January 23, 2004
America's increasingly poor middle class.
The
NY Times Magazine has a very lengthy article this week by David K. Shipler entitled,
A Poor Cousin of the Middle Class, about the declining incomes and lifestyle of American workers. Well worth a read. Very long, seven pages, so just one quick quote about one of the people discussed.
Back in the mid-70's, she earned $6 an hour in a Vermont factory that made plastic cigarette lighters and cases for Gillette razors. A quarter century later, she earned $6.80 an hour stocking shelves and working cash registers at a vast Wal-Mart superstore.
''And that's sad,'' she declared. ''I'm only making 80 cents more than I did more than 20 years ago.'' Or less, taking into account the rise in the cost of living.
Yep, we're going backwards. I came upon via
Rebecca's Pocket, an excellent and perceptive weblog by Rebecca Blood. Her
comments on the article and poverty in general are also well worth a read. She refers to a photograph in the magazine.
Look at her. That's a proud American face, like lots of faces I've seen across the country. I know too many people who look down on people like her, who think they understand everything, but don't understand anything, about them. I know too many people who think their jobs and educational backgrounds and political views make them superior to everyone who isn't one of them. Who care in the abstract, but who wouldn't spend a single minute to find out what's going on with this one particular woman.
In my experience, people usually think their success is the result of their own hard work; unconsciously they extrapolate that poverty must result from laziness. But look around: the people whose work is hardest often make the lowest wage.
Yep, that's it exactly. In America now, it's almost always those who work the hardest who make the least. Rebecca has a great weblog by the way. I've noticed more and more that it's only the female bloggers who seem to be really addressing what's going on in the world. The alpha males seem to be just focused on technology, and linking to each other. With exceptions of course. I guess a lot of it may have something to do with the fact that the fastest growing group of Americans in poverty are women, especially single mothers.
And the saddest thing, the stupidest thing really, is that American business can't seem to get it through their heads that their workers are their _customers_. And if they don't pay them enough, then they can't purchase their products. Henry Ford understood this perfectly well when he began the middle class consumer revolution by regularly lowering the prices of cars and increasing the wages of his workers. But they've entirely forgotten this. And that's why today Ford Motor Company, and its corporate brethren, are losing money, not making it. They're cutting their own throats, and the rest of ours along with them.
