i'm thinking these days about the problems facing the generations in this country who are younger than me. during my working career and that of most others my age, we could count on finding a job that paid us a decent salary if we had a good education. we could afford to drive a nice car, purchase a home, feed our families, and put something away for our old age. younger people, especially those forty and below, don't find that to be the case any more.
i'm thinking of one particular young man i know. he has a college degree. he is talented. he is hard working and dependable. he has skills that seem to find him a job anywhere but the jobs don't pay enough to afford him any more than the very basic essentials. he can feed himself and pay rent on an apartment, but there is nothing left over at the end of the month. he drives a twenty-year-old vehicle which, for the most part, he maintains himself. he can't save for a home or for his retirement. there is no room for advancement in his field. he has reached the top rung of the ladder, though he has almost twenty years of experience. the only way he can improve his situation is to change careers, which will necessitate a large outlay of capital for additional training. in order to do this, he will have to go in debt and hope that he can land a new job that pays him enough to repay the debt. he is not alone in this situation. few young people can make enough money to fulfill the american dream unless they have a partner and can rely on two incomes.
i think of the millions of working poor in this country. we see them every day, pouring our drinks in the coffee shop, flipping our burgers at fast food joints, serving our food in restaurants, checking us out at the grocery store. these folk who must work for minimum wage or perhaps slightly above it make just enough to keep their heads above water. often they live in the most basic housing and struggle to have enough to eat. if they have children, the struggle is even greater.
i hear employers complaining that they can't find people to fill jobs in the service industry. they blame more generous unemployment compensation enacted during the shut-downs forced on the economy by the pandemic. many states have ended paying out the extra money the federal government provided to boost unemployment checks, believing that people are failing to return to their minimum-wage jobs because their government dole pays them more than they could earn. if that is the case, we have something to learn from it. it is not that those who have not returned to the work force are lazy. it is that there is something terribly wrong with our economy. people who work need to earn a living wage. we should not be subsidizing companies making billions by enabling them to pay less than a living wage while forcing their employees to rely on government assistance to put food on the table. we speak of the dignity of work, but where is the dignity when someone works hard every day and still has to rely on the government to feed them.
the continuing concentration of wealth in the hands of a few at the expense of the rest of society must stop. some attempts to ameliorate growing income inequality are being made at the federal level, but the business lobbyists and their allies in the republican party are doing all the can to stop these attempts by the biden administration and the democrats in the house and senate. we must address our unjust economic situation if we are to survive as a democratic country. keeping the american dream of prosperity for all alive must be the goal of government, business, and labor.
may we see that no one is well off if work is not rewarded fairly. may we stop our desire to accumulate wealth at the expense of others. may those who work hard and play by the rules be compensated commensurate with their efforts. may we recognize that the preamble to our constitution says our government must "establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, [and] promote the general welfare." may we understand that, without just compensation of labor, none of these can be accomplished. shalom.
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