The April unemployment rate fell to a four-year low of 7.5 percent but the real unemployment rate was almost twice that much, according to a Labor Department report on Friday. Maine on Tuesday became the 13^th state to go on record in favor of a constitutional amendment to reverse a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that voided limits on campaign spending by corporations and wealthy individuals. The Vermont House on Friday passed a resolution against President Obama’s proposal to cut Social Security. The president nominated a former telecommunications lobbyist to head the Federal Communications Commission. Before voting on his confirmation, Sen. Bernie Sanders wants to know Wheeler’s stand on letting fewer and fewer multi-national media conglomerates control more and more of the media in America?

In this Jan. 20, 2012 photo, people hold signs during a gathering on the anniversary of the Citizens United decision in Montpelier, Vt. Nearby Maine on Tuesday rejected that decision. (AP Photo/Toby Talbot)

Unemployment The real unemployment last month rose to 13.9 percent. That number counts workers forced to accept part–time jobs and those who dropped out of the labor force because they couldn’t find any work at all. “Probably the hardest hit groups are young people just out of high school or graduating from college with large debts,” Sanders said in his weekly radio and Internet appearance Friday on The Thom Hartmann Program.  Sanders renewed his call for a program to create millions of jobs by rebuilding crumbling roads and bridges and making badly needed upgrades to other bricks and mortar projects. To listen to Brunch with Bernie, click here.

Fraud as a Business Model At least eight federal agencies are investigating JPMorgan Chase at a time when the bank is raking in record profits, according to a Friday article in The New York Times. “Virtually every single major financial institution in this country has engaged in fraud at one time or another,” Sanders asserted. “So the question that has to be raised is whether fraud is the business model of Wall Street? I think you can probably make a case that it is.” But no executives have gone to jail for their illegal behavior in the aftermath of the 2008 financial collapse that plunged the country into recession.  During the Savings and Loan scandal of the 1980s, by contrast, more than 800 bank officials went to jail.  U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder recently made a startling observation that explains the difference. The biggest financial institutions have become so enormous that even accusing them of a crime could have a negative impact on the national economy, Holder said.  Sanders’ solution is a bill that would break up too-big-to-fail banks, legislation that has become a key target for Wall Street lobbyists, according to a Thursday article in New York magazine.  To read the article, click here. 

Citizens United Maine on Tuesday became the 13^th state to go on record in favor of a constitutional amendment to reverse a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that allowed unrestricted campaign spending by corporations and wealthy individuals. The resolution supports an amendment proposed in Congress last March by Sanders, according to the Bangor Daily News. State Sen. Richard Woodbury, an independent from Yarmouth who introduced the resolution, said the Supreme Court ruling had opened the door to unprecedented spending in both federal and state elections. President Obama during his reelection campaign talked about supporting a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United v. FEC, the 2010 Supreme Court ruling. “Nothing has happened since,” The Washington Post reported on Tuesday. In addition to Maine, the other states that have called for a constitutional amendment are Vermont, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, Rhode Island and West Virginia. Hundreds of cities and towns have passed similar resolutions including Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Minneapolis and Burlington, Vt.  To read the Bangor Daily News, click here. To read The Washington Post, click here. To read Sanders’ amendment, click here. For a fact sheet on the amendment, click here.

Social Security The Vermont House on Friday passed a resolution opposing President Obama’s proposal to cut Social Security.  The resolution urges Congress to block a change in how the consumer price index is calculated. The so-called chained CPI that Obama favors also would reduce benefits for disabled veterans. To read the resolution, click here.

Media Concentration In 1983, the American media was dominated by 50 companies. Today, media ownership is overwhelmingly concentrated in just six corporations: Comcast, Disney, Time Warner, News Corp., Viacom and CBS. In a move that would make a bad situation worse, the FCC is considering whether to allow even more consolidation in the country’s 20 top television markets. Sanders wants to know where Tom Foley stands. “Will Mr. Wheeler support that dangerous trend or will he oppose it?” Sanders asked.

Wealth Gap “A few people on the top have incredible wealth and incredible power while the people at the bottom have neither,” Sen. Bernie Sanders said. “On economic issues, we are losing ground,” he said of a new study that the average wealth of the 8 million households in America with a net worth around $800,000 rose from 2009 to 2011 by nearly 30 percent to $3.2 million, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of Census Bureau data. While those in the top 7 percent were faring so well, the remaining 93 percent, some 111 million households, saw their net worth drop by 4 percent to $134,000. To read more about the study, click here.

Meals on Wheels Federal funding for senior nutrition has been lopped off by the across-the-board budget cuts known as sequestration. The White House has said the cuts would mean 4 million fewer meals for seniors this year, The Huffington Post reported on Monday. In Vermont alone, Older Americans Act funds last year provided more than 1 million meals to seniors. Sequestration will cut almost $200,000 for Vermont meals programs by the end of this fiscal year. “There are few better investments than the cost-effective programs that millions of older adults depend on for a healthy and dignified life,” Sen. Bernie Sanders and 23 other senators said in a letter to the chairman and ranking member of the Senate appropriations panel in charge of funding Older Americans Act programs. The senators said a 12 percent increase would catch up with rising costs and the growth in the number of seniors over the past decade.