Working Poverty
“The American economic system, with its excessive corporate greed and concentration of ownership and power, destroys anything that gets in its way in the pursuit of profits.” Bernie Sanders, The Nation, 3.6–13.2023
I was working at the Market, sweeping behind the deli counter, when I overheard two of my co-workers talking about selling blood. Their own blood. “I know the market value of my blood,” Brad (not his real name) said to Justin (also not his real name). “I know when I’m being low-balled.”
This comment gained more context when I made my next round of the store an hour later, and again overheard Brad and Justin talking, this time about ways of scoring day-old food for free or at a reduced price from Little Caesar’s Pizza and 7–11. Brad said he had “lived on” hot-pockets from 7–11 for months at a time when he was in bad financial shape.
I got to thinking about these exchanges when I read an article by Bernie Sanders in the Nation magazine. There was this one line in the piece that jumped out at me: “The goal is to eliminate working poverty.”
Working poverty. Many of my co-workers have second jobs. One drives for Uber. Another works as a waitress. Most of the younger workers are college students. I’d guess that 80% of the people I work with have no idea that at one time, not so long ago, an American household could live a decent lifestyle on a single income. Not wealthy, but not precariously poor, either. Now, I’m not going to argue that this was a golden age without its own problems, like Jim Crow racism and sexism and homophobia, but in terms of economics and material well-being for a broad swath of society, the post-World War II economy was a rarity because it worked.
As Senator Sanders notes in his article, unionized workers were a significant reason for this shared prosperity. As productivity rose, so did wages. That relationship, between productivity and wages, withered decades ago. In fact, the inverse has happened: with the help of new technologies, worker productivity has soared, but wages have been stagnant. According to Sanders, who quotes the Economic Policy Institute, between 1979 and 2020, worker net productivity increased by 61.8 percent, while worker hourly pay increased by just 17.5 percent.
Americans need more of that French spirit, but we’re conditioned from birth to think that the only “American” solution is an individual one.
It’s not surprising, nor accidental (it was, and is, a totally bipartisan effort), that today less than 11 percent of Americans are union members; in the private sector, only a measly six percent of workers are unionized. In terms of power, that’s nowhere near enough density to convince employers and shareholders to share more of the spoils with the people who do the work. Now, I’ve been a member of a large public-sector union, a local president, and member of a state committee focused on legislation affecting workers, and I’m the first to concede that unions are far from perfect. They have inherent problems, and have historically been their own worst enemies, falling victim to corruption or co-optation.
But what other vehicle do working people have to play the game with capitalists, many of whom are greedy? Look how the French react any time another austerity measure is proposed, like raising the retirement age or cutting benefits. Millions in the streets. It’s not a perfect comparison because other factors are in play, but the point is that mass demonstrations of people, united around a common objective, is the only real weapon working people possess.
Americans need more of that French spirit, but we’re conditioned from birth to think that the only “American” solution is an individual one. Our silly myths cloud our heads. The self-made man. The rugged cowboy who depends only on his own courage, his rifle and his horse. Manifest Destiny, and all the other American claptrap about freedom and liberty. Collective action is hard for us to imagine because it has been drummed into us that this is the way capitalism and globalization works, and we have to accept it.
People don’t understand that unions historically did more than organize workers, coordinate actions, and negotiate contracts; they also educated workers about economics and politics. Unions connected the political dots for their members. Who does this vital work now?
To return to Brad and Justin. Brad’s married, I think, in his mid-30’s, white, no children; Justin, also white, single, is in his mid-20’s. From what I’ve gathered, Brad has lived in his car in the past, while Justin currently pitches a two-man tent wherever he can without being rousted by the police, which has happened to him at least once that I know of. Justin lugs a huge backpack, a duffel bag, and the tent into the Market everyday and stores it in the employee locker room. He generally wears the same clothes, and sometimes reeks of body odor. He sports a bushy beard. Looking at him you peg him for a mountain man from the far north of California or Southern Oregon. He’s nice as can be, really good with customers, always pleasant and helpful, but even working full-time he can’t afford anything but canvas over his head.
People who work full-time shouldn’t be homeless. But then, no corporation should own a majority of the single family homes in this country or be so large and have such far-reaching power (like Amazon) that it can dictate its own terms and impact a huge chunk of the economy if it doesn’t get its way.
Too-big-to-fail is just too big to begin with.
One of our problems is that too many people of Brad and Justin’s age have never known anything different. They can’t be faulted for not knowing much, if anything, about American labor history or capitalism or NAFTA, because they’ve not been taught. They may have never met a unionized worker. The term “collective bargaining” is foreign.
It’s not surprising that the American economy is organized for the benefit of the wealthy few rather than the toiling many. The half-century long project of deregulation, privatization and union-demolishing has worked brilliantly for the investor class, the bankers and hedge fund managers, and the tech moguls. Look at us now, our cities filled with homeless encampments, public education under constant attack, higher education priced beyond reach of most wage earners, critical infrastructure falling apart, and precarious low wage gig work becoming normalized. Even child labor is making a comeback in many states controlled by the ideologically bankrupt Republican party.
I’ll say it again because it bears repeating: a person who works full-time at a job shouldn’t have to pitch a tent by the freeway or sell blood to make ends meet. When will Americans learn that unregulated capitalism fails in every age?
