This is a jobless recovery. We need to do something before things get really, really nuts.
As so many other columnists in countless other publications have noted, from the New York Times to the Huffington Post – it’s even been mentioned on FoxNews, dare I say, is the obvious. There are no jobs out there, no “good jobs” that, in return for working hard, a person (or two) can make enough to raise a family, pay rent and afford quality health insurance. And because of this, millions of Americans, and soon to be most Americans, are falling into an endless void.
Nobody in the private sector is hiring. No one in the public sector is hiring (except for district superintendents of schools – I saw a few ads for them over the past few weeks). Just a glance at the once-bursting Star Ledger job section reaffirms what numerous studies attest: its thin pages amply prove that regardless of the economic indicators, an overwhelming majority of jobless Americans are living in 1933. Oh, and here’s a note: the Ledgeritself may not be around for much longer as it struggles to pay its bills and narrowly attempts another year at operating without declaring bankruptcy.
For millions of Americans, unemployment benefits are running out. For those receiving welfare, the Clinton era-imposed time limits, designed for more prosperous times, are ticking down. Life in our cities like Newark, Trenton and Camden are beginning to resemble scenes from a Dickens novel. People are getting tackled and mugged mid-day on major avenues by brazen, desperate, ruthless crooks. Just last week a jewelry store next to Newark’s opulent City Hall was rammed by an SUV and robbed. Cops, thus far, have made no arrests, which isn’t surprising, since over 130of them were laid off due to austerity measures last year.
Hey, I hope I’m wrong. I hope a year from now, I find this blog a bit embarrassing, overdramatic and over-reactive. I hope that, in fact, these paragraphs seem utterly laughable while the nation enjoys the greatest boom in decades. But we need to be straight here, I don’t think that’s going to happen. The global economic flow doesn’t seem to be pointing that way, not at all.
Currently, I’m one of the fortunate ones. I have a full time job that pays benefits and offers some measure of short-term security. I’m a social studies teacher with the Newark Public Schools. But there are changes going on in my district that are shaking it to its very foundations. Schools are transforming, closing, self-destructing…from the point of view of the entire Newark Public Schools faculty, we have no idea what’s going on next year. It wouldn’t surprise me if I’m working next September, it wouldn’t surprise me if I’m not.
But my friends and family are not so lucky. One of my family members used to make a good living in the insurance industry, but due to consolidations and a poor economic environment, he lost his job. He spends his days vigorously, even aggressively filling out online applications, emailing resumes and negotiating with PSEG over his growing bill balance.
Many of my peers at work are in their 40’s and 50’s. They know that if they lose their jobs, the likelihood of finding another is unlikely. The competition from younger, inexperienced but ‘cheaper’ teachers is just too intense. And districts continue to allow class sizes to reach bursting proportions as they struggle with budget cuts and carry on investing enormous sums of money into administrative salaries and, dare I say, sports infrastructure. Just last year, Fair Lawn, New Jersey spent something like $600,000 on a new artificial turf football field. You can’t make this stuff up.
We see it all over. College grads cannot find jobs. I know over adozen of my co-workers who have had adult children move back in after graduation with no prospect of independently moving on. Meanwhile, my younger colleagues struggle with college loan payments that approach $800 a month. It’s nuts. People – again many of my coworkers - are putting off marriage until their late 30’s and having children, if ever, to their 40’s…and even then people cannot see being able to afford having more than one child.
The anxiety is profound. It’s building. And no, I’m not saying that we’re all moving into some Marxist-inspired revolution, because we don’t have to. We’ll all just keep getting poorer and living lives of quiet shame and desperation.
So here’s where I’m at…where I’ve arrived. I’m no longer cheering for Republicans or Democrats. Republican austerity has proven to be an utter failure, and I could care less about abstract, future debt if my generation is about to starve and face homelessness and humiliation now. Democrats keep preaching amoderate expansion of the welfare state, but this is a crisis that won’t be cured by a beefed up Social Security system or a few more weeks of Unemployment insurance. Thus, I’ve arrived at this exact question:
Are there any good ideas out there? Any at all?
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