WHEN I’m in New York or Washington, people talk passionately about debt and political battles. But in the living rooms or on the front porches here in Yamhill, Ore., where I grew up, a different specter wakes friends up in the middle of the night. It’s unemployment…. I’ve spent a chunk of summer vacation visiting old friends here, and I can’t help feeling that national politicians and national journalists alike have dropped the ball on jobs. Some 25 million Americans are unemployed or underemployed — that’s more than 16 percent of the work force — but jobs haven’t been nearly high enough on the national agenda.
Perhaps it’s that the Great Recession has dragged on since 2008. Perhaps it’s that our collective attention span just can’t hold out that long. Perhaps it’s that the political class in Washington has no ideas and is heavily invested in trying to deflect discussion away from something they know they can’t (and so are no longer even trying to) fix. Whatever the reason, all one needs to do is take a good look around to understand that the REAL problem facing America today isn’t the deficit, as serious as that is. No, the real, intractable problem facing this country is unemployment. In an economy where the effective unemployment rate hovers around 16% and where there are four-plus people for every available job, how is it that unemployment isn’t something that Washington is focused on with laser-like intensity? Perhaps it’s because the odds are that if you’re in Washington, it’s because you have a job, and therefore unemployment is merely an inconvenient and rather abstract concept. If it’s not happening to you, it’s easy to whiff on the importance of unemployment as an issue and the burden it places on us as we try to find our way back to something resembling prosperity.
I’m not about to minimize the importance of dealing with the federal budget deficit, but that’s another issue for another time. If we can’t find a way to put Americans back to work, ultimately the budget deficit won’t really matter. Sure, I understand that the budget deficit holds significant symbolic importance for the more fiscally conservative among us, and I don’t think any sane, reasonable person would dispute that reducing the deficit would be a good thing. Still, at this point in our history, the only entity with the resources and the reach to start the process of putting Americans back to work is the federal government. Reviving the economy, whether Conservatives care to admit this or not, will involve taking on significant debt in the short term. While that might not seem a good or desirable thing, the reality is that we’re faced with a very real “Sophie’s Choice”: do we save the economy, or do we balance the budget? At this moment, it’s pretty clear that we don’t have the resources and/or the wherewithal to do both, though that would be the ideal solution. No, right now we need to pick one and devote as much energy, effort, and wisdom as we can to fixing that part of the equation.
From where I sit, I can’t see how it makes sense to balance the federal budget as ever greater numbers of Americans lose their jobs…and with that, their ability to pay taxes that can then be used to balance the budget. Until Americans are working, those who demand that the budget be balanced are missing the boat, ignoring the forest for the trees, or whatever cheap, borderline appropriate metaphor you might choose to employ. As more Americans lose their jobs, the amount of tax revenue collected will continue to dwindle, which means that Conservatives who demand spending cuts will continually be trying to balance the budget with revenues that will continue to shrink. Unemployment without a doubt should be at the top of the list, but the Mainstream Media has remained fixated on the deficit…and so, by extension, have the American Sheeple.
Right now, there are over 25 million Americans unemployed or underemployed.
The number who have been unemployed for 27 weeks or more is over 6 million.
The average duration of unemployment now stands at over 40 weeks, the highest since the financial crisis began.
How and why Americans aren’t standing up, screaming, and demanding action at the top of their lungs is beyond me….
I find it difficult to understand how dealing with unemployment isn’t Job One (pun fully intended). Until and unless America is working, nothing else really matters. If Americans aren’t working, they aren’t paying taxes. They aren’t buying goods and services from providers that pay sales taxes. They aren’t putting money back into the economy that is then recirculated and re-taxed. That’s just the economic side of the argument. The human side is far more complicated with potentially more far-reaching and longer-lasting consequences. And yet Washington acts as if the 800-lb. gorilla in the room isn’t there.
Because of our inattention to addressing and resolving unemployment, we now run the risk of losing an entire generation. If you’re over 50 and not working (full disclosure: I’m both), the odds are very good that you may never work again. Think about it; when you can hire a younger worker for a lower salary, why would you consider an older worker who will command significantly more money? In today’s economy, experience simply isn’t valued as it used to be. In many cases, workers over 50 still have families to support and mortgages to pay. If they can’t meet their obligations, it’s not just their families who will suffer the consequences; eventually those consequences will trickle down to all of us. Do we really want to live in a country that’s willing to let an entire class of people slide into irrelevance and economic oblivion? Or are we now to be OK with a newer, colder version of Economic Darwinism that allows some to sink while others prosper? Are we so afraid of “Socialism” that we can’t see our way clear to offering a hand to those legitimately in need? No one wants to be paying the freight for others, just as those others in most cases want to be able to provide for themselves and those who depend on them.
Today’s reality, sadly, is that the recession has impacted some more than others. Like so many other times of crisis in our history, the only way we’re going to get through this is if we pull together. The sad thing is that so many, especially on the Right, are perfectly happy and willing to abandon millions of Americans to the wolves. That’s not fair, it’s not right, and it’s not even American.
WE DESERVE BETTER…and as it turns out, you really can’t save your way out of a recession. Not that this will stop those who value ideology over truth and reality from heading down that path….
