The big-business press is excited by accounts of growing profits, especially in products aimed at the top 1% of the population awash in extra cash, like private jets, ever-bigger estates, cars like Ferraris that go for over $300,000 and more. At the same time, its reporting admits workers face greater challenges in making ends meet.
With the midterm elections just two weeks away, the big-business press is full of stories about the Democrats holding the Republicans responsible for what workers face, and vice versa. But this crisis is not rooted in which capitalist party holds governmental power, nor in the hike in gas prices resulting from Washington’s war with Tehran. It is rooted in the normal workings of the capitalist system, where the bosses drive to maximize their profits off the backs of workers and farmers.
“Rising Costs Push Necessities Out of Reach for Nearly Half of Americans,” headlined an Oct. 14 New York Times article. It referred to a recent study by the Pew Research Center that reported “60% say they do not currently have enough income to lead the kind of life they want; 53% say they do not have emergency funds that would cover their expenses for three months.” Another 27% say they have to choose between which bills they can pay each month, and 32% say they worry constantly about the cost of healthcare and the amount of debt they have.
For workers, those the center lists as having “lower income,” these crisis conditions are even worse.
Prices 30% higher in past six years
Workers in over four in 10 U.S. households said they had trouble paying for some basic necessities in the past year — medical care, food, daily transportation, rent or mortgage payments. Of those unable to cover food costs, 20% said they had to go to a food bank or food pantry to get enough to eat.
The consumer price index rose by 3.7% in September over the year before. While the biggest increases were in fuel oil, up 74.2%; gas, up 34.2%; airfares, up 22.4%; and public transportation, up 15.6%, price hikes are broad-based and encompass almost everything. This includes hospital care, haircuts, paper towels, beef, childcare, having a roof over your head, and the list goes on. In fact, everyday goods are 30% more expensive today than they were six years ago.
And wages haven’t kept up with rising prices, as bosses are determined to attack workers and our unions — like they’re doing at the BP and Marathon refineries in Indiana and the Bay Area — to further increase returns on their investments. Real average hourly earnings nationwide fell 0.5% last month alone.
There’s no letup in the drive by the giant energy monopolies to extract bigger profits by boosting home heating costs. “Average heating costs for U.S. households are expected to rise by 8.3% this winter,” reported MarketWatch. And for the millions of households that use oil to heat their homes, their bills may be 50% higher. Utilities nationwide have requested $23 billion in rate increases.
To cover the high cost of necessities, more and more workers are forced to go deeper into debt, using credit cards, payday loans, and the like to pay bills. And the giant banks that profit off these cards now charge interest rates for unpaid balances of 22% or more.
Last year the number of U.S. households behind on loan payments rose to nearly 20%, the Federal Reserve said, and 8.6% of families spent more than 40% of their income paying down on their debts. More than 74 million people are saddled with outstanding debt on their cars, and 36 million have student loan debts, to say nothing of medical, heating and all kinds of other debts.
More than half of raises won by workers in recent years have been eaten up by debt payments.
Skyrocketing cost of healthcare
One skyrocketing expense is the cost of medical care. Out-of-pocket spending on healthcare has risen nearly 50% in the past six years.
Jason King Jones from Center Valley, Pennsylvania, paid less than $100 to have a cancerous tumor removed in 2022. Four years later he was hit with nearly $1,000 in healthcare bills for a repeat of a similar procedure. “It feels like more burden is being put on the individual,” he told the Financial Times.
And more and more workers are being told that their insurance will no longer be accepted by the big hospital chains. For example, earlier this year Lehigh Valley Health Network in Pennsylvania dropped UnitedHealth insurance in a dispute over how much the insurance company should pay for patients’ coverage. The “dispute” left patients in the lurch. This is a perfect example of profits over people.
“Our healthcare industry really profits when people are sick or they need medication,” Melissa Hakim, a former doctor there who now works trying to help patients negotiate their health coverage, told the Financial Times. They’re “making money from people being ill.”