Beauty Parade — November 1953 … Amid unemployment and inequality, is the American Dream at risk? (October 26, 2011) …item 2.. Scranton’s Public Workers’ Pay Cut to Minimum Wage (July 7, 2012) …
Image by marsmet522
"I’m trying to do the best I can with the limited amount of funds that I have," Doherty says, "I want the employees to get paid. Our people work hard — our police and fire — I just don’t have enough money and I can’t print it in the basement."
After paying workers Friday, the city had only about ,000 left in the bank. More money flowed into city accounts that day, but it was still not enough to pay the million the city still owes to its nearly 400 employees.
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But the heart of the American Dream has always been about mobility. As long as people feel they have a fair shot at building a better life, they’ve usually been able to put up with periods of economic turmoil, even with relatively high levels of inequality.
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… personal note: "when you borrow the dime, you’ll have to pay the time !!"
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…..item 1)…. THE LOOKOUT .. news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout ..
Amid unemployment and inequality, is the American Dream at risk?
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By Zachary Roth | The Lookout – Wed, Oct 26, 2011
news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/amid-unemployment-inequality…
For well over a century, the American Dream has acted as a beacon of hope to people around the world: the notion that by working hard and playing by the rules, anyone can build a secure, comfortable life for themselves and a bright future for their kids. But as the country struggles to shake off the Great Recession, amid persistent joblessness and growing inequality, is that idea at risk?
"I’ve kind of lost hope in the American Dream," one unemployed Yahoo! reader told us earlier this month.
She’s far from the only one. When we asked readers over the summer to share their stories of long-term joblessness, thousands responded, and many lamented having lost faith in the country’s ability to provide for ordinary Americans. "I am scared to death of what lies ahead," one reader from Maryland wrote.
In May, a Pew poll found that just 47 percent of Americans think their kids will enjoy a higher standard of living as adults than they themselves do. As recently as 2009–the height of the economic downturn–that number was 62 percent.
This growing pessimism isn’t hard to explain. Fourteen million Americans are officially unemployed, and the number spikes to around 26 million if you count people who have grown discouraged and given up looking for work. The average duration of joblessness is now at a record 9 months. Meanwhile, GDP growth has been limping along since the official end of the recession over 2 years ago.
The young have been especially hard hit. Unemployment for Americans in their 20s has skyrocketed in recent years. And a growing number are moving in with their parents as they struggle to make ends meet.
At the same time, Americans have also been debating the thorny question of inequality–an issue spotlighted lately by the Occupy Wall Street movement, which started in lower Manhattan and has since spread rapidly across the country. A CBO report released Tuesday–just the latest in a series of studies to confirm the massive rich-poor gap–found that income for the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans had exploded since 1979, by a whopping 275 percent. Meanwhile, income for the poorest 20 percent grew by just 18 percent in the same period.
Americans don’t seem to be happy with that split. A study by professors at Duke and Harvard Business School (pdf) asked people how much of the nation’s wealth should ideally be controlled by the nation’s richest 20 percent, and its poorest. The responses: just over 30 percent, and just over 10 percent, respectively. That’s not anywhere close to the reality; the top 20 percent controls nearly 85 percent of the wealth, and the bottom 20 percent controls a share so small it didn’t show up on the researchers’ chart.
But the heart of the American Dream has always been about mobility. As long as people feel they have a fair shot at building a better life, they’ve usually been able to put up with periods of economic turmoil, even with relatively high levels of inequality.
That idea of mobility–crucial to the image of America as a land of opportunity–may also be overblown, though. An exhaustive, long-range 2006 study by the Brookings Institution (pdf) found that middle-income kids are only half as likely as kids from the richest quintile to reach the top of the income ladder themselves. The education system may be part of the problem. A separate study from 2005 by the liberal
Economic Policy Institute found that high-income students with low tests were more likely to finish college than low-income students with high test scores.
Of course, concerns about the flickering of the American Dream are hardly new. Back in the recession of the early 90s, Generation Xers graduating from college were told they’d struggle to do better than their parents had–a prediction that wasn’t borne out.
But this time may be different. Economists say that even once growth gets back to normal–whenever that may be–employment will likely come back lower than we’ve grown used to, thanks in part to increasing offshoring of jobs and automation. And our political system appears even more dysfunctional than it did even back then. Last week, Republicans in Congress blocked efforts to spur job growth that would be paid for by raising taxes on millionaires.
"It’s time to reclaim the American Dream," then-Sen. Barack Obama declared back in 2007. At this point, it looks like we’ve got a long way to go.
Want more of our best economics and social-policy stories? Visit The Lookout or connect with us on
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Tell us your story: Do you think the American Dream is still possible?
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…..item 2)…. KCLU … www.kclu.org .. A Community Service of California Lutheran University …
Scranton’s Public Workers’ Pay Cut to Minimum Wage
Sat, July 7, 2012 12:55pm
Story by Jeff Brady
www.kclu.org/npr/?id=156416876
LISTEN TO THIS STORY ON NPR.ORG »
The city of Scranton, Pa., sent out paychecks to its employees Friday, like it does every two weeks. But this time the checks were much smaller than usual. Mayor Chris Doherty has reduced everyone’s pay — including his own — to the state’s minimum wage: .25 an hour.
Doherty says his city has run out of money.
Scranton has had financial troubles for a couple of decades — the town has been losing population since the end of World War II. But the budget problems became more serious in recent months as the mayor and the city council fought over how to balance the budget.
Doherty wants to raise taxes to fill a .8-million gap. The city council wants to take a different approach and borrow money. City council members did not respond to NPR’s requests to discuss the dispute.
"I’m trying to do the best I can with the limited amount of funds that I have," Doherty says, "I want the employees to get paid. Our people work hard — our police and fire — I just don’t have enough money and I can’t print it in the basement."
After paying workers Friday, the city had only about ,000 left in the bank. More money flowed into city accounts that day, but it was still not enough to pay the million the city still owes to its nearly 400 employees.
Scranton’s public workers received a few days’ warning this was coming. John Judge, a firefighter and president of the International Association of Firefighters, Local 60, typically receives about ,500 every two weeks, after deductions. On Friday his check was less than 0 — before deductions.
"Don’t know how I’m going to pay bills at home. I may be able to stave it off for a little while," Judge says. "[The] kids aren’t going to be able to do certain activities this summer — maybe we’re not going to be able to go on vacation."
The firefighters’ union, along with the police and public works unions, have taken the city to court. Lackawanna County Judge Michael Barrasse issued an injunction, essentially agreeing with the unions that the city was breaking the law, but Doherty says he doesn’t have another choice. Despite the injunction, he had the city send out paychecks based on minimum wage.
The unions plan to be back in court first thing Monday morning to ask the judge to hold Doherty in contempt.
There’s been no love lost between Doherty and the public employee unions because of this battle; they’ve already spent the past decade in a legal dispute over pay that went all the way to the state supreme court. Both sides come to this latest battle with plenty of baggage and hard feelings. But with nearly 400 city workers receiving a fraction of the pay they typically get, pressure is building to resolve the issue soon.
Copyright 2012 National Public Radio. To see more, visit www.npr.org/.
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