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February 10, 2004

The working impoverished.

This article entitled Working and Poor in the USA in The Nation talks about the problem of the working poor in the US. It isn't necessarily the best article and spends too much time on anecdotal evidence, but still makes some good points. Most of the time when we think about or read about those living in poverty, we think about the unemployed. This article talks about the larger problem of the impoverished employed who do not receive fair wages or benefits.
"There is a reigning American mythology that blunts any concern: that holding a low-wage job is a temporary situation, that mobility and education and time will solve whatever problem exists."

It also talks about how we got here.
"Over the past quarter-century, a variety of political, economic and corporate decisions have undercut the bargaining power of workers, especially those at the lower end of the work force. Those decisions included the push to increase global trade and open global markets, government efforts to deregulate industries that had been highly unionized, tight monetary policies and a corporate ideological shift away from the postwar social contract with employees and toward the principle of maximizing shareholder value."

The quote on focusing on increasing shareholder value really hit home for me as I can remember the old President of my last company repeating this over and over. "The highest goal of any public company is to increase shareholder value," he would say.

"In 1995 less than half of workers making under $20,000 a year were offered health insurance by their employer. Only one in five workers with incomes below $20,000 has pension coverage. For low-wage parents with children under 6, one-third do not get paid vacations or paid holidays. And most low-wage jobs fail to provide sick pay or disability pay. "

These are real issues we can not ignore. Nor can we continue to believe the American Horatio Alger lie that everyone in this country has the same chance for success regardless of race, color, religion, or class. We have to admit we DO have a class problem in this country and that the current system seeks to perpetuate this unbalanced system.

Posted by wonko at February 10, 2004 07:39 PM

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Comments

I could not agree more. I work at a shelter for homeless families. The number one problem facing these families is not employment rather it is the lack of benefits they are offered. For example, kids get sick all the time and this is even more so at the shelter, imagine what it is like for a single mother (a large percentage of the working poor) who has a sick kid and cannot take them to daycare or has no way to afford it. Those with benefits simply utilize their paid time off or sick days, these women do not have that option and more often then not end up losing their jobs over it, thus returning them to homelessness. How can we expect this to end if a real paradigm shift is not made?

Posted by: Ginabeanna at February 11, 2004 08:58 PM

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