CSotD: Working hard; hardly working
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John Deering notes that rising statistics don't signal the end of the economic crisis, and that it doesn't matter that most people are doing better if you don't have a job.
It branches out in a couple of directions from there: You can't dismiss either side. It's undeniably good that things are looking up. It's undeniably true that we can't take our foot off the gas now.
If you drive through a particular place in our town, where the Interstate crosses the road with all the shopping and fast-food places, you'll see people panhandling right next to help-wanted signs, and there's a quick temptation to point to the sign.
But, first of all, the jobs suck and you can't live on what they pay. It's good that the government is willing to subsidize companies that pay a lower minimum wage so that half of fast-food workers are on some kind of relief, but it's not a sustainable model.
The other thing is that most of those panhandlers live in the homeless camps along the river and, first of all, even if you got them a shower and a set of fresh clothes, they wouldn't be able to maintain and hold a job. And, if they could, I'm not sure there's a good reason to stand and flip burgers when it's just a small boost to your SSI.
Make the job worth the 40 hours spent doing it and let's talk again.
We need to start by doing better by the working poor. I did a story on this several years ago, but I'm sure it hasn't changed: Decent, hardworking people who, for whatever reason, just can't get their chins much above the water.
This woman was telling me about how the farmer her husband worked for let them put their trailer on the property, so they only had to pay for the well and the electrical hookup. Her mom bought the kids a swingset and they had a video game set for rainy days, and those were extravagances.
The big treat, she said, was when dad took the kids to a car show. They were told they couldn't buy anything there but, if they were good, they could get a soda on their way home.
A bottle of Coke — not a Happy Meal, not a Coke and a candy bar — was their big treat, maybe for the month. But their folks made it work, and there are good people living that life throughout our country. The stats don't necessarily touch them, especially if the price of Coke rises, too.
As for the panhandlers, we're finding ways to deal with their camps, and their opioid addictions and the other things we prefer to keep behind the curtain, because America isn't like that.
It used to be that we'd just run them off. Then we tried funding facilities for them. The third option is to give up.
What I'd like at this point is for someone in the upcoming debates to talk some serious policy on jobs.
"I'm going to fix it" is nonsense without details, and, as for details, it's as ridiculous to simply declare that you'll bring the jobs back as it would be to declare that you'll put the iron and the coal back in the ground so it can be taken out again.
You can't just make everything the way it used to be, and, if you could, somebody would still be joyfully married to his first wife.
Clinton has talked about retraining people in coal country, and it's not impossible. When the mines and the mill in my hometown closed, there were some good retraining programs and people took advantage of them.
But those who retrained had, for the most part, to relocate, and that's hard when your family has lived in the same place for five generations or more. It may not look like much to you, but it's home.
Last time I was home, I ran into an old classmate who was commuting about 60 miles each way each day for a laborer's job.
Five percent wasn't gonna help him a lot, either, and he was working hard, and happy to have a chance to.
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