Working Poor Unready to Revolt
Published August 05, 2008
Once upon a time when governments no longer served most of their citizens it was the most economically disadvantaged that could be counted on to rebel against tyranny and injustice. Times have changed, for the worse.
Here we are with a two-party plutocracy that preferentially serves corporate and wealthy interests and lets the middle class suffer and sink. Plausibly, the middle class is unready to revolt because it still maintains a relatively good standard of living despite rising economic insecurity. But what about the lowest 40 percent of Americans that are the working poor?
A recent survey of this group by the Washington Post, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University conducted this past June looked at the beliefs of adults ages 18 to 64 working 30 or more hours a week, not self-employed and who earned no more than $27,000 in 2007. The results show a fascinating dichotomy. Though there is widespread pain and discontent there is also a stubborn faith in the American dream despite little help from government.
Ninety percent of this group sees the current economy negatively, either not so good or poor, with 52 percent feeling financially insecure and 50 percent feeling less secure than a few years ago. The fractions saying they have difficulty affording basic things are severe, including: 88 percent that cannot save money for college or other education for their children, 82 percent paying for gasoline or other transportation costs, 81 percent saving money for retirement, 65 percent paying for health care and health insurance, 65 percent handling child care, close to 60 percent paying credit card bills, monthly utility bills and rent or mortgage costs, and 47 percent buying food. Three quarters say it has gotten harder to find good jobs and nearly that fraction for finding affordable health care, and 68 percent finding decent, affordable housing.
In the past year this group has had to take many actions to make ends meet, including 70 percent that cut electricity use and home heating; 62 percent that took an extra job or worked extra hours, 51 percent that postponed medical or dental care and 50 percent that took money out of savings or retirement funds.
All this sounds pretty bleak. But are these people mad and pessimistic? Not exactly.
An amazing 69 percent are hopeful about their personal financial situation, 59 percent believe they are more likely over the next few years to move up in terms of their social class, 59 percent believe that their children will have a standard of living much or somewhat better than theirs, and 56 percent think they will achieve the American dream in their lifetime.
Do these lower economic class, hardest hit Americans that account for 25 percent of the adult population believe that government helps them? No. Only 22 percent believe that government programs are making things better for them. But apparently they have bought hook, line and sinker into Barack Obama's change rhetoric, with a 2 to 1 margin favoring him over John McCain. And when it comes to beliefs about which candidate will do better for them the margins favoring Obama go up to 3 or more to 1 for improving their own financial situation, the national economy and the national health care system. Similarly, Obama is seen as much more concerned with their needs and better represent their values. All very good news for Obama, except that only 70 are registered to vote and about a third saw no difference in whether Obama or McCain was in office.
- Working Poor Unready to Revolt
- Published: August 05, 2008
- Type: Opinion
- Section: Politics
- Filed Under: Politics: Elections and Candidates, Politics: Government, Politics: Policy, Politics: U.S.
- Writer: Joel S. Hirschhorn
- Joel S. Hirschhorn's BC Writer page
- Joel S. Hirschhorn's personal site
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While doing intensive academic research at an esteemed University, I happened upon the Original Declaration of Independence. It is quoted in part below:
We hold these truths to be more or less self-evident, that all people are created sort of equal, that they are endowed by their Government with ambiguously Defined and Easily Revoked Privileges, that among these are Life, some degree of inoffensive Liberty and the pursuit of such Happiness as may be authorized.--That to create and to secure these Revocable Privileges, Governments are instituted among People, deriving their immense powers from the indifferent consent of the governed as shaped by the Media, bloggers, Church Groups and other Interest Groups --That whenever any Government becomes injurious of these ends, it is the Nature of the People to complain, and to vote into power another group of fungible politicians, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to such Politicians shall seem most likely to meet with the approbation of their peers and unlikely to require excessive thought, effort or sacrifice. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes, except when it seems cool to do so; and accordingly at least some experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to gripe, while evils are inconvenient, than to right themselves by changing the Party in Power. But when a long train of unaccountable bureaucrats and similarly unaccountable elected officials, pursuing invariably divergent and inconsistent but amorphous Objects, and the Media hypnotizes them to do so, it is their Privilege, it is their Pleasure, to seek an omniscient Messiah from whom to seek Miracles. Such has been the naive impatient endurance of these People; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to change the party in Power. Maybe. Sort of. Or, then again, Maybe not.
Dan
LOL!
Very funny (and dead on), Dan.
It appears that the majority of US citizens have been dissuaded from active participation in political matters. Perhaps they are too busy defending what they have to struggle for more. Perhaps they would rather watch Paris Hilton on TV in hopes of spying some cleavage, if only to fume at such scandals.
It's not for lack of opinions. they all seem to have opinions. For those few of us who have actually marched around the neighborhood with a clipboard and petition and pen for signatures, we always get stopped by long diatribes from homeowners as they unburden themselves of bottled up resentments. But the ones who talk the most usually sign the least, so you have to be skilled at getting out. Also, if you hope to make a sale you have to figure out a ploy. I like to use money: "if they build that new $3million subdivision across the street EVERYONEs property taxes will go up. Pretty soon that little 500k house of yours and mine will be afflicted by the same tax scale as for the Mcmansion. And the damn things will blight your sightlines and clog the roads for good measure!"
But there's a difference these days. People are too cynical or discouraged to seek improvement through political activism. A right not exercised is a right soon lost. Maybe, maybe not. Seems like inevitably the Powers That Be overplay their hand and there's an outraged uprising. We can only hope.
God (or whomever) bless the starry-eyed idealists; the Seekers of Truth, the Believers in the Inherent Goodness of Man, The Meaning of Life, the Benevolence of the State.
Without them, what would we do for amusement?
Add your comment, speak your mind
(Or ping: http://blogcritics.org/mt/tb/79741)
Joel, I know you keep a copy of Das Kapital by your bedside. So is it really necessary to reiterate one of the few things Marx got right, that "religion is the opiate of the masses"?
That said, I apreciate that you've compiled all of this data for us. Pity you missed the actual significance of it. What you seem not to see here is that the 'working poor' are smarter than you or the rest of the socialist left think they are. They are optimistic specifically because they know that they can't count on a government handout and that they have the opportunity to get a second job or work more hours or look for better work and advance themselves without depending on government, and that makes them feel responsible and in control and capable of achieving the Amnerican dream FOR THEMSELVES.
They don't want a handout or the false hope that socialism offers. It is being responsible for their own welfare and having the opportunities which a free labor market offers them which GIVES them the hope that they have. When will this get through to you socialists?
Dave