Editorial: Students should speak up about economy

If you’re broke, unemployed, in debt or angry with the government, listen up. If you’re broke, unemployed, in debt or angry with the government, listen up.

Occupy Wall Street, an ongoing demonstration in New York City, is calling attention to socioeconomic inequality and corporate greed. The primary basis for the protest is the huge economic disparity in the U.S. between the rich and the poor — or the top 1 percent of earners and the remaining 99 percent. That one, small percentage point controls about 40 percent of the nation’s wealth.

The group has launched a Tumblr, “We Are The 99 Percent,” which showcases the economic hardships people — including those with college degrees — face every day because of the nation’s economy. As college students, we’re doing everything we’re supposed to, even if it takes some loans, right?

The people featured on the site are college grads, parents, honors students and professors. Their sobering stories are enough to make any college student dread graduation day.

The point of this movement is to bring attention to a huge national issue: the unsustainable structure of the American financial system.

More than 700 protesters were arrested this weekend after blocking traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge. The event sent the movement into the media stratosphere and garnered support for the protesters, but it was illegal, and illegal for a reason — blocking traffic could mean blocking ambulances and other emergency vehicles en route to crises.

But what the demonstration is doing correctly is taking itself to the Internet and propagating its cause throughout the nation, spawning similar protests in Los Angeles, Boston and other cities.

In just a few weeks, the cause has gone from a few dozen participants to thousands — and it doesn’t look like that number is stagnating anytime soon. Such an exponential rate of growth is bound to receive significant attention.

With tens of thousands of students at Pitt, the majority of us certainly are part of the 99 percent. But there’s also a chance that some students make up a part of the 1 percent, too.

Even so, the status of the economy should be on everyone’s mind, and no one — even that 1 percent — can afford to be comfortable right now. Those with parents who make up the 1 percent could very well have to claw up after college to achieve the financially stable life they grew up with.

But we now have a legal outlet to channel our anxieties and possibly enact change — or at least national discourse. All indications point to the need for change, and a movement like Occupy Wall Street is exactly the way students should voice their opinions — but only if they do it safely and legally.

Pittsburgh could very well become a hub of the movement, but those who want to support the cause don’t have to take it to the streets. Log on, join in, but don’t cop out. Our nation needs this.