In a Senate floor speech last week, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) laid out a progressive economic agenda that would create millions of new jobs, raise wages, protect the environment and provide health care for all. Sanders laid out the problem facing America: the murder of the middle class by the rich.
“Today, millions of Americans are working longer hours for lower wages[.] We once led the world in terms of the percentage of our people who graduated college, but we are now in 12th place. Our infrastructure, once the envy of the world, is collapsing. Real unemployment today is not 5.8 percent, it is 11.5 percent, if we include those who have given up looking for work or who are working part time when they want to work full time. Youth unemployment is 18.6 percent and African-American youth unemployment is 32.6 percent.”