Income inequality, Unemployment and poverty in Jamaica -

Nationwide News, Jamaica, reports that over 2 years, 22 thousand jobs have been made redundant, and we should add that hundreds of school graduates are entering the job market, correspondingly job creation is either slow or rare. This poses a severe fiscal and monetary problem for Jamaica as a whole. Joblessness not only reduces government revenues, but increases income inequality and the number of persons affected by poverty which further places tremendous burden on the state to create social-welfare programmes or increase the nation's safety net so as to cushion the adverse effects of poverty which militates against a comfortable life. However, the public response to these figures indicating increases in poverty, especially during excessive rise in prices and cost of living, has been disappointingly slow and insignificant. In fact, what we have to mitigate the ferocity of the financial crunch and joblessness on the poor or increasing poor, is more increases, joblessness and reduction in government subsidies on some goods and services that benefit the poor. In fact there has been little or no discussion on the increasing income inequality and disabling effects of our economic situation on the poor or the working class who are experiencing sharp cuts in their incomes. What policies are currently in place to subvert the crippling effects of these job figures and help the poor or rising poverty? And how we are addressing a dull job market? What are our long-term economic strategies to increase out economic viability and reduce our economic vulnerability to changes or crisis in the international markets? Our plan cannot be to borrow our way out of debt our depend solely on overseas investment that repatriate 90% of the profits out of the country. But my ultimate concern is with our unresponsiveness to the redundancies. We cut Willy nilly without contemplating the ramifications of these cuts on those whom we are "getting rid of". While these cuts preserve or increase profit margins, they erode the lifestyle and living conditions of our working class in a society without a social safety net. Where are those whose jobs have been made redundant? What has happen to them? How many are able to access new jobs? This is the dialogue we should have and the questions we should ask? Instead we are discussing frivolous issues. Will the media follow these persons. Will they create a narrative that highlight the effects of joblessness and redundancies on the jamaican working class? or are we waiting for the international press?