In Arizona's middle class, many are barely hanging on

[harvey007]

Source: Arizona Republic

The Great Recession accelerated the crisis. But many challenges to the middle class, including a stronger global workforce and changes wrought by technology, have been decades in the making.

The pressures cross every generation in the workforce.

New graduates struggle to find openings in their fields, juggle the part-time positions that helped support them through college, and wonder how they will begin to repay those student loans.

Professionals and middle managers thrown out of work in their 50s and 60s eat into retirement savings and wonder how they will rebuild their nest eggs.

Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/business/articles/2011/01/03/20110103middle-class-index.html

[Xipe Totec]

1. On a brighter note, there are plenty of jobs opening up in the agricultural sector

Now that Arizona has cracked down on all the "illegals", there should be plenty of work for the rest of "us".

[slackmaster]

3. So the graduates who can't find work in their own fields will end up working in someone else's

...fields.

[elehhhhna]

7. Hey! McCain said in '08 that pickers make 50 bucks an hour.

[joeglow3]

12. Maybe wages will return to a living wage

My father worked in one of these fields that "no American wants to work (drywall)." Maybe wages will return to the liveable level they were before his wages took a nosedive in the 1980's and 1990's.

[Xipe Totec]

16. Hope springs eternal

If living wages are the reason why people aren't flocking to work in the fields to pick crops, then why isn't everybody flocking to be CEOs of multibillion dollar corporations?

Bill gates didn't even finish college.

[Thor_MN]

19. Apparently we are so short of CEOs that we have to pay exorbitant wages to them

It way past time for a 401ceo Visa, so that we can import CEOs from foreign countries to reduce the wage pressure that is creating red ink for corporations. Executive wages are out of control, so the corporate lobbies are working tirelessly to force congress to pass a bill, right?

[joeglow3]

39. Read Grapes of Wrath

Does a pretty good job of explaining what has happened.

My father and a number of his friends were VERY happy to have their middle income, union job. Then, in the 1980's illegals began to show up in the field. Shortly thereafter, company after company had their union busted. MANY of his friends lost their houses/cars/everything. It got to the point that no one could afford to work the jobs anymore.

Honestly, this is one position I have NEVER understood from our side. How is this any different than Google shipping thousands of jobs to India? We are sacrificing livelihoods of honest, working class citizens.

[Skink]

2. I think people that grew upmiddle class don't realize how bad things are.

there is very little middle class left.

[snappyturtle]

4. There's so much I'd like to say here but I'll spare you. The article was

very interesting. Maybe AZ has been hit more than other states but it's troubles are echoed nationwide. imho The really sad product of this economic mess is stated in the article by an information-technology consultant:

David Matusow, who has had a 30-year career as an information-technology consultant, has watched in frustration as companies shift toward outsourcing and offshoring everything from writing code to help-desk operations.

"I know a lot of people in my profession that have had a difficult time and have had to make a career change," he said. "We are wasting a lot of valuable resources (people) who are not working at their maximum potential."

I added the bolding.

[defendandprotect]

5. "Stronger global workforce" ... think they mean "harvesting slave labor around the world"--

[molly77]

18. There would be plenty of jobs for everybody if our

representatives in DC were not bought off by lobbyists. Bernie Sanders said on the floor of the senate when he was filibustering that the only time the repeal of NAFTA was mentioned was during campaigns. Then nobody ever mentioned it again in the senate.

Anti trust laws are not enforced anymore. It is one of the laws on the books that nobody pays any attn. to but affects labor a lot.

Universal health care. Vt. is just going ahead and doing it to bring business into the state.Biggest expense for small business that could be taken care of more effeciently by govt.

What if we didn't have wal mart, mc donalds etc. There would be family owned restaurants and businesses.

Farm subsidies are a joke. They only help big agriculture. You know who grows tobacco now? Indonesia. Thank you US govt. Tobacco used to support many families and communities in the south. That is the lawmakers being bought off. Tobacco is cheaper grown overseas without those pesky environmental laws. Same for food. Save money for towns and cities..no sewage treatment plants. Turn it out into the fields.

[defendandprotect]

45. Completely agree with ALL you've said --

They couldn't attack labor here directly -- the only way to finish it off

was to move jobs out --

If they won't overturn the trade agreements, I think we have to unite the

unemployed and the employed and deny them labor. No labor/no profit -- but

we have to ensure that Americans stop buying anything not made in USA.

Difference between us and elites is that they are united in every way -- up, down

and sideways -- we aren't!

How long would it take for department stores to get the message if customers

walked in and out wearing "Buy American : Bring back jobs" buttons?

Corrupt government has now put us in a position where if we don't provide jobs

in China, they won't fund our debt!

We can also cut 28% from the MIC budget immediately by merging the services --

something every other nation has done!

Bush doubled the debt -- we need to end these wars and stop the bankrupting of our

Treasury --

especially crap like this second $750+ million Taj Mahal of a US Embassy!!



:nuke:

[bertman]

20. Exactly right, defendandprotect. Where I live we have thousands of citizens

who are out of work, cannot find work, and have no hope of finding work. But every day I drive by construction sites and see highway crews working for private contractors and the workers are almost all hispanic. What percentage of those workers are American citizens I don't know, but based on my experience as a building contractor, I'd say somewhere around 10%.

So, we have taxpaying American citizens who used to work at higher skill jobs who cannot find ANY work, while we have imported laborers filling jobs that Americans need and driving down the cost of labor in every facet of the building industry and much of our infrastructure repair industry. I can understand allowing immigrants to come in and work (even undocumented immigrants) when our economy is booming and there are so many Americans who do not want to do the jobs that require physical labor, but when we get into an economic climate like we have now and there are so many people who are citizens of this country and who have been paying taxes all their adult lives AND who are willing to work at jobs in the construction industry, I don't understand why we allow this to happen.

I've heard the arguments that American workers don't want to do those types of jobs and there is some merit to them; however, when you have NO job and you need to work to support your family, even a job with lower wages and requiring manual labor is better than drawing unemployment.

I have friends who are skilled masons and carpenters who cannot find a job that pays even HALF of what they were making before the Great Recession hit. It's not because the jobs aren't there. They are. It's because they apply for a job as a mason expecting to make close to what they made before the Great Recession struck and they find that the 'prevailing wage' is $10 an hour because that's what undocumented immigrants are willing to work for. The Americans who used to do these jobs made $20 an hour and had some benefits. Now the contractors can hire undocumented workers who are paid a lot less, who have NO benefits, and who are unaware of or scared to demand that the company enforce workplace safety regulations.

Before I get accused of being anti-immigrant or anti-hispanic, let me state that I have worked with many immigrants form Central and South America who are very good workers and who are good people. I respect them and their abilities and welcome them when they are not taking work away from my fellow American citizens who have mortgages to pay and families to raise. I also support amnesty for some of those workers who have been here for years and who have shown themselves to be conscientious and who have not run afoul of the law. But I do not support the wholesale importation of undocumented workers.

Who is profiting off of this? Follow the money.

[Name removed]

21. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[jeaps]

27. Illegal immigrants

aren't the problem. Corporations that move factories overseas and outsource everything are. Companies that hire illegal immigrants are also part of the problem. They are the ones trying to drive labor costs down. They are the ones who should be gone after, not the immigrant who comes here looking for work. If companies stopped hiring, there would not be as much illegal immigration.

[bertman]

44. I agree with you, jeaps, but there has to be a combined effort on this. Just

accepting illegal immigration as the norm is just going to make matters worse.

[Laelth]

37. Well said, bertman. n/t

-Laelth

[defendandprotect]

46. We need instant Social Security Checking which Congress won't do ...

would destroy the ability of elites to exploit illegal labor --

But they've been doing this from the beginning of time --

and 20 years or so ago -- maybe longer -- they began to actually

import workers by suggesting that there weren't sufficient American

workers to fill vacancies -- like engineering. They used this

imported labor to drive down salaries.

All the while, as well, destroying unions and even using Mafia to do it!

Evidently, the huge housing bubble also effected Arizona and illegal workers --

now that the economy has busted the elites want them out -- and so do the citizens

who also don't have jobs now!

Many details to have the robber barons go about enriching themselves but basically

we're taking about organized crime in America -- and it's running our government!!

[SOS]

28. Life and Debt

For a glimpse into the hidden world of "free trade" brutality, check out the film "Life and Debt":

In one segment addressing the Free Trade Zones, we meet workers who sew six days a week for American corporations to earn the legal minimum wage of $30 U.S./week. The port of Kingston is lined with high-security factories, made available to foreign garment companies at low rent. These factories are offered with the additional incentive of the foreign companies' being allowed to bring in shiploads of material there tax-free, to have them sewn and assembled and then immediately transported out to foreign markets. Over 10,000 women currently work for foreign companies under sub-standard work conditions. The Jamaican government, in order to ensure the employment offered, has agreed to the stipulation that no unionization is permitted in the Free Trade Zones. Previously, when the women have spoken out and attempted to organize to improve their wages and working conditions, they have been fired and their names included on a blacklist ensuring that they never work again. Free Trade Zones are encouraged by the U.S. government, for example projects financed by the U.S. Agency for International Development have used over $34,960,000 in U.S. tax dollars to target, persuade and provide incentives to American companies to relocate offshore in Jamaica.

http://www.lifeanddebt.org/about.html

If the textile workers in the US want to know where there jobs went, here's the answer.
A prison-like hell hole in Jamaica.

[Skittles]

50. THANK YOU

offshore folk are not better or stronger, just CHEAPER

[jody]

6. The middle class is barely on in every state. n/t

[XanaDUer]

8. "Sleight of hand prosperity"

Exactly right. So, what are Americans going to do about it? Are they going to demand that our leaders in office do the right thing about jobs, health care, etc?

I have always felt that the main reason our Ruling Class has beaten the mantra of "personal responsibility" into our peon heads was to stave off any type of demands on them when things fall apart.

Lose your job? Your fault - not systemic layoffs due to forces outside your control.

[pscot]

15. +1

The Great Capitalist Lie.

[Ruperto32]

22. Aka "false consciousness." (n/t)

[EFerrari]

36. Wendell Potter says that he cultivated the "personal responsibility" meme

when he was shilling for the health insurance industry as a way to tank health care reform.

[plumbob]

9. kick nt

[treestar]

10. when they get rid of the illegals that will solve their problem

and multiculturalism in the schools.

Not feeling sorry for them as a state (just for the liberals who live there). They elected McCain and Kyle and Brewer and a state legislature that focuses on blaming aliens for their problems.

[Andy823]

13. I agree.

The problem is that big business "LIKES" the illegal work force. They can pay lower wages, no benefits, and they don't have to worry about them complaining because they are afraid of being deported! The way to fix things is to go after the employers, and this administration is doing just that. As long as employers keep hiring illegals over legals, there will be less work, lower wages, and bad working conditions. When employers stop hiring illegals, we get "real" immigration reform, then we can start fixing things. If there are jobs that americans won't do, then let the employer "prove" they need to find workers and let them go through programs that bring in "legal" workers to do the work. Make them prove they are not laying off their current employees in order to bring in a cheaper labor force!

Instead allowing wages in this country to drop so big corporations can make millions more each year, we need to work on raising wages in third world countries, and getting them better working conditions!

[Ruperto32]

24. What is "this administration" doing about it?

Honest question.

[pampango]

49. Here's some info from the Washington Post last week.

TYSON FOODS, one of the world's largest food processing firms, has a checkered past when it comes to employment practices, specifically the hiring of undocumented workers. A decade ago, the firm faced federal charges that it conspired to smuggle undocumented workers into the country to operate its production lines. A jury acquitted Tyson, but the damage to the company's name was done.

So it was notable this week when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced that Tyson had received a federal seal of approval for its hiring practices, which it has improved over the past five or six years. After months of scrutiny by officials, who combed through employment records for virtually every one of Tyson's 100,000-plus workers in this country, ICE and Tyson signed an agreement certifying that the firm and its workforce were on the right side of immigration law.

To its credit, the Obama administration has more than tripled the number of ICE agents assigned to check hiring practices. The agency has targeted several thousand employers with stepped-up audits of their workforces, arrested hundreds of company officials and levied fines amounting to millions of dollars against companies hiring undocumented workers. Recently, ICE announced that it is beefing up its ability to go after larger companies that may employ undocumented workers. All that is a sensible shift from Bush administration policy, which emphasized raids on factories featuring mass detentions of the workers themselves.

The administration has cracked down on employers, tightened border security and stepped up its deportation efforts, particularly against undocumented immigrants with criminal records. Those steps, combined with the recession, have dramatically slowed the inflow of workers here illegally. Still, some 11 million of them remain in America, working in the shadows. As long as Congress refuses to act, the problem will continue to fester.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/21/AR2011012106497.html

[customerserviceguy]

25. This is why I'm against immigration reform as currently constituted

Whether you call it amnesty, or a "path to citizenship", once you legalize the current set of illegal aliens, then more will simply pour over the border to take their place as a docile workforce. Then, the newly legalized will simply join the rest of us on the unemployment heap.

The status quo is an option. The illegal workforce that's already here probably has a leg up on the ones who would replace them.

[ProudDad]

42. Thanks

It is pretty tough being a Progressive in this most regressive of regressive states in the Corporate States of America... :hi:

[Paper Roses]

11. I know it is not news but it is the same everywhere.

No jobs. no responses to resumes, nothing.
If you are a laid off Senior, forget it. Looking is a waste of time. Many of us are hanging by a thread. Tomorrow I have to pay for fuel to heat my house. I now have it delivered in 100 gallon increments. Last 100 gallon delivery was at $3.25 a gallon. A full tank is a thousand dollars! This week, I will have to pay over $1000.00 for house taxes. Electric bill through the roof. December alone was $175.00 because part of this house has electric heat. Never mind things like insurance, food, whatever.

For those of you on SS, you know all about these problems. If the government cuts SS, we are all sunk.
I get $951.00 a month for my SS check. Just got my W-2 or whatever the government calls the SS annual tax reporting form. I think it was $12,480.00. Poverty level.

Never would I have imagined I would have to live like this. I am now selling what few assets I have. If real estate does not take a real severe drop, I will sell this house which my husband and I lived in for 46 years. It will break my heart.
He is gone now, I hope to a better place than where we are now.

To the unemployed, my deepest sympathies, keep plugging. For the young, I hope something happens in your favor soon.
I worry about my 2 children and my grandchildren. It is, I'm afraid, going to be worse for them.
Depressing. Good luck to all of us.

[nativeplantlover]

14. Response to Paper Roses

I'm so sorry for your situation, Paper Roses. It is ... beyond enraging to me the way the MSM and our elected leaders ignore those of us in this situation. It is as if there is no Great Recession and everything is a-okay. Well, I guess for the uber rich, a class to which both of these groups belong, I guess it is. Pathetic. And all we get is the GOP bullying even the most tepid of responses to our pain by the Democrats with the label of "socialism" and "the sky is falling." I hate the GOP, and the Democrats are not far behind. Ugh.

[Paper Roses]

31. Hi nativeplantlover, welcome to DU.

Thanks for your understanding. Having worked all of my life (from age 16 to age 68) it is disheartening to see where things are now.

Many of us shake our heads and wonder how this current situation we all face could have happened.
Keep your fingers crossed that we will come out of this mess somehow.

[Jkid]

17. This brings me to reveal why the Great Recession is still ongoing

They don't want to hire anyone at all. As a matter of fact, what I think is that it's more profitable in a sense to keep as few people as possible to make more money. Therethore it's more profitable to hire as few people as possible.

[ThoughtCriminal]

23. Arizona's rich are doing very well

And meanwhile Gov. Brewer and the GOP legislature teaches the poor that Death Panels are a real, cuts education to a level that makes Mississippi look generous and promises more tax cuts for the wealthy.

[ReadTomPaine]

26. If they are barely hanging on, they are not middle class. They are poor.

This is difficult for people to accept even when it's staring them in the face, but it's the reality of the class warfare we are confronting.

If you are in denial about what's been taken away, the chances of you getting or even demanding it back are zero.

[Laelth]

38. +1 n/t

-Laelth

[JOE MURPHY]

29. arizona

the answer to the problems besetting AZ and the rest of the country aren't complicated...get organized, fight smart and don't quit

[WestSeattle2]

30. While this focuses on Phoenix, it could be anywhere in this

country. Good article. You can also click on different decades to see the changes over time, which brought back a lot of fond memories.

For those of us of a certain age, you certainly remember back in the day that car payments were rare, credit cards even rarer, and eating out was rarer still. Most everyone lived within their means. It seems we have come full circle.

[zen_bohemian]

32. I can remember those days, even 20 years ago

We had 2 little kids, 1 car that had payments on, and no credit cards. We only bought what we needed, not what we wanted. If we couldn't afford it, we didn't buy it.

This is commonplace all over the country. My kids work part-time jobs while in college, and they both tell me there are alot of young adults also working at their jobs, and these people are college grads, bachelors and above degrees, and still working at these places, because they can't find a job in their fields. I feel for these young people, they were promised a bright future, go to college, you have to stay competitive, get a degree, make more money.....they worked hard, made good grades, and they leave with little job prospects and large debt. Sad, sad, sad..

[Paper Roses]

33. I had to chuckle when I read your post. I vividly remember when

my parents argued over buying a new car in the 1950's. Back then, everything was cash. If you had the cash on hand, you could get a new Chevy or whatever for a few hundred dollars.
My folks never had a credit card, everything was either a monthly bill or cash on the barrel-head.
Eating out?
The only time in my young life I remember eating out was to go to a Chinese restaurant in Natick, MA called Chin's Village. There were very few places where you could get Chinese food when I was a kid. This was a real treat.

Once in a while we were lucky enough to go out for Ice Cream in the summer.
You know what? We never thought we were deprived. My folks had little and what we had went a long way. Of course, this is in the day when bread was 15 cents a loaf, we had a milkman, the movies were 25 cents and that included the price of popcorn. The bus fare to get there was 20 cents.

My fondest memory? The 5 cent Hersey bar of the 40's and 50's. No-one believes me that they were twice the size as they are now and were only 5 cents.
Ice cream cone? 10 cents.

Have we progressed or have we fallen by the wayside?
I'm too old to figure it out.

[Systematic Chaos]

35. Gen X memories aren't all that bad, either.

Born in '69 here, and I remember when pieces of Bazooka bubble gum were only 3 cents each. Or Jolly Ranchers were like 15 cents each in the form of a bar about 4 inches long, and it took an hour for the whole thing to dissolve. Candy bars were up to a whole whopping quarter when I was a kid. During the summer, 7-11 had their newly introduced Big Gulp on sale for 39 cents (regularly 59). Mad Magazine was only about a dollar and comic books were still cheap. Matinee movies were $1 on the weekends in the late '70s, and with popcorn and all you still were only spending about $3 per person. I was pretty much a pinball wizard by the time I was 11, so $2 or $3 in quarters lasted me all day long in an arcade.

Sure, it was more expensive than what you know, especially when the price of gas shot up over $1.00/gal. in 1979 or 1980. But I'd give anything to go back to what it was like when I was a kid.

[zen_bohemian]

40. I had just gotten my driver's license, gas shot up to 1.00 a gallon

all I could think of was, how in the world am I going to afford to drive!

[defendandprotect]

47. People don't own their cars anymore ... looks like constant leasing -- ???

And we all march out every day with bank credit cards running around making

banksters richer!! And making costs of all goods and services much more costly.

We have to stop permitting middle men to profit in this way.

Especially middle men we have bailed out and who are our buying our government

and elected officials.


:nuke:

[primavera]

34. Why should Arizona be any different?

Our corporatist government is eradicating the middle class in every part of the country, of course Arizona's going to be affected as well.

[ProudDad]

41. Arizona, like the rest of the war starved USAmerican Empire

is losing what used to be called the "middle class"...

No surprise...

[Liberal_in_LA]

43. kick

[Stargazer99]

48. Sure takes a long time for them to "get it"

maybe if they cared about the misery of others they would not be in this fix now