Young, Gifted, and Jobless

I began working as a career coach and resume writer in 2000.  In that year, the nonemployment rate* for young Americans (age 25-34) was 18.5%.  In the most recent measure, which marks the year 2011, that rate has moved up to 26.6%, which puts the U.S. ahead of France, Japan, Britain, and Germany, all of which had higher rates in 2000.

According to an article in Common Dreams, the news gets worse when we look behind the numbers.  The age group 25-35 is the only group to have a lower average wage in 2013 than it had in 2000. Part of the reason for this change could be that 40% of new college graduates are working in jobs that do not require a degree.  As I’ve written in previous posts,7 of 10 jobs created in the past few years have been low wage jobs that pay $30,000 or less.  What can young people do when low wage jobs are the only option?

We need to do more than just talk about a monthly employment statistic (30+ months of meaningless job growth) and the unemployment rate.  Yes, the economy has generated private sector jobs.  However, many are part-time, low paid, or benefit free.  We need to talk about what jobs pay.  We need good jobs.

* This rate included unemployment and those who have given up looking.

Sabbath, March 24, 2013

[On Sundays, this blog explores diverse issues in Sabbath.”]

School Closings in Chicago – Reform or A Trojan Horse?

Today’s Chicago Sun-Times features a great analysis on school closings in Chicago.  A chart that accompanies the article shows that students from over 1/3 of the will be moved to schools that are ranked no better or even worse than the ones they are leaving.  The chart also indicates that several of the schools have met performance goals.  Is this how education is “reformed”?

Mayor Rahm Emanuel is featured in a separate article in the paper.  Unlike those officials who say the schools are being closed because they are “underutilized,” the mayor only talks about giving students more opportunity:  “We look at it and viewed it as what we can do to have every child have a high-quality education regardless of their neighborhood, regardless of their circumstances, regardless of where they live.”

If the mayor is sincere in these words, he should be very troubled by the information put forth by the Sun-Times.  While some students will be moving to much better schools, many more are moving to schools with similar performance ratings.  There is also a question of cost.  According to the mayor’s most vocal critic Karen Lewis, head of the Chicago Teacher’s Union, it will cost the system $1 billion dollars to close the schools, which is the same amount the system claims is its current deficit.  Lewis and her colleagues contend that this round of school closing is a Trojan horse that the mayor and his allies are using to open even more non-union charter schools.

No one wants children in poor performing schools.  No one wants to waste money heating and maintaining schools that are half empty.  However, it’s hard to trust politicians in any city when we see how charter schools can be new tools for the connected to wash each other’s hands.  Over the past few months, the Sun-Times has published several articles about conflicts of interest at Uno, Chicago’s largest charter school organization.  Uno’s head was a key player in Mayor Emanuel’s campaign.  Will Uno benefit from the school closings?  That would be an interesting question to have answered.

Here’s another question:  Why can’t Chicago fund its schools?  I grew up in Cleveland and saw that great city’s decline first hand.  Over the last two years, I’ve been to Detroit twice and have experienced to a small degree that city’s challenges.  Those cities have an excuse to close schools.  They embody the rust belt and millions of lost jobs that have left northern industrial cities.  Chicago doesn’t have that excuse.

I attended a production at Chicago Shakespeare Theater yesterday.  Before going to the play, a friend and I rode Navy Pier’s Ferris wheel, which offers a magnificent view of the skyline, a panorama of skyscrapers that are filled with business that are making money.  I could also see large condo developments in the south Loop, all of which were built in the last 10-15 years.  How can schools be poor in a city that is so rich?  Why can’t we have schools with small class sizes if our city has so much wealth circulating in it?  We need to ask the mayor and his staff some of these questions.  All children do deserve equal opportunity.  Whacking at schools with an axe doesn’t seem to be the best answer, just the most simple answer.

Striking For More Than Money

We hear all the time about greedy unions.  Do workers want more money?  Sure.  So do CEOs.  The corporate media ignores other issues that unions and working people care about.  For example, class size and school closing were a major concern for striking teachers in Chicago.  Similarly, SEIU is taking action against Providence Health & Services, which is changing healthcare coverage and transferring more cost to workers.

According to Greg Kaufmann writing in The Nation (Common Dreams), family coverage has increased from $750 to $3,000.  This isn’t just a salary issue.  If a large (5 state) not-for-profit like Providence can make this decision, what sane for-profit company will not follow suit?  SEIU is standing up for a social good.  That’s not greed.  It’s a commitment to justice.

Big for the Corporations and Little for the Workers

Writing in Common Dreams, Paul Buccheit analyzes the state of big business in America during what some call the worst economy since the Great Depression.  What does he find?  Big companies are making money and holding on to it – trillions of dollars.  They’re paying half the taxes they did before 2008.  Most importantly, they’re cutting jobs, not making them.  So much for the “job creators.”

The Fiscal Cliff Deal and Consequences for Working People

Common Dream offers a summary of several progressive writers who are not happy with the “Fiscal Cliff” solution.  A common point among the writers is that the compromise solution still did much more to help wealthy people than it did to help working people.

There is one point that I disagree with.  Some critics condemn the roll back of President Obama’s temporary 2.6% cut in Social Security payroll taxes.  While this is a bad time to raise taxes on working people, this ugly move had to be made.  If we value Social Security, we need to pay for it.

On the positive side, the deal did extend long term unemployment.  Not every state takes advantage of this program, but for those that do, it will give a little more security to those who have had the hardest time finding a job.

The next phase in this debate will be even more important:  What will be cut in the name of “saving” that will hurt working people and the poor?  That question has been left open for now.

Looking behind the Job Numbers Conspiracy

Common Dreams reposts an article by Paul Krugman on the controversy over the unemployment numbers.  Krugman’s response to the conspiracy thinker is priceless.  He shows Jack Welch for what he is, a clown.

Walmart Protestors Meet Robocops

Walmart Protestors Meet Robocops

Abby Zimet of Common Dreams reports on a recent protest at a Walmart facility in Elwood, Illinois.  650 protesters were met by police dressed in riot gear.  The police were working with a private security.  47 protesters were arrested for civil disobedience in protesting Walmart’s practice of paying “poverty wages.”

I take two things from this story:

1. Why do these police officers need to be dressed like this?  They look like Robocop, more machine than human.  Is this body armor meant to protect the officer, or intimidate protesters?  We live in a time when too many people automatically assume that anything the military or law enforcement does is right.  Some day we might walk up to find that such thinking has cost us our freedom.
2. What is the real cost of “poverty wages”?  When large companies pay their workers badly, we taxpayers supplement the wages through food and housing subsidies.  Our taxes pay for free school breakfasts and lunches.  Certain politicians point at poorly paid workers and call them “takers” and “victims.”  I would say the real “taker” is Walmart, a company that is using tax payer funded programs to feed and shelter its workers and their children.

We should never forget the great lesson of Watergate:  “Follow the money.”  It’s all going up.

Absurd

This is how Mitt Romney described “middle class income.”  What world does he live in?

Fear in the Workplace

Writing in Common Dreams, John Buell explores how workers are afraid to confront their bosses.  Moving from the scandal at Penn State to examples from the public and private sector, Buell shows worker fear to be pervasive and well founded.  Workers who step out of line should expect to be fired.  Buell ends on a ray of hope, the Mondragon* collective in Spain and similar organizations in the U.S., where give themselves rights by owning the workplace.

* Mondragon’s tagline is “Humanity at work.”  For too many American workers, humanity at work is a very foreign concept.

A Big Labor Fight in Chicago?

Common Dreams has republished an article by Richard Seymour of the Guardian that looks at the broad implications of a teacher’s strike in Chicago.  The issue is not simply salary as some critics try to claim.  Chicago teachers know that the Mayor and other officials are defunding public schools while they transfer money to unproven charter schools. Seymour looks beyond this point to say that a successful campaign by Chicago teachers could revitalize American labor.

I want to be hopeful about Seymour’s analysis, but I can’t. Americans have been fed anti-union lies for three decades, and they often repeat them without thinking.  It must be true, they think.  Even if Chicago’s teachers are successful, which I hope they are, the larger union movement in America will not rise up anytime soon.  Wisconsin proved that.

Too many Americans have bought the libertarian lies.  Even as salaries and the safety net get weaker and weaker, lovers of “freedom” condemn any kind of public action, whether it is government or labor.  They want individual liberty.  And, as Mencken said of democracy, they will get it, “good and hard.”