The Dream Act: `Right thing to do’
As Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid plans to push for the Dream Act against a tide of nativism, the bill is receiving support from many religious voices. Coadjutor Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles, who heads the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Migration, wrote this week to Congress saying that passage of the measure is “the right thing to do.”
In an editorial urging the two senators from Texas to support the bill, the Dallas Morning News noted that some evangelical Christian leaders also favor the Dream Act. It cited James Denison, theologian in residence at the Texas Baptist Convention, who wrote:
“There may be legal or political reasons for rejecting the Dream Act. But it’s hard to imagine that Jesus would refuse children an opportunity to achieve their highest potential. He blessed them and taught us that “the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these” (Matthew 19:14).
Jesus modeled service to all when he washed the feet of men who would soon betray and deny him (John 13:1-11). He then taught us to do for others what he did for us (vs. 12-17). He judges us not by our titles but by our towels.
In a roundup of opinion, the Dallas Morning News blog on faith presents the flip side of the argument from Deal Hudson, who condemned the Dream Act in the course of giving thanks on Thanksgiving Day for the rise of the Tea Party. In the full article at InsideCatholic.com, he concludes: “Whether or not the bill is passed, the debate alone will extend the life and influence of the Tea Party — for which I am thankful.”
Thanks, Paul :)
I want to add that the Republicans routinely tell people to get in line while obstructing every effort to create a line for people to get in. There are currently no provisions in the law for these people to become legal residents. No one wants to be an illegal alien. Life is a lot easier with a green card. They are here illegal because there are simply too few channels to become legal residents.
You can show support for the Dream Act by going here!
http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/DreamAct/?source=OM_LB_google_dream-search_dream&gclid=CPiG3vqu06UCFQNrKgodChMdlg
Peace in Christ,
Carolyn K. Hyppolite
http://carolynhyppolite.blogspot.com/
“against a tide of nativism”
Right. Everyone who opposes the DREAM Act as currently written is a racist bigot.
“But the DREAM Act, in every one of its iterations over the years, has four fatal flaws…[read more here]”
“the idiocy of the Bush-era tax cuts…”
More civilized discourse from CommonWeal. Merry Christmas!
Also:
“Ten Things You Need To Know About S.3827, The DREAM Act.”
Please argue against these points as you will. But do not pretend that opposition to the DREAM Act is simply nativist.
I was delighted to see that the US Catholic Conference came out in support of the Dream Act; I received an action alert from them a couple of weeks ago asking me to call my legislators to urge its passage. I happily did so and I was especially pleased that I could do it as part of a Catholic advocacy campaign.
As the USCCB is gearing up for National Migration Week (the first week of the New Year), anyone interested can join the Bishops’ Justice for Immigrants campaign at http://www.usccb.org/mrs/nmw/immigration/index.shtml
Of course the Catholic Church would support this.After losing so many parisheners, because of pedophile priests, they need more people to fill their collection plates.This bill is flawed on so many counts althogh it sounds all fluffy & warm on the surface.Read the bill,do your homework,find out why the majority of Americans oppose it.It’s not fair to the people who are trying to enter LEGALLY.What part of “Illegal” don’t you understand?
“Right. Everyone who opposes the DREAM Act as currently written is a racist bigot”
I think they’re people like Jeff above w.
“they need more people to fill their collection plates”
Jeff, if you think illegal immigrants are an economic benefit to the Catholic Church (rather than a source for Church charity), then you must also think they would be an economic benefit to the USA, right? Or vice versa. You can’t have it both ways…
P Flanagan,
We should all be doing better in terms of speaking charitably or at least with civility. Let’s assume that people have principled reasons for their positions and go from there. I have responded to the points raised in the National Review Article below:
1. Mark Krikorian has a problem with the dream act being set at 16 years old because at that age, the young person’s identity has already been formed. Sixteen was probably chosen because at that age you are still a minor and would have been brought here by your parents and at the very least, you have two years of American High school, which does a good deal to help your assimilation.
He suggests seven as the age of reason. Does anyone seriously think a seven year-old is reasonable? I came in here at the age of nine and I speak English better than my native language. I am much more America in culture and habits than Haitian. The suggestion that you can hold 10, 11, 12, 13, or even 15 year-olds for the travel decisions of their parents cannot possibly be serious.
2. There is the issue of fraud. Certainly, there can be no guarantee that this will not contain fraud. In fact, I promise you there will be some fraud as there is in every human endeavor. If the fear of fraud of motivated all actions, we would never do anything. The existence of credit cards has created identity fraud that did not exist previously, should we do away with that?
On the other hand, this process might actually help government keep better track of criminal activity. Many of these criminal aliens are outside of the system. Some don’t even have valid identification; with this process, the federal government will now have both their picture and finger print. Wouldn’t that help?
3. Mark fears that amnesty attracts more illegals. Perhaps, but what attracts them even more is jobs. During the recession, many of them went home. However, despite the demand for labor, our government has refused to create the appropriate channels for legal immigration. The republicans obstruct every effort to do so while claiming to support legal immigration. The best way to help decrease illegal immigration is to provide channels for legal immigration. No one wants to be an illegal immigrant. It is a desperate move.
4. Mark does not want to open a chain reaction of amnesty by having these young people sponsor their parents. While this seem sane on the surface, it is actually quite irrational. There is a good chance that their parents are going to continue living in America and it would be better that they become legal residents. Family sponsorships is one of the few legal avenues to legal entry into the United States and trying to block that is another example of Republicans obstructing the processes by which people can become legal.
Also, let us reflect some more on the high probably that these people are going to continue living here. Despite all the tough talk, the nation will deport twelve million people. We will deport a few here and there. We will not invest the man power and resources that this would require to deport 12 million people, and we also don’t have the stomach for it. Doing so would be the Trail of Tears 2.0 except this time it will be on You-tube, BBC, all over the Arab world; it would be a live national embarrassment that no one wants to happen. Therefore, by failing to normalize the status of those already here, the Republican solution is we are going to let a bad situation stay bad. We are going to continue hiring these works while demonizing them for political fodder. That policy is neither moral nor sound.
Peace in Christ,
Carolyn Hyppolite
http://carolynhyppolite.blogspot.com/
I will not respond in great detail o the second article you posted but I will point out two falsehoods. The current version of the Dream Act excludes criminals and the recent CBO numbers says that the economic benefits of normalizing will out way the the costs. Although it did project the great cost of adding these people to the social security and medicare system, that problem is at least thirty years away and it is no different than the extra cost that all of us add to the screwy entitlement systems by being alive. Given the low reproduction rate among white Americans, the system could only benefit from a crop of young, tax paying workers.
I know tons of people whose lives are on hold, who cannot pursue serious careers although they are quite capable and who often work in cash only jobs eventhough they went to high school with me and are as American as American can be. If they had a green card, they would get better, above the table jobs which would be taxable. This would benefit all of us.
Also, on the question of whether illegal aliens would benefit America economically, I would throw this question at you. If you should have a child next year, will that child be an economic benefit or a burden on society? While it would depend on the specific child, chances are like most people, they will contribute greatly to society. We in the pro-life community have been telling people that for years and there is no reason that the same does not hold true for children of Koreans, or Miexicans, etc.
Peace in Christ,
Carolyn Hyppolite
Some where down the line, we were all illegal at one point. All except the native americans.
Hmmm. The USA needs immagrants to sustain its standard of living. If we could find a way to admit them legally it would be to our benefit. Senator McCain seems to be unmavereklikey wishy wishy on this issue. Good luck.
omg. it’s 9:30 pm. you have all gone to sleep. at least you have done so legally. hasta luegeo
I am so disappointed in that McCain. The Tea Party has them scared. This is why we need term limits. Representative could do their right thing without fear.
Peace in Christ,
Carolyn K. Hyppolite
It seems to me that there is some sort of basic structural disconnect in the economy when we are concerned that 10,000,000 or so Americans don’t have jobs, but we need 10.000.000 or so Mexican workers to fill jobs in agriculture and house-building and repair.
ISTM that the basic problem must be that agriculture and housing starts don’t pay enough for out-of-work Americans to be tempted to take the jobs. Ultimately this probably means that you and I aren’t willing to pay what food and houses really cost.
Or what?
Carolyn, I’m disappointed in John McCain too and I voted for him. P., you’re not using your head.
I was in the Army with a few guys (also one woman) like this, who had been brought here illegally when they were kids but were trying to get citizenship. Every one of them was a first-rate soldier and every one will be a first-rate citizen. Two things Latin American immigrants do in disproportionate numbers is serve in the military and establish small businesses. They’re the future of the Republican Party, P., unless the moronic faction really wants to kill it. They’re young, healthy, speak good English, want to risk their lives for America. How could they not be financial assets?
I’ll call Scotty Brown on Monday.
@Ann,
Isn’t the problem just that too many people overrate themselves? That too many people have an unreasonable idea of what income they are worth and what lifestyle they can afford? Too many people, who are sitting around collecting unemployment benefits and thinking they’ll just wait for a job like the old one to open up, need to wake up, realize those jobs are gone forever, and go apply to clean hotel rooms or wipe up blood and intestines in hospitals for half their previous wage.
The solution is for everybody to get used to earning less, working harder and having fewer vain, silly luxuries.
Ann,
Food and houses cost what we are willing to pay for them. There is no magic number called what they really cost. When the price of cherries is above $6 a pound, I don’t buy it. I have a cut of point for all sorts of things. And if I must have it but can’t get it for less, I just use less. My decisions and those of others come togther to make prices. Sellers have to decide between letting cherries rot, not planting cherries, or figuring out how to sell at a price that they can sell enough to make a profit and sustain workers.
The same goes with labor. We all decide what we think our labor is worth, and if we think we can get more from the market, we hold out. Naturally, immigrants have lower expectation on what they can get from the market. I know I am not going to earn too many browny points for defending the market, but I think Mexicans have a right to seek for a better life by offering their labors to those who are willing to hire them. If we give them a path to legal residency, we can help raise standards by alleviating them from the fear speaking out when there are abuses.
Peace in Christ,
Carolyn Hyppolite
I think the broader issue, for me, aside from the Dream Act which I would support if I was in the US, is that Catholics in elected office should bring a distinctively Catholic flavour to their legislative agenda.
There may be technical or substantive issues with the bill but these can or should have been addressed in committee prior to a vote and if they are not then they should articulate that they support in principle the Dream Act but object to whatever provisions they do not agree with.
This would inoculate them against charges of nativism while at the same time supporting the bill.
All that said, it is irrelevant from a public policy position since it will be passed as the Democrats have the votes, lets see if they have the will.
The danger, and i think this has been discussed by Catholic leaders and Bishops, is that Catholic identity is submerged under ideology – left or right. I suspect this has already happened (cf the debate over the myth of the “Catholic” vote).
If there is such a thing as extortion (and there is), then there is such a thing as an unfair wage. If we can tell at least some unfair wages when we see them, then it must be because we already know what a fair one must be, or at least we know something of what a fair wage must be.
Wages are the cost of work. If we can tell an unfair wage, we must have some notion of what an unfair cost is — which implies we do know something about a fair costs too.
The problem has plagued economists for centuries, but that is no reason to give up. This is a moral problem, a question of preventing extortion, of preventing employers from extorting work from poor people simply or charging exorbitant prices simply because they can do it.
It is very difficult to even think about the problem, involving as it does such non-concrete realities as skill, effort, risk, money, and justice. Even gathering data to try to measure such things would be daunting, not to mention the problem of quantifying such things, and they must be quantified because money is part of the reality being dealt with.
Would that the bishops give attention to these questions instead of just preaching that we must be just. We already know that. The question is: what IS a just wage and what IS a just price.
Many Catholics in this country are indifferent to the fact that hundreds of thousands of young people are around the country are being denied access to a future, the opportunity to sell offer their labor at any price (whether we think that price is just or not) because their parents committed the allegedly mortal and unforgivable sin of trying seek a better future for themselves.
The Catholics most energized about this issue keep telling us that the only relevant moral issue is that immigrantion laws have been broken not whether laws that make it nearly impossible for immigrants to seek legal residency are just.
I think that justice issue which is actually being debated in congress as anxious young men and women are waiting with lives on hold deserves our attention.
Peace in Christ,
Carolyn Hyppolite
http://carolynhyppolite.blogspot.com/
I think Americans have become used to This is the result of using mostly immigrant labor (documented or otherwise) who will work much more cheaply than native born folks. It has always been so. If you look at our history, each wave of immigrants (we won’t talk about blacks brought here as slaves — that’s a whole different and more shameful story) has been exploited as cheap labor because it could be gotten away with. Once the children of those immigrants got established and saw how their parents were abused, things changed for that group. However, there has always been another immigrant group to be used and often-time abused by the successors of a wave of immigrants.
If we are prepared to pay native-born citizens a wage for which they will actually work, we had better get used to the end of cheap food, cheap yard labor, cheap child care, cheap nursing home labor, cheap in-home health care, etc.
All prepared for and in favor of doing that, step forward, please.
(That’s what I thought.)
A small story. I was recently in Western Australia which has a thriving economy and low unemployment. Minimum wage there is $18 an hour, with double time for hours worked after 6 PM (no matter when the shift started) and triple time for hours worked on Sundays. Even at that, labor is hard to find, so starting wages are higher than minimum. ($60 per hour for a food server on Sunday is not uncommon.)
A cup of coffee cost about $5.00. I paid $18.00 for a hamburger and fries. I saw imported cheeses in a supermarket for $55 a kilo!!!! The US$ is on par with the Aussie $ these days.
The first sentence should have read: “I think Americans have become used to cheap food, cheap yard labor, cheap child care, cheap nursing home labor, cheap in-home health care, etc.”
“All prepared for and in favor of doing that, step forward, please.”
Jimmy, I’ll take that deal. I am in favor of the DREAM act because (1) it is clear the people involved are here to stay and did not break any laws coming (2) young, healthy, people are an asset; somebody’s got to pay for my heart valve replacement! (Not for a long time, I hope.) I am not in favor of increasing immigration at this time. I would vastly prefer paying more taxes to (in some reasonable way) subsidize American-born people to do the agricultural work. Living on unemployment insurance for years on end is bad for the recipient; the Devil makes work for idle hands.
We just need to get two things clear: First, work is dignified, all work; picking crops, cleaning hotel rooms, wiping up the blood and intestines in hospitals. It’s all more honorable than sitting in front of the idiot box collecting a government handout. (Professionals can help make this point by treating the people who work in their vicinity civilly, so they don’t have to be, so to speak, paid for the indignity of the job.) Second, almost everybody has too many stupid, expensive, corrupting luxuries in their lives right now. A childless couple does not need four bathrooms; they only have two bladders, after all. Stupid, expensive, useless luxury only makes you miserable in the end.
Throw away Harry Potter and that ridiculous Twilight Vampire guy I see advertised all over the place and get out Poor Richard’s Almanac and Pilgrim’s Progress right now.
Archbishop Dolan should mow his own lawn to set an example.
Archbishop Dolan lives on Madison Avenue and as far as I can tell, he doesn’t have a lawn. One of the virtues of life in NYC–or at least of those who live cheek to jowl.
Just for the sake of curiosity, how does mowing your own lawn instead of hiring someone to mow it for you contribute to social justice?
CKH
I read the other day that there is now a machine that can discriminate between a red strawberry and the leaves. With the development of robots humans will hardly be needed in the fields anymore. So the U. S. won’t need a steady influx of cheap labor to maintain the crazy system we now have.. Times will change in that regard.
But I’m with Felapton. Americans work too hard just for the sake of buying products that are programmed to break down soon. With a shorter work week there would be jobs enough to go around, and people would have leisure time. But many people, men especially define themselves in terms of their jobs. Somehow I think in Utopia it isn’t meant to be that way.
When you mow your own lawn, you do not spend money on something you can do for yourself. If you are in debt you will be in less debt. If you are not in debt, you can invest the money you save.
When everybody gets out of debt and sufficient money has been saved, there will be capital to build new factories and upgrade old ones. Then there will be jobs. More people will have jobs, earn money and pay taxes. Then we will be able to afford a national health insurance system, for example, which we sure can’t right now.
Social justice is only affordable when you’re not in debt. People in debt can’t, by definition, be generous. They can only be irresponsible. Generosity requires giving away your own money, not your creditors’ money. The best way to show your commitment to social justice is to work hard and save.
I am all for people getting out of debt and mowing your lawn is good exercise so if you are in debt and need a workout, mow your lawn. But the path to social justice is not found through not hiring people to mow lawns or pick strawberries. I am grateful for the minimum wage job that my father had when we first came to America, I am grateful for the broken sofa bed that I slept in with my family of five in a one bedroom apartment. My future is a lot better because some hotel owner was not too high on social justice ideals to give us these opportunities. Without these things, I would be in Haiti fighting Cholera instead of getting a graduate degree.
I have been having a very frustating week. Among my frustrations has been trying to figure out how the democrats let the republicans turn a perfectly noble word like amnesty into a four letter word. And I think this conversation has helped me see how.
So, what I am about to say, I say not to be unkind. I just want to make an observation from the perspective of a conservative, which I hope might be helpful.
Instead of having a conversation about how to solve the very specific problem of helping these young people, the conversation quickly turns into these other larger, vague justice issues. From my view, as a conservative, there is this tendency among people on the left to engage in this quest for cosmic justice—a quest which we think is futile and utopian. But more importantly, we have been having a conversation about the generational abuses of new immigrants, Americans having too many bathrooms, and how other Western countries are so much better because they pay too much for a cup of coffee.
Take it from a conservative, you have given the right all the amunition it needs to say, “See, they hate America. They hate the way we live. They think American history is a story of exploitation. They think we should be like these other countries. They want to take away your extra bathrooms, and your nanny, your lawn mowing service. In fact, this amnesty plan is a cynical ploy to bring in low income voters who will be attracted to their redistributive rhetoric. It’s a markist plot!”
I, being a conservative immigrant, think America’s immigration story is a wonderful story of poor people being given the opportunity to make a better life for themselves and to provide their children with a future they could never have. Sure, first generation immigrants struggle but it’s better than their alternatives and the hope that they have for their children is enough to keep them going. And frankly, getting excited about machines that pick up strawberries seems to me nothing more than saying, “keep those poor people out of here.”
If you don’t care about these young people, just say so and I will back out of this conversation. But if you do, then, may I respectfully suggest that none of this is helpful.
Peace in Christ,
Carolyn Hyppolite
And the Bishop Dolan should not be mowing his own lawn. There are tons of people who are willing and able to mow his lawn and would be grateful for the opportunity. He needs to be doing those things that only he can do. Given the state of our Church, I certainly hope that the bishop can find other pertinent ways to occupy his time.
CKH
Carolyn, thanks for addressing the merits of the DREAM Act. You’ve given me a number of points to reflect on. The point is, we gain nothing from extremist dismissal of opponents of the DREAM Act as nativists – nor from dismissal of proponents of the DREAM Act as pro-amnesty zealots. I note also that some of the earlier concerns about the DREAM Act have in fact been addressed and corrected and the bill made better as a result. That’s a result of interchange of ideas, which is true “civility”, not merely avoiding unkind words, but considering the positions of your political opponents.
P. Flanagan,
Thank you. You’ve made my day!
Peace in Christ,
Carolyn Hyppolite
All right, Carolyn, I called Senator Brown’s office and recommended he support the DREAM act. I assume John Kerry is already for it.
That is the limit of what I am willing to do. My country has a lot of problems right now and this is not at the top of anybody’s priority list. I know you don’t like that, but it’s not going to change any time soon.
I actually suspect it will be a long time before robots are able to pick strawberries. Robots turn out to be startlingly limited in practice. For example, all the security sensors and computer surveillance systems invented to date still can’t guard a house half as effectively as one little shelter mutt who thinks of it as his home.
Thank you, Felapton :).
“It seems to me that there is some sort of basic structural disconnect in the economy when we are concerned that 10,000,000 or so Americans don’t have jobs, but we need 10.000.000 or so Mexican workers to fill jobs in agriculture and house-building and repair.”
It’s painful for me to say this, because I support the DREAM act and believe in general that the US would be much better off if it followed the USCCB’s counsel on immigration. But my experience, at least on a local level, is that the oft-stated belief that ‘illegal immigrants do the work that Americans refuse to do’, at the very least, needs to be qualified. My observation is that, at the margin of the labor market – that is, the market for unskilled labor – illegal immigrants do compete with US citizens for jobs, and there are US citizens who would be willing to work by busing tables or cleaning homes or mowing lawns, but have a much more difficult time finding a job because they are competing with illegal immigrants for those jobs.
The status quo is absurd, evil and unacceptable. But a general amnesty and open borders would be the same.
“And the Bishop Dolan should not be mowing his own lawn. There are tons of people who are willing and able to mow his lawn and would be grateful for the opportunity. He needs to be doing those things that only he can do. Given the state of our Church, I certainly hope that the bishop can find other pertinent ways to occupy his time. ”
If the societies of Latin America were more just and prosperous, there would be less incentive for their poor citizens to come here. That seems to me to be one of the yawning gaps in current US immigration policy, and surely is an area where the church can contribute its voice, both here and in Latin America.
” — there are US citizens who would be willing to work by busing tables or cleaning homes or mowing lawns, but have a much more difficult time finding a job because they are competing with illegal immigrants for those jobs.”
Would these US citizens work for the same wages that these immigrants do? Should they? If they didn’t, would they actually be hired? Would people decide to clean house themselves (call me naive, I know —) or much less often rather than pay much more?
Jim P. =–
You raise two extremely important questions. Do immigrants compete with Americans? and What about the inequities in the countries whose people come herre illegally?
Last year I had work done on my house and I’m sure that some of the workers were illegals. Later I also had some odd-jobs done by a young American who can’t find work because he is over-qualified — has a degree in city planning (and there are no jobs like that as of now). This kid will do anything from clean bathrooms to paint the house. I’m sure there are many like him, and I can see why a contractor wouldn’t hire them. If the contractor hires an American at less than minimum wage, the American knows enough to report the contractor for breaking the law, and thus would be in a position to bargain for higher wages.
And what about the often cruel situation of the poor in some neighboring countries? I saw some of the Larry King- Carlos Slim (richest man in the world) interview the other night. Slim seems personnally a decent fellow. He takes great pride in producing jobs and needed products like roads (yes, roads) and telephone service. Should he just give all his wealth away? (He gives a lot of it away. ut Mexico requires that his foundation spend all its money in Mexico. It can’t be spent in other countires. Is *that* a good law?
So many questions, so few answers.
(I just glanced up at CNN News — a fourteen-year-old Mexican kid has been arrested as a hit man. Don’t tell me times aren’t worse than they used to be.)
“Would these US citizens work for the same wages that these immigrants do? Should they? If they didn’t, would they actually be hired? Would people decide to clean house themselves (call me naive, I know —) or much less often rather than pay much more?”
As Ann notes, in answering these questions, we’re immediately confronted by a legal/regulatory reality (minimum wage laws) and a moral imperative (the living wage).
All citizens are entitled to receive whatever minimum wage the federal and/or state governments establish, and we should assume that US citizens who accepted less than the minimum wage (ignoring, for simplicity, jobs where supplemental income is assumed, like waiting on tables) are not acting rationally.
Economic activity tends to take place “at the margins”. When the minimum wage is increased, economic theory suggests that, all other variables being held equal, some marginal firms will stop hiring employees that they would otherwise hire, because the increase in wage costs makes it no longer profitable to add that (n+1)th employee to the payroll.
From the other side of the labor market, the new, higher minimum wage will attract a certain number of new prospective workers to apply for jobs in that market, because the higher wage provides “utility” to those workers in a way that the older, lower wage didn’t.
Both of these factors combine to mean that there will be fewer minimum-wage job openings. (In real life, this effect seems to be somewhat ameliorated; in real life, other variables are never constant – many employers and employees will try to find some way to retain those jobs at the higher minimum wage, e.g. by curtailing or eliminating health care benefits :-(.)
It is the same with customers: if a house cleaning firm proprietor’s wage costs go up, she will pass those higher costs on to customers in the form of higher prices. A certain number of “marginal” customers – those who could barely afford the service at the lower price – will then rearrange their Saturday morning schedules and head to Target to purchase Windex and Endust.
It is easy to see how illegal immigrants, who have a strong disincentive to report employers who pay below-minimum-wage employers to the regulatory authorities, are exploited in this market dynamic.
If illegal employees were not in the market for the lowest paying jobs, then there would be less competition for them, which would be better for those at the lowest pay rungs. It would also mean that exploitative employers who depend on a below-minimum-wage wage structure to stay afloat would be driven out of business – which strikes me as another positive.
If Joe Petit is reading this thread, he might comment on the levels of unemployment among inner-city African Americans – my understanding is that it’s horribly high right now. Whatever the aggregate unemployment rate is – 9% or 10% overall – consists of relatively low unemployment in the middle and upper classes, and unconscionable unemployment among unskilled workers.
I know several unemployed people who had great professional jobs, and who will do things now they never would have imagined: relocate, accept lesser jobs – anything that they’re physically able to do. The difference between a labor shortage and a labor surplus is profound in how it affects people’s lives.
Minimum wages jobs tend to be less than attractive to 99% of people who view them as a step down. They are usually touted as entry level service jobs – starters, not careers.
I suspect that people who have been used to making much more money, including benefits, would not be too eager to step into these jobs, even in the short term. If nothing else, they would be career killers if any future employer found out about it. Once you are sucked down to that level of US society that most of us never experience, I suspect the one’s personal morale and sense of self worth take a devastating hit and many would not handle the struggle to get up and out.
Most of us have NEVER had to take a step back in our work life. I did and the ego takes a huge hit. So does the pocket book. Overcoming both of those negatives takes time and tests the mettle of a human being. Those who are used to always having what they have been told is theirs by right of birth will have a much worse time than some who learned early on that what has been had was, at best, transient with no inherent right of continuance.
Not every player in the reality of life automatically earns a trophy just be showing up and playing the game. Many young folk have yet to learn this lesson.
“Taking a step back” has been experienced by a lot of people the last couple of years who thought it could never happen to them.
The thing is – in most cases, it happens for these gigantic macro-economic-force reasons that have nothing to do with their abilities or personal qualities. I hope that people see this, and don’t beat themselves up about having slipped.