Jobs vs. Arrests

In October 2012, the FBI published their annual Uniform Crime Reports for 2011. According to the report, there were about 12.4 million arrests across the country in 2011 (see arrest statistics here).

The American economy, meanwhile, created about 1.4 million jobs in 2011.

For every job created there were about 9 arrests.

America has the highest incarceration rate in the world, far surpassing countries like Rwanda, Cuba, and Iran. America's incarceration rate is 7.5 times higher than Ireland's and 13 times higher than Japan's.

New Deal work programs like the WPA and CCC were created (among other reasons) to provide the jobless with useful things to do; to have an opportunity to earn some money while working, instead of wandering about aimless & broke, or getting into trouble. These voluntary-to-join work programs gave the unemployed hope, and the unemployed, in turn, gave America a massive amount of modernized infrastructure.

Today, we have no WPA or CCC. Today, there are about 27 million Americans who would like a full-time job but can't find one (see http://www.njfac.org/).

(Image above courtesy of http://123freevectors.com/)

Jobs: "A long way to go," ad infinitum

Over the past five years America has lost a lot of jobs, gained a few back, lost some more, gained a few back, etc., etc.  The job losses began during George W. Bush's last year in office and we've yet to see a strong, sustained recovery for the American worker. Year after year we keep hearing "we've still got a long way to go."

After the November 2009 jobs report, President Obama said, "We've still got a long way to go."

After the March 2010 jobs report, economist and presidential adviser Larry Summers said, "We've got a long way to go."

After the June 2011 jobs report, President Obama said, "We still have a long way to go."

After the May 2012 jobs report, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said, "we have a long way to go."

After the January 2013 jobs report, Jill Schlesinger, Editor-at-Large for CBS MoneyWatch, said we "still have a long way to go."

Considering our highly dysfunctional Congress, as well the continued exportation of American jobs to cheap foreign labor markets, at what point does "a long way to go" translate into "this is the new norm folks, get used to it"?

(Image above courtesy of http://www.dream-wallpaper.com/)

Half-a-Billion Unemployed?

I ran across an eye-opening article in the USA Today, "Global Joblessness Rising" (Jan. 22, 2013). It reported that, according to the International Labour Organization, "The net number of unemployed people rose 4% in 2012 to 197 million and is expected to rise by 5.1 million in 2013 and an additional 3 million in 2014..."

If these numbers are calculated in a similar manner as the main, official unemployment rate we get from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics every month, we know that the true number of unemployed people could be over twice as many as the reported figures. So, in a few years, we could have close to half-a-billion people on planet Earth who can't find work.

If idle hands are the devil's playground, the devil certainly has lot of hands to work with.

Dignity

A worker weaving a rug on a WPA project. The WPA was designed to give unemployed Americans a chance to earn some money, maintain (or acquire new) skills, and preserve their dignity, while creating useful things. Women in the WPA made clothes, rugs, quilts, mattresses, hospital gowns, and more. They also made blankets, canteen covers, and other items for soldiers. Women also participated in other WPA projects, e.g., health clinics, library services to rural areas, and WPA theater productions.

(Photograph courtesy of the Library of Congress)

Snow

It's snowing in the Mid-Atlantic today; about a foot+ where I'm at. The photo above shows a WPA work crew clearing snow in Baltimore in February of 1936 (image courtesy of the University of Maryland College Park Archives).

Ten Ways the WPA Helped Feed America

(See images below and click to enlarge) 

     Today, food assistance for low-income individuals & families is under constant criticism, and budget cuts constantly threaten the Food and Drug Administration--the agency that works to protect our food from contamination and poor handling.

     Meanwhile, the unemployed are punished in a variety of ways, and stereotyped as lazy good-for-nothings. Even as private sector job creation is weak, the unemployed face insults from political commentators, diminished unemployment benefits, reduced assistance for job re-training, coerced drug-testing, and employment discrimination.

     However, there was a time where the humiliation of the needy was put on a back burner, and more productive & compassionate public policies were utilized. One of these policies was called the Works Progress Administration (WPA, 1935-43). The WPA hired the jobless, and provided food assistance to the needy (and Americans generally) in a number of ways:

1. The WPA created jobs for the unemployed, which meant the unemployed could finally earn money to feed their families. Jane Yoder, a woman who grew up during the Great Depression, said: "...my father immediately got employed in this WPA. This was a godsend. This was the greatest thing. It meant food, you know. Survival, just survival."

(The caption to this photo reads: "WPA worker and family at dinner. Zeigler, Illinois." Image provided courtesy of the Library of Congress)

2. WPA workers distributed food to low-income families:

(WPA workers preparing food for distribution in Maryland. Image courtesy of the University of Maryland College Park Archives)

3. WPA artists created posters promoting nutritious foods:

  (WPA poster. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division)

4. WPA artists created posters promoting food safety:

(WPA poster. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division)

5. WPA artists created posters promoting local food markets:

(WPA poster. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division)

6. WPA workers provided food to low-income children, at schools, nurseries, and in special summer lunch programs:

 (Children sitting down for lunch at a WPA nursery in Cambridge, Maryland. Notice the box crate chairs. Image provided courtesy of the University of Maryland College Park Archives)

7. The WPA built farm-to-market roads, to enable farmers to more easily get their food products to consumers:

(WPA laborers working on a farm-to-market road in Allegany County, Maryland. Image provided courtesy of the University of Maryland College Park Archives.)  

8. The WPA planted 8 million bushels of oysters, thereby putting smiles on the faces of many generations of American seafood lovers:

(WPA workers planting oysters in the Chesapeake Bay. Image provided courtesy of the University of Maryland College Park Archives.)

9. The WPA built or improved fish hatcheries across the nation (many of which are still in use today), thereby providing generations of anglers & consumers with an ample supply of aquatic fun & nourishment:

 (WPA laborers working on a fish hatchery in Frederick County, Maryland. Image provided courtesy of the University of Maryland College Park Archives.  

  
10. The WPA created subsistence gardens in communities, so low-income residents could grow their own food:

 (WPA poster. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division)

     Imagine if we had a WPA today. The unemployed could be hired to work and, among other things, provide food for low-income families. Wouldn't that be better than humiliating the jobless and cursing food stamp recipients as "takers" and "parasites"?  

     I was raised Christian, and even though I'm not a religious person today, I still hold many of the teachings dear, e.g., "if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday" (Isaiah 58:10, Holy Bible, New International Version). This seems to square nicely with the U.S. Constitution's promotion of the general welfare in the preamble, and the statement that Congress shall have the power to provide for the general welfare (Article I, Section 8). 

     President Franklin Roosevelt said: "Better the occasional faults of a government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference." And Ronald Reagan said, "The WPA was one of the most productive elements of FDR's alphabet soup of agencies...it gave men and women a chance to earn some money along with the satisfaction of knowing they earned it."

     Given these words from the Bible, the Constitution, FDR, and Reagan, why are we still refusing to provide direct employment to the jobless, and why are we still acting cruelly to those who need governmental food assistance?

(Jane Yoder quote from "Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression," by Studs Terkel, 1970. FDR quote from "American-Made," by Nick Taylor, 2008. Ronald Reagan quote from "Ronald Reagan: An American Life," by Ronald Reagan, 1990)

Targeting, Stereotyping, and Scapegoating the Unemployed

Add Dr. Richard Vedder, from the University of Ohio, to the list of people making it harder for the unemployed to find a job, by targeting them for condemnation and categorization.

Dr. Vedder’s op-ed in the January 15th edition of the Wall Street Journal online, “The Wages of Unemployment,” is the typical government-assistance-makes-the-unemployed-lazy material coming from the political right.

While paying lip-service to “a number of factors,” Dr. Vedder writes that “the (unemployment) phenomenon is due mainly to a variety of public policies that have reduced the incentives to be employed” (emphasis added).  Translation: The unemployed are content to be lazy.

We’ve heard this type of thing many times before. For example, political commentator and TV personality Ben Stein wrote: “in general, as I survey the ranks of those who are unemployed, I see people who have overbearing and unpleasant personalities and/or who do not know how to do a day’s work. They are people who create either little utility or negative utility on the job.” (See his full, offensive article here). Presidential hopeful Herman Cain said: “Don't blame Wall Street. Don't blame the big banks. If you don't have a job and you're not rich, blame yourself.” In other words, it’s not the exportation of jobs, it’s not the fact that machines have increasingly replaced people, it’s not the increased importation of cheaply-made goods; no, it’s those damn lazy unemployed Americans!

So, Dr. Vedder continues the tradition of blaming the victim (and big bad government), by targeting food stamps, Social Security Disability, Pell Grants, and extended unemployment benefits, and writing: “But if you pay people to stay at home, many will do so rather than seek employment or accept jobs where the pay doesn't meet their expectations.”

Note his clever and deceptive “if you pay people to stay at home.”

Food stamps are not a payment to stay at home. They are financial assistance to people who, for different reasons, cannot afford an adequate amount of food. I used to work at a food pantry, as an Americorps member, and almost all of our clients were the working poor (they would come in once a month for a box of various foods). They were not lazy, they were poor. The free box of food did not make them leave their jobs.

Social Security Disability is not a payment to stay at home. It’s a payment to those whose medical issues have prevented (or stopped) them from working. Dr. Vetter implies that people are milking the system, but if one looks closely at the issue, one will see that the rise of benefit claims is much more complicated than the "lazy people" explanation (e.g., an aging population, job outsourcing, slack job creation).

Pell grants are not payments to stay at home. They are payments to help people (who do not come from wealth) to attend college.

Unemployment insurance is not a payment to stay at home. It is a payment to help ease the burden of a loss of income while you search for work (a search that is required by law).

So, why does it matter that people like Dr. Vedder, Ben Stein, and Herman Cain target, stereotype, and scapegoat the unemployed?

Because it makes it much harder for the unemployed to find work.

Many employers and business owners will no doubt internalize what Vedder, Stein, and Cain write & say (or have their current prejudices reinforced), and then come to the determination that the unemployed are indeed lazy, and not worth hiring. And, in fact, there is anecdotal and empirical evidence that employers do actively discriminate against the unemployed (see, e.g., the academic studies reported here, here, and here). One researcher said: "It's not that they don't have the skills--it's just that employers don't hire them because they think badly of them." Well gee, I wonder why, when you have a chorus from the political right chanting how lazy the unemployed must be.

It’s a shame that Dr. Vedder has joined the “unemployed-are-lazy” sing-along, and thus exacerbated the hopelessness that the jobless live in, because he has actually done interesting and worthwhile research about college enrollment vs. labor market demand. I guess it was just too tempting to join in on the feeding frenzy.

However, as I’ve written before, why don’t we put the “unemployed-are-lazy” theory to the test. Let’s create a new WPA and CCC, and see how many enroll? My impression is that many from the political right would violently oppose this. Partially, because they believe that everything the government does is “godless communism,” and partly because they would lose the political utility of the “slacker” and “loser” stereotype that they place on the jobless. How useful it must be for them, on the one hand, to label the unemployed as “good-for-nothings” who don’t want to work, and, on the other hand, create no large-scale public works program for the jobless to prove otherwise.

And, indeed, Senate Republicans blocked the creation of a new CCC-type program for unemployed veterans in 2012 (see here).

(Image above courtesy of Christian Gidlöf and Wikipedia)