From: USW Rapid Response
Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2010
Subject: Unemployment Checks and Wall Street Bonuses  

The Jobs Crisis:
Not Everyone is Feeling the Pain    
This is the second in a short series of Info Alerts on the jobs crisis.   Please distribute widely.

While our nation struggles with a whopping unemployment rate of nearly 10 percent, with four out of every 10 unemployed Americans among the long-term unemployed (more than 27 weeks), there are some people who continue to do just fine:
Wall Street paid $20.3 billion in bonuses in 2009.  That’s a 17 percent increase in one year.

At Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley – three of the biggest banks – compensation was up 31 percent in 2009.

The average taxable bonus on Wall Street was nearly $124,000 last year.

The five biggest health insurance companies reaped $12.2 billion in profits in 2009 – a 56% increase over the year before.

The 400 richest households in the U.S. saw their income more than double since President Bush’s tax cuts in 2005. 

These households have more wealth than 155 million Americans combined.

The number of U.S. millionaires rose by 16 percent last year.  Those worth five million or more jumped by 17 percent.
Meanwhile, Senator Jim Bunning (R-KY) recently chose to hold up an extension of unemployment benefits and COBRA health insurance assistance for 1.2 million hard-working Americans who lost their jobs through no fault of their own.  When confronted and asked to relent by a fellow Senator, his comment was “tough sh*t.”

It’s time for things to change – watch for more information to come!