Longer Hours, Fewer Jobs:
Employment and Unemployment in the United States
by Michael D. Yates

“Today, we are in a period of rising joblessness greater than at any time since the Great Depression.  Young people have little hope of secure employment, and minority youth particularly can count on many spells of unemployment in their lives.  Yet…having a job is hardly a guarantee of the good life…growing insecurity will be the lot of most new entrants into the labor force.  The question is—why?”

It’s a question many of us are asking ourselves when we look at the stack of unpaid bills on our desk, struggle under the burden of sixty-hour workweeks, and wonder why our paychecks don’t seem to go as far as they used to.

Why are so many people unemployed, and why does it seem as though even those of us who have jobs or desperately want to work are facing increasing economic insecurity, and erosion of government support systems like welfare?  Why does it seem like most of us are working harder but slipping further behind financially in spite of our efforts?  Why are so many people in poverty in the US, while the mainstream news sources focus on the ups and downs of the stock market, as if oblivious to the concerns of everyday people? 

There is a growing sense that the evening news isn’t giving the American public the whole story.  We hear about corporate mergers, the Dow Jones average, and the “dot-com” millionaires, and are given statistics and “economic indicators” that make us think we should be celebrating our prosperity.  But why, then, are we having such trouble making ends meet, even if we DO work full-time?  Why do we notice a pervasive sense of desperation among our unemployed friends and neighbors?  If we’re so well off as a nation, why isn’t the average working person reaping the fruits of this prosperity? 

Michael D. Yates, a professor of economics at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown (also the author of Why Unions Matter and A Labor Law Handbook), answers these questions and many more in a useful and “user-friendly” book that shows clearly how employment, unemployment, wages, and the economy are linked.  He shows us the fallacies in the commonly accepted use of the term “capitalism” by mainstream economists:

“It is important to see that mainstream economists make a critical assumption…they assume that buyers and sellers meet as equals, as “free” human beings who make rational choices in their own interests.  In other words, nothing forces anyone to buy a product or take a job.” 

It should be obvious to most of working America that we are not “free” to refuse a job in any meaningful sense. 

Those who found themselves bored in economics classes by the lack of focus on how our economy affects our day-to-day lives will find this engaging book especially helpful.  Yates exposes clearly the false assumptions underlying “economic indicators” like the federal poverty line and the unemployment rate, and how the American public is kept in the dark about what’s really going on.

How many of us know the real story behind today’s economy?  How many of us falsely equate “capitalism” with “the free market”?  What do these terms really mean, anyway, and how are they relevant to the life of the average working person today?

Yates combines cartoons and revealing graphs to describe how these forces affect our lives, and explains how they are interconnected.  He shows us how capitalism and corporate control have led to social misery and destruction, and provides ideas about what should be done.

He also brings into focus many factors that are seldom taken into account by mainstream economists.  How is the federal poverty level figure calculated, and why doesn’t it tell the whole story?  What is the real wage rate, as opposed to the actual wage rate?  What is the Consumer Price Index?  What has been left out of the official unemployment figures and how are they manipulated to make it seem as though we’re better off than we really are?  “Defining unemployment is a political act,” he claims.

Unemployment has disastrous consequences for freedom in a capitalist country.  “In a society such as ours,” writes Yates, “the lack of a job and the concomitant absence of an income almost negates our formal freedoms because unemployment condemns us to poverty, poor health, and low self-esteem.”

A few quotes from the book:

The Nature of the Beast: Capitalism

"The reasons for the depressing trends…are seldom discussed in any but the most superficial ways.  It is assumed that the economic system is “fundamentally sound”—to use one of the favorite cliches of the rich and powerful during the early years of the Great Depression.  “Outside forces” (an oil crisis, natural disasters) or human failings (an unwillingness to work hard, sexual promiscuity, even genetic defects) are the culprits when things go wrong.  In much commentary, the economic system becomes an alien being, beyond human control: the best we can do is adapt to it, whatever this might entail in terms of human misery.  Everyone faces the same market conditions, and everyone has the same chance of success or failure.”

“We say we have a ‘free enterprise’ system or a ‘free market’ economy—yet very few people are “free” to start a business.  The essential features of any economic system—the social relationships that people enter into as they produce and distribute society’s goods and services—are hidden by these terms.”

Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC):

“This aid, along with…food stamps and medical assistance, is only given to those who have no assets and it is given under conditions that stigmatize the recipients.  In addition, many states have enacted some sort of “workfare” scheme, which forces the women who receive public assistance to work for their aid or to enroll in job-training programs.  Several appraisals of these “welfare reforms” have shown them to be more concerned with reducing government expenditures and providing businesses with a pool of docile low-wage labor than with getting people off the welfare rolls.”

Workers Suffer at all Levels

“Anyway we look at it, the past twelve years, and probably the past two decades, have witnessed rapidly falling real wages and benefits for wide sectors of the working population.  Those who began at the bottom have suffered the most, but older, college-educated, and white workers are now under the gun of wage cuts as well.  The distributions of wealth have become grotesquely unequal.”

The Fallacy of an Equal Playing Field and the American Dream

“Many people have an image of the United States as a nation dominated by the “middle class”, a large group of upwardly mobile workers, professionals, and owners of small businesses.  At any given time, some people were poor, but everyone had a chance at the “American Dream” of solid financial success.  While this view was always more myth than reality, it can no longer survive even as myth.  …we appear to be moving toward a two-tier society, with a minority at the top with lots of money and power and the vast majority below and sinking fast, with neither money nor power and precious little hope for the future.”

Unemployment, Laziness, and the “Undeserving” Poor

”Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, those in power…agreed that some people were unable to work and that these people deserved at least some public assistance.  On the other hand, they also argued that those able to work but unwilling to do so should not be given anything so that their laziness would not be encouraged and others would not be tempted to imitate them.  Both the Western European countries and the United States invented a host of devices to force the “undeserving” poor to work.  […]  None of these punitive schemes put much of a dent in the number of unemployed, although they did help to create a powerful public prejudice against them.  It was true that some people chose not to work, but the conditions in most workplaces were so horrible that it is hard to blame them for choosing begging or the dole.  In fact, these voluntarily unemployed might better be seen as rebels against the industrial economy that was sweeping away older, more personal, and less “clock-driven” cultures of work.”

What Will the Future Hold?

“Trends in employment…are not hopeful.  People are working more hours for less money and there is every indication that they will continue to do so.  Some workers will be performing more highly skilled work, but not enough to compensate for the millions who will be toiling away at dead-end, unskilled jobs.”

Although Yates’ claim that guaranteed employment should be a matter of public policy is questionable (see Andre Gorz, Reclaiming Work: Beyond the Wage System, 1999), Yates makes other recommendations that are completely sound.  For example:

• Universal and comprehensive health care must be provided to everyone. 
• There must be a reduction in the average hours of work for those who work full-time. 
• We must abandon the notion that happiness can only be achieved by consuming things. 
• Controls must be placed on what the wealthy can and cannot do with their wealth. 

Yates has written an excellent book for those who would like an introduction to how the economy REALLY works, exposing many of the myths we adhere to in the United States.  CLAWS recommends Longer Hours, Fewer Jobs, especially if supplemented by other, more radical books.

CLAWS rating: 4