Reclaiming the dignity of work

It is hard to believe that as recently as February 2008 unemployment in the United States was 4.8%. A year later unemployment had almost doubled and continued to climb until it reached 10.1% in October 2009, and has hovered near there since.

Despite a series of unemployment benefits extensions, hundreds of thousands of workers have depleted their savings as they struggle to keep their homes and feed their families while looking for work.

Congress continues to debate how to pay for continued unemployment relief given the severity of the economic collapse. In April, the number of unemployed persons was 15.3 million; the number of long-term unemployed reached 6.7 million; and 45.9% of unemployed persons had been jobless for 27 weeks or more. According to AARP, unemployment among Americans ages 55+ increased 331% over the last 10 years.

This week CCUSA released our First Quarter 2010 Snapshot, which showed an alarming 61% increase in middle class Americans seeking services from Catholic Charities agencies. While that statistic alone may be staggering, our agencies also reported a 67% increase in requests for emergency financial assistance; 89% of our agencies reported an increase in client unemployment.

And many of their jobs are not coming back. Manufacturing sectors are shrinking or disappearing outright. The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday only once since 1948 has the U.S. shed manufacturing capacity on a net basis, and never by as much as it did since 2008. Technology has made other positions redundant.

There is no easy policy solution for helping the people who have been left behind as a result of the dramatic change in our economic landscape. Unemployment benefits were designed as part of the Social Security Act in 1935, with the expectation that other jobs were available. But the millions of workers who have been unemployed for months, if not years, will most likely remain that way even if the overall job market continues to improve.

Catholic social teaching tells us that the dignity of the human person is the foundation of a moral vision for society, and that to access to those things required for human decency—including employment—is a fundamental necessity.

We believe unemployment insurance system and job training programs should be strengthened to provide greater protection against the economic loss that low-income workers experience as a result of unemployment. However, we are experiencing a dramatic paradigm shift in our economy. Since these programs were first developed we have transformed from an agricultural to an industrial society and from industrial through the space age to an economy where technology, not human hands, dominates.

How do we create programs and systems that are designed for the age we now live in and anticipate the nation we will become?

What must be done to restore the great “American Dream”: That if you work hard you can provide a better life for yourself and your family?

What can we do to restore the dignity that a good day’s work brings to a person, and multiply that by millions?

Comments

[Mike]

Why do we continue to be amazed that more people are relying on the Church, Welfare and charity, when the positions we espouse are killing productivity? We can train people to the point that they can do anything and everything, but if you promote policies that deter risk takers from creating or expanding businesses who in turn provide jobs, there will be no jobs for these well trained people to apply their talents.

[Mike]

Why do we continually rely on the Government to take care of us? Extending unemployment benefits does nothing to create jobs (not work) and only serves to take more from those who produce to a point that they are no longer able to assist where they can do most good, their church and community.

[Jhassyre]

Showing a slow moving sttsiatic over such a short time is misleading, why did you choose to only go back to 2004, 6 years of data is an odd number? Could it be that you didn't want to include the data from the early Bush years that showed the rapid increase in unemployment started in 2000 (around the time the housing bubble burst), which then slowed by around 2004 and then accelerated again around 2008 (when the banking system imploded with fraud)? Cherry picking an oddball number of years is a sign that your twisting the data to make a point and based on a lot of the comments I'd say you're playing to the right. What would we see if you took it back 9 years or better yet 50 years? Having spent a large part of my professional life as a Geographic Information Systems (GIS, Mapping software) programmer I have a real love of Maps and how they can inform people with a single glance. It always saddens me when I see someone using them to mislead instead. Whether intentional or not, this map is obviously painting a picture that people on the far right will use to confirm their belief that the Obama administration is the cause of the unemployment uptick when in fact he inherited the sliding economy from his predecessor who inherited it from his predecessor and the real cause of the increasing unemployment may have predated them all. Raw data displayed in a map like this is cool but without the professional analysis and interpretation of what it means, it's just begging to be misinterpreted.

[Gilda]

All thanks to the osicourutng of US jobs, the manufacturing of US products overseas. The Einsteins that be thought it would be great to replace skilled workers with cheaper labor to product less expensive products, that we'd eventually pay MORE for, while those displaced workers took unemployment checks, couldnt afford their mortgages or health care (which is not being taken advantage of via the a good crisis should never be wasted' postulate). And, other workers who eventually DID find employment are asking if you want extra creme in that latte or fries with your order. The result? Your bleeding nation and it IS a perfect depiction of what is going on as it represents each of us, individually.