Middle Class, Immigrants, Double-Wage Homes, and the Joneses

[NashVegas]

Can I divert y'all's attention from the immigration issue and how it relates to living standards, and ask you to think about the post-1950s/1960s two-income households?

I've been watching people point fingers at various groups - immigrants, greedy corporations, Republicans cutting social programs - in search of something to blame for our current state of financial woes, crumbling middle class, and diminishing freedoms/civic voice.

Something needs to be pointed out, about the labor pool: when women entered the workplace en masse, there was increased competition for quality jobs with quality income. It's a simple fact, not a criticism, that the labor pool in the US increased far more with the influx of a new gender in the mix than it has illegal aliens.

At first, this was great for the American family. Two wage earners brought in 1.65 times (accounting for the gender gap in income, there) as much money and allowed families to have that much more disposable incomes.

And dispose, we did. Big TVs. Thousand dollar stereo systems. High-end cars. Jordache jeans. From there we turned to bigger and/or more expensive homes; certified daycare; health insurance costs went through the roof. That extra money that had formerly been disposable was now necessary for families to get by and pay off their bills.

One of the reasons unions were successful with their strikes in the 1800s and 3/4 of the 1900s was that striking workers had families to fall back on more often than not. If Daddy was out of work and getting his union pittance, Mom could get a gig or two elsewhere and put food on the table. In-laws could be counted on to help out.

In one thing regarding their stance on the importance on strong families, the Republicans have it right: if you've got a strong family to fall back on and support you, you have the means to tell The Powers That Be to take a fucking hike.

As of now, the working class - not just the working poor but the middle class, also - has no power because we are too afraid of losing our jobs and our lifestyle to put up a genuine fight.

So, what exactly am I advocating here? Women should go back to the home and stay there? No. Not necessarily women. But I do think we should consider the notion, at least, of shifting towards more families with one in-home parent; let the gender be the choice of the family.

I'm not romanticizing this. I'm fully aware of our divorce rate, and that some homes are truly messed-up homes. But for those of us who have the wherewithal and a strong family to fall back on, regaining empowerment is never going to happen if we cannot take ourselves out of the position where we are ruled by that fear of losing our lifestyle.

[dogday]

1. We are a struggling family and one of the reasons is

because I made the decision to stay at home with my daughter... My husband and I have been married for 15 years and my daughter said that she is the only one in her class with her Mother and Father still together.

We don't have 2 cars, we don't have a vacation home... We just have the choices we make...

This choice isn't for everyone. Each family makes their choices according to the families needs....

[NashVegas]

5. Your Daughter's Lucky

I wouldn't argue that your choice to remain in the home, itself, is correlated to the fact you're still together, I might wonder if perhaps you have a better understanding of the benefits of being able to be successfully inter-dependent.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, that word, "inter-dependent" was planted in a 5th grade social-studies lesson. Perhaps we have, in modern times, confused it with "co-dependent."

[GreenPartyVoter]

27. I'm a SAHM too. It would be nice to have a bigger house but if it means

that both of us are out working and the kids are in daycare then there would be no one around to enjoy the place anyway.

[dogday]

29. I look at it this way, it is just stuff

It can't love or feel... What is important to me is when I lay my head on the pillow at night, I have my family close and safe... That is a feeling that a million dollars could not give me ever....

[GreenPartyVoter]

30. Exactly. It's the people and not the building that make the home

[rfranklin]

2. You can be afraid of losing everything or...

you can have nothing left to lose.

The unions won because they went on strike and were willing to kill or be killed to enforce the strike. Things were a little more life and death in those days. I don't think it was about the family helping out because no one had anything. And your parents were usually dead by the time they were 50.

[NashVegas]

3. But In Some Ways, We Are Going Back There

We just don't feel it because we have such nice plushy sofas that we bought on credit.

[cap]

4. you gotta be kidding...

with the debt load of the American family at record levels, the loss of pension and health care, the decrease in salary, the increase in college costs and incidence of student loans or gap financing, the lack of the ability of kids to find decent jobs.... Oh yeah... and have you noticed, there are no 50 or 60 year olds in "good jobs"??? They all are working shit jobs or "consulting". They arent making the numbers for the financial contribution to their IRAs.

the layoff of women in good jobs in the past five years has led to the financial demise of the American family... Outside of teaching and nursing, what profession has a lot of senior professional women in it? The corporations have walked them out the door. Let's not even talk about the lack of ability to pierce the glass ceiling. Or even mandating equal pay or gender quotas on layoffs.

Oh, and I forgot, inflation is rearing its ugly head... so we will be falling further behind.

One person working and let the family decide who.... Ha Ha... we all know that will be the man because the man has the higher income and more stable income stream. I know so many men who say gee, they have to work and their wife is at home to take care of the kids because she doesnt make as much as he does... Even when their wife is in marketing.... Hellllooooooo.... what's the point of being in marketing and sales if you arent raking in the bucks???? Lovely in theory... but not at all practical. Even if we get to the point where one income will take care of the family, it will not solve the problem of women's participation in the work force.

This will take a generation to recoup our losses with two full-time, well paying jobs....What planet are you on? Even if we went out and started nationwide strikes tomorrow, we will not regain these benefits for a long time... Look at union history. It took decades to bring about substantial change. It will take a generation to refill the kitty just so we could begin to ponder this question of a single income family. When the kitty is refilled, we could even ponder that. Unlike France, our country can not get people on the streets over a single labor issue. The fist of labor is too weak. The women's movement is non-existant. We couldnt even lie down in the street over the Alito nomination. We dont even discuss workplace issues. If we had really forced the revolution in the workplace in the 70s and 80s, things might have been different. But we lost interest and momentum.

I AM WOMAN HEAR ME ROAR!

[NashVegas]

7. No, Not Really

And I would argue the demise comes not from the lay-offs as much as the mess credit cards have gotten us into.

This will take a generation to recoup our losses with two full-time, well paying jobs.

Historically speaking, the money from that extra, well-paying job, has brought more wealth to families, but it has also entrapped them when that wealth was not spent wisely. The rich elites loved it when we took those extra incomes and used them to buy rear-projection TVs instead of investing it.

[cap]

26. there have been 100's of thousands of people laid off in the past

five years... Over 100,000 people have been laid off in Michigan alone... The Bush administration has stopped keeping track of mass layoffs deliberately so that we can track what's going on. Dont blame people's lifestyles... it is not the major problem. lack of job stability is the major problem. It was masked by a growing economy where you could easily move laterally if not up when you lost a job. Dual Income families are not the only ones heavily indebted. In fact, they have more savings than the single income families.

There are no well paying jobs to replace this. Labor unions are not able to negotiate for 1.65% increase in wages to compensate for the lack of a second income and they are the ones who are best able to negotiate... The rest of us are too fragmented. Labor unions are only asking for COLA -- single digit increases. Look at the history of labor, these sorts of changes take decades.... so what are we supposed to do in the mean time.

Where is the muscle to bring about this 165% increase in salary as well as restoration of the retirement and health care benefits? Even if magically we got that 165% increase in salary, how are we going to make up the cuts in retirement and health care? We've got to put money back into the retirement kitty and college fund kitty? It is only a second income that will do it. The trend towards pushing women out of the workforce has actually led to the escalation of family debt... not the converse.... I refuse to let my family's finances go down the tubes, not have a decent retirement and college fund for my kids. As God is my witness, it just wont happen as long as I have breathe in my body.

Those good old days weren't so good for women.... Women could go out and make a pittance. Women stayed in unhappy marriages and suffered physical abuse because they could not go out and support a family. Women didn't really support a family in those days on their income ... they just could make sure some cash was coming in until the good times returned so that the man could get a job.

Almost nobody these days, man or woman can re-enter the work place after being out of the workforce for a couple years.... it is an extremely small minority outside of nursing and teaching who can re-enter a profession. Getting back on track is a huge issue for women.

Let's be realistic... I am not one to argue against the 165% wage increase you suggest. But hell, if the unions cant do it for their own employees. Who can? How's this all going to happen?

[Extend a Hand]

6. I always think it's kind of funny when people talk about women

entering the workforce. Women have always been in the work force. Both of my grandmothers worked in the cotton mills. My husbands grandmother worked as a cook. (I think the other died in childbirth). The big difference is now that decent jobs are open to woman and women are supposed to get equal pay for equal work.

[NashVegas]

9. Some Women Have Always Had to Work

One of my grandmothers was a seamstress, the other was an at-home. At-home women were also crafters who could sell their wares, something many of us turn up our noses (ack! domesticity!).

[MADem]

8. Never mind the DIVORCE rate, no one gets married anymore!!

At least it seems that way...!

[crispini]

10. Your argument is illogical.

Break it down; this is your argument as I understand it.

1) Two income families are spending up to their max income on stuff.
2) Unions were more successful in "the old days" because they had families to fall back on.
3) Therefore, someone should go back to being a stay at home parent.

That's just illogical. If your concern is about having a successful family to fall back on, maybe families should address #1, and control their consumption habits in order to have financial reserves rather than outstanding debt. This has the advantage of being able to be done by single people as well as families.

[NashVegas]

12. Fear Is Not Logic

Fear is emotion. And it's what holds us back.

When unemployment (for whatever cause, layoff or strike) hits a one-income family, the other partner has the ability to, at least in part, make-up for the loss while the other collects pittance.

When two incomes are leveraged to the hilt, there's no way to retain equal footing.

[crispini]

13. I disagree with your postulate

that the other partner can just "go out and get a job" like that. Staying at home for either sex doesn't do anything to improve your resume.

And anyway, you said it again -- "leveraged to the hilt." It's stupid for two-income families to spend 100% of what they take in. For that matter, it's stupid for one-income families to spend 100% of what they take in. Some actually HAVE to, don't get me wrong, but for those who spend it on luxury consumer goods, ie keeping up with Joneses, well, that's not good decisionmaking.

BEST case: two incomes, one gets axed, you live on the other for awhile.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

11. We can't go back to the 1950s, nor should we

I'm old enough to remember dreading growing up because I saw the life of my mother and her friends as dull and tedious. It was with a sense of exhilaration that I discovered the women's movement in college, a movement that said it was all right too want something different from what Madison Avenue told me I should want.

I see the financial stress that SOME American families feel (not the industrial workers busted down to convenience store clerk, not the families who have chosen to have one parent stay home, but the upper middle-class families with jobs) as unsustainable consumerism.

If you buy a trophy house in the suburbs (and that seems to be all they're building nowadays) on a cul-de-sac in the middle of nowhere, you need a car for every adult in the house, because no one can walk anywhere. So right there, you have a humongous mortgage payment and payments on two cars, not to mention gas to feed the two beasts. Suddenly, $120,000 seems like a small income. Then the kids have to have all the latest clothes and toys, go to the latest lessons, play two sports, and be chauffeured to all these things on top of the parents' work schedules.

Think of this: just moving to a smaller house in a walkable/transit-friendly neighborhood and getting rid of one car would save thousands of dollars per year. The family would immediately enjoy a tax-free rise in disposable income.

I look at the lives my relatives lead, and I see how much of that financial and time-crunch stress is self-inflicted.

[adriennui]

18. great post

i live in one of those suburban neighborhoods on LI where new house prices are over $1 million(absurd monster houses are the only things being built). my husband and i can't understand how the hell young families are affording to survive. we moved here 20 years ago, have a normal sized ranch on an acre which has appreciated nearly 10X since.
i think we're going to see lots of hellish situations coming up as the economy worsens.

i pity the children growing up in this world. where are the opportunities going to be? are the suburbs going to be mass ruins(like the roman empire) in the next decades?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

28. There's a (leftist) radio talk show host in Portland, Bill Uris, who

has referred to the tracts of McMansions as "the slums of the future."

Frankly, once gasoline becomes unaffordable, I think we're going to see people living in abandoned SUVs and minivans.

[NashVegas]

25. I Don't Think We Have To

Over the last 50 years we have seen how much women are capable of outside of the home, than we were told we were, and that we do have the ability to be the superior bread-winner, if we choose. We have also seen the value of having an at-home parent.

[darkmaestro019]

14. We had nothing to lose but our health and our sanity and time together.

Kids are not possible or wanted anyway; and we were LUCKY if we were both able to work at the same time. More often than not by the time we both got a job one would be laid off, or schedule-changed so that we couldn't do it with one car. Now we work from home in a variety of ways; constant struggle, and boy, you better believe you WORK, from the time you get up to the time you sleep, to "organize" the next single-payment job or the handful of tiny-income super-part time type things....but our time is our own, and I am able to pour tea without using my other hand to keep my elbow from giving up on me. Still no benefits, still no savings, still bad credit, still SOL if the car breaks--but all that was true when we spent fifty-plus hours a week apart in miserable conditions. And now we don't have to buy gas.

I figured out it was a shell game; "Work hard and eventually we'll reward you--now go home, we're laying off all temps" "You can get hired in in just two years!--but we're laying off all temps and when you come back in TWO WEEKS your six months worth of this two-year "probation" will START AT ZERO!" Fuck you too. I'll work, but I won't slave, and I sure as Hell won't slave anymore to benefit someone else while costing me and barely feeding me. We are still poor, but we're FREE.

[darkmaestro019]

15. Also--

The fact that most families had two incomes after this revolution meant the fat cats could go "But they don't NEED to raise minimum wage; two-income families make plenty of money!" Once they figured that out they were all for women's lib.

[Armstead]

16. I think you're half right -- The problem is much bigger than "lifestyle"

If I understand your point, you are saying that people trap themselves by trying to keep up with the Joneses.

To an extent you're correct. Perhaps we're too hung up on the Yuppie Nicities. Too often we think a big flat-screen TV is a necessity. Or we buy more house than we need.

However, you hvae to seperate Lifestryle" from living. The problem today is that while the position of most workers is going down, the cost of most necessities keeps going up.

Part of what is going on is Class Warfare. It's not just the Super Rich Vs. Everyone Else. It's also a larger -- but still small -- minority of the upper and upper-middle-class against the middle class and the working class and the poor.

In a sense we're allowing the upper sliver of classes to run roughshod over the rest of us.

Gentrification, for example, is a problem in many regions. People who live in depressed areas wit low living costs often find themselves in a Catch 22 when their area becomes discovered as a hot prospect. The costs of housing, property taxes, etc. start rising beyod the means of the people who live there, because it is being driven by the affluent who come in.

Also look at college. Most familiesd are squeezed between two forces. On one hand, college has gotten exorbantly expensive. But at the same time, parents are told that their kids HAVE to go to college just to get a job these days.

[NashVegas]

20. Sort, Of, Yes

If I understand your point, you are saying that people trap themselves by trying to keep up with the Joneses.

In this pursuit, we allow everyone to run roughshod over us. Compare the passivity of the American worker now to what it was pre-Taft Hartley, which, coincidentally came at the dawn of the consumer era.

[The2ndWheel]

17. The main reason unions were successful

in my mind, is that capital wasn't as mobile as it is today. You could strike, and the company couldn't as easily move to the next town, next state, or the next country.

Labor is more mobile today than it was then, with all the cars and such, but nowhere near as mobile as capital currently is. Capital crosses borders with no problem. In the last week, we've certainly seen how free labor is to do the same.

The reason we can even talk about this is cheap energy. Without that, we'd still have actual slavery, not the wage slavery(not that that isn't slavery) involving the 8 year old's in Thailand.

[NashVegas]

21. Point Taken

...

[debbierlus]

19. How are people supposed to survive?

In the majority of cases, one income isn't enough.

Are you asking people to lose half their income to make a political statement?

You can't just magically transform back into the fifties with one wage earner and turn back the clock.

It isn't feasible.

[NashVegas]

22. Read Response #1

Some people do manage it.

Of those I know who do, the final thing that made their decision was the realization that it would actually be cheaper than day-care.

[nonconformist]

23. I think you make some good points

I think it's even bigger though - I think that Americans need to seriously get used to the idea that to have any kind of security whatsoever, they are going to have to start living beneath their means. And that is a hard pill to swallow for a populace addicted to consumption.

[mondo joe]

24. You have some good points, however they don't hold up in anything

but the abstract.

1. Women have always been in the workforce, particularly poor women. It has never been uncommon for poor families to be two income households.

2. Aside from the divorce rate, people marry less often now and wait until later to do it - that's a lot of single people.

3. People also work for reasons aside from income. A lot of people LIKE having a job or career.