A Poor Cousin of the Middle Class

[GarySeven]

I wonder what will be the effect of this article that appears in the Jan. 18 Sunday Magazine of the New York Times. But I challenge ANYONE to read it and NOT vote Democratic this year -- and not merely Democratic, but for a change in the way this country works; a change in the status quo. Because this article shows that somehow in our rise to pre-eminence among the nations of the earth we have also declined in a very fundamental way.

Excerpt:

Caroline Payne embraces the ethics of America. She works hard and has no patience with those who don't. She has owned a house, pursued an education and deferred to the needs of her child. Yet she can barely pay her bills. Her earnings have hovered in a twilight between poverty and minimal comfort, usually between $8,000 and $12,000 a year.

She is the invisible American, unnoticed because she blends in. Like millions at the bottom of the labor force who contribute to the country's prosperity, Caroline's diligence is a camouflage. At the convenience store where she works, customers do not see that she struggles against destitution.

www.nytimes.com

[Cassandra]

1. I read the whole thing about an hour ago.

Painfully sad. When wingnuts complain that people should pull themselves up by their bootstraps, it would be nice if they provided this woman with a pair of boots. Interesting what they said about corporations;
"Perhaps the most curious and troubling facet of this confounding puzzle was everybody's failure to pursue the most obvious solution: if the factory had just let Caroline work day shifts, her problem would have disappeared. She asked a supervisor and got brushed off, but nobody else -- not the school principal, not the doctor, not the myriad agencies she contacted -- nobody in the profession of helping thought to pick up the phone and appeal to the factory manager or the foreman or anybody else in authority at her workplace.

Indeed, this solemn regard for the employer as untouchable and beyond the realm of persuasion unless in violation of the law permeates the culture of American antipoverty efforts, with only a few exceptions. The most socially minded physicians and psychologists who treat malnourished children, for example, will advocate vigorously with government agencies to provide food stamps, health insurance, housing and the like. But when they are asked if they ever urge the parents' employers to raise wages enough to pay for nutritious food, the doctors express surprise at the notion. First, it has never occurred to them, and second, it seems hopeless. Wages and hours are set by the marketplace, and you cannot expect magnanimity from the marketplace. It is the final arbiter from which there is no appeal."

Around the country, there are doctors trying to figure out how to "prescribe" nourishing food for children whose parents are too poor to provide.

[teach1st]

2. Thanks for the link..

Sometimes we educators find it easy to blame parents when our students come to school unprepared or unfed, but we may not understand the terrible trials those parents are enduring. This article is a jolting reminder.

Why is it so hard for corporate America to understand that ultimately taking care of workers is in its best interest? Working hard used ensure that we could take care of our families. What the hell happened to America?

[zonmoy]

6. Working hard used ensure that we could take care of our families.

I suspect that was only because it was the men who were working. if a woman was head of the household then the family probably starved since they werent supposed to work. Also the simplest reason might be that the elite are preparing the poor to have to starve to death quickly once the oil supplies dry up and the majority of people have to die off.

[bspence]

3. Can you give the full link?

I want to read more, but you only give the link to their hom page.

[Buns_of_Fire]

4. Here you go...

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/18/magazine/18POOR.html

[T Bone]

5. kick

deserves to be widely read...

[Laughing Mirror]

7. A Must Read

There are a lot of people like this in America. A few of them are members of my own family, and close friends from childhood, some still hanging in there, in spite of it all. Some not.

They blame themselves for all their misfortunes. Think it's something they've dong wrong that puts them where they are. And it eats at them. They know they have the intelligence, the wherewithal, but it just doesn't get them anywhere. What, they ask, is wrong with me?

Please read this article everybody. The book ought to be good.

[ithacan]

8. this is a look at George Bush's America

It's a great, but heartbreaking, article.

It's about the kind of society you end up with when the values of corporations are forced down our throats as "normal," when the government gives up its proper role as watchdog over private power, of limiting that private power.

This actually is also a look at the DLC's America...

[midnight armadillo]

9. It's not Bush's America

Look, this has been going on for years and years. It did not start under Bush, nor is it the fault of the DLC. This isn't Bush's America, it's just plan America. Ours, to be exact.

Corporate money has been flooding into politics and dominating the debate for decades. Perhaps since Reagan it's gotten worse, with campaigns getting more expensive and politicians doing ever more begging.

Try William Greider's "Who Will Tell the People" if you'd like a historical overview of how Congress rarely does much in the interest of the American people.

[Just Me]

16. Yes, it is "OUR" corporate, capitalistic America,...

,...and true, Congress has actually acted in favor of the wealthy, intellectual and political elite for quite some time. I also agree, however, that the neo-conservative ideology severely exacerbates the war on humanity by the inanimate corporation. Moreover, I anticipate that war will push forward until (as usual) an unbearable crises is created which can no longer be hidden by PR.

[Just Me]

10. We are taught not to complain,...

,...suck it up, no matter what life hands out,...and "be strong".

I read this earlier and chose not to comment because,...given the level of education that I earned (on my own without any silver spoons), I was convinced that I should be grateful not only to be alive and for taking a minimum wage job,...but also for having more education than this woman.

When I read this story first time around, I thought,...she simply validates the fact that we (she and I and others) have somehow bought into and personally invested in a "dream" which happens to only the few,...and whose "dream come true" is fed to us every single day,...as if it, that dream, is within our grasp if we just "believe" and work and try hard enough. Only, no matter how much we "believe" or how hard we work or what "good" human beings we may be,...we are somehow,...inadequate because we never get that dream that has been sold to us our whole lives.

The first time I read this story,...it just reminded me of the same kind of betrayal I have been feeling and did not want to either confront or share. This time,...I am going to share my observation: equity requires a whole effort and suffers a great shortage of effort because our culture gravitates towards addressing the "one" rather than an equal.

[newyawker99]

11. Hi GarySeven!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Rebellious Republican]

12. Great Post, this deserves a kick!

:kick:

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

13. Kick

This predicament is terribly widespread and should not be ignored. Thanks for posting it and welcome to DU.

[Kathy in Cambridge]

14. Kick

great and sad article

[hatrack]

15. This paragraph pretty much said it all

"Indeed, this solemn regard for the employer as untouchable and beyond the realm of persuasion unless in violation of the law permeates the culture of American antipoverty efforts, with only a few exceptions. The most socially minded physicians and psychologists who treat malnourished children, for example, will advocate vigorously with government agencies to provide food stamps, health insurance, housing and the like. But when they are asked if they ever urge the parents' employers to raise wages enough to pay for nutritious food, the doctors express surprise at the notion. First, it has never occurred to them, and second, it seems hopeless. Wages and hours are set by the marketplace, and you cannot expect magnanimity from the marketplace. It is the final arbiter from which there is no appeal. "

Great way to run a business, really fucking shitty way to run a society.

[BiggJawn]

17. But we run Society like a "business" these days...

Chimpy touted hisself as the "CEO Pretzeldent" ("I understand Small Business...I WAS one!")
All his movers and shakers come from Murka's boardrooms.

[bleedingheart]

18. That story tells the tale no one wants to hear

and yet it is a common story for many. As I have said before we are going backwards as a society instead of forward....