better like, that's like a blessing. >> and just a reminder you can always catch more of our up to date news on our website at aljazeera.com, where you'll find much more news all around news in fact and programs too aljazeera.com. >> ali velshi. "on target" tonight. could put american paychecks in jeopardy. why income inequality made worse. america's economy is looking up. more jobs being created, wages finally ticking upwards so what

a shame it would be if president obama's trade agenda were to ruin that momentum. i'll talk about that in just a moment. but the 280,000 net new jobs added to the payroll in may. this was a strong new number. across the board including health care and construction. while unemployment ticked up ever so slightly 1-10th of 1% it went up for a reason. it only counts folks who are looking for work. that 5.5% often fails to reflect the true picture of the percentage of all of those who could be working who actually are. now, there is good news in this report, parents take note today's college grads now enjoy a jobless rate that is well below the average of the past 40 years. that is important because the low jobless rate suggests worker pay, the one thing stagnated in the years since recession is

bound to rise. average earnings in may rose earlier. this is the biggest rise in almost two years, helping states raise their minimum ways, large corporations like walmart increasing its pay for workers companies feeling confident enough to increase their workers wages, entries us back to the controversial trade deal known as the transpacific partnership, tpp, the obama administration is big proponents of this humongous deal that would link the economies of the 12 economies of the pacific rim including the united states, tpp would remove trade barriers, 40% of all global economic activities perhaps most amazing many congressional republicans think that president obama has got it right. the president instead faces stiff opposition from typically

democratic allies like organized labor and activates, they point activists, they point to the 20 year nafta deal. union representatives claim that nafta forced wages to stagnate and caused nearly a million jobs. business groups have never refuted that in particularly satisfying way perhaps because stagnant wages benefit the boj line. heidi thank you so much for being with us. let's see if we can get an answer to this. what does your department and the u.s. government say in terms of how many jobs the will create tpp deal will designate in this country? >> when we pass an agreement

like this we'll increase our exports in this country. exporting firms pay on average higher than other firms. on average they pay around 18% higher. the increased trade that this would lead to will actually increase average wages in this country. >> so now i've heard this from others and i guess the part that's unclear is that public citizen published a report last year that nafta cost a million jobs. if you want to answer that can you. butter more importantly the 11 countries with which the united states is negotiating, some of which we already have agreements, nine of which are significantly lower than u.s. wages which make people fear that a trade deal will either lead to an unclear wage future in the united states or unclear wage future or exporting of more

american jobs. why am i unclear on this one? >> this agreement has labor standards baked right into it. it is going to have labor standards that make sure we have our colleagues accountable. we make sure we think of this in concert with other things the administration is working on to raise wages. think that president obama is in strong support of the [applause] -scott bill that will increase the federal minimum wage to $12 by 2020. increasing the income threshold, the threshold below which americans cannot be denied overtime protection. the other things the administration is doing in concert with this trade deal provides a naj will help package that will help the middle class. >> when we do these deals it is

to increase trade and export of american made goods to other places and services. but let's stay last year particularly good for america, 200,000 factory jobs were added. so far this year we're halfway through and we've added 4,000 jobs, well off pace. nothing to do with u.s. policy nothing to do with trade disagreements except that the dollar has made it more expensive, makes domestically made products more expensive abroad and limits hiker more workers. i worry about that, that the u.s. hasn't done anything to create a stronger dollar. this is the rest of the world's dysfunction that's causing the u.s. to have a stronger dollar that has just severed the number of manufacturing jobs we've created. >> i think that's right. we've seen relatively -- we're still seeing growth in manufacturing jobs but we have seen a slow down relatively weak

manufacturing job growth in 2015. you're absolutely right, when the dollar is strong it makes our exports more expensive to people around the world, it makes imports cheaper to consumers to the united states and that hurts our net exports. that's one of the things that's holding back manufacturing growth. the other thing is low gas prices. while they really do help the economy as a whole because it's like a tax cut for all americans who spend money at the pumps we do see some manufacturing job loss due to the low gas prices particularly in manufacturing jobs that are related to oil extraction, mining so that's another thing that's holding it back. >> let me ask you this, as our exports get more expensive our imports get less expensive. nine with lower wages are we just setting it up to buy more stuff from lower wage countries? >> the thing that we have to focus on here is that the dollar

is going to move separately from this agreement. so we could see the dollar, the fluctuates in the dollar i think we have to sort of compartmentalize, separate from what's going on with the tpp, it will lower the playing field so those other factors are what we want to -- i think we want to separate that from the -- so the currency issues around the strength of the dollar. >> heidi, i love speaking to you, and your boss too, the labor secretary but i get oask you certain questions, you have done your own research. 280,000 jobs added in may, you yourself have done research to show that the largest group to drop out of the labor force are men 25 to 54. the prime of their working lives, do we have an answer for that? >> a stronger labor market, if

we have stronger jobs if we have stronger wages we're going to start pulling people in. i mean we haven't seen a big turn around in labor force participation rate yet but in may the numbers that just came out we saw the labor force participation rate start to tick up. it looks like we are starting to see the beginnings of a labor market that's strong enough to bring people in. we're seeing people who are on the sidelines coming back and that's good news. i expect as we continue to see the labor market strengthen that that will help more and it becomes a virtuous cycle. because as the labor market strengthens, employers have to increase wages, because employees have options. >> heidi good to talk to you. >> good to talk to you too. >> chief economist at the u.s. labor department. america's economy survived the great recession but the wealth gap greater than ever.

inequality on the rise next. >> "inside story" takes you beyond the headlines, beyond the quick cuts, beyond the sound bites. we're giving you a deeper dive into the stories that are making our world what it is. >> ray suarez hosts "inside story". only on al jazeera america.

>> the general perception ahold that the rich become richer while the middle class became worse off since the recession. why and what to do about it? 56% of americans think the government should do more. some critics say the federal verve to blame. let's look at the numbers. between 2009 and 2014, 2009 the end of the recession, the federal reserve pumping low interest rates into the economy,

stimulate the economy, critics say all it did was feed cheap money into the stock market and fuel a bhul run that bull run that mostly fed the wealthy, between 2010 and 2013, compared to the previous three years, however for most americans, their biggest asset is their home and home prices climbed 24% in the same period. stocks are up too. so that's weird. stocks and homes are up but overall, wealth is down. that's because most americans don't own stocks and about a third don't own a home. poor americans got poor and the rich got richer, thank you federal reserve. i spoke about this with josh bivens, he took issue with me often the idea. that while the fed's actions were necessary they did contribute to the widening income gap. >> i think one thing that's missing there, i think it's

totally true that as the feds started buying up a lot of assets basically since 2009 on it's boosting the size of assets, housing is an asset, more democratically held absolutely than stocks. but the fed's action kept the low unemployment is a really progressive policy, low and moderate paid workers benefit much more than workers at the absolute top of. when you add that on i think you come to almost a draw. i would have strongly preferred a much more strong fiscal policy and have that carry the ball more given what the fed did. given fact it did not happen i'm less concerned about what the fed did. >> i'm going to down that road in a minute, once again i sort of agree with you on that but let's think back on the congress we had then and the congress we have now.

this is their responsibility this is congress's job to figure this out. it wasn't doing it then, it is not doing it now. so the fed had to be the grown up in the room. whether the wealth is spread out democratically, level less than v half own stocks, less than half own homes. it's not 95% of americans have jobs, it is really in the 60s of the people who can or should be actually working. but even that job creation, that lower of unemployment you're talk about, what we're seeing in the last few years is remarkable wage stagnation. so we haven't created wealth or prosperity for the least among us. >> no, that's right. i mean the recovery is still far from complete. and you see that in the wage numbers you just referenced. i mean sort of nominal wage growth not even adjusted for

inflation is running just over 2%, been that way for the past two years, not a lot of pickup i'm firmly convinced it would have been worse had the fed not have done what it did. the monetary response to the crisis aftermath is it's just kind of uncertain about how much of an effect it had and it's a pretty uncertain tool so again it is not the optimal response. i would have had, if we'd have had a reasonable fiscal policy i would have had a more reasonable mix, and it's hard to fault the fed for what has happened. >> and i'm sure all our viewers know the distinction but i want to be clear? when you are talking about monetary policy, you are talk about the federal reserve liquidity, versus fiscal policy which is tax and distribution, that is political policy that is handled by congress and you're absolutely right, that when you go back to 2008-2009 we had some action in congress.

i mean they came out with that stimulus. but the fact is we didn't get the same degree of activity and we haven't since, that we have gotten from these central bankers who we don't think of traditionally as activists and they really have been. but in the end when you look at this it does people to some people that it was rich entitled position people in good positions who did something to save the global economy that incidentally, happened to help a lot of rich people in good positions. >> i think that's largely true. i mean i wish you know besides just the better fiscal policy i wish the fed actually had more direct tools to give money to actual people. i mean you can imagine an alternative universe where the fed actually had the authority to just make $500 appear in checking accounts across the land instead of having to run through lower interest rates and higher asset price. they don't have that tool. maybe we should try to give that to them but since they don't have it, it's hard to criticize

them for using the only thing they have. >> people said that, why can't we get hands into the people money has to go through the banks. it's the redistribution method. people who have excess money give it to the banks, who give it to those who have shortage of money, so we don't have to wait until we're 80 to buy a house. the banks were supposed to have distributed that money even more fairly than the government did. and it turns out those who said the government is a bad distributor of money if figured out the banks are the worst distributor ever money. >> that we have to run it through banks and set the table for business, there is a legal institutional framework we have. if people say we should change the legal institutional framework, to get the money into

the hands of people and small businesses i'm all ears on that for sure. my only problem is sort of criticizing the fed for leaning so hard on the admittedly flawed tools they have because the alternative to them not leaning so hard on those tools are a steeper and harder recovery. >> i'm with you. people tell me they shouldn't have created this liquidity, i think it's interesting 5'6" years later and saying it was not that bad, credit around the world had frozen but if you could go back to that time and we have spoken to people like the form he treasury secretary hank paul paulsen and neil borofsky a lot of money was put into the system and today a lot of poorer people said i didn't benefit from any of that. there is no ironclad rule to the economy, how you distribute money in the time of emergency

what would you have done different? >> if i were in charge ever all aspects of monetary policy, the budget control act that was passed in the aftermath of the debt sealing hostage crisis in 2010, since 2011 on the united states has been historically austere on the fiscal side, in 2010 we provided the economy a size annal fiscal boost that was prompt but not enough of a fiscal boost to get us in full recovery, from 2011 on we have been dragging on fiscal policy that's the number one thing i would do different. lessons to learn it is to take seriously about how to expand the tools that the fed actually has to maybe bypass the banks and bypass the need to do the three bank shout off, and how to get money to people and one good way to do it in opening would be to reintroduce postal banking. everybody gets a bank account

with the poachts, posts, kind post office, one that we should be looking for even if it's a dream world. >> neck up, i talk to a woman who,sheila bare bear

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>> one unanswered question about the financial crisis that still troubles many americans is why wasn't anyone health accountable? why was too big to fail become too big to jail? sheila bair was a fierce critic of the banks and has always said, some banks should have been allowed to fail. she's an author of a book, called the bullies of wall street, sent a terrible message especially to a group of americans you thought weren't paying attention. >> the history books are still being written about what caused the crisis, and the lessons are people should think long term,

should go out and make money, generate short term profits without regard to long temp lossesloss -- term losses, to try to put it back on the government. those are the kinds of lessons i hope we're learning but unfortunately with the bailouts and kind of the tepid financial reform that's occurred afterwards i'm afraid the message is well go out and go what you want, gain the government, escape your losses put it on taxpayers if it blows up again. that's not the lessons i want the people to learn and that's why i wrote the book. >> i think you said if we had let you know the whole issue with lehman brothers and bear stearns could have been learned a different way, so systemically flawed it should be allowed to fail. >> what does it mean to fail? especially by early 2009, i could have explored strategies

that, replaced boards replaced managers, we didn't do any of that for citigroup, which was one of the more poorly run banks and heavily involved in the activities that brought us to crisis. you did that with gm, the result of gm is yet to be seen but creditors took losses, boards were replaced, managers were replaced. disciplines imposed, we didn't do that with major banks. >> gm's crisis was something different from what it was. >> that's right. >> i guess issue was there was a thought back then that the banks were, some people said, the best mechanism for distributing money. so if we kept these banks afloat and we made sure they were well capitalized they would do the right thing with their customers with mortgages and to whom they made loans and that didn't work out the way we expected. >> first they weren't well examsed. i think a -- capitalized.

it was driven at the end of the day by too much borrowing. bik banks were borrowing too much, a lot of persons were borrowing too much. they didn't behave responsibly. the government not behaving in the mortgage backed markets, fannie and freddie, buying the wall street securities, they were issuing cheap debt and buying these high return mortgage backed securities. a lot of degrees of leverage, so no they said to us prior to the crisis you know, new age, golden age of banking we've got it right we know how to manage risk, listen to us, we will be good stewards of the economy and it turned out to be nonsense. but it bothers me now that they have so much credibility and clout in washington. and this is one of the reasons why we have had such a tepid reform effort.

>> i remember rick santelli yelling about we can't bail out homeowners because he was responsible, he didn't take on more debt than he had and he managed to pay his mortgage but we let other people take on more debt than they should have and have outsize mortgage payments let's talk about homeowners here. >> i will have to say there were a lot of hedge funds had a were short the market. it was really not in their interest to reduce these borrower defaults. the more mortgage losses there were, the more money they made. put that aside. i think there's a wonderful book called house of debt that came out last year. the problem is the mortgages the stressed homeowners, not the banks. we need to stabilize the banking system but what's driving these losses is high risk mortgages that were unaffordable for borrowers. the reason we had a recession was borrowers were in over their

head in debt. they couldn't refinance the high interest mortgages, i.t. was driving a lot of consumer demand they had to pull back. homeowners did everything they could to keep their homes, they were blowing through their savings, that was creating more economic distress. if we had done more then to restructure those mortgages, reduce principle make those payments affordable, oso they could have money to spend on other things i think the is he vairt of the recession would have been much less. that was harder to do. it was easier to write big checks to big banks. >> we were talking about it when it was happening you and i but the government came out with a number of sort of mandated home

mortgage programs, harp home affordable plan,. >> there was a sejt of the borrower population they were gaining the system nonsympathetic, but no matter what you did for them we knew those folks but there were two-thirds of the families that could be help. hamp was a very incremental tepid program. really want enough to make a difference. and what was really sad was, we had that horrible bureaucratic process to duet a loan modification. so some of the early mods when borrowers started making the reduced payments trying to get current on their mortgages again, because they couldn't supply all the paperwork, they still lost their homes.

there was a lot of trouble with hamp too. >> formerford former fd fdic chair see la bair. have a great have a great >> on my honor, i will do my best. it's the way every boy scout and scout leader begins the official oath. two years ago, the century-old organization relaxed its ban on gay scouts but not on adult volunteers who supervise them. recently, the national president of the boy scouts told the group the country is changing and the ban on gay leaders should be lifted too. those fighting the change question whether gay men and