It's Tuesday. The Subject Is Money. GO!
I've been reading a lot lately about the younger generation's apathy towards established social values because they feel hopelessly removed from them. Kinda like a Dickensian street waif fogging up the glowing windows of privilege with their unfortunate desperation. Some social scientists have labeled this particular segment of the population "The Spectator Generation". There are a lot of intersecting concerns tied to this concept (political apathy, educational stagnation, class resentment, a resurgence of institutionalized racism, etc.), but a BIG issue is that of economic inequality.
As a child of the Middle Class, I had front row seats to the bloated indulgence produced by the 1980s and then watched in terror as my parents lost just about all of it in the Recession of the early 1990s. My entire adult life I've scraped to make ends meet, but I still remember what it was like not to worry about money, dim though that memory may be. Now, I'm approaching middle age and have become accustomed to having less. I don't own a home and I have no plans in the near future to acquire one. I don't have a car. I have no children, in part, due to financial considerations. I have no plan in place for my parents remaining years. What little extra income I have each year goes to paying off school debt and investing for our retirement because the atrophied national old age pension and a lack of children means that we're on our own with that. Basically, MONEY has influenced a lot of my life decisions - sad but true.
I always thought that knowing what you are missing was worse than never knowing at all, but if the tales of the Spectator Generation are accurate, staring into the glowing windows and knowing that you'll never get inside yourself is pretty gawd-awful to an individual's ambition. So, when I saw this clip from the December 5th Daily Show about the argument for and against raising the American minimum wage, I got pretty fucking angry:
Seven dollars is pathetic. Even in Canada, we have a higher minimum wage and it's still hard to support yourself in a service job. What most tv-friendly economic commentators fail to grasp is that NOT everyone will transition out of these menial positions. If you do not have some university or college education, you are shut out of anything but the most basic of work - and since post-secondary education is punitively expensive and you still usually end up struggling through a 'McJob' with a degree anyway, economists should start looking at the Lower Class as the *new* Middle Class. That's where most of us live now. Don't believe me? Check this out and have your mind blown a little:
That's just obscene.
So, now every time I dream about having what my parents did at 40, I have to splash some cold, hard reality in my face and tell myself "That's not for you, but feel better because it's just about the same for everyone else as well". Would it be so bad to adjust our expectations a little and learn to want less? No, I don't think so - being humbled teaches you valuable lessons. BUT, would it also kill us to give a little more? A livable working wage should be a basic right. Working conditions, even at a 'McJob' level, should be respectful and NOT become a treadmill of class oppression. Access to affordable higher education should be an option for EVERYONE. That's not socialism, it's humanism. Eventually, the Middle Class will be gone completely, and there will be more of those outside the windows than inside. Why aren't more of us angry about this? Why aren't we doing anything about securing our futures? The Spectator Generation has it wrong: just because you've been denied a seat at the table doesn't mean that you should walk away in disgust. This is a battle worth fighting, and when you get to a better place, have a larger heart than previous generations did. Never forget what it felt like to be on the outside looking in.
As a child of the Middle Class, I had front row seats to the bloated indulgence produced by the 1980s and then watched in terror as my parents lost just about all of it in the Recession of the early 1990s. My entire adult life I've scraped to make ends meet, but I still remember what it was like not to worry about money, dim though that memory may be. Now, I'm approaching middle age and have become accustomed to having less. I don't own a home and I have no plans in the near future to acquire one. I don't have a car. I have no children, in part, due to financial considerations. I have no plan in place for my parents remaining years. What little extra income I have each year goes to paying off school debt and investing for our retirement because the atrophied national old age pension and a lack of children means that we're on our own with that. Basically, MONEY has influenced a lot of my life decisions - sad but true.
I always thought that knowing what you are missing was worse than never knowing at all, but if the tales of the Spectator Generation are accurate, staring into the glowing windows and knowing that you'll never get inside yourself is pretty gawd-awful to an individual's ambition. So, when I saw this clip from the December 5th Daily Show about the argument for and against raising the American minimum wage, I got pretty fucking angry:
Click to viewSeven dollars is pathetic. Even in Canada, we have a higher minimum wage and it's still hard to support yourself in a service job. What most tv-friendly economic commentators fail to grasp is that NOT everyone will transition out of these menial positions. If you do not have some university or college education, you are shut out of anything but the most basic of work - and since post-secondary education is punitively expensive and you still usually end up struggling through a 'McJob' with a degree anyway, economists should start looking at the Lower Class as the *new* Middle Class. That's where most of us live now. Don't believe me? Check this out and have your mind blown a little:
That's just obscene.
So, now every time I dream about having what my parents did at 40, I have to splash some cold, hard reality in my face and tell myself "That's not for you, but feel better because it's just about the same for everyone else as well". Would it be so bad to adjust our expectations a little and learn to want less? No, I don't think so - being humbled teaches you valuable lessons. BUT, would it also kill us to give a little more? A livable working wage should be a basic right. Working conditions, even at a 'McJob' level, should be respectful and NOT become a treadmill of class oppression. Access to affordable higher education should be an option for EVERYONE. That's not socialism, it's humanism. Eventually, the Middle Class will be gone completely, and there will be more of those outside the windows than inside. Why aren't more of us angry about this? Why aren't we doing anything about securing our futures? The Spectator Generation has it wrong: just because you've been denied a seat at the table doesn't mean that you should walk away in disgust. This is a battle worth fighting, and when you get to a better place, have a larger heart than previous generations did. Never forget what it felt like to be on the outside looking in.