these issues.”