May 26, 2012 · www.gothamgazette.com

Gotham Gazette
Loading

 
Printer-friendly page Click here to get a printable version of this article

The Lie of Prosperity
By Paul Chapman

28 August 00

While the two men of privilege who vie for the White House make speeches about "prosperity and progress," claiming that in "this time of economic abundance" the American people are "more prosperous than ever," I spend part of each week listening to people like Jim Mac. He is one of the people who show up regularly for the support group of job-seekers that I moderate as part of The Employment Project.

Jim is a thirty-year-old college grad with good computer skills, and a winsome personality. He had been a warehouse supervisor but his employer left New York City. Now he knows the job search process very well; his resume is in good order. He methodically visits the Workers Career Center, a government-funded non-profit job center. He checks the Village Voice help wanted ads each Wednesday and The New York Times each Saturday night, sending several resumes each week, with cover letters. He researches the firms and sometimes has friends write on his behalf. But all this has produced very few results. He did work for six months as a Customer Service Representative in a Wall Street firm, but the firm then closed. In the Christmas season, he worked in a warehouse for a large grocery chain, but they didn't need him after that. Everyone seems to like Jim, but the jobs don't last. Whatever job he gets is temporary, and ends when the project is finished. He has had six jobs in the past three years, with months of unemployment in between.

Jim falls in that 29 percent of the labor force that officially are "contingent workers" † part time, self-employed, temps, independent contractors. For many of them, the United States seems to be a poor country, and, whatever the official statistics, the Americans who see their country that way may well be in the majority. To them and the others left out, the unemployment statistics make no sense at all.

FROM TOP TO BOTTOM, ALL HAVING TROUBLE

Despite his qualifications, Jim might have blamed himself for his employment failures but for the support group that meets once a week year-round except for the summer to help people find jobs, to encourage each other and to look at some of the economic realities behind the media hype about full employment. People come and go, all too often leaving the group when they find a job only to come back a few months later when that job ends.

Group participants come from all levels of the economy † professional, technical, service. There have been several journalists, people who once had secure jobs as writers and editors but who were then downsized and forced to go free lance. There are actors who make their living waiting on tables. There are college faculty who are employed as adjuncts while they wait for tenure track positions to open. There are middle aged human resource people who were replaced by recent college graduates earning half the salary. And cashiers, and food prep workers and janitors, all near the bottom of the economic heap.

The group has serious questions about the monthly Bureau of Labor Statistics figures of five percent unemployment. The Bureau counts only active job seekers as unemployed. What about millions who have taken early retirement and would gladly work if the job were right? What about young graduates, still at home, turned off by what's available? Statistics show as many as 36 million potential workers not counted among the unemployed.

And on the other side, those counted as "employed" are often working only a few hours a week. The statistics reveal nothing about the quality of work. Thus, talk of full employment in a prosperous economy is a turn-off for so many people. They long for a secure $18.50-an-hour job, with benefits. That would bring them up to $38,000 a year, an income that eludes most US households.

FORTY MILLION HOUSEHOLDS MADE LESS THAN $15,000

For the most part, the media also boasts of prosperity. According to The New York Times, "An almost surreal sense of good fortune suffuses the carnival that is the American economy these days." (6/18/2000) The Times continues saying that "prosperity seems a given."

Whom are they talking about? While it is true that some people in the US are enjoying unprecedented prosperity, the majority is not being addressed by the prosperity rhetoric. Forty million households reported incomes of less than $15,000 according to the IRS while 8.3 million taxpayers had incomes of $100,000 or more in 1998. No wonder so many people are being turned off by political discourse. They are not on the screen. Two thirds of American house holds earned $40,000 or less in 1997. As a whole people, can we really be called a prosperous nation?

How is it possible that the people who are supposed to represent us don't seem to know the problems faced by the majority? While the Help Wanted signs in the retail stores and fast food restaurants do represent jobs that go begging, when people do the math, they realize that their time would be better spent looking for a job that pays more than the minimum wage. That $5.15 an hour adds up to less than $33 for an eight-hour day, after FICA and transportation are paid.

Prosperous country? In 1999, the poorest twenty- percent of the households averaged $8,800 in income (down from $10,000 in 1997). In New York City the bottom quintile averaged $7,774. As for the middle class, from 1973 to 1998 while the economy was doubling in real terms, the wages of working class Americans in production and non-supervisory jobs fell by six percent, from $13.61 to $12.77 an hour.

THE MYTH AND ITS VICTIMS

Why is the economy so riddled with myths -- the prosperity myth, the welfare-to-work myth? True, there are some welfare-to-work success stories that make it to the front page, but for the majority, the welfare-to-work rhetoric in this city is cruel. What is a single mother of two toddlers supposed to do when the job pays $250 an week and her rent is $600 and child care costs another $500 a month? Minimum-wage workers receive, before taxes, $41.20 for an eight hour day, $206 for a 40 hour week , or $10,300 a year, well below the poverty line for a family of three.

Society presumes that a job will provide a worker with an income adequate for a safe and decent life. Work is touted as a quintessential activity for participation in the economy, a ticket to a full life, but this talk means little to the family living below the poverty line despite full time work.

And what hope do marginalized workers have for the future? "What's going to happen to us?" asks Susan, a 34-year-old secretary who attends support group meetings. "These are the boom times. What if there's a bust?" Susan does earn $18 an hour as a temporary legal secretary, but her income is very erratic because she is called to work only one or two days a week. Her landlord had locked her out of her apartment this winter for non-payment of rent and while the resulting legal battle ensued, the specter of homelessness loomed up in Susan's mind. With maxed out credit cards, if she loses this apartment, a down payment for another seems almost impossible. She doesn't know what to do. "This is not where I wanted to be in my life. I had such high hopes; I did well in school; I'm good with a computer and a conscientious worker. I did everything I was told to do and look at me now. If it were not for the group, I'd think I was a total failure."

She looks around the room and sees other people who have also been left outside the dream † bright, interesting, competent people. Now she knows that the plight is not her fault, but the result of a system that simply does not have a place for everyone, and which is leaving more and more people behind.

The Rev. Paul Chapman, a writer, teacher and Baptist minister, founded The Employment Project in 1994 to examine how work has changed in recent decades and to work with people whose lives have been affected by these changes.

###

Check out the Feature Archives!