Economist Brad DeLong asks a question:
I tell you. Writing the history of this episode is going to be next to impossible. “But why didn’t they see?!?” is what the students are all going to ask. And I have no answer…
The always perceptive Digby tries to answer:
It is going to be impossible. But I have a feeling it will not be because there is no answer. It will be because there are too many.
[…]
I think the War on the Unemployed (aka the War on the Deficit) is very much like the invasion of Iraq — a senseless, self-destructive, incomprehensible trainwreck that nobody truly understands, but which seems to have a life of its own.
She’s right about that second part, this has that same 2002-2003 feeling of a collective fantasy hijacking policy and presenting itself as fait accompli. But as to the first part, it just isn’t that complicated. The people in charge aren’t feeling any pain, nor do they see many other people in pain. That’s it. Red vs. Blue tribalism and the enduring myth of the Cadillac driving welfare queen play into it, but the ultimate factor is that life in high unemployment America hasn’t changed much for the people in power.
Recall that the people who beat the war drums the loudest prior to our blunder into Iraq were never the ones who were going to have to fight it or to pay for it. In that same vein, today’s illustrious deciders are almost completely insulated from the negative effects of high unemployment. The Republicans are strictly the party of the wealthy and the affluent, they don’t give two shits about unemployment. The Democrats aren’t as bad, but the people who attend their fundraisers aren’t the kind who feel the sting of being economically useless either. In 2009 (pdf), the unemployment rate for American adults with a bachelor’s degree or more was just 4.6%, for high school graduates it was 9.7%, and for adults without a high school diploma it was a whopping 14.7%. Which kind of people are legislators and their friends, aides and advisors? Which kind of people do they interact with on a daily basis?
The racial picture is even starker. White levels of unemployment (again accounting for education) are just a bit lower than those of the overall population: 4.2% for the college educated, 9.0% for high school diploma, 13.9% for those without a high school diploma. Now brace yourself for the black numbers: 7.2% with a college degree, 14.0% with a high school diploma, and a staggering 21.3% without. The numbers for Hispanics aren’t quite as bad as those, but they aren’t pretty. And these are the official numbers, which only count those who are working or looking for work. The reality is worse. Now ask yourself, how many non-college educated minorities does Alan Greenspan listen to on a daily basis?
The lives of the decision makers simply haven’t changed much. Apple is still producing must have new gadgets; sports and entertainment continue to provide something to talk about at cocktail parties; all the shit in the Sky Mall catalog is still for sale. It’s the same reason The Atlantic Monthly picked a preppy looking white kid as its poster boy for the unemployed, its readers wouldn’t care otherwise. For those who haven’t lost their jobs, life goes on more or less as it had before. Budgets might be a little tighter and some restrictions may apply, but True Blood is back, the Yankees are tied for first place, and everyone wants an iPad. Wine still tastes good.
Against that backdrop, a 9.7% unemployment rate is just another number. It’s a “bad” number, sure, but since all the human suffering it represents is neatly concealed, the fact that it’s a lot more important right now than the deficit is quickly lost. The unemployment rate has been above 9% for a year now, but the world has not spun off its axis. Consumer electronics keep getting better, summer movie season is here again, and the children of the people who are still employed can dream of $1,200 Jonas Brothers tickets. Meanwhile, nearly one of every four children is living in poverty (and since the standards are so low the real number is undoubtedly worse) and nearly one in every five has worries about simply eating. When dichotomies like that are perfectly ordinary, is it any wonder the unemployed are ignored?
There’s no mystery to it all, no complex and subtle interplay at work: the unemployed (and underemployed) are invisible to the people in charge.
