Sanders: Rebuilding the American middle class

Posted Wednesday, January 14, 2015 6:57 pm

There is, in Vermont and across this country, widespread frustration about the inability of Congress to address the most important issues facing the American people. The simple truth is that, over the last 40 years, the middle class of this country has been in decline. Millions of working families have seen a reduction in their incomes, young people are finding it harder to afford higher education and seniors are struggling to pay for their food, heat and medicine. At the same time, the wealthiest people in this country are doing phenomenally well, corporate profits are soaring and the gap between the very rich and everyone else is growing wider.

While the economy has significantly improved over the last six years, we still face a major crisis in terms of high rates of unemployment and underemployment. The official unemployment rate is 5.6 percent, but real unemployment is 11.4 percent, youth unemployment is 17.7 percent and African-American youth unemployment is close to 30 percent. The fastest way to create jobs is to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure. Every day we see bridges in disrepair, congested roads with potholes and inadequate transit services. Nearly a quarter of the nation's bridges are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete, and more than 30 percent have exceeded their design life. Almost one-third of America's major roads are in poor or mediocre condition, and 42 percent of major urban highways are congested. Our airports and seaports desperately need upgrades. Our passenger and freight rail lines are obsolete. Our water and wastewater systems, energy grid, dams and levees, schools and parks all need improvements.

If we want our country to be more productive, efficient and safe we need to make a substantial and sustained investment in infrastructure. The bad news is we must invest $1.7 trillion by 2020 just to get our nation's roads, bridges and transit to a state of good repair — more than four times the current rate of spending. The good news is that a $1 trillion investment in infrastructure will create and maintain 13 million jobs. That is what we should do and I will introduce legislation to try to make that happen.

At a time when most of the new jobs being created are low-wage and part-time, it is imperative that we raise the national minimum wage of $7.25 per hour to a living wage. Vermont and a number of other states have made progress in raising the minimum wage but we must go further. Nobody in America who works 40 hours a week should be living in poverty. We must also pass legislation that supports pay equity for women. It is not acceptable that nationally, women earn 78 cents on the dollar compared to men who do the same work.

I will fight for new trade policies that end the outsourcing of American jobs. American workers should not have to compete against desperate people in developing countries who make pennies an hour. Trade agreements have cost us millions of decent-paying jobs and have led us to a race to the bottom. Since 1991, we have lost some 60,000 factories and millions of good paying manufacturing jobs. I will vigorously oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which continues the failed trade policies of the last three decades supported by both Democratic and Republican presidents.

In a highly-globalized and competitive economy, we need to have the best educated workforce in the world. Tragically, that is no longer the case. Once, the United States led the world in the percentage of people who graduated college. Today, we are in 12th place. For many working parents, higher education for their kids is now unaffordable and many of young people are graduating deeply in debt. All Americans who have the ability and the desire should be able to receive a higher education. As a member of the Education Committee, I will do my best to make that happen.

Bernie Sanders has been a member of the U.S. Senate since 2007. Before that, he was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1991-2007.