I work part-time at a nonprofit where I teach immigrants personal finance and "life success" skills. I begin each course by telling my students about how, when I was a kid 40+ years ago, my dad supported a family of five on a Post Office letter carrier's salary.
How rent -- for a two-bedroom apartment in New York City! -- took up only about 30% of his salary.
How, with his raises, we could afford to "move up" to a nicer apartment every three years.
How, with my mother's secretarial salary eventually added, my parents were able to save for a house and (with the help of low-interest, federally-subsidized student loans) send their kids to top colleges.
And, of course, how we had great health insurance, and my folks were able to retire with solid pensions.
When I tell this story - which happens to be the exact truth - my students look at me in astonishment, like I'm telling a fairy tale. They're all working as hard or much harder than my parents did -- some holding two and even three jobs -- but can barely cover rent and food - with rent alone usually amounting to around 50% of their income. Many, despite their hard work, have no health insurance or pension. And forget about their saving for a house or college.
Many of my students feel a lot of guilt and shame about their failure to succeed financially.
One thing's for sure, however: this is not our parents' or grandparents' economy.
Some people, when you tell them the economy is tough, or that it's hard to find work, don't believe you. One is former senator Phil Gramm, who, in his role of senior economic adviser to Republican presidential candidate John McCain, recently famously said: "You've heard of mental depression; this is a mental recession...We have sort of become a nation of whiners."
Gramm had to resign his position with the McCain campaign after saying that, although he's reportedly still advising McCain unofficially. Here, courtesy of Wikipedia, are two other interesting facts about Gramm:
Gramm was one of five co-sponsors of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000. One provision of the bill was referred to as the "Enron loophole" because Gramm drafted it in cooperation with lobbyists for Enron Corporation. Critics blame the provision for permitting the Enron scandal to occur. At the time, Gramm's wife was on Enron's board of directors.
And:
Later, as a lobbyist for Swiss bank UBS, Gramm pressured congress to ease its restrictions on predatory lending tactics by mortgage brokers. For his efforts, Gramm received $750,000 from UBS in during a one year period starting in 2007. Meanwhile, bad lending practices encouraged by Gramm's legislation and lobbying are widely seen as the root cause of the 2008 Mortgage Crisis in America.
Gramm's a classic corrupt Republican who got rich gaming the system for himself and his buddies -- although few Republicans, even, would have the gall to so directly blame ordinary working Americans for feeling afraid and uncertain in a bad economy he himself helped engineer. But blaming the victim is a classic tactic of oppressors and exploiters.
The list of things that have made working Americans poorer during my lifetime is long, and mainly Republican-driven (albeit aided and abetted by so-called "centrist" Democrats). It includes:
*The "free trade" scam, which was sold to the American public as a necessity and panacea, but has been responsible for trade deficits that have caused the loss of more than *seven million* U.S.jobs (source: EPI's The State of Working America report, 2006-2007, Table 3.3,p 175).
*The decimation of our auto industry, which can be largely pinned on Republican-led congresses' refusal to raise CAFE national fuel-economy standards - with the 1995 congress going so far as to make it illegal for the Environmental Protection Agency to even study higher CAFE standards.
*The decades-long refusal of Republican congresses and administrations to raise the minimum wage (which would have also had the effect of raising other wages).
*The passing of the hyper-aggressive 2005 bankruptcy law; widescale paring back of health insurance availability and coverage; privatization of Medicare pharmaceutical coverage; and scaling back of federal student loan programs.
*Our ghastly, ballooning national debt incurred almost entirely under Republican administrations, which leaves us at the mercy of foreign creditors and strangles our ability to fix our problems and invest in our future.
*And now, the coup de grace: the bailout -- a vast "reverse-Robin-Hood" transfer of wealth in the form of taxpayer dollars from working people to greedy, irresponsible, if not outright corrupt, financial services companies. Does it really surprise you, at this point, that the initial plan that Congress voted down included no help for distressed homeowners victimized by the very industry being rescued?
The above laws and policies have enriched a small number of corporate executives and shareholders (not to mention, lobbyists and sell-out politicians), while strangling the lives and hopes of tens of millions of ordinary working people. So, if you're unemployed, underemployed, or financially struggling, try not to feel guilty or ashamed. Yes, you've probably made some mistakes in the course of your career or with your personal finances - most of us do. But a fair economy is not one in which you have to perform perfectly your whole life or risk terminal poverty. A fair economy offers honest, hard-working people, who occasionally make mistakes, a chance to live productive, secure lives.
My parents knew that -- and so did their parents, three of whom immigrated to this country specifically for the chance to participate in such an economy.
We can't turn back the clock, but we can move forward with purpose. If you must feel something about your unemployment or financial struggles, try righteous anger -- and if that anger impels you to spend a few hours a month helping progressive-Democratic candidates get elected, or otherwise fighting for social or economic justice, so much the better.