To anyone who has grown up with the deeply American belief that the best way to get ahead is to roll up your sleeves and get to work it must seem peculiar that the Clinton Administration has adopted a policy that deliberately puts a brake on the economy and thus on the number of Americans who can work. The Administration genuflecting before the Federal Reserve is now more concemed with in flat on than with the chronically high unemployment that is eroding the promise of the American dream for millions of men and women.
But what inflation? Nobody can find the inflation having run from so many other battles the Admin situation is now engaged in a fight to the death with a phantom It’s a fight that pleases the wealthy but has painful consequences for hard working men and women aid for the poor
Stephen Blackwell a supervisor with the State Department of Labor in New York mentioned the
Discouragement he continues to see in the faces of the working poor as they sign up for unemployment benefits and job search.
We hear that things are getting better said Mr Blackwell but our reach on be that things haven’t substantially improved.
Mr Blackwell has worked in the same Manhattan office for 10 years and knows many of the clients personally. You now see people accepting jobs that pay much less than jobs they would have accepted years ago. At some poi it gets to be an emotional thing form i see people that I’ve known for years who are now struggling people are hard workers just like me maybe hander. The decision to sacrifice the live hoods of real people to placate the evil spirit of inflation has enormous consequences most of them bad. A Jack of meaningful work is at the core of nearly all the social problems plaguing the country. You cannot gather up the pieces and begin to repair the damage we have done to families without finding a way to create many more jobs. You cannot achieve meaningful welfare reform or universal health coverage without a growing market for labor. And you sure can’t make any real headway on come without putting vast numbers of young people to work.
But we are not moving in that direction the out placement firm Challenger Gray & Christmas reported yesterday that work-force reductions through May were running 18% ahead of the first five months of 1993. While there are jobs being created (many of them temporary of part time) compare downsizing continues at a rapid perhaps record-breaking rate There are vast regions of the work force that have yet to be reached the economic recovery and they won’t be reached as Jong as the brakes are kept on capainsion Joseph Kneafsey who manages Mr Blick wells office says he is seeing professionals who are a job away from their specialist An example would be a senior programmer who loses 8 job cane not find other work in the field manages to land a job as a book: keeper and then loses that job Me Kneafsey was asked in light of official statistics showing decreasing unemployment i he was seeming any improvement After a long pause the replied Very limited.
If the country is not yet strong enough economically to have nearly full employment for the middle class how will it be possible in get decent jobs to the working poor and beyond them to the hard-core unemployed.
You can’t at this level of growth in the economy said Jeff Faux president of the Economic Policy Institute in Washington. In Mr. Fauxs view the argument that you have to sacrifice jobs to keep inflation under control is a specious one given current economic conditions. Mr. Faux noted that over the last 80 years the period for which price indices are available the United States has never experienced runaway inflation that resulted from a peacetime economy surging out of control. In our actual expenence he said the dreaded wage price spiral has only occurred when markets have been suddenly jolted by war or supply shocks such as occurred with the oil embargoes.
The inflation rate is a shade under a percent yet the Federal Reserve remains mesmerized. As for out-of work Americans well too bad about them. Courtesy New York Times
Article extracted from this publication >> June 17, 1994
