Wasting the Potential of Working People
By Ashley Keith — Ohio
Walter from Cincinnati once owned a small IT business and used his computer expertise to help people solve their technological problems. He is engaging, intelligent, and understands how to navigate the temperamental waters of computers in an age of constant updates, upgrades, and innovation. Unfortunately, he had to close his business in 2001 because he was unable to compete with larger companies. Since the closing of his business, Walter has had a difficult time maintaining steady employment. He has primarily worked restaurant jobs for the last nine years. For the last two and a half weeks he has worked in the maintenance department for a national retail chain after four weeks of being unemployed. There are so many people in this economy who are working in fields and positions that don’t let them fully use their potential, but Walter faces an additional challenge: he was convicted of a felony 20 years ago.
In a time when foreclosures are making headlines across the country and adult children have to move back in with parents after college graduation, everyone knows the job market is oversaturated. The nation’s best talent is ripe for the picking. Many people will have little sympathy for someone in Walter’s position. Some will say that Walter made his bed, and now he has to sleep in it. But what good does it do any of us to waste the potential of people who have already repaid their debt to society? Working people come in all forms, shapes, sizes, and from various backgrounds.
When we as working families were stronger and better organized, the American Dream was a reality for a lot of us. It actually seemed like anyone could work hard to accomplish their goals, and we were a nation that gave people enormous opportunities to succeed. But today we are living in the Right Wing Dream, created by decades of policies that weakened unions, encouraged outsourcing, and gave Wall Street free reign to cause a re-run of the Great Depression. Now it seems that the American Dream is only available if you have five years of specialized experience, an advanced degree, a spotless past, three recommendations, and a relationship with someone who can open doors for you…and that’s just to get your resume on the top of the stack.
When workers are faced with desperate choices and employers have only one position for every five unemployed workers, people in Walter’s position are some of the first left out in the cold. I often hear people say things like “pay your debt to society” or “serve the time you deserve” when people pick up the controversial topic of our penal system, but when that time is over and that debt is paid what happens next? The issue of job creation is really about what kind of country we want to be. Do we want to be a creative, productive country where we strive to give everyone an opportunity to use their talents, skills and abilities, or do we want to create an underclass of workers who are kept on the margins, just scraping by?
It’s easy to illuminate all the problems. Most blog entries and the comments are made up of incessant complaints. It becomes boring after a while, just more noise form the blogosphere.
The question is – what can be done (if anything)? How do we fix the problems? What is realistic and possible given the political and sociological constraints we live under?
IN terms of jobs, there are ~15 million unemployed (by official estimates). How do we get everyone back to work quickly? Retraining has been proven to be ineffective, particularly for older people.
Again, what do we do? Talk is cheap…
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There are a lot of simple solutions, many of which are discussed a lot. For starters, we need to pass a jobs bill that directly creates jobs. In terms of turning back the Right Wing Dream that has created this mess, passing EFCA so that workers can organize again will help. While we’re at it, we could also stand up to Chinese currency manipulation…
These are all realistic, immediate policy options that are still on the table, but that haven’t been moved yet.
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In 3-5 weeks when the 99 weeks of unemployment benefits run out, hundreds of thousands of people are going to become homeless. A large number of these people are older than 50 with education and skills. A New Deal jobs program is needed now, not a month from mow, not three months from now. People who want to work have to be able to sign up and start working. If people could design their own jobs, they could accumulate the experience they need to have on their resumes to get a regular full time job.
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Publications from the Social Security Administration state that if you take Social Security benefits at age 66, you get a certain amount, but if you take them at 70 you get the highest amount. If the maximum benefits could start at 60 instead of 70, many boomers could retire instead of being in the job market. That would provide basic subsistence and then on top of that the boomers could start small businesses without the risk of destitution if the business fails.
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Another specific suggestion is to lower the start of Medicare to age 50 and amend the new healthcare act to allow people over 50 to separate medical care from employment. Then employers will be more receptive to hiring people over 50 because they won’t fear an increase in the premiums for hiring an older person. Right now small businesses will not hire older workers.
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Any solution has to happen within the next four weeks, as the mass homelessness will start at that time. And the flu season will start a few weeks later. There are 10800 homeless in Santa Monica, CA. What is going to happen if swine flu or a mosquito virus hits the population of homeless living on the streets? Then the germs will be all over the public streets. Then the government will have a real public health health expense on its hands worse than extending the unemployment benefits or using the same money to create New Deal jobs or pay earlier Social Security. Hundreds of thousands of people will become homeless in the next few weeks and Congress is doing nothing about it.
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We are all being told to stand behind President Obama even though he is constantly bending over backwards to accommodate the Republicans and not creating traveling around the country promoting a New Deal jobs program. I am sorry. I have been a Democrat all my life and I am not a troll. But I cannot accept what is happening in this administration. I did not vote for Obama in the 2008 primary. We need another candidate in 2012, someone who is going to strengthen and protect Social Security and who is going to carry out the agenda of common working people. President Clinton was much more populist than President Obama.
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This country has gone berserk! Just to apply for a stupid retail job you have to take an online personality test that goes on for 20 minutes and authorize a background check. Then when you ask to see a copy of it, that is impossible. Certain child molestation convictins could be good reason for excluding people, but when you are talking about expunged misdemeanors showing up as arrests from 30 years ago being used to deny unemployment, then you are talking about hundreds of thousands of people. The Republicans have created a hateful world. You realize the second you get away from here that the rest of the world does not live like this. They may be in bad shape economically, but they don’t have to deal with this Tyrannical employment system in which you have to be 25, have 10 years of highly technical experience, be perfect in every way. And i really do not want to work in Healthcare. I think that is another mirage as people who go through all the training find they cannot get jobs without experience. And all the administrative jobs in HC are going overseas as well.
The only way you can fight back is to post damaging information about your bosses online, naming names etc. (If you have damaging memos you can leak to the press, do it). If you can destroy your supervisor’s reputation by posting something awful about him online, do it. Only then will this Big Brother stuff begin to stop.
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