Demonstrations Hit Wall Street

Youth occupying Wall Street to protest the increasing class warfare against the workers and poor in the United States. The rich are getting richer and the poor are becoming poorer., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.

Wall Street protesters: over-educated, under-employed and angry

Inspired by Tahrir Square, those who gathered in lower Manhattan are keen to mount a more permanent protest at corporate influence in US politics

Anti-capitalist demonstrators wave placards in Zuccotti Park near Wall Street on Sunday. Photograph: John Stuttle for the Guardian
In the heart of New York's financial district, the marble and concrete floor of lower Manhattan's Zuccotti Park was strewn with untidy clumps of people, gathered in small groups amid a jumble of sleeping bags, mattresses and home-made banners, protesting against the banks and institutions that towered over them.

Some sat in circles, talking earnestly, others hugged, while at one side of the park, a small gaggle of "facilitators" took it in turns to address the crowd in chants. Mostly under 30, they are the self-proclaimed "over-educated and under-employed", protesters left over from the 5,000-strong demonstration to "Occupy Wall Street" that took place on Saturday. On the third day of the protest, a hard core, including students, artists, performers and writers who have since slept out in the park, said they planned to occupy the square for the forseeable future.

One student, who gave name as Romeo C, said he was typical of the #occupywallst protesters. Romeo, 26, said: "We have a president who tells us to do the right thing, to go to school, to get a better life, but I'm not getting a better life. I am a new college graduate and I have $50,000 of college debt built up while studying business management at Berkeley. I can't find a job to pay it off."

"Look around us, Chase, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs – they got us in this position in the first place. The banks get a bailout but what about us? Where's our bailout?"

"A lot of my friends are here. We have good degrees,%