smiley. tonight we bring you work for the addition of our week-long look at poverty in america. once again we will feature a car like from our tour this summer with dr. cornell west and later, jeffrey sachs. we are glad you joined us tonight for part for our party tore here on pbs, coming up right now. >> every community has a martin luther king boulevard. it's the cornerstone we all know. it's not just a street or boulevard, but a place where walmart stands together with literacy one question at a time. >> brought to you by the aarp foundation.

♪>> the w.k. kellogg foundation, improving the lives of vulnerable children. learn more at wkkf.org. ♪ america's kids and a better families. >> and by contributions tothank.

[captioning made possible by kcet public television] tavis: despite all the talk in washington from both sides of the aisle, democrats and republicans, about the importance of jobs, unemployment in this country remains painfully high. in tonight's installment would focus on the jobs crisis in a piece called "nothing moves without us." >> it is really hard, it seems like those buildings are worth anything. >> nothing moves without us. >> you all are part of an escalating motion, momentum, and we hope movement, because there

is so much greed at the top. >> we can empower ourselves as a community and for that kind of transformation that will really change the power structure as it exists in this country. ♪ tavis: three years into the great recession, despite the market's seeming recovered, it remains harder than ever to find work in america, and for many, having a job is still not enough. today, even as corporate profits have soared, more employed adults are in poverty than ever before. middle-class jobs are vanishing. high-wage industries account for only 14 percent of new jobs. meanwhile, low-wage work made up almost half of all recent job growth, close to 9 million people say they are working part-time, only because they cannot find full-time employment. >> it is pretty reflective of

where a lot of people sit. my mother works 40 hours plus a week at home depot and i don't think she even makes a living wage. she scratches by and put every cent that she makes down on paper and figures out how much baloney she can buy in a week. that is not something we should be striving to as a country. we should be doing a lot better than that. >> at some point we have to decide we are going to eradicate poverty, or party might just eradicate us. >> i just recently graduated with a master's in geography from the university of tennessee. when i went to the unemployment office to apply for a particular job, the guy asked me why left east tennessee. i told him because i had family here. he said you just really need to go back to east tennessee. i filled out application after application after application. >> i have adult children right now. my son in particular.

people are qy working class and working poor are going into the military and finding a steady stream of income, sometimes for the first time in their lives, they are reluctant to stop and say, i don't care if the war is wrong, i don't have another way to feed my family. it doesn't matter if i have posttraumatic stress, because i need that health care for my children. >> we have talked a lot of people, and they say these people are going to college and getting in education, they would not have this problem. to me, that is nonsense. a person's education or lack thereof does not give you the right to tell them that they cannot provide for their family. >> i feel pressure to find a job and contribute to our household, and to begin to reestablish myself, i was living

my own -- living on my own. i now have student loan debt, and i do feel that pressure, but i do miss having something to go to. right now, it is a really hard to seem like i am building towards anything. i have filled out a lot of applications. tavis: unemployment is high, persistent, and uneven. almost half the unemployed have been looking for work for more than six months, representing the highest rate of long-term unemployment in a generation. among the poorest 10% of americans, unemployment is tenfold higher than the wealthiest in%. -- then the well is 10%. dr. west and i are trying to do our part all across the country, state after state, trying to make sure we hear your story and put them out to the nation to hear, and challenged our leaders

to respect the dignity and humanity of all workers. >> i was a warehouse worker and i was fired because i tried to go in and help organize and come together. they said you are causing too much trouble, and they fired 70 people. we met with the organization and we were able to get some what of severance pay, but that was not enough for me, because i realized this was a systemic problem. tavis: for most american workers, inequality is nothing new. household incomes have remained stagnant for all but the top of% of americans, whose incomes have skyrocketed over the same period. >> they don't make the distinction between labor and military. the reality is, most people in the military are not the very

poor and they are not the very rich. it is really the working poor and middle class to make up the military. the working poor and middle- class are also the backbone of america's working force, so they are really the same people, coming from the same places. there really are labor struggles. >> if you could see the workers they come into our center every day, they are broken. >> i have to look my daughter in the face. i have to say, daddy will get you next week. the check is less than what i got before. >> my baby needs diapers. i got my $7 a pack of diapers. i am not eating lunch.

>> we went out last year and took workers out and survey over 300 warehouse workers, and we found that 63% of warehouse workers are on some type of government assistance. so then when we run into people that say i don't work in a warehouse, this affects everybody. if i work 40 hours a week and i still meet the income requirements for medicaid and i still meet the income requirements for food stamps or public housing assistance, that comes from somewhere. if you think this doesn't affect you, you are sadly mistaken. tavis: this country is facing historic levels of poverty in the face of great wealth. the top 5% unsecured almost 90% of all wealth gains. the majority of americans who now find themselves in this

precarious situation are realizing that they have little or nothing to lose, and they are now coming to terms with their own power. >> we are trying to empower workers and make them understand that nothing moves without us. >> i am tired of struggling. for me to work hard like i do and nobody to care. >> something is happening in illinois and something is happening in america, and there is a direct connection between the warehouse workers and the poverty tour. it is happening in arizona, florida, colorado. it is happening in the big apple.

you all are part of an escalating motion, momentum, and we hope movement, because there is so much greed at the top. >> most labor organizations, most groups that fight for this transformation in workers' rights are up against huge odds when they organize against companies that are multinational, billion dollar corporations. we are up against a trillion dollar industrial complex that most people that it is impossible to win against. the reality is, we believe that stopping the deployment of traumatized troops is a very winnable, that service members are a community that can be treated as a community and we can empower -- empower ourselves as a community, and really change the power structure in this country. >> i would like for every member

of congress to have to walk again -- walk into some place for a minimum-wage job and have to sit down and do the application process, because i don't think they have a clue as to what is going on to even work in america today. >> it is not for me, it is for my kids and their kids. this is worth fighting for, man. >> as long as we have people working extremely hard for 40 hours a week just to figure out how to scrape by and barely pay the bills, we are in a lot of trouble in the country. tavis: our gratitude and thanks to the good people at the media mobilizing project. their mission in training and empower people or poor and in the working class is one of the reasons we chose to partner with them on this project in the

first place. the quality of their work speaks for itself. i am honored to be joined by jeffrey sachs, a noted economist, best-selling author and director of the earth institute at columbia. jeffrey sachs, always good to have you on this program. >> thank you so much. i am the one who is honor. what you are doing is unique in this country and so essential. it is just incredible. these are people that are not being heard. this is what is wrong with our political system, and you are helping people to raise their voice and be heard in this country. tavis: i appreciate that. i want to start with what i think is the seminal text on poverty, on ending poverty, your book, "the end of poverty." i have read two or three times. i want to start asking what you make of where we are now be so

deep poverty in america, as far out inplan you laid 2005. >> i said that in our generation we could in poverty worldwide. we can end it certainly in america, with all the technology and means, if we were not so selfish in our politics. this would not even be a challenge. we can also in poverty worldwide in the very poorest places, the villages of africa or the hills of central america. we see powerful progress in some places, but not in the united states right now. in the u.s., it is backsliding. we are not going forward, whereas in other parts of the world, there is a lot of progress in raising party. >> you say if we were not so selfish in our politics. what do you mean by that? >> our politics for the last 30 years has been to give everything to the top and to keep taking away from the middle

class and the poor, and we are still on that route right now. we are just cutting the government services that people need to make sure their kids can get a decent education, can be healthy, can avoid asthma and other debilities of nutrition or an unsafe environment. we are still taking away from the poor, and the rich have never been richer. the four hundred richest people in this country, the billionaires' on the new forbes list have more than a trillion dollars of wealth, averaging more than $3.50 billion each of them in their net worth, and then we are told by washington politicians, there is nothing we can do, we have a budget crisis. if you let the richest of the richest of the rich what scot- free and bear no responsibility in our society, there will not be for the poorest of the port. tavis: we have had both democratic and republican

presidents, at democratic and republican controlled congress in the last 50 years. how is it that whether democrat or republican control of white house, that we are still being so selfish in our politics? >> the last time we may be progress against party was in the 1960's. the war on poverty, despite everything that was said, made huge and sustained progress in reducing poverty. big breakthroughs, but then came reagan and the backlash, and what is amazing is that our politics since 1981 when ronald reagan came into office, and he came into office on a platform that said government is not the solution, it is the problem. i say if that is what your view is, don't be president, because we need a president that believes in government, not believes in its mailing government. but he started to dismantle. he gave tax cuts to the rich, cut the base out of our

education spending, social safety net, stopped investing in infrastructure, the things that make america productive. what is amazing is this continued for the clinton administration, definitely through the bush era, with more tax cuts, and tragically, it has continued through the first years of the obama administration. what you see our two political parties that are both so eager to get big campaign contributions from rich people that they don't even hear the poor people anymore in this country. tavis: there are a lot of poor people who voted for then senator obama who thought this would be the end of the reagan revolution. that reagan era would finally come to an end and things would be different. the message of hope and change it resonated with so many americans that mr. obama wins in a landslide. you suggest this has continued three years into his presidency. what do you mean by that? >> i supported the president and

i am going to vote for him for reelection, but it has not been changed, it has been continuity. the sad part is that even when senator obama was campaigning to become president obama, in the summer of 2008, his campaign advisers rode column in the wall street journal that said we will keep the tax collection as a shared national income no higher than during the reagan administration. i was shocked. i sent a note to them, what are you doing? they tell me a few months later that i was the only person that wrote to them that way. i know as an economist, if we don't tax the rich so that we can rebuild schools, so we can rebuild neighborhoods and focus on real infrastructure projects over a decade, we are not going to be able to rebuild. we will not have the skills. we are not going to create good jobs. i was asking, what are you saying? this is how politics plays in

america. both parties cater to the rich. that is why when push came to shove, in december to -- in december 2010, the bush era tax cuts were about to expire, 60% of americans were saying let them expire at the top, but that is not what happened. all of a sudden there is a deal between the white house and congress to extend them for two more years. that was not because the president's back was to the wall. the political adviser for saying you cannot do that, you are running for election. you need a campaign contributions. this is really the story of america. the market system in the global era took away a lot of the jobs they used to provide a middle- class income, especially in the manufacturing sector. instead of the government helping to create new skills,

new industries and so on, the government teamed up with the most powerful, religious interests in this country, because that is how campaigns are made. since those 30 years have continued to side with the top 1%, and to ignore totally the poorest people, and once in awhile say something about the middle, but really only pay attention to the top. tavis: which takes me directly into the new text "the price of civilization." to your point now, when occupied wall street, now in a hundred cities and growing, starts to raise its voice, when jeffrey sachs writes about "called the price of civilization," there are many people beyond us to have been talking about eradicating poverty. when you did that in this moment, we get accused of playing a game of class war.

what do you say about that? >> the rich have been waging war on the poor for 30 years, and now people are finding their voices and saying stop it. what is amazing is that in 2008, when wall street created a worldwide disaster, these ceo's, these titans of finance that nearly wrecked the world, said what, me? we want government bailouts. give us a trillion. then with that money, they pay themselves billions more bonuses next year. i called the white house and said water you doing? you are letting them take taxpayer money for their megaball misses. larry summers, the economic adviser from wall street, said well, jeff, where would you draw the line? i said what are you talking about? it is taxpayer money going out in bonuses? wall street and politics are so tightly and used, they could not

even draw the line at that moment. that is why we have reached a point where wall street abused the public. it violated the laws, because everyone of our big firms, whether goldman sachs or merrill lynch or j.p. morgan, they are paying fines right now for what they did against the securities laws, and yet they remain in charge. they remain invited to the white house for the state dinners. that is why people are out in the streets across this country right now. the key slogan, we are the 99%, is rigorously accurate, because the top 1% has walked away with the prize, and people who you have seen on the tour, whose voice your bringing to america, they are suddenly realizing, wait a minute, this is not a market economy, just good luck and bad luck. these guys broke the rules. they broke the law. they took the money.

they sided with politics, and they are still there. that is what people are starting to wake up to. >> i could do this for hours, but i will give you 90 seconds for the last word. what is the price of civilization? >> it is the investments we need to make an education, health care, in our neighborhoods, in the physical environment for safety and good health. we need to pay for that. especially those who have taken all of this money at the top need to start paying. that is the virtue that we need. they cannot be lawless. they cannot absent themselves from our society. they need to participate. and have a specific set of recommendations, how we can collect several% of our national income from the top of the top and use that money to help people regain the skills or finish college, have the wherewithal to be productive members of society, not

receiving handouts, but having the productivity to get out of poverty and have decent jobs in the future. we need to invest in those people to help them, and the money has to come from the top. tavis: jeffrey sachs wrote the seminal text on ending poverty in america. the new one is called "the price of civilization." jeffrey sachs, an honor to have you on the program. tomorrow night we wrap up work party look at new grass-roots movements. thanks for tuning in tonight. until next time, keep the faith. >> for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley at pbs.org. tavis: hi, i'm tavis smiley. join me next time for the final night of our party toward -- of our poverty tour. that is next time. we will see you then.

>> every community has a martin luther king boulevard. it's the cornerstone we all know. it's not just a street or literacy one question at a time. >> brought to you by the aarp foundation. ♪ >> the w.k. kellogg foundation, improving the lives of vulnerable children. learn more at wkkf.org. ♪ america's kids and a better families. >> and by contributions to

thank you. [captioning made possible by kcet public television] kcet public television]