The importance of being employed
Having recently joined the ranks of the unemployed, I can tell you that little else in our society is more demoralizing. The U.S., and certainly other Western countries whose power and clout is directly tied to their work force is a hostile place for people who lose their job, need a job, can’t find a job, or are unable to hold a job. In the strictest terms, we judge a person’s worth by their ability to participate in the economy–and when I say “we”, I mean “me” too. My parents pounded such a solid Midwestern work ethic into me and all my siblings that my brother and I each started our first jobs in early adolescence. When I hear someone in their twenties say they don’t have a job or have little or no employment history, I immediately think something’s wrong with them or assume that they are still supported by their family–which also makes me think something must be wrong with them.
But I’d like to break out of this paradigm. We can all agree by now that our economy is shitty, that unemployment and layoffs are at alarming highs, that the MSM is not terribly far off in declaring this a “crisis”, or perhaps more aptly, a clusterfuck to the poorhouse (thank you, Jon Stewart). So why the stigma, since everyone is losing their jobs?
Honestly, I think it all goes back to the Puritans. I believe that capitalism explains most of our societal ills, and when it doesn’t, I blame the Puritans. Combine the two and you’ve got quite a toxic atmosphere: an unhealthy sex-obsessed culture in which guilt and shame feature prominently, genocide of First Nations peoples, individuality above collectivity, smallpox, the yearly ritual animal sacrifice (with pie!) known as Thanksgiving, the superiority of the Second Amendment to all others, and so forth. Maybe the untidy band of Anglican separatists who settled Massachusetts Bay Colony were not directly responsible for the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, but if you read the language of any of our laws concerning dreaded words like entitlements, benefits and public assistance–words only slightly more palatable than socialism–you can practically hear William Bradford intoning, “Praise the Lord” before going off to hang the latest farmhand accused of illicit relations with the sheep. (The sheep, by the way, were also killed.)
And while we’re on the subject of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (you may have heard of “welfare reform” or “welfare-to-work”): we’re the only nation that does this, by the way. Here’s how the system is set up: you are a single parent in need of public assistance. If you qualify for cash benefits, otherwise known as Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF)*, you must either enroll in a vocational program for a certain number of hours per week (it varies by state), at the end of which you will be expected to get a full-time job thus negating–in theory–your need for PA. And, the vocational route is not an option for everyone–you must already have a high school diploma or GED, you can’t have a criminal record, etc., which puts a lot of people out of the running. Also, each state has a limited number of vocational PA slots available, so if they’ve already given PA to enough people who chose that option by the time you apply, you are automatically disqualified. And beyond that, the vocational options are pretty slim (think along the lines of welding and medical billing). So, fine, whatever, you decide you don’t want to go the vo-tech route. The welfare office sends you to work–that is, you essentially have to earn back the money the government is giving you. This gives a whole new meaning to the term “wage slave”. You start out working some fast-food job at minimum wage for a certain number of hours per week and spend the rest of the alloted hours to “earn” your PA check at a job center looking at the classifieds under the supervision of a welfare case manager. Where are your children while all this is happening? Good question. If you live in a state where you can receive childcare benefits simultaneously with PA, the kids may be getting infectious diseases at one of the grimy daycare centers crappy enough to accept your government voucher. If not, maybe they’re at home with relatives, friends, a babysitter you can’t afford to pay, or on the street. And all this for approximately $140 a month for a family of two. And, there’s a lifetime limit of five years to receive these “benefits”, so if you use them all up right away, you’re fucked. Thanks, Clinton!
My point is, something this ridiculous could only happen in the U.S., where the insanity of PRWORA is offset by our rigid adherence to the principles of a solid 40-hour workweek and the illusion that everyone is–or can easily achieve–middle-class status. When you cannot work, your worth as an individual is negligible at best and parasitic at worst. The good middle-class taxpayers of this country are paying so you can sit around all day doing nothing, or so the idea goes. The concept of work-as-worth is so pervasive, we even expect people who have serious disabilities to do something: one of the criteria for most major serious mental illnesses is whether the condition “causes significant occupational functioning”. As long as your manic episodes don’t get in the way of your job performance, in other words, your prognosis is considered good and your Global Assessment of Functioning score will be high. One of the reasons why schizophrenia is seen as such a horrible, debilitating disease in the States (and other Western countries as well) is because it diminishes–or, in many cases–eliminates your ability to work, at least at a traditional job. In places such as the Maldives where the concept of community is placed above that of the individual, and your worth is not directly tied to your employment, people diagnosed with schizophrenia fare much better (fewer episodes of psychosis, less brain damage over time, etc.).
With all that being said, I do think it is important to work, to volunteer, to do something meaningful–whether paid or unpaid–with your time, if you are able to do so. But with jobs in every sector vanishing left and right, the time is ripe to take a critical look** at the way we treat the unemployed, what work we value and what we don’t, who we’re willing to help and who we’re not.
*Fun fact: you must prove that you are a single parent to receive TANF. As part of the application process for PA, a home visit is conducted to ensure that there are no employable persons (i.e. menfolk) in the house.
Fun fact #2: if you have somehow managed to coast through the system without participating in either a work program or the vocational option while receiving PA (maybe you were pregnant, sick, caring for a dying family member, etc.), when you do get a job, your wages will be “recouped” (a fancy word for “garnished the fuck out of”) until you have paid off every cent of TANF you ever received.
**I promised myself I was not going to incite class warfare again today, so I will leave it up to you all to determine what that critical look should look like.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
February 18th, 2009 at 10:55 pm
Let’s not forget the attitude that people have towards those who fall under many of the “categories” you’ve just mentioned–and I’m talking food stamps. Once I was in a supermarket and a woman paid with food stamps for her groceries and the check-out clerk gave her this deathly stare and made some sort of comment, like “oh THOSE again”. I was so pissed I found the manager and told him (of course it’s a him) about the clerk.
Five minutes later I felt guilty for possibly costing the clerk her job.
April 2nd, 2009 at 1:55 pm
Allow me to shoot off on tangential line:
The other night the Large Hardware Retailer where I work had a store meeting. These meetings take place at 7pm on Sunday evenings, an hour when the store is normally closed and none of the before- or after-hours stock crews are working.
A few of the employees brought an infant or young child to the meeting. Though I think one woman wanted to show her baby off to the many of us wanting to fawn over the child, the others just didn’t have childcare arrangements for 7pm on a Sunday.
As we were leaving, one of the employees who is, like me, childless and college educated asked me snarkily when the Large Hardware Retailer became a daycare. I was thankful the night concealed my rising dander, as I needed to borrow this employee’s jumper cables. Plus, I like her. But I hate that society (1) demands so fucking much of poor mothers, as illustrated by your above post, and (2) won’t give them a fucking break when they do land that up-by-the-bootstraps job ringing up wrenches and drywall.
The Large Hardware Retailer is unlike most cashier gigs in that there is a chance to move up into some kind of useful wage or salary, and there are less-unaffordable-than-most-retailers benefits and 401k opportunities in the meantime. So the cashier mothers are well on their way to gripping those goddamn bootstraps with which Americans are obsessed. Do we congratulate them, or cut them some fucking slack? No, we bitch about them having the audacity to bring the kiddo to the meeting.
Also, I overheard someone’s surprise when a mother explained that the live-in father was off at his (also shittily-paying) job. The employee clearly assumed the woman was raising the baby alone. Because being an unmarried man of color automatically means you don’t support your daughter, right? Fuck people.