Employers expect us to be smart for them but stupid for ourselves!
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As reported by Steven Greenhouse and David Leonhardt in The New York Times (August 28), American workers’ productivity has been rising while our rewards for those efforts have been falling. Since 2003, while hourly production per worker has risen, the median hourly wage has fallen by two percent if you factor in inflation – and if you’re salaried or wage-earning, you cannot factor it out. Think about oil company profits (benefiting executives and stockholders) and the effect of oil’s price on foods that have to be trucked to the local supermarkets of the lower-level employees of those oil companies, employees whose wages are being eroded by their leaders’ bonuses.The word “average” can conceal great inequalities. By some measures, inflation-adjusted “average” family income has risen, but that average includes enormous increases at the top one percent of the income spectrum, skewing the results. Not far down the scale, the Labor Department reports that for ninetieth percentile earners (making about $80,000 a year) pay increases have lagged behind inflation.
Picture a scale - if you like irony, picture the scales of justice. On the left, 99 percent of workers; on the right one percent of us. In 1994, the top one percent of workers received 8.7 percent of all wage income. If that ratio irritates you, get the Lanacaine before reading on, because in 2004, the top one percent make 11.2 percent of the pie. Now it’s 2006, that scale continues to tip in the same direction it’s been heading for 12 years. Where’s the justice in that?
To put the statistics in plain language, those of us without keys to the executive washroom are working harder, longer, with lower benefits and more anxiety about keeping our jobs at all, for proportionately lower income measured against the cost of living.
Why are we being smart for our employers but stupid for ourselves? Let me take a wild guess. Many of us have experienced either directly or vicariously the pain of the layoff. We’ve been downsized, and not in the Weight Watchers kind of way. Sure, we’ve lost weight, but it’s because we’re living on one salad, two peanut butter sandwiches and a glass of fat-free milk per day as we desperately seek jobs that use our highest-value skills. We’re cinching in our waistbands with safety pins, but have no safety net of health insurance or pension. We’re working two part-time jobs or one full-time job plus a part-time job just make 80 percent of our previous salary. We’ve been outsourced, and find ourselves trying to renegotiate our mortgage payments with a customer service representative whose accent makes him unintelligible.
Are you ready to use your smarts for yourself? Primary election season is here, and the general elections are coming. Both parties are the handmaidens of their corporate contributors, but at least you can get candidates’ attention while they’re running for office. Get UP-itty and go to those town-hall meetings and state your case. Individually, we can stand up and be heard. Together, we can stand up higher and speak more loudly. UP with workers. Let’s get smart for ourselves.
September 16th, 2006 at 1:50 pm
“80 percent of our previous salary”
That’s about right.
Since the dot.com bust and my downsize with a major utility I’ve been struggling to get back to the income that I was earning in 2002.
Today, I feel fortunate to work in my field at all for a livable wage.
As is so often the case the owners of my privately held company make obscene wages while they act as though the company can baely stay afloat.
Frankly I expect the “Long Emergency” (the end of cheap oil) and the real estate bubble to combine in an irreversible economic catastrophe of biblical proportion.
Believe me, I have no leg up on how I or what’s left of the so-called working class in this country will survive a lifestyle that will probably be akin t life in the slums of Brazil.
I want to thank Barabara for this organization. I can only pray it has not come 5 years too late.
October 4th, 2006 at 6:11 pm
I last worked at a “real” job 21 years ago.
Back then, the writing was on the wall, and the stress was escalating. And, those I know who still work for my former employer ain’t happy campers.
I have a neighbour who has, count ‘em, 2.2 years left to retirement. I fear for her life! Everytime she has a vacation she gets sick… her body catching up with her!
I wish I knew the answer,
Lyle T. Lachmuth
The Unsticking Coach(TM)
October 4th, 2006 at 6:33 pm
In 1994, the top one percent of workers received 8.7 percent of all wage income. If that ratio irritates you, get the Lanacaine before reading on, because in 2004, the top one percent make 11.2 percent of the pie
Hey guess how much of the income tax the top 1% pay.
answer 34.7%
And the top 50% of wage earners?
answer 96.4%
October 6th, 2006 at 5:39 pm
I’m in the same boat as everyone else in this county. But, frankly, the American worker has become a full of fear scardy cat. My thought, my hope, my wish: Start standing up for yourselves. UP could be the start of that. Thanks for you site. I’m committed
October 6th, 2006 at 6:57 pm
I haven’t had a REAL job since 2001. After a 1/ 1/2 year of unemployment, (or just being lazy, stupid, or “what’s wrong with you,”) I’m now working in a totally different field at same wages I made in 1990 - which isn’t $16.00/per hour! That would be a raise!
The strange thing is…my S.S. statement tells me what I would make if I became disabled and couldn’t work.
It’s more than I make right now. However, if I continue paying into the system while on this low-level, brain-numbing spiral of a “career,” at the ripe old age of 67, I’ll be able to pay my gas bill (hopefully) and nothing more.
Maybe I should just lie down in front of a city bus?
October 10th, 2006 at 7:17 am
After being laid off and spending the majority of my retirement in a failed franchise business, I am wondering if learning a new trade at a trade school is prudent. After reading through this site, I am beginning to think that schooling is not the answer.
I think one of the tasks of this organization should be to figure out what are the best ways for middle-aged unemployeed workers to get back to earning incomes.
Another task is to provide hope and coping skills. (counceling? empowerment?) I believe that depression is a problem common to our group. It is a viscious cycle that both creates and reinforces our circumstances.
October 10th, 2006 at 4:58 pm
Dan,
I also thought of going back to school - first to get my BA, then, in a practical sense, to a trade school. I’m coming to the same conclusions as you are.
And, you’re right. Keeping our spirits up is as big a task as looking for a job!
And I don’t care what people say, a person’s job does define them. At least in their own minds.
Maybe if we could find a way around the soaring health-care insurance costs, more people would start their own businesses? (Not franchises.)
And, yes, I think forums and blogs like this do help, if just to know we are not alone.
October 11th, 2006 at 8:53 am
“80 percent of our previous salary”
I have been only occasionally employed since 2001 and have yet to see anything remotely like 80 percent of my previous salary. If I could find a way to make even 20% of my previous salary I would be overjoyed.
I also appreciate this blog as a chance to see that others are in the same boat.
October 12th, 2006 at 10:23 am
At last a place where I am not alone - I too have been downsized 2 times in the dismal economy that is Northeast Ohio, and now that I have crossed the threshold where you become an untouchable pariah in the hiring world (I am over 50!!!!!),I realize after emailing what feels like hundreds of resumes and getting numerous interviews where I know that I am the best candidate but after the background (age) check I get the so sorry we found someone better letter — I realize that not only do we have to get organized, we have to get active. That means if anybody gets a raw deal downsize layoff anyplace in this country, WE ALL STAY HOME until that person gets his/her job back. Unite fellow sheep - let us bravely go forward and kick some _ss!!!!!!
October 12th, 2006 at 7:56 pm
After years of underemployment, then ”suitable” employment, I came to the conclusion that ”white-collar” work poses a problem even when it’s available. The sedentary lifestyle it imposes is deadly. The image-based relationships workers are expected to retain are degrading. I have absolutely no desire to spend my life sitting in a chair, staring at a screen while my weight and blood pressure rise and my eyes burn from strain.
October 13th, 2006 at 10:59 am
I think Paulette has a good idea. I would take it one step further…since money to spend is a rare commodity for the downwardly mobile, why don’t we make our point in unison with a national “No Shop” week during the peak winter holiday shopping season. Additionally (and I know this sounds a bit crass, but it will drive the point home!) I think we should all send a
“Sorry, but due to age discrimination and no job, we no longer have the income or any money to donate to your worthy charity and may be in need of receiving charity ourselves” note to the charities we previously donated to when we had liveable incomes. Place that note in every Salvation Army volunteer’s red kettle. If we ALL do this en masse, it WILL get attention from policymakers, lawmakers and non-proft CEO’s (whose lavish salaries come directly off the top of the donations) because it will drive the point home that destroying the middle class and working class is killing the goose that lays the golden eggs and once the goose is dead…..well, you all know the outcome of that story.
October 13th, 2006 at 5:33 pm
I like the “Stay-At-Home” idea. Actually, I was thinking that the other night. It’s just like the illegal immigrants did a few months ago. But would it work? Yes, we are like sheep, because we like having a place to live and food to eat.
I could absolutely go for the “No Shopping” week. And as far as the charities, I’ve already started doing that: “Sorry, but I might be needing your help in the near future.
And, people, elections are coming up!!
October 13th, 2006 at 11:26 pm
JM is right about us being too sheep-like. But as my grandmother used to say, “only the dumbest of cattle choose their own butcher”. I say we choose NO butcher! If the farmers and various other establishments found themselves caving in to the illegals when they had their “Stay Home” day awhile back, just think of the impact ALL of us white collar people aged 35-64 could make if we raised a big stink. After all, our survival depends on it!
Remember, we are talking about significant numbers of the Baby-Buster generation, the older Gen-Xer’s and the Baby Boomers who have ALL been affected by age discrimination, off-shoring and an all around lack of enough good jobs despite doing “all the right things” like getting educations to at lest guarantee us a liveable entry-level job with health benefits and some retirement security and reward for our performance of our job duties (as opposed to being rewarded for stroking egos - among other things - behind closed doors). We are talking about numbers in the tens of millions if we pull this off right. NOBODY can ignore numbers of fed-up people that large!
October 23rd, 2006 at 1:22 pm
The companies ask for allegiance and loyalty and reward with low pay, poor benefits, and humiliation. However, we must remember the companies are really people. Never hide the fact that people have created this world. A \”company\” is a legal entity and is not a fellow human.
The propaganda/illusion around resumes and interviewing is sold by people with jobs. Companies begin degrading and humiliating us from the beginning with the \”dance\” of interviews and paperwork.
Not to mention the crazy \”thank-you\” note to be sent after an interview.
Thoughts?? Feedback??
I disagree that UP is not a union. We have in common the very definition of constituency she (Barbara) uses. See, http://www.here-now.org/shows/2006/10/20061003_2.asp. Wikipedia suggests we are like a student union. \”A students\’ union, student government, or student council is a student organization present at many colleges and universities, often with its own building on the campus, dedicated to social and organizational activities of the student body. \”
Barbara, please get us affordable and workable insurance.
I can\’t join your UP now. Please give more detail about benefits afford by UP.
Thoughts?? Feedback??
October 24th, 2006 at 3:14 pm
And, this problem contributes to misunderstandings with less-educated workers, as they ask “Why are you washing dishes here when you could have a real job?” Too lazy or what?
I’ve just had my salary cut by a third, and that’s just a “phony”, part-time job.
You GO, UP!
October 24th, 2006 at 5:33 pm
Yes, I had a temp job with lousy pay working with less-educated workers. Some of them had been in prison. And they just didn’t get it that I would be working there. I’m making slightly more $ now and have benefits, but I’m still struggling. I can’t tell anyone what I do. It’s always the same response: “What’s wrong with you!”
October 26th, 2006 at 3:04 pm
I am lucky to be employed right now, and so is my wife. We both work in white-collar jobs, and make a decent (although not great) living. We have a condo in a nice neighborhood. I thought we were doing alright, but we recently had a child, and the expenses of caring for a new baby have essentially kicked us over the financial precipice. Our not-bad salaries are now inadequate, and we’re spending several hundred dollars more each month than we’re making. We live in California, one of the costliest places in the nation, and are considering moving to another state.
My wife’s employer (an importer) is not doing well, and my employer (an ad agency) froze raises for 3 years ni a row before giving them again last year. The raises were inadequate to make up for the increased cost of living in the ensuing years without raises.
We never thought we’d be one of those families that could be a couple of paychecks away from being out on the street, but now we’re scared and nervous. I am in my mid-40s, and despite my lengthy resume, as I get older I fear for my ability to be rehired if I am laid off, as younger employees paid half my salary are hired to replace us experienced people.
I hope that UP will grow (quickly) into a strong organization that will not only advocate for the middle class with our elected officials and try to advance legislation that will prevent the exploitation of employees by those in the executive suites; but will also help those of us who have worked hard and tried to get ahead to not just survive, but to thrive by creating new opportunities, sharing resources, offering leads, and helping one another unselfishly to succeed.
I’m tired of worrying about my family’s security. What’s our next step? Let’s go!
October 28th, 2006 at 3:41 am
After being ignored by employers I’m confident I
could produce for with the background I have, I
nonetheless started asking them if they could
recommend any retraining that might increase their
interest in me.
Absolutely every response I have received has been
completely negative: “we will always insist on
[highly specific] HANDS-ON experience,” they all say.
The only way to get into most fields is through an
internship, while you are in your 20s.
I’ve seen many middle aged people take various
courses, even earn a four year degree, and it have
no effect on their employability.
Government programs like WIA are or more or
less fraudulent: symbolic gestures only, intended
merely to enable politicians to say they are doing
something.
The complaint that Americans are poorly educated
in technical subjects—“science and
mathematics”—is largely disingenuous: part of
the propaganda put out to urge for expanded and
extended foreign guestworker programs.
Never retrain or take a course without first
getting a positive indication from some employers,
that it will make a difference to them.
October 29th, 2006 at 12:02 pm
We can lay the blame for our current plight on the “greed is good” Yuppie movement of the Reagan 80’s, where unlike the countercultural Yippie movement, millions of former new-leftists surrendered their principles and fell into goosestep with their erstwhile opponents, having been suckered into believing the voodoo gospel that their fortunes were directly tied to those of private enterprise, which only had to be freed from moral and ethical constraints on its behavior to bring in windfalls for all of us—a sort of “cascade-down” rewriting of the tinkled-on theory.
October 29th, 2006 at 4:49 pm
Any action that might be taken to address the many and serious problems recounted in the UP Web site needs to include the individual level. The recipe for this that my friends and I have evolved to — in the vein of sharing suggestions — includes the following:
1. Rid our own souls of ignorance and poison. The extent of career troubles Americans face is NOT due to poor job performance or a lack of will, nor to an influx of immigrants who look or think differently than we. The causes are much more insidious than that.
2. Feed daily on truth rather than disinformation that is dumbed-down, biased or even deliberately distorted. That means reading books, including those in the UP Web site and selected others. It means getting daily news from public radio and Amy Goodman and selected Internet sources rather than from the major commercial networks who speak for big business because their management is interlocked with other big business management.
3. Reevaluate personal and lifestyle “needs” (see the superb book “Affluenza”). For example, 3 months ago I decided I no longer needed my car, and what I have saved since then just from not caring for the car has bought holiday gifts for all the kids in our large extended family. Buying a car might help support some laborers, but it even more supports managers who indulge regularly in ethnic slurs and contests to see which among them can hire a female secretary with the largest breasts. I know of what I speak from having worked in that industry. Similar analyses might be performed for other material goods.
4. Be willing to discard the truths of our youth for those that stand today. For many, a trade education makes much more dollar sense today than 6+ years of college. Having hit 50 and recently relocated to be near family, I was ready to go back to junior college to take beginner courses in my field for which local industry has open requisitions for anyone who successfully completes them. And in general, the better staff at the better junior colleges are very familiar with the realities of career and life transitions, and can advise in many ways providing one is ready to listen and act. (Does it surprise you to hear this from someone with an MBA from back East? It shouldn’t.)
5. Refuse to abide a cheat. When there is no more reasonable doubt that someone is trying to victimize the innocent, be very clear with them on where they can go and what they can do when they get there. Where possible, publicize the incident to forewarn others.
6. Embrace and support our young people every chance we get. As hard and cold as the world was when we came of age, it is infinitely more dysfunctional now. The array of forces marshalled against them is uncountable and surreal. Predictions from several sources are that many of them may die from other than old age, due to the direction the world is heading. And it is not clear what career avenues are open to them, given how many doors have slammed shut in recent years. They will need steady guidance from those who mean them well to have any chance of launching their careers.
7. Pick the right friends, who are truly the “gifts one gives oneself”. Those supportive make an enormous positive difference even to the point of lengthening lifespan. Those with more limited perspectives can be toxic and have no place in the equation until they clean up their own acts.
Glad to hear from others on practical survival tactics.
November 3rd, 2006 at 1:53 pm
I am in middle management with a division of a Fortune 500 company, have been here for 20 years. In recent years, the intensity and stress level has increased beyond what I would have thought possible. Everyone is working at 120%, longer hours, “always on” thanks to Blackberries and remote computer access, and the pace just seems to keep picking up. Workloads grow, complexity spreads, many of my friends here all complain of the same things - room for nothing else in their life but work, trouble sleeping, working at all hours, etc. I’m 52 and realize that I’m likely making the most money right now I’ll ever make, and if I leave this job I’ll take a big pay cut if I can even find anything else.
Lately, though, I’ve come much closer to the decision that a good salary alone is not worth it if it comes at the expense of every other aspect of my life. As the sole breadwinner for my family, that’s a difficult choice to make. I wonder, though, if many of us aren’t getting very close to the quitting/collapsing point whether we want that or not - and whether there isn’t a limit to how much extra companies can squeeze out of their employees before things just start breaking down because they can’t move up from a 120% effort to 130%.
November 6th, 2006 at 5:33 pm
Take this as a warning sign, David. Been there, done that.
Start cutting back on your expenses, and saving $$. If you can, find out the company’s unemployment/cobra/severance policy, find a local unemployment office (just in case), and start looking elsewhere! Look in your local newspaper for networking groups. (They didn’t help me, but I don’t know what field you’re in.)
Prepare yourself, so that one morning you’re not sitting in front of a 26 yr. HR rep, in shock, and signing forms, just so you can get a month or two of severance/insurance pay!
Good Luck, and let us know how you’re doing.
November 13th, 2006 at 2:38 pm
There are plenty of ways to cobble together a living — and to live simply and comfortably, in much the same way that us 40-65 year-olds grew up. (Somehow we managed without $1000s of dollars in electronic equipment, cable television, public transportation, etc). What is killing us (literally) is the health care system — and most specifically, the insurance companies. I have stayed in horrible jobs longer than I should have simply because I need health insurance for my family and there are no affordable options.
We (the middle class) are being held hostage by a health insurance system that gives the best plans to those who are employed in large corporations If UP figures out a way to address the health insurance crisis, membership will skyrocket, and you will do serious damage to the current “corporate” system because people will have real choices about work.
All the other issues are just distractions…
November 24th, 2006 at 1:43 am
This analysis is so succint that I can’t imagine the meaning being any plainer - TIME FOR THE WORKING STIFFS TO GET THE FULL SOCIAL AMENITIES THEY BOTH NEED AND DESERVE!!