The Working Poor: Invisible in America

Jobs .. and the economy. Those seem to be the issues that are driving the author and, if not coincidently most, of those who are supporting the Kerry candidacy.

Listen up. They're not your jobs! The jobs belong to the employers .. not to you! You have job skills and, presumably, a willingness to work. Your task in a free economy is to get out there and find some employer with a job who needs your skills ... and strike a deal.

If you do not have the particular set of job skills that an employer needs, or if you have priced your labor out of the marketplace, guess what? It's not the employer's fault. The fault lies with you. Either develop a new set of job skills that are actually in demand, or adjust your pricing. The employer knows what he's looking for. If you're not it .. it's your problem, not his.

Now ... the author says he is supportive of Democrats because they care about solving this situation. Presumably supporters of this book are going to vote for John Kerry. You mean to tell me that you're going to vote against George Bush this year because you don't have a set of job skills that are in demand in our free marketplace? Yeah .. that makes a lot of sense, doesn't it?

What we are seeing here is a demonstration of the "government owes me" mentality of far too many Americans. Every time you arrive at a speed bump in your life's journey you start screaming to the government for help. Sure, the speed bump is going to slow you down a bit ... but just keep moving forward and things inevitably pick up speed again. Americans are becoming helpless whiners. The more helpless you are, and the more you whine, the more likely it is you're going to vote for a Democrat. Democrats specialize in stroking the malcontent.

Pure redistributionist drivel.

I know, because I am caught in that trap. I went to school, and educated myself, because the public school was a waste. I earned excellent grades, and then went to the university, working my way through but still ending up with thousands of dollars in debt. I am handicapped by student loans that ammount to over twice my yearly income. If I declared bankruptcy, and paid the price of ten years of worse than no credit (which I would happily do), I would STILL owe all of these student loans - which are the vast majority of my debt.

My Bachelor's degree hasn't helped me get a single job. Instead, I have relied upon the skills I learned while working as a secretary and a tutor in college. I can't get into graduate school because I have too many college loans already (and one private loan, held by my university, which is also holding my official transcripts until I pay them off - despite the fact that with that transcript, I could get a better paying, untaxed job in Saudi Arabia...)

I work two jobs, for a total of 51 hours a week. I take classes at the local community college (the university costs too much) to keep myself from getting too depressed, and to improve my qualifications if I am ever able to afford to go on for a graduate degree. I do not have health insurance, I do not have dental insurance, I do not have eye insurance. I do not watch television, since I simply do not have the time.

I have a 5-year old vehicle that is in desperate need of maintenance. I live in a friend's house, renting a room. My idea of a luxury is to take myself out to dinner once a month (especially since I am saving up to get my divorce).

I am not precisely living in the lap of luxury, as the neo-con types repeatedly portray the working poor. In fact, I cannot remember the last time I went to buy "new" clothing (as oppossed to Goodwill), or the last time I bought an alcoholic beverage (probably back in college).

THE SYSTEM IS BROKEN. That goes for the educational system, the social welfare system, and the political system (since politicians never listen to anyone without sufficient money to get an appointment). And I (among many others) am tired of treading water, with no hope for "rescue" or any chance to help myself in sight.

Shipler begins with an untrue thesis: "Workers at the edge of poverty are essential to America's prosperity, but their well-being is not treated as an integral part of the whole [whatever that is supposed to mean] . . . It is time to be ashamed."

Shipler's agenda is clear: take the money from taxpayers and give it to other people. Wealth redistribution to some, Marxism or socialism to others, Shipler's idea is to strip some of their earnings in order to "lift" those who have failed to take advantage of the opportunities offered in this country - or have other problems, such as drug addiction and alcoholism.

Shipler makes his biases clear through blanket statements such as liberals support intact families while conservatives demand dysfunctional families. He offers no support for such claims - and it is unlikely that such blatant generalizations could be supported.

Ultimately Shipler gives away his own flawed perspspective. He claims "[a]s the the people in these pages show, working poverty is a constellation of difficulties that magnify one another: not just low wages but also low education; not just dead-end jobs, but also limited abilities, not just insufficient savings but also unwise spending, not just poor housing but also poor parenting, not jsut the lack of health insurance but also the lack of healthy households." Two paragraphs later he asserts "[a]ll of the problems have to be attacked at once."

Like those revolutionaries (a tiny band) who gave birth to the long discredited concept of the "New Soviet Man," Shipler's solution would require the vast majority of responsible, hard-working people to surrender their own limited money and freedom to serve the needs of the few who have squandered their opportunities, consciously made poor decisions that they blame others for and refuse to take responsibility for.

Unrepentant Marxists, unthinking do-gooders and those who want everyone to share equally in misery will love this book. Others not so inclined may feel a chill that Shipler and his fellow-travellers have failed to learn the lessons of history: "from each according to their abilities; to each according to their needs" was a philosophy that impoverished billions and murdered hundreds of millions. It didn't work then and it won't work now.

Shipler's tome, stripped of its sugarcoating, is nothing more than warmed over Marxist cant.

Jerry