How I went from middle class to homeless - CNN

[HughBeaumont]

Keep ignoring "the new unemployables" at your own peril, America. We used to not have to worry about older workers. What happened (you know, BESIDES "Reagan&quot ??

Unless "a miracle happens," Joe will likely live in his 2001 Chevrolet Venture minivan by the summer. He removed the seats in the back to make space for a sleeping bag, his laptop and some clothes.

Soon to turn 61, Joe never imagined he would be in this position.

"When I was a kid growing up...America was the greatest place on planet earth. We were the envy of the civilized world. I never thought this could happen here," Joe says. CNNMoney agreed not to use his last name because he worries potential future employers will Google him.

Joe's big fear is that people assume he's lazy. He wore a suit for his interview with CNNMoney and hid his eyes behind big dark glasses because he is ashamed his life has come to this.

Joe's worked all his life, starting at age 11 pushing a broom around an uncle's shop. He earned two associate's degrees in electrical engineering technology and mechanical engineering technology and built a "blue collar" career as a technician, tester and machine operator. He loves factories and figuring out how things work.

When manufacturing jobs dried up in southeastern Pennsylvania, Joe moved to Minnesota. By the late 1990s, he earned $15 an hour, what he dubs a solid "lower middle class" wage. He figured he would work his way up, get a few raises and maybe buy a home. The American Dream seemed within reach.

Then his mother got sick. As the oldest child, he moved back to Pennsylvania in 1999 to care for her. Never married, Joe bought a trailer home with his mother. He managed to get jobs through temp agencies, but the work was never steady. He never earned $15 again.

Since being laid off in April 2013 from a manufacturing job, he's worked on and off a total of only seven months. He has drained his savings and retirement accounts and his mother is now in a nursing home, funded by what remains of her life savings and Medicaid.

Presidential candidate Donald Trump, a heavy favorite to win Pennsylvania, brings up the plight of people like Joe often in his stump speeches. He recently pointed out that the Keystone state has lost "35% of its manufacturing jobs since 2001."

I see two issues here that are vexing.

One, that this example and many others makes the case for the urgent need to institute a Guaranteed Minimum Income. The notion that a person's survival is chain-tethered to how gainfully they're employed has got to go the way of the dodo. You know, either get a GMI going or start caring less about "profit and shareholder value above all" and start bringing manufacturing, industry and business back here again. I mean, unless we want to see millions starve and die. Then wondering where to park their yachts this season will be the least of the wealthy's worries.

Two, that there's any notion of Trump being some kind of populist that's magically going to fix our economic ailments. It's been said that the rise of Roadkillhead parallels what "Reagan Democrats" were on about in making that addled tit president in 1980. Exactly how is a union-busting hypercapitalist CEO who's filed for bankruptcy on his businesses four times going to fix this? I really would like some specifics. Stop selling the mystery and start selling the mastery.

[ViseGrip]

1. the only candidate who will come close to addressing this, is Bernie Sanders.

With more war, it will get worse, for people like him, and better for friends of Hillary and the Foundation. Those who have paid to play.

[lumberjack_jeff]

41. Fully, and completely agree. "This" is also the only issue that matters to me. n/t

[peace13]

2. This song will be the new national anthem, with a bankster president.

[Maeve]

3. 2008 also happened

Hubby was listening to a public radio show talking about older workers and caller after caller reported an all too familiar story--they had a good job, peak of their career, the downturn came and they were let go. Try to find a job in your 50's that pays decent money, especially in that climate. They call it 'cost savings', but it is often another form of age discrimination--we pay you too much, we can get a younger person in here for a lot less (not that they will ever say that, but...)

And yeah, I'm the same age as the man in the story above and yeah, Hubby was laid off during the recession and no, he never found another job paying as well. Fortunately, he had a side business that he's been able to grow into full time, but we lost health care, vacation, retirement, sick days...

[HughBeaumont]

4. There at least needs to be a GMI for unemployable workers.

Start there.

Sorry to break this to the internet's armchair economists, but if the jobs aren't there, the jobs just aren't there. All the talk in the world isn't going to cure a growing labor surplus; too many potential workers and not enough jobs for them. Corporate America's greed is off the rails and over a cliff. They first embraced off/in-shoring and now they're going to take the automation ball and run with it.

Giving the wealthy more money isn't going to make them benevolent. Whoever believes this line of horsecrapola needs to get a clue-by-four upside the head. If they could offshore or automate every job besides their own, they WOULD.

[d_r]

6. happened to my mother in law

she has never worked again

[marble falls]

5. This is a real problem for any male over 50 who loses his job and has any sort of asset eating ....

problem.We go from being the wise man in the cave to being the homeless man in the broken down minivan. Thank god I made good money and had no expensive problems along the way. My VA benefits kept my cancer from making me both broke and on the streets and/or prematurely dead.

[bigwillq]

9. They should go into politics

A 74, 68 and 69 year old are well past the retirement age but, yet, they're running to rule the free world. But the rest of us lose our jobs when we get to a certain age. Go figure.

[marble falls]

31. Times are changing very quickly. Being relevent is harder than ever.

[Victor_c3]

7. Big publicly traded corporations are the problem

Shareholders demand a steady growth and rate of return. At first the company has no problems as the business is relatively small. Soon the market becomes saturated and growth in value for the company is no longer as simple as expanding the number of stores or the volume of manufacturing. The only way to continually provide increase in value is through decreasing costs. We see it over and over again that workers wages, workers benefits, and worker pensions are easy places to cut costs.

Corporations displace the small and medium businesses and the mom-and-pop businesses as they deliver a product that is cheaper to produce as they aren't dealing with the overhead of providing a livable income to their workers.

It just trickled down from there.

---------------

Edit to add:

mainstream politicians on both sides pander to the corporations and the workers lose. It's very telling that the candidate we are being told to vote for unless we want a republican in the white house is the same candidate that is funded by the biggest corporations?

[Lyricalinklines]

46. I agree. Corporate growth combined with decrease in taxes paid by them based on "fairness" ...

...equals trouble for the remainder of the population. In a word, greed.

[n2doc]

8. Desperate people will cling to fairy tales like those Trump is telling

I don't blame them. I blame those in power who could not care less about them.

[MisterP]

25. he's pushing ahead on protectionism and government spending--Stealing the Bern

to sell to people who think they hate socialism; it's ALMOST the same class that famously wanted burgers from the government cow whose milk they grew up on, but we have to remember that the New White Flight yuppies are mostly Dems since 1994

meanwhile the Clinton campaign's message is "as long as it happens to straight white males"

[lumberjack_jeff]

42. Yup. n/t

[LittleGirl]

10. This has happened to so many people

I know. I can count at least 10 of my family, friends and acquaintances going through this.
My high school friend has struggled for years trying to earn a living and her husband just got laid off at Christmas and finally found work a few months later. My brother who is 57 was told he was too old, too expensive and has not worked in months.
Everyone one of us is worried that we are a decade from retirement will lose it all too.
It wasn't supposed to be like this.

We got sucker punched in our prime and have to start over and over and hope we don't end up homeless either.

And the news shows more deaths and suicides for 50+. yeah, we had to suffer that too.

[Hydra]

11. Guaranteed Minimum Income would solve a host of problems

But the current climate in the US is ABSOLUTELY that if you can't find a way to be a useful slave, then you and your dependent loved ones should die and make room for everyone else.

Regarding Trump, our party is giving the working class a hearty "You must vote for us and expect NOTHING, you worthless people!!" He's obviously not the answer, but our party isn't offering an answer either, so...

[knightmaar]

12. There's also the healthcare issue

If you had government provided health care and a federal pension plan, Joe wouldn't be in this situation either. That's the safety net we have here in Canada and you need in the U.S.

When his mother got sick, it would have been covered. Even if she didn't get the government pension because she hadn't put into it, there would be an Old Age Pension (basically, a GMI for old people). Then Joe would be living off his odd jobs instead of being bankrupted by his mother's medical needs.

[Octafish]

13. When the jobs disappeared, the unemployed just got lazier.

Instead of building new factories and digging ditches to downtown and stuff, they started complaining about not having a "job" and having to go on the dole. Lots of them didn't even sign up for the latest in re-training for desktop programming and Flash design and stuff .

Good thing someone reformed welfare as we know it back in the mid-90s so they had to go do something with their lives instead of typing, complaining and crying on the Internet all damn day.

What's wrong with you? Don't you know who's to blame? Get with the program. It's not the people at fault. In USA USA USA, it's the weak lazy losers who get to be scapegoat.

Who knows? Someday, being a bum may be a paying gig. Until then, they're lucky they haven't been deported to Mexico.

(For those who would miss the thingy: the above is sarcasm, the sad sibling of satire).

In all seriousness: Thank you for another of your outstanding posts, HughBeaumont. Minimum guaranteed income is the least the capitalists can do, seeing how they've managed to pocket most of the wealth created in the wealthiest times in human history.

[maddiemom]

16. When the local plant of a national (now international, of course) industry shut down a decade ago,

my brother, a lifelong employee, was too young for Social Security, but was luckier than many, receiving SOME pension due to his seniority. The company offered retraining, but wouldn't foot my brother going to culinary school, just pretty much wanted everyone to go into computer training. I, myself, had left a tenured teaching job to raise a family. Although (partly BECAUSE) I had a Master's degree plus and was high on the salary scale, when I wanted to return to teaching, I could get plenty of daily subbing work, but no full time job without moving across the country (which I would have done when younger and a non-parent). Many of the teachers I subbed for usually requested me...until there got to be so many unemployed teachers on the sub list complaining that they never got called, that regular teachers were no longer allowed to request their sub of choice. BTW, when I looked into alternate training myself, almost everything that was pushed was computer training in general (no specific field). That was an additional drawback we both faced in far different employment areas.

[Octafish]

19. Here in Detroit we are living so large, thanks to neoliberalism.

Thanks to NAFTA, the ownership class lives beyond Midas' dreams. The rest of us, though, not so much either.

Here in Michigan, there aren't as many UAW members as when NAFTA got passed. A lot less. NAFTA went into effect on Jan. 1, 1994.



It's not all bad, though. What were once-bankrupt car makers and car suppliers are doing great, hiring like crazy. The problem for U.S. workers is that most of the hiring is for new plants overseas.

Consider the case of DELPHI Automotive, a parts maker spun-off when General Motors couldn't make it sufficiently profitable:

[font color="green"]Talk about a turnaround. Delphi's epic 2005 bankruptcy exacted high costs on communities, unions and the pensions of salaried retirees. Yet the creative destruction of the four-year ordeal, shaped by management, private equity investors and the demands of the Obama auto task force, produced a global supplier that now offers 33 product lines from 141 manufacturing sites in 33 countries and employs 160,000 worldwide — only 5,000 of which work inside the United States.[/font color]

-- Daniel Howes, Detroit News

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/columnists/daniel-howes/2015/02/18/howes-delphi-surges-quietly-one-regret/23655511/

The above is from a business columnist describing the good work of DELPHI's then-president in turning the company around. "Good work" is, of course, defined in maximizing shareholder value. "Shareholder," seems to me, is defined as "Owner."

PS: Thank you for sharing, maddiemom. My family also has a good number of educators, some of whom are not working. Some of whom substitute teach. All of whom wonder how it is possible to live in a world that needs so much education, those with control of the pursestrings want to defund the Department of Education and keep them in ignorance. Hey...Oh!

Here in the Motor City, when the auto jobs disappeared, so did the middle class. Now we have the professionals and the few Yuppies "worth" the name carrying the load for progre$$.

[maddiemom]

44. Very belatedly, given time to get "back atcha"...

At the time NAFTA came up, I was teaching a remedial summer class of teenagers with learning problems (and have previously mentioned the experience on this board). We discussed "current events" and none of them could understand how NAFTA would be of benefit to U.S. workers in the type of jobs that they (with no college hopes) were aiming for. They grasped the drawbacks immediately. My area, like the auto industry you mention, was a major mining and steel area of the country. The coal was never played out, just more expensive to mine (my ex was a mining engineer and mine manager), Far easier to strip mine and tear the top off mountains. Very few workers have to be paid to do this.

[markbark]

14. Heed the words of a Democrat:

[alarimer]

15. It's unfortunate it's so hard to prove age discrimination.

It's rampant and, though it is nominally illegal, companies find ways around the law.

I wonder if getting rid of "at will" employment will help.

[Initech]

17. Conservatives talk shit about jobs all the time, but the truth is - they don't do anything about it.

[Katashi_itto]

21. Like Clinton does. Wait thats incorrect she has TPP to use on us.

[HughBeaumont]

27. It's not in their best interests.

What IS in their best interests is keeping the people stupid enough to elect them again and angry enough at their invented scapegoats (read: TEH POORS UND TEH GEIGHS) to not blame Republicans for the problems their economic plan causes.

[Initech]

28. Don't forget trans people needing to use the bathroom!

It's their scapegoat du jour!

[HughBeaumont]

29. Innit funny . . . .

. . . how people who have a massive problem with gub'mint policing the wealthy ("CLASS WHOREFARE!&quot have absolutely NO problem at all with gub'mint policing the powerless?

[closeupready]

18. I think the prospect of this happening is a fear EVERY wage-earner has.

K&R

[TBF]

20. Bernie Sanders will address this -

While both Clinton and Trump will continue pontificating and pandering (but in the end both will give huge tax breaks to the owners and continue with the "free trade" policies that have caused these issues).

[Enthusiast]

22. Fucking trade deals.

[RockaFowler]

23. My husband had to start over at 58

He went to work at Lowe's and worked his way up. Why?? Because they knew he had the knowledge for that job and that particular company. Yes they gave him a chance, but it was because he kept working to get better at that job.

I'm proud of my husband. Unemployment almost killed him, but he kept working odd jobs and tried his best at any job possible. You have to sell yourself better sometimes. I was there to teach him about corporate America. That's something he never worked in before.

Now - he's a supervisor with Lowe's. They saw his potential and they gave him the chance.

Oh and my husband has never liked Trump's rhetoric. Even at his worst times, he never blamed President Obama for the problems. He blamed the banks. We remember why this country took forever it seems like to get back on their feet!!

[Skittles]

35. Mr. RockaFowler sounds like my kind of guy

I've always said, if I ever have to clean toilets for a living they will be damn clean toilets; yes INDEED

[SammyWinstonJack]

24. Bankruptcy Trump...WTF...smh...Make America Hate Again....reason for tRump's supporters, truth be

told.
Millions starve and die ....Isn't that the plan of TPTB?

[ghostsinthemachine]

26. This is my, and a LOT of other people's story, right here

Ding a ling. Coupled with disability issues and you've got a lot of people living in their cars or worse.
I've been in my van for three years now. Shower at the gym. Never a peaceful nights sleep, working about being hassled or endangered. Bills pile up etc...?

[hunter]

30. Billionaires ought to be taxed out of existence. A few of them need to be locked away in prison...

... because they've done far more damage to society than any non-violent criminal.

The billionaires ought to be feeling that same sick uncertainty about their future as the rest of us.

Protesters ought to greet them wherever they go.

Our oligarchs ought to be "incentivized" to do the difficult work of making the world a better place, even more so than the people who work full time and still qualify for food stamps, never knowing if their jobs will be there the next day.

[HughBeaumont]

33. By not taking them to task when we should have (or like Europeans do) . . .

. . . we created a purchased government that has absolutely no reason to fear the people.

This all started in the 1980s, where the corporations and the wealthy that run them decided to bear less of a stake in the development of the public largesse and made the public wholly responsible for their educations, well being and retirements. Under the stench blanket of "Rugged Individualism", America lapped this new way up. "We're the masters of our own destiny".

Except that the math, she just don't add up.

401(k)s are a perfect example. They promised everyone they'd be a millionaire in 25-35 years if we just keep giving Wall Street our money. Then the multiple recessions hit and joblessness happened. Then the price of necessities skyrocketed; what was once affordable college that could be paid with a summer job now becomes a 15-30 year mortgage. Homes now cost 3.5-4 times as much as an average household income. Food went up in price. Then employers stopped matching 401k Contributions.

With all this, how is the average American supposed to SAVE, let alone invest? How do the "millions" happen when our yield is garbage and wages are flatlined?

Sorry, pundits, but how wealthy you're going to be has EVERYthing to do with how much you take home. It was a risk shift, and we now have a government bought by Wall Street. They got the gold mine, we got the shaft.

[Javaman]

32. most people are homeless, they just don't know it yet, they will

when the don't get next weeks paycheck.

fortunately for them, they do, but if they didn't...

the general public, for the most part, think this won't happen to them. That is the disconnect

[HughBeaumont]

34. What I don't get is this:

Businesses want us to keep buying, but they don't want to employ us to make that buying continue happening. Their third world "customer base" can't buy big ticket items.

How does this reconcile? Is it that they just aren't even pretending to care anymore?

[Hydra]

36. Most of the wealth now being created is an illusion

They are spinning money out of moonbeams and using the Treasury to back it up. They aren't interested in selling things, they are "extracting" funds.

Late stage capitalism at work.

[HughBeaumont]

38. What they won't cook, they'll blatantly rob.

We're turning into Ceausescu's Romania. They robbed everyone's pensions & private accounts and lived high off the hog while Romania starved and their kids got HIV from sharing vaccination needles.

[GOPblows431]

37. One of the saddest things I've read recently

The politicians in this country really don't have our best interests at heart. They only care about the 1%.

[closeupready]

45. They only care about the 1% because they ARE part of the 1%.

[KG]

39. according to the DU TPP pimps, Joe should be proud that 2 or 3 third-worlders got his job.

while living in his car, he's free from his pesky notions of nationalism....

[HughBeaumont]

40. ... . . . or of eating . . .

I'm still waiting for an answer from the Free Traitors on what would be the IDEAL income low enough for us super-wealthy working stiffs. After all, to the rest of the world, even our homeless and super-poor rurals are the world's Larry Ellisons.

[lumberjack_jeff]

43. I'm less fond of GMI and more in favor of a 32 hour work week.

Or mandatory paid leave.

Either approach gets money into the hands of the general public, but working with the disabled, I've come to appreciate the nonmonetary value of employment.

It is also absolutely tragic that the last paragraph is a thing. The Democratic party was once considered to be the party of the working man, until it became politically incorrect to say "man".