US life expectancy drops to lowest level since 1996

Emma Arceneaux

Life expectancy in the United States decreased for the second year in a row in 2021, according to final mortality data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).  The death rate for the population increased by 5.3 percent above 2020, leading to a decline in life expectancy from 77 years to 76.4 years, the lowest level since 1996. 

Emergency medical technician Thomas Hoang, left, of Emergency Ambulance Service, and paramedic Trenton Amaro prepare to unload a COVID-19 patient from an ambulance in Placentia, Calif., Jan. 8, 2021. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)

The progress of a quarter-century of medical advances has essentially been wiped out in just two years.

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, life expectancy in the US has fallen by 2.4 years total. The decrease of a .6 year in 2021 mounts on top of the loss of 1.8 years recorded in 2020.

As the World Socialist Web Site noted when the CDC’s preliminary mortality report was issued in August, the figures constitute “a damning indictment of the homicidal response to the pandemic that has characterized the Trump and Biden administrations. Biden—who was elected in large part because of popular revulsion at Trump’s callous and anti-scientific response to COVID-19 and who was armed with effective vaccines from the beginning of his term—stands thoroughly exposed.”

Indeed, despite the availability of lifesaving COVID-19 vaccines and Democratic control of the White House and Congress, 2021 was far deadlier than 2020. According to CDC data, total US deaths increased by 80,502 compared to 2020, above all, due to the continuing pandemic.

Citing CDC statistician Kenneth Kochanek, NPR notes that COVID-19 accounted for nearly 60 percent of the decline in life expectancy in 2021. The total number of deaths in which COVID-19 was the underlying cause increased by 18.8 percent, from 350,831 in 2020 to 416,893 in 2021. It remained the third leading cause of death in 2021 following heart disease and cancer.

In addition to COVID-19, death rates also increased for eight of the 10 leading causes of death. These include unintentional injuries (which increased 12.3 percent), a category which includes the soaring rates of drug overdose; chronic liver disease and cirrhosis (which increased 9.0 percent); kidney disease (which increased 7.1 percent) and stroke (which increased 5.9 percent). 

Both influenza and pneumonia dropped from the top 10 causes of death in 2021, likely due to the limited mitigation measures that were still in place last year but which have since been abandoned. As the WSWS correctly warned, with the ending of remaining COVID-19 mitigations, viruses such as influenza would be able to freely circulate and deaths from these illnesses could easily climb again. 

Data suggests this is exactly what is taking place. The CDC currently estimates there have been between 12,000 and 35,000 influenza deaths so far this season, compared to an estimated 5,000 deaths last flu season. In late November, weekly influenza cases reached the highest level on record.

One of the most alarming aspects of the report is the fact that death rates are increasing in every age group above one year old. Among ages 1-4, the death rate increased by 10.1 percent. Adults aged 35-44 experienced the largest increase in the death rate at 16.1 percent.

Should these trends continue, a child born in the US today is expected to live a shorter life than his or her grandparents. The CDC report estimates that the average 65 year old in America will live another 18.4 years, bringing them to age 83.4 years old, compared to the 76.4 years now expected at birth. 

According to a study published this October in the journal Nature Human Behavior, increasing mortality among the younger population is the leading cause of the US’s declining life expectancy. The study examined life expectancy in 29 countries throughout the pandemic. Speaking to the USA Today, the authors noted that the US was the only country that had continued life expectancy losses in 2021 attributed to increasing mortality in people under 60. They found that “more than half of the loss in U.S. life expectancy since the start of the pandemic” was due to increasing mortality in this age group. 

While COVID-19 has greatly accelerated this regressive trend in one of the most significant indices of population health, the process predated the pandemic, beginning nearly a decade ago. A report by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health released earlier this month notes that US life expectancy steadily increased until 2014, peaking at 78.9 years, then stagnated between 2015-2019 before turning sharply down in 2020. 

A major factor driving down life expectancy before the pandemic was the staggering rise in “deaths of despair,” driven mainly by rising social inequality. These include fatal drug overdoses, which doubled between 2014 and 2021 and killed over 106,000 people last year. During this same period, gun-related homicides and suicides rose by 44 percent, and alcohol-related liver disease rose by 63 percent. Teen suicides (ages 13-19) rose by 29 percent.

As was true in the preliminary CDC report in August, absent from the final report is any analysis of the relationship between socioeconomic status and life expectancy. Data are presented for race and gender but not class. However, multiple studies during the pandemic have strongly associated income and socioeconomic status with life expectancy, with the gap between the economic elite and the working class widening dramatically in the last three years across racial and gender groups. 

Adding to this, the CDC data refutes the notion that the pandemic’s impact is primarily driven by race. After non-Hispanic, American Indian or Alaskan Native females, the largest increase in death rates in 2021 occurred in non-Hispanic white males, followed by non-Hispanic white females. Death rates decreased last year among Hispanic males and non-Hispanic black males. 

Though the United States saw a decline in COVID-19 deaths in 2022 compared to the two previous years of the pandemic, over 250,000 Americans have needlessly died so far this year, according to Our World in Data, while cases and hospitalizations have been rising since November. Globally, The Economist’s excess death estimate indicates that around 5 million people died from COVID-19 in 2022.

Since the beginning of 2022, the Biden administration has overseen the systematic dismantling of testing, reporting and what else remained of the mitigation measures that were in place during the first two years of the pandemic. The CDC played a central role in this, including with the agency’s guidelines released in August that recommended quarantine, isolation and testing be discontinued in most settings, including schools. This agenda has been justified under the false claim that the population must “learn to live with” COVID-19 forever. 

Now, the third year of the pandemic is drawing to a close with one of the most horrific developments to date—the abandonment of Zero-COVID by the Chinese Communist Party government and its rapid embrace of “herd immunity.” In addition to the immediate catastrophe that is unfolding in China, one-sixth of the world’s population is being exposed to the virus for the first time, creating conditions for the virus to mutate into even more transmissible, and potentially more virulent, variants which will spread quickly around the world. As the WSWS commented in a recent perspective, a whole new stage in the pandemic is now beginning. 

The decline in life expectancy signifies that a terrible social regression is occurring in the United States. Despite continuous advances in scientific and medical knowledge and tools, society in the wealthiest country is moving backward. The capitalist system, under which human life is subordinated to private profit, can neither answer this indictment nor reverse course. On the contrary, capitalist governments worldwide have consciously adopted policies that they know will kill masses of their own citizens in the pursuit of profit.

Death toll continues to mount as extreme winter weather inundates Buffalo and freezes much of United States

Samuel Davidson

Freezing temperatures and massive snowfall are blamed for at least 57 deaths across the US as of Monday evening, with many more expected as temperatures remain below freezing and people are trapped in their cars.

Since Friday, more than 200 million people have been affected by a massive winter storm stretching from Maine in the Northeast down to the Gulf of Mexico and as far west as the Rocky Mountains. Over 1.7 million people have lost power.

People move about the streets of the Elmwood Village neighborhood of Buffalo, New York, Monday, Dec. 26, 2022, after a massive snow storm blanketed the city [AP Photo/Craig Ruttle]

Buffalo, New York, where at least 27 people have died, has seen some of the worst winter weather recorded. As of Monday, the Buffalo airport reported over 40 inches (101.6 cm) of snow with another 9 inches (22.86 cm) to a foot (30.48 cm) being predicted before snow is expected to stop on Tuesday.

Hurricane strength winds knocked out power for many, created whiteout conditions and prevented emergency crews from reaching those in need.

Many of those who died were trapped in their cars or homes without power. One person was found dead in a snow drift, and several people died while shoveling snow. At least two people died when they had a medical emergency, but first responders were not able to get through.

William Clay was found lying face down in the snow on Christmas Eve. Relatives said it was his 56th birthday and that he may have been seeking to buy something from a nearby convenience store.

People placed desperate calls on social media for assistance, asking for food and, in one case, diapers.

Facebook comments from a western New Yorker desperate for help exemplify the disorganized response of the capitalist system to extreme yet predictable storms: “Anyone have an update on the Parkside area and when they should get power back? My family including my 94 year old grandma live in the smaller neighborhood next to Medaille college and have been without heat/power since Friday am. National Grid maps are totally incorrect and there hasn’t been a crew out. No plowing has been done so no one can get in or out. They’ve tried the 858-snow number which has been useless so far.”

Another pleaded for help as fuel ran out to light candles and phones were dying: “Anybody near Rhode Island st that can help my family out ? We’ve had no power/ no heat for over 24hrs now. We are also very limited on the food that we can make. All of our phones are dying/almost dead and we won’t have anything in case of a emergency. and we barley have any butane left for our Stick lighter to light candles! if you can help out please pm me 🙏🏽 thank you. — feeling cold.”

At 10 a.m. Monday morning, one person wrote: “120 Minnesota Ave is now going on 72 hours without power or heat. there has been a report of one resident deceased. I was able to escape with my family, but there is no way the other residents are able to leave and walk through the snow. Many are elderly and physically unable to walk. We need snowmobiles sent to 120 Minnesota asap. One neighbor is trapped on the 3rd floor and cannot walk down the stairs without assistance we have been communicating with him via text and he is now not making sense and says he thinks he’s going to die. I will pay for someone with a snowmobile to please help them!” 

Later on, they were able to report that they had been evacuated.

This is the second major snow fall to inundate Western New York this season. A massive storm in November dumped a record of over 5 feet (1.52 meters) of snow on the region.

While bringing slightly less snow, this latest storm is having a bigger impact because of the extremely high winds and the much broader scope of the storm.

Officials say that on any given night, 2,500 to 4,000 people in Buffalo are homeless, living with others, in shelters or out on the streets. They are the most exposed to the deadly effects of winter weather and are at most risk to be injured or killed.

Maruce, who works at the Faith Based Fellowship, a homeless shelter near downtown Buffalo, told the World Socialist Web Site that they are completely full and are being forced to refer those seeking shelter to a social services hotline. “We are all snowed in, everyone is in the house. Nice and warm. We have been getting a lot of calls the last couple of days, we are full. I direct them to 211 and they will get them placed somewhere.

“It is hard, they are calling and knowing they are in need and we are just unable to help. There is help out there and everything I can do I will do.”

Lack of affordable housing and homelessness is a big problem in Buffalo as it is in the rest of the country.

Maruce pointed out that the city owns a lot of abandoned properties that they could renovate as housing for the homeless. “There are even some abandoned housing projects, these could be fixed for the homeless. They have been abandoned for years.”

Across the country, Maruce pointed out that not enough is being done for the homeless. Pointing to a recent decision by the state of California, “Banning homeless camps is not a solution. Where do you want them to go? You are just trying to ship them to somewhere else.”

Thomas Green, the shelter’s director, explained that housing has become unaffordable for many people who cannot afford the rent for apartments and that the COVID-19 pandemic has made the homeless problem a lot worse. 

“We have seen homelessness increase. A lot of people lost jobs, lots of small businesses having to close, the smaller places couldn’t remain open. Plus people got sick, went to hospitals and they lost their jobs and weren’t able to maintain their situation.

“When the moratorium on evictions was ended, a lot of people had to leave their homes.”

Green explained that even when the moratorium was in effect, “many people lost their homes if they had to go into the hospital for a long time or weren’t able to get the mental health assistance that they needed.”

On Saturday, nearly every fire truck in Buffalo was stranded in the snow. Overworked health care and emergency workers, already depleted from three years of the pandemic, are again being asked to sacrifice to address this crisis. One Buffalo health care worker posted on social media that they have been working for 48 hours straight and pleaded for anyone who was able to get to the hospital to relieve them.

The current cold weather and storm are caused by a massive movement of cold air from the Arctic region across Canada and down south as far as Texas. 

The intensity and severity of the storm is another product of global warming. Scientists explain that the warming atmosphere can carry more water vapor, which in turn acts as fuel for the storms and brings more snow and ice.

Warming in the Arctic weakens the jet stream that travels west to east which typically acts as a barrier to the colder Arctic air moving south.

Such storms will increase in both frequency and intensity as the world continues to warm.

Throughout the country, the storm has brought deadly conditions. From Friday through Sunday, much of the country suffered freezing conditions, with single-digit and subzero weather reaching as far south as parts of Louisiana, Alabama and Texas.

A mother in Georgia tweeted that temperatures had fallen to 17 degrees Fahrenheit (-8.3 degrees Celsius) Monday night, and they have been without power. She has a 14-year-old son who is on a ventilator, and they were going to have to transport him to a hospital.

The speed at which temperatures dropped was especially hard for the homeless.

In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, temperatures dropped from 28 degrees F. (-2.2 degrees C.) Friday morning at 5:30 to -2 degrees F. (-18.9 degrees C.) just four hours later, with wind chills of minus 26 degrees (-32 degrees C.). 

Terry, a homeless man who can often be seen panhandling in downtown Pittsburgh, explained that he is dropped off in downtown at 7:00 a.m. to beg for money and is not picked up until 7:00 p.m. 

“It started getting real cold real fast. We had no place to go, you would get a few dollars and maybe go into a 7-11 [convenience store] for coffee, but they don’t want you standing around.”

Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey, who promised to address the city’s lack of affordable housing and homeless problems, recently opened a 122-bed shelter, but this has already filled up. At the same time he has also cleared out homeless encampments from under overpasses and bridges to make the problem less visible.

Water has become a major problem for many people in the South, where freezing temperatures cause unprotected pipes to burst. 

Residents in Jackson, Mississippi, must now boil their drinking water as water lines burst in the freezing temperatures. Earlier this year, residents did not have safe drinking water for weeks because of the decay of their water system.

The Associated Press (AP) is reporting that some residents of Shreveport, Louisiana, were without water on Monday, and that in Selma, Alabama, the mayor has declared a state of emergency because the city is worried it will run out of water.

Workers at a South Carolina food bank are trying to save over $1 million in food as water pipes froze and broke over the weekend. And the AP reports that emergency dispatchers around Atlanta are being overwhelmed with people calling about broken pipes.

Turkey’s new minimum wage accelerates collapse in living standards

Hasan Yıldırım

On Thursday, negotiations on Turkey’s minimum wage for 2023 ended, and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced the new minimum wage. The minimum wage will reportedly be increased by 54.7 percent, to 8,506 Turkish liras (US$455).

Two young people work at a traditional bakery in Ankara, Turkey, Monday, Dec. 5, 2022. [AP Photo/Burhan Ozbilici]

“The minimum wage figure … is in line with the general economic and social outlook of our country,” Erdoğan said, adding: “It is a fact that the most tangible results of our efforts to grow through investment, employment, production, exports and current account surplus in Turkey are achieved in working life.”

The Erdoğan government claims the 54.7 percent increase in the official minimum wage protects workers from inflation. In reality, it is well below even the official annual inflation rate (84 percent), which itself is well below the real inflation rate affecting millions of workers. According to the independent Inflation Research Group (ENAG), annual inflation had reached 170 percent as of November.

The new minimum wage is barely above the hunger limit of 7,786 liras for a family of four calculated by the Türk-İş confederation at the end of November and well below the poverty line of 25,364 liras. The setting of the minimum wage, from which the salaries of all sections of the working class are calculated, is part of a massive wealth transfer process from bottom to top.

As living conditions collapse for the tens of millions of workers who make up the vast majority of the population, a handful of corporate and finance oligarchs reap huge profits. The net profit of the banking sector in Turkey increased by 408 percent in the January-October period of 2022 compared to the same period last year, reaching 335.9 billion liras. According to Bloomberg, this year the labor cost of companies has decreased to 10.4 percent. This rate was 15 percent in 2016.

Even before minimum wage talks opened between the government, business representatives and the trade union confederations, Türk-İş officials announced they would start negotiations at 7,785 TL, just below the hunger limit. This provoked deep anger among workers.

Then, Ergün Atalay, president of Türk-İş, in an attempt to restore the reputation of the despised union apparatus, declared, “The official offer of Türk-İş is 9,000 liras. If they give it to us, we will sign, if not, we will not sign.” In the end, the Türk-İş bureaucracy’s non-participation in the signing ceremony is nothing but a desperate attempt to make up for its loss of credibility in the eyes of the workers.

Labor and Social Security Minister Vedat Bilgin’s statement Friday evening on Haber Türk Television about Türk-İş’s non-attendance at the signing ceremony exposed the anti-worker role of the affluent union apparatus.

Bilgin stated that they consulted with the unions before determining the new minimum wage. He said: “The most important thing that came to me was that they said, ‘The more you set the minimum wage above 8,000 liras, the more difficult we will be in a difficult situation.’ I asked, ‘Why?’ They said, ‘We don’t want you to exceed the wage we get in contract agreements, it will affect them.’”

Union bureaucrats fear their members could strike for further raises after the official minimum wage increase, as their wages will be barely above the new minimum wage. The wages in recent contracts in Turkey that unions tout as “successes” are barely over the minimum wage, and the minimum wage is now just below the average wage. Moreover, millions of people, mostly refugees and migrants, are subjected to brutal exploitation at wages below the minimum wage.

After the minimum wage was set, Türk-İş President Atalay tamely declared that “the expectations of the workers were not met, and our demand was not taken into account.”

Arzu Çerkezoğlu, president of the pro-bourgeois opposition DİSK union confederation, said, “the government and employers have jointly set a minimum wage that will condemn the working class to poverty.” She demanded that the minimum wage be set four times a year during periods of high inflation.

The hypocrisy is staggering. As the pro-government Türk-İş’s demand to keep wages low has been exposed, the “dissident” DİSK bureaucracy is trying to appease growing anger among workers while strengthening ties with government and bourgeois opposition officials and business organisations like TÜSİAD. For all their rhetoric, the last thing the union leaderships want is a mass mobilization of workers. In fact, they exist to prevent it.

Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, leader of the bourgeois opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), said: “The palace robbed 33 million citizens of this country by announcing a raise 5 points below even the fake food inflation rate of the Turkish Statistical Institute. Neither the minimum wage earners got what they deserved, nor was the tax burden of small tradesmen reduced. It happened again because ‘someone [Erdoğan] wanted it.’”

This statement is just as hypocritical. CHP imposes miserable wages on workers in the municipalities under its control. In districts like Kadıköy, Maltepe in Istanbul or Seyhan in Adana, municipal workers’ struggles were broken with the collaboration of the DİSK-affiliated Genel-İş union.

Moreover, the fact that many “experts” close to the bourgeois opposition oppose a significant increase in the minimum wage, claiming it would “fuel inflation,” makes clear that the CHP-led bourgeois opposition is as pro-business and anti-worker as the Erdoğan government.

The big corporations’ announcement of a surge in the prices of basic necessities after the fixing of the new minimum wage also exposes their anti-social character. It only confirms the need to nationalize big business under the democratic control of the working class.

The source of the global price increases lies in the global crisis of capitalism. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, central banks printed trillions of dollars to be transferred to finance capital, followed by anti-Russian sanctions after the outbreak of the US-NATO war against Russia in Ukraine. Massive price increases have been accompanied everywhere by a surge in corporate and financial profits and a collapse in real wages and living standards for workers.

Germany: Children’s clinics on the brink of collapse while the government procures nuclear bombers

Tino Jacobson & Gregor Link

Germany is currently experiencing a wave of COVID-19 deaths and other severe respiratory illnesses, pushing the country’s children’s hospitals to the brink of collapse. Just before Christmas, the German parliament decided it was better to spend taxpayers’ money on procuring nuclear bombers. The decision throws a spotlight on the criminal policies of the ruling class.

On December 14, the Bundestag budget committee approved the purchase of 35 F-35 II fighter jets at a cost of €10 billion. On the same day, Europe’s largest university hospital, the Charité, announced it would go into emergency operation. The children’s wards were so overloaded that “for weeks doctors and nursing staff had to be withdrawn from normal wards to work the children’s wards,” according to the news outlet Deutsche Welle (DW). Despite “24/7 operation in all paediatric rescue units,” “care could no longer be guaranteed,” declared one Charité paediatrician.

According to a survey by the German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive and Emergency Medicine (DIVI), every second hospital in Germany has already had to turn down children for paediatric intensive care. In normal children’s wards, 43 of 110 paediatric clinics did not have a single bed available and ventilators are also in short supply. In addition, the children’s clinics are plagued by a devastating shortage of staff, which means that almost 40 percent of paediatric intensive care beds cannot be operated. DW quotes a senior consultant in paediatric intensive care in Hanover saying, “Children are dying because we can no longer care for them.”

The war-like conditions at German children’s hospitals are the result of the government’s policy of waging war against Russia in Ukraine and its conduct of a class war against its own people at home to finance the bloodshed.

Hospital Diakovere Henriettenstift in Hanover, Germany [Photo by Michał Beim / CC BY 4.0]

Every single one of the 35 stealth bombers—explicitly intended to drop US nuclear weapons already stored in Germany—could finance the complete rebuilding of a state-of-the-art children’s clinic. Instead, the ruling coalition of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the Greens and the neo-liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP), with the consent of all the opposition parties sitting in the Bundestag, have decided to cut the health budget by €40 billion compared to last year—despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The parliament also agreed to purchase an additional 118,000 Heckler & Koch assault rifles.

The renowned Robert Koch Institute reports on its online resource “GrippeWeb” that the number of respiratory infections in Germany is already far above the seasonal level and threatens to rise further. The proportion of people with an acute respiratory illness (ARI) currently exceeds 11 percent, with a “clear upward trend.” This means that about one in nine people in Germany is currently suffering from a respiratory infection. In 2021, the proportion of people with ARI was just under 4 percent. The increase is the result of lifting the most minimal of COVID-19 protection measures.

The RKI assesses the situation as follows: “The current very high value even exceeds the maximum values reached in previous major waves of flu.” The main causes of respiratory infections are influenza and the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), which mainly affects infants and young children.

DIVI President Christian Karagiannidis is also very concerned about the current situation, declaring, “I have never experienced anything like this before.” The chronic shortage of nurses is currently compounded by the high level of sick leave among health workers.

Gerald Gaß, head of the board of the German Hospital Association commented on the absences, “We now have around 9 to 10 percent absenteeism among staff.” That is 30 to 40 percent more than normal at this time of year. The precarious staffing situation means that beds in clinics cannot be used or that even entire wards must be closed.

The Charité Clinic in Berlin, for example, has been operating in emergency mode in the run-up to the Christmas holiday. All scheduled operations have been postponed. The children’s clinics are severely affected by staff shortages, where employees are already working at limit. Children sometimes have to spend the night in hospital corridors with their parents forced to wait for hours—or parents must spend hours looking for another children’s hospital with a free intensive care bed.

This situation causes despair not only for children, but also, and especially, for their parents. Staff at the Charité’s Virchow Clinic told WSWS reporters that the children’s clinic was full to capacity. They are angry and desperate about the situation.

“Cases of threats or the actual exercise of psychological and physical violence against health personnel are increasing,” related Gerda Hasselfeldt, president of the German Red Cross.

Heinz Hilgers, president of the Child Protection League, concluded that “it was an indictment of current official policy that there are not even enough medicines and fever-reducing agents for children.”

There are currently considerable supply shortages of certain medicines for children, such as fever-reducing medicines and suppositories, together with a shortage of anticancer drugs and antibiotics for adults. This is due to the high number of respiratory infections in children.

In addition, drug manufacturers are pulling out of the production of less profitable drugs—as is currently the case with 1A Pharma, a subsidiary of the Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis, which had a market share of 30 percent in fever-reducing medicines. In 2021, in the middle of the pandemic, Novartis recorded a profit of US$24 billion worldwide.

“The current bottlenecks are the result of years of pressure on prices and manufacturing costs for generics,” complained the manufacturers’ association Pro Generika. Consequently, more and more generic drug manufacturers are withdrawing from the production of key drugs.

In response, the German Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) announced before Christmas, a bill to “overcome supply bottlenecks.” According to the minister, an erroneous pricing policy was responsible for the supply bottlenecks. “Price has played the sole role, availability of medicines has played too small a role. We want to undo that,” Lauterbach said. In other words, the profits of the pharmaceutical companies are to take precedence and prices for medicines will rise further, although this will put an even greater burden on the health system.

For many years now, Germany’s main political parties have been cutting the health system to the bone in order to maximise profits. Currently, the federal budget for health is being cut from €64.3 billion to €24.5 billion. Military spending, on the other hand, is to rise from just under €50 billion to €58.6 billion. In addition, the government announced at the start of the Ukraine war that it intended to invest an extra €100 billion in the Bundeswehr.

The WSWS spoke to workers in front of the Charité. One worker said, “I find this intolerable. This is where the money should go. Everything is being closed down here, and it’s the military that is being funded to finance the war. I agree with you.”

Sabine opposed the purchase of nuclear bombers: “The government finds the money for that, but they don’t have any money for children. There is money made available for so many things. ... I’m lucky, my children are still healthy. But now the teachers are sick! Everyone wins in a war, except the little ones—the little ones have to pay extra. I was a patient in the nephrology department. I noticed that the children’s wards were full—and that’s not just the situation in Berlin, it’s like that everywhere.”

Many others also declared it was “unbelievable” that money was being “wasted” on the nuclear bombers. Instead, one could “hire a lot more people” with that money. In Germany, there is an enormous need for nursing staff. According to conservative estimates, the country lacks a total of 200,000 nurses.

“It’s terrible,” said one nurse in the children’s ward. “I am generally against weapons and arms supplies. The money should be invested in the health system. So many people have to be sent home at the moment, including teachers and ambulance staff.”

“As trainees, we try to help where we can,” related Rani, who works in an interdisciplinary paediatric ward. “The health insurance companies say they made a loss in the pandemic, but I don’t believe it. So many old people have died.”

Natasha from paediatric surgery added, “There are no beds left. There are hardly any nursing services left because staff shortages are so severe and nurses themselves are increasingly sick.” Instead of €100 billion for the military and billions more for imperialist wars, this money should go towards health and education.

Fragile Fiji coalition government installed amid ongoing turmoil

John Braddock

In a hastily-arranged closed session the day before Christmas, Fiji’s parliament voted by a narrow 28-27 margin to install a three-way coalition government led by the People’s Alliance Party (PAP) of former coup leader and ex-Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka.

Sitiveni Rambuka [Photo: Facebook]

A previous session on December 21 was deferred when President Wiliame Katonivere failed to issue a proclamation following a crisis inside the Social Democratic Liberal Party (SODELPA), the minority party that was effectively determining the outcome of the contentious election.

In Saturday’s parliamentary vote, one SODELPA MP did not side with the PAP-National Federation Party (NFP) coalition. A single vote thus installed Rabuka as prime minister and ended ex-coup leader Frank Bainimarama’s 16-year hold on power.

Earlier, an initial coalition deal had almost immediately collapsed. Following a 16-14 vote by SODELPAS’s management board for the Rabuka-led PAP-NFP coalition, the party’s general secretary Lenaitasi Duru resigned, declaring that two attendees were not members in good standing and therefore the meeting was unconstitutional.

SODELPA’s governing body held a second meeting on Friday which reconfirmed its initial decision, this time by a 13-12 margin, after leaders of the PAP and NFP and Bainimarama’s ruling Fiji First Party (FFP) were invited to resubmit their coalition proposals.

In the December 14 general election, SODELPA gained just 5.2 percent of the vote but secured the balance of power with three seats in the hung parliament. The FFP won 26 seats with the PAP on 21 seats, while the PAP’s coalition partner, the NFP obtained 5.

Parliament’s recall took place after days of turmoil, with the threat of another coup in the air. Refusing to concede defeat, Bainimarama had convened a meeting with Policing Minister Inia Seruiratu, Military Commander Major General Jone Kalouniwai and Police Commissioner Sitiveni Qiliho, and mobilised the military to assist police with “the maintenance of security and stability.”

Qiliho, a former army officer who runs a notoriously brutal police force, has a murky past with links to previous coups. The army’s involvement came despite Kalouniwai earlier promising the military would “respect” the electoral process. Amid escalating tensions, Assistant Police Commissioner Abdul Khan resigned for “personal reasons” the next day.

The pretext for the military operation were unverified reports of stonings targeting the homes and businesses of Fijians of Indian descent. NFP leader Biman Prasad, whose party represents the Indo-Fijian business elite, accused the government of holding the country to “ransom,” while Rabuka said Bainimarama was “sowing fear and chaos” and “trying to set the nation alight along racial lines.”

The description could equally be applied to Rabuka. The 74-year-old ruled as prime minister from 1992 to 1999 after leading two military coups in 1987 to boost the position of ethnic Fijians against Indo-Fijians, many of whom fled the country.

Speaking outside parliament after Saturday’s vote, Bainimarama addressed the media and appeared to accept defeat, saying he “hoped” to be the leader of the opposition. He declared “this is democracy” and, referring to his 2013 constitution, boasted “this is my legacy.”

Rabuka announced he would give the former government time for “a comfortable move-out.” He proclaimed that his Christmas message to people was “democracy works.”

In fact, following Rabuka’s earlier coups, Bainimarama ruled the country with an iron fist after seizing power in 2006. He “legitimised” his rule with bogus elections in 2014, which were falsely declared “democratic” by the regional imperialist powers, Australia and New Zealand. His authoritarian constitution entrenched the role of the military as responsible for the “safety and security of the country,” giving it broad anti-democratic powers.

The installation of a new government does nothing to resolve the ongoing crisis. The hung parliament was the product of a sham election between two parties led by former military strongmen, carried out under conditions of tight media censorship, heavy political restrictions and accusations of government intimidation. The credibility of the counting process was questioned after the official election app crashed.

With Fiji’s ruling elite sharply divided, the coalition government, propped up by an unpopular minor party which is sharply factionalised, will be highly unstable. In the event of a crisis, another coup cannot be ruled out. State and security officials, promoted and trained under previous rulers, would be ready to respond to any demand to do away again with the fig-leaf of democracy. 

No details of the PAP-NFP-SODELPA coalition agreement have yet been released. SODELPA vice-president Anare Jale said work on the document would take place during the holidays and “hopefully” something would be signed this Wednesday.

Whatever emerges, SODELPA will seek to shift the already autocratic regime even further to the right, using its position to advance the interests of the iTaukei Fijian chiefly elite, at the expense of ordinary ethnic Fijians and Indo-Fijian members of the population.

SODELPA and the PAP share the same history regarding indigenous issues. Rabuka formed the PAP in a split from SODELPA two years ago after losing a bitter leadership spill against current leader Viliame Gavoka. He has since publicly moderated his stance, apologising for his 1987 coups and declaring that Indo-Fijians would be treated fairly by the PAP.

In the election none of the parties campaigned with policies to address the burning questions facing the working class and rural poor—a deepening social crisis with massive job losses, escalating poverty and widespread hunger.

SODELPA campaigned on “uplifting socio-economic development” for the narrow i-Taukei, layer while the PAP manifesto promised amendments to the constitution, wiping student debt, reinstating the Fijian elite’s Great Council of Chiefs, and repealing “all decrees that suppress basic human rights.”

The NFP, formed in 1963 out of the cane farmers’ associations, represents Indo-Fijian business interests. While professing concerns about the cost of living and promising to restore the rights of trade unions, the NFP election manifesto targeted government spending and “wastage,” and promised an “audit” of the troubled economy within the first 100 days.

Inauspiciously for ordinary people, the new Attorney-General Siromi Turaga, as a magistrate, ruled that Bainimarama did not have powers to make COVID-related orders under the Public Health Act early on during the pandemic. COVID infections are currently rising again. Over the past three years, there have been 68,702 cases and 881 deaths from the disease among a population of just 900,000.

The incoming parties will embark on an authoritarian program to impose the dictates of international finance capital, with even greater austerity measures against the working class. As internationally, the revival and promotion of racial ethnic politics will be used as a battering ram against the emerging struggles of the working class.

Governments in Australia, New Zealand and the US have been closely watching developments. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken tweeted his congratulations to Rabuka, declaring that the US “looks forward to deepening our relationship for the benefit of the people of Fiji, the US, and the broader Indo-Pacific.”

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese welcomed Fiji’s “democratic process” and said he was “ready to work” with whoever formed government. His New Zealand counterpart Jacinda Ardern acknowledged Bainimarama’s “important legacy for Fiji” and as a “regional leader.”

New Zealand Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta said her government had been “encouraging all parties to allow the constitutional process to play out.”

The imperialist powers, who regard the Pacific as their own “backyard,” are concerned solely with their geostrategic interests against Beijing. After the 2006 coup Canberra and Wellington initially imposed trade and diplomatic sanctions. These backfired with Bainimarama’s “Look North” policy toward China prompting Washington to demand a new strategy aimed at bringing the dictator into the fold.

Fiji’s new government is falling into line. In August, Rabuka ruled out signing a bilateral security pact with Beijing if elected. SODELPA leader Gavoka confirmed last week that foreign affairs will be aligned closely to “traditional partners,” Australia, New Zealand and the members of the Pacific Islands Forum, not China.

Australian poverty report reveals impact of COVID austerity drive

Sofia Devetzi

New research by the University of New South Wales (UNSW) and the Australian Council of Social Services (ACOSS) has revealed the devastating consequences of the Australian government’s decision to withdraw pandemic income support payments.

Stood down or unemployed workers lining up for welfare at inner-west Sydney Centrelink in early 2020. [Photo: WSWS]

This was detailed in two reports—“Poverty in Australia 2022,” which was based on Australian Bureau of Statistics data and released in October, and “Australian experiences of poverty: risk precarity and uncertainty during COVID-19,” released on December 2. They showed that one in eight people in Australia, and one in six children, are now living below the poverty line as cost-of-living pressures increase.

Professor Carla Treloar, director of the Social Policy Research Centre at UNSW Sydney, said the reports highlighted unacceptable levels of poverty. “There are 3.3 million people in Australia desperately struggling to pay the bills and put food on the table,” she said. “There are 761,000 children who are denied a good start to life.”

In addition to the record number of people living under the poverty line, the reports found that the severity or “depth” of poverty has steadily increased over the last two decades. Average weekly incomes of impoverished people have dropped to $304 below the poverty line, indicating that they are falling further and further behind.

Percentage of all people in poverty from 1999-2020 [Photo: UNSW-ACOSS]

The poverty line itself represents an underestimate. In the UNSW-ACOSS reports, this is defined as 50 percent of median income, adjusted for household size; the authors suggest that people living below this poverty line are likely to miss out on essentials such as housing and food. Other organisations use a more expansive definition. The European Commission, for example, uses a higher poverty line based on 60 percent of median income.

However, even on the definition of poverty used, the UNSW-ACOSS reports are damning. In examining poverty data from the past few years, the effect of introducing small pandemic support payments—and then taking them away—is starkly seen.

At the outset of the pandemic in March 2020, social security payments were significantly below the poverty line; successive Labor and Liberal governments refused to increase payments beyond movements in the Consumer Price Index. This saw people receiving payments such as unemployment, disability, carer, and old age pension supports falling further behind community living standards.

The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic saw a unified class response by the federal Liberal-National government of Prime Minister Scott Morrison and various Labor and Liberal state premiers, which coordinated their actions via the unconstitutional and secretive “National Cabinet.” Billions of dollars in public funds were poured into big business interests, ensuring that initial public health measures including lockdowns did not affect profits.

The federal government also enacted stimulus spending measures, to offset negative economic effects of rising joblessness and declining retail and hospitality spending. These measures included boosting income support payments from June 2020. People on any type of welfare allowance received a meagre $750 Economic Support Payment, while people on unemployment-related payments received a $275 per week Coronavirus Supplement. Despite the limited character of these payments, they represented a near doubling of unemployed workers’ incomes.

As a result of these increases—a drop in the bucket when compared with the corporate handouts during the pandemic—within three months, the official poverty rate had dropped to a 17-year low of 12 percent. The effect on children was even more dramatic, with the child poverty rate falling to a two-decade low of 13.7 per cent. The increased welfare payments pulled 646,000 people, including 245,000 children, above the poverty line.

Comparison of poverty lines with pension and Newstart [unemployment] payments [Photo: UNSW-ACOSS]

The bare-minimum payment rises dictated by the pro-business stimulus advocates proved sufficient to provide to many individuals three full meals a day. Others found that they could pay their rent and utility bills on time for the first time since they started receiving income support. Some debts were paid off, and unexpected expenses including medical bills were able to be managed.

In a calculated act of class warfare, the government progressively reduced the Coronavirus Supplement from September 2020, and fully abolished it in April 2021. In its place, unemployment-related payments—such as JobSeeker, Youth Allowance and Parenting Payment—were increased by just $25 per week. This meant a net $250 per week cut in income support payments for those affected ($500 per week in the case of couples). Researchers now expect poverty to rise above pre-pandemic levels.

This impoverishment is also being compounded by the cost-of-living crisis: prices for essential items have risen by around 8 percent annually, mortgage payments have increased by thousands of dollars per month, and electricity bills are expected to jump 47 percent over the next two years. Meanwhile, real wages are 4 percent lower than before the pandemic hit in March 2020.

The UNSW-ACOSS report, “Australian experiences of poverty: risk precarity and uncertainty during COVID-19,” detailed the devastating impact of the elimination of the Coronavirus Supplement. It explained: “The reduction and then termination of the supplement had a pernicious effect. Financially, participants found themselves back to the stresses of having to live on very low incomes, prioritising basic needs and maintaining very frugal lifestyles. Emotionally, the experience was destabilising, with participants often describing the effects in terms of closing down a world that had been briefly open to them.”

One unemployed worker interviewed by the researchers, Katie, explained the impact on her: “I can pay the rent, but other things have to go by the wayside—getting the medications and basic food shop. Now I’m in a bit of debt because I had to ask family members for help, so I can go and do a grocery shop. So the stress has sort of increased. Suicidal at times, it’s just, it’s not good, not good at all.”

The Labor Party when it was in opposition supported the Morrison government’s welfare payment cuts. Now in office, it has confirmed that it has no intention of reversing these measures—on the contrary, Labor is intensifying the offensive against the social conditions of the working class. Labor’s federal budget detailed the deepest cut to workers’ living standards since World War II, with real wages continuing to fall for at least the next two years while electricity and gas prices soar. In his budget speech, Treasurer Jim Chalmers promised financial markets that now begins that much sought-after era of “budget repair,” while simultaneously warning workers of “hard days to come.”

The UNSW-ACOSS research underscores that poverty in advanced capitalist countries is deliberately engineered by governments beholden to business interests. While there are more than enough resources for everyone to live a comfortable life—as pointed to by the sharp reduction in poverty brought about by the small Coronavirus Supplement—capitalism requires the impoverishment of those unable to work in order to “incentivise” people to remain in low paid and oppressive jobs.

Malaysian parliament endorses unstable new government

Kurt Brown & Clay Robinson

In its first sitting since the national election on November 19, the Dewan Rakyat, the lower house of the Malaysian parliament, passed a motion of confidence last week in the coalition government formed by Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim.

The confidence motion followed the appointment of a new cabinet the previous week. The process to fill 28 cabinet posts took place behind closed doors, doubtless involving haggling over the conflicting interests of the ruling class parties that form the “Unity Government” coalition and provide around 148 votes in the 222-seat Dewan Rakyat.

Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim shows his ballot during the election at a polling station in Seberang Perai, Penang state, Malaysia, Saturday, Nov. 19, 2022. [AP Photo/Vincent Thian]

The heterogeneous nature of the cabinet that Anwar has cobbled together is a product and reflection of a deep crisis of capitalist rule in Malaysia. Its “unity” is based on the political quicksand of a temporary truce of rival bourgeois factions with conflicting economic perspectives and entrenched interests.

The United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), which ruled Malaysia for more than six decades since formal independence from British imperialism in 1957, has collapsed, giving way to a fragmented political establishment. All of the political parties are mired in communal politics and none offers any solution to the growing economic and social crisis facing working people.

UMNO based its rule on police-state measures, a gerrymander favouring ethnic Malays at the expense of substantial ethnic Chinese and Indian minorities, and political domination of the state apparatus, the judiciary and the media. It ruled on behalf of crony Malay capitalists cultivated through a system of entrenched racial discrimination giving preference to Malays in education, public sector jobs and business.

UMNO suffered a devastating defeat at the 2018 election and the monolith split apart. Anwar however has brought the main UMNO rump, which lost further seats at the November election, into major cabinet positions. Anwar did this at the expense of the ethnic Chinese-based Democratic Action Party (DAP)—the major partner of his Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) in his Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition. The PKR’s main support base is largely among urban Malays.

UMNO, reduced by the election to just 30 seats, was given six cabinet posts including the powerful portfolios of Defence, Foreign Affairs and International Trade and Industry. In addition, UMNO president, Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, who faces 47 corruption charges, was made one of the two deputy prime ministers.

The PKR with 31 seats holds eight posts including Finance (held by Anwar), Economy and Home Affairs, which controls the police. By contrast, DAP with 40 seats was given only four less important posts.

Underscoring his orientation to Malay communal parties, Anwar handed the other post of deputy prime minister to Fadillah Yusof from the Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS), a coalition largely formed from former politicians from UMNO or UMNO coalition partners in Sarawak.

Anwar is clearly concerned at the electoral gains made by the Islamist Parti Islam se Malaysia (PAS)—the only party to make any significant gains in the November election. It shot from 17 to 49, making it the largest party in the Dewan Rakyat. It won seats not only in its strongholds on the undeveloped east coast but also in the cosmopolitan city of Penang.

PAS made gains by appealing to the alienation of Malays from the political establishment with a combination Malay communalism and Islamic fundamentalism based on sharia law. According to the Malaysian press, Anwar made an offer to PAS to join the government, but it refused.

Anwar’s “unity” government will be no more stable that the previous three governments that came and went over the past four years. The government is riven with divisions not only over communal politics but associated differences over basic economic issues and orientation.

Anwar was expelled from UMNO in 1998, amid the 1997–1998 Asian financial crisis, while serving as deputy prime minister and finance minister to Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who ruled for over two decades, until 2002, with an iron fist.

Anwar was thrown out of UMNO by Mahathir, not because he opposed its authoritarian rule or racial policies, but because he sought to implement the International Monetary Fund’s demands for opening up the Malaysian economy, threatening the party’s crony capitalist backers. When Anwar launched anti-corruption rallies across the country, Mahathir had him arrested, beaten and eventually jailed on bogus charges of corruption and sodomy.

Anwar was eventually released but Mahathir’s successor, Najib Razak, jailed him a second time on similar trumped-up charges. However, his electoral alliance—consisting of PKR, DAP and Amanah, a breakaway from PAS—joined forces with Mahathir who had split with UMNO to form the Bersatu party and capitalised on widespread disaffection to win the 2018 election.

Anwar cut a deal with his former jailer Mahathir on the basis that Mahathir would pardon him and make Anwar prime minister after Mahathir served the initial term. While Anwar was pardoned, Mahathir was never going to fulfill the second half of the bargain as their fundamental differences on economic policy remained. Mahathir refused to step aside and ultimately broke with Bersatu.

What followed, as COVID-19 hit the population and work force, were two unstable governments, amid the health crisis generated by the COVID-19 pandemic and junking of public health measures at the behest of big business. The first was formed by Bersatu’s new leader Muhyiddin Yassin with PAS and UMNO. The second led by UMNO’s Ismail Sabri Yaakob was propped up by Anwar’s coalition.

Amid the worsening global crisis of capitalism, the new government will seek to impose new burdens on working people. Food inflation is already hitting the poorest layers of the population. According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), food inflation in the 12 months to September hit 15 percent. Some analysts warn it could hit between 17 and 19 percent next year.

Prices are increasing sharply for basic foods that are widely used. The subgroup of milk, cheese and eggs showed the highest increase among all food subgroups, recording an 8.8 percent increase in October. The previous government imposed a price ceiling on eggs but that simply restricted supplies.

Food inflation and shortages will inevitably fuel social unrest. The current government, however, will be just as ruthless as the previous UMNO regimes in cracking down on protests and strikes as it seeks to impose the demands of business.

In his first speech, Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi indicated the class interests that Anwar’s cabinet will serve, saying international investors should be reassured by the new government’s appointment.