Unemployment, Community and the Future of the Family - Aron Smith

This is reposted from Aron's blog which you can follow at http://amapofcalifornia.wordpress.com 

I have been thinking about unemployment insurance a lot lately.  With the questionable future of my current work location, some of my coworkers who have never had occasion to receive unemployment benefits are contemplating what would be a first for them.

In the short term, I think unemployment insurance constitutes sound economic logic.  Capitalism assumes that most people will work for a living and use their income to support themselves.  This cycle of earning and spending is what makes our economic system go ‘round.  The social contract posits that when a break in this cycle occurs because an individual becomes unemployed due to no fault of her/his own, she or he is entitled to dip into common weal for a brief period of time during which efforts to become re-employed occur.  In other words, the taxes of those who are working help to support those who, temporarily, are not.

The idea is that those who are laid off due to economic factors beyond their control (bankruptcy of the employer or a recession, for example) should not be punished.  On the contrary, they should be rewarded for their past labors while they find their way toward resuming their roles as productive members of society and contributors to the economy.

Implicit in this provision of the social contract is that the unemployed person will return to the work force as soon as possible.  This implied condition is made explicit by state unemployment laws that limit benefits to a prescribed number of months.

Remaining unemployed rather resuming work at the earliest opportunity is discouraged by a twofold maneuver.  First, unemployment benefits are calculated on a schedule that assures that individuals receive a relatively small percentage of the income earned while working.  Hopefully, the receipt of unemployment benefits will provide the out of work with a modicum of support for their families (on an austerity budget, to be sure) sufficient to prevent hunger and homelessness.  Second, unemployment benefits end after a specified amount of time.  This provision is designed to light a fire under the unemployed, creating a sense of urgency fueled by the prospect of destitution should benefits end before re-employment is secured.

Where this neat little system falls apart, of course, is when this threat morphs from theory into reality.  Recent statistics suggest that the unemployment rate in the United States is falling, an indicator of increasing economic health.  As with any financial measure, however, the accuracy of one’s numbers depends on how you count.  The apparent decrease in the unemployment rate is, at least in part, a product of fewer individuals receiving unemployment benefits.  It is well known that a reduction in the unemployment rolls does not necessarily mean that more people are gainfully employed.  It may well reflect the thousands of people who have exhausted their unemployment benefits, thus falling off the charts even though they are still out of work.  These are our neighbors who fly under the radar, neither employed nor on unemployment benefits, and thus nonexistent as far as our tunnel vision economic figures are concerned.  The long-term unemployed become invisible.

Let’s spend a moment thinking about what happens to those who find themselves in this predicament — out of benefit weeks and still out of a job.  Out of luck.  As a society, we are simply abandoning these people, leaving them to their own devices.  After all, they need to be punished because they failed to follow the rules by finding work within the prescribed period of time. 

But what if their failure to find work is no fault of their own, just as the reason that they became unemployed in the first place was no fault of their own?  What if a person has diligently sought employment to no avail?  This can happen for any number of reasons.  In this age of microchips, there is the ever-present threat of technological obsolescence (otherwise known as “I’ve been replaced by a robot.”)  I can appreciate this one, having personally performed two different types of jobs that have virtually gone out of existence in this country.

Perhaps the plant has moved out of state or overseas, where operating costs are so much lower.  Perhaps there is no similar work available in the unemployed person’s geographic area.  Perhaps he or she is not at liberty to move due to family commitments or health challenges.  As it is, we have become a very mobile society, rolling stones who miss out on yesteryear’s advantage of strong community roots.  We acknowledge this as far as not denying unemployment benefits to those who decline to move hundreds of miles away to the nearest available job.  But then we shrug it off when the benefit period runs out.  If you really want to work, move far away from your support system and work!  If not, starve.  Let the support system to which you are so attached take care of you.

Whoa, stop right there.  When a person loses her job, we don’t throw her on the mercy of her family.  We recognize this person as a valued member of society who has fallen on hard times, and we provide her with some measure of support.  After a time, however, we say “okay, we’ve done enough, now it’s your family’s turn.”  What is wrong with this picture?

There are those who long for the good old days when members of extended families took care of each other.  No unemployment benefits needed, or as Archie and Edith Bunker cheekily sang every week during the opening of TV’s All in the Family, “didn’t need no welfare state (everybody pulled his weight).”  If one member of the family was unable to earn a paycheck, that individual could contribute in other ways, including child care, elder care and household maintenance.  Then, of course, there was also a thriving underground economy (in our inner cities, there still is — and not all of it has to do with selling drugs, either).  People grew gardens and raised chickens, both for their own consumption and to help feed their neighbors.  Payment was not always in cash; barter thrived.  Although Craig’s List and the TV show Barter Kings suggest that we may be returning to this model, it is still a drop in the economic bucket.

You see, a funny thing happened on the way to the forum:  The extended family who we expect to support the long-term unemployed has ceased to exist, at least among the middle class (leaving people out on the street and scavenging in dumpsters).  As if the post-World War II transition from the extended family model to the nuclear family were not bad enough, the cancer of family breakdown has now advanced to the point where even the nuclear family has crumbled into dust.  Fathers have become marginalized as single mothers raise their children and young adults choose to remain single for longer and longer periods of time.  There is no longer any shame or stigma attached to “personal choices” from abortion to childlessness to refusal to provide financial and emotional support to aging parents.  Meanwhile, the middle class, who have failed miserably in their attempt to glorify the nuclear family, continue to look down their noses at the poor who are forced by economic circumstances to crowd many people into small dwellings, whether urban apartments or rural cottages.

But I am hopeful.  Perhaps the vagaries of the economy and the evanescence of unemployment benefits will have the unintended effect of encouraging the resurgence of the extended family.  Perhaps the day will come when it will again become common for grandparents, uncles, cousins and friends to share a residence, each one contributing his or her special talents to the communal well-being of the family unit.  Perhaps contiguous family units (in old-fashioned lingo, these were called “neighbors”) will again check on each other’s welfare and engage in random acts of sharing.  Perhaps we will shake off our jaded ways and decide that community is still important.  Perhaps we will once again decide that we need each other, that we are indeed our brothers’ keepers.

As John Donne wrote more than four hundred years ago:

                        No man is an island,

                        Entire of itself,

                        Every man is a piece of the continent,

                        A part of the main.



Amen.

Mystery, Wonder and Extravagant Love - Jimmy Sustar

When I was a kid it seemed to snow a lot more than it does now. I remember an average of three to five feet of snow throughout the Winter season and it hung around until late March. I remember thinking it absurd that anyone would find themselves dreaming of a white Christmas. It was just a given.

We were quite poor economically, but I never knew it. We ate venison that my dad hunted, and vegetables that my mom froze. We worked hard together to live simply. We heated our house with wood, and every Saturday morning in the fall, my little brother and I joined our Dad in his old Ford pick-up truck. We drove to a patch of woods and spent the entire morning cutting wood and loading it into the truck. The drive back home was always reflective and sleepy with a little bit of goofing off and being told to calm down. The rest of the day was spent stacking wood tightly around the back of the house where it would wait for the harsh winter to fall on us.

It was my job to keep the fire burning while Dad was at work. It was a sweet pleasure to be given this task. The average winter temperature was only fifteen degrees Fahrenheit so this job taught me a lot about dependability. Whenever I stepped outside to play, or gather more firewood, my heart felt full and glad to catch the smell of burning oak rising from the chimney. I couldn’t stop the smile, this smelled like home to me.

There were also some really hard times. There were moments of unexplainable uncertainty that felt heavy, like a mantle of doubt. There were family troubles that I didn’t understand because I was too innocent and young. There were times my parents struggled to believe that we were going to make it through. There were days that seemed to never bend toward the light...

But I never knew we were poor. We had it all. My sister and two brothers, my Mom and my Dad. We knew what love was and we loved each other very much.

At night, I often would steal away to our back yard. I would walk until I escaped the light of the house and find myself hidden in the darkness and quiet, in the hush of newly fallen snow, the moonlight and the sound of wind blowing through pines. The smell of our home being made warm by the hard work of our hands. The safety of peace. The mystery of Almighty God coming to us in innocence, and vulnerability. The wonder of being loved so extravagantly. I just loved to stand there alone in the dark and soak it in.

It was, and is still more than I can stand.

There’s a song by a band called, ‘Mineral’ that beautifully describes moments like this. Deep, simple love. I love the unassuming tone in this...

‘And the snow falls melts before it even hits the ground
And I’m standing here listening
To the sound of your hand Washing back and forth
Across my filthy heart
And I don’t know if I should say “I’m sorry” or “Thank you”
I try to speak but the tears choke the words...
And I think I finally know what they mean When they talk about joy.’

May you find this place of peace, hope, and joy as you bend to hear Him whisper love in your ear.

-Merry Christmas-

What God Arranges - Mark Barrentine

This is Mark's 2nd post in the Fire Bowl (read the 1st one HERE)

In Eugene Peterson’s The Message, Galatians 3:11b states, “The person who lives in right relationship with God does it by embracing what God arranges for him.” I think this statement sums up the current Fire Bowl topic beautifully. 

At the beginning of this year, I took a test to become a supervisor at work. After passing the written and oral portions of the exam I placed 3rd on the hiring list. I was in excellent shape to be promoted, because there were 4 open positions. Administration interviewed the top 7 individuals on the list. 

Well, I was not selected. As a matter of fact, I was jumped twice to hire number 4 and number 6! I was very upset. I began to suspect some sort of conspiracy. I racked my brain wondering what went wrong and why administration didn’t “like me?” I became bitter and disgruntled. I kept telling myself, “There’s a reason for everything.” But I didn’t really accept it.

Shortly after the promotions were made, my wife got real sick. Her illness required me to take off several days from work. My wife really needed me. Not just as moral support, but on a couple of occasions I had to act as her advocate to be sure her voice was heard. After a couple weeks she recovered, and I was able to return to work.

A couple months later, I was pondering the promotions again and asking God why I hadn’t been promoted. I explained to Him how embarrassing it was to have been passed over twice. I shared with him how desperately we could have used the raise. I told God how upset I was with the arrangements He was making. Then our most gracious and loving Father reminded me of my wife’s illness. I was able to see, that if I had been promoted I would have been unable to take the time off that my wife needed me to take in order to care for her. And quite possibly, I would have been away at Supervisor’s school when she suddenly got ill. He did not grant me favor with the decision makers, so that I could be the man and husband He created me to be in a very crucial time.

I have a new found respect for how God arranges things, and a greater desire to embrace those arrangements. I am still slow on the uptake, but He is patient.

Peace and all good, my friends.

Bad Turned Good - Aron Smith

This is Aron's second post here in the bowl.  You can read his first one HERE.  The topic for the next few posts are about how God can make bad things into good things...or, at least, a learning experience.  Thanks for stoking the fire with a good story, Aron!

This is a hard topic, Chris!  Write about something that seemed bad and turned out to be good?  It would be far easier for me to write about a situation that seemed good initially and soon enough went bad.  After all, isn’t that how things usually go in life?  I am reminded of the title of Chinua Achebe’s wonderful novel Things Fall Apart.  This seems to be nature’s way:  Today in full bloom, tomorrow gone to seed; all good things must end.  This, of course, has been a pervasive theme throughout literature and scripture.

My personal favorites on this subject are Psalms 146:3-4 and Shakespeare’s famous “all the world’s a stage” speech from As You Like It.  We are reminded by Ecclesiastes 3:1 that there is “a time for every purpose under heaven.”  Having been impressed at an early age by the profundity of this simple statement in the lyrics of The Byrds’ “Turn, Turn, Turn,” I recall being shocked when, as an adult, I discovered that it is actually in the Bible!

But something that starts out bad and turns good?  That seems to run counter to the natural course of events.  We don’t start out ancient and decrepit and somehow energize to youth and vitality.  We may have everything and lose it all, but, Mega Millions and Power Ball notwithstanding, we don’t start out with nothing and end up with everything.  No, this is not nature, this is what we refer to as a “miracle.”  Man destroys, but only God creates.  This is Lazarus being raised from the dead.  This is the miracle of the loaves and fishes.  This is the Children of Israel going from slavery to freedom.  This is the very concept of salvation.

And yet, there seems to be some type of spiritual law of physics at work here, a divine E=mc2.  Everything has good and bad aspects and nothing really changes from one to the other.  It’s just a matter of perception.  The woolly caterpillar doesn’t look anything like a monarch butterfly, but there you are.

In 2009 and 2010, I was out of work for eight long months.  Four years earlier, I lucked out by hopping over to a different type of work just before my former employer closed its doors.  This time, however, I was not so lucky.  Things had started to go bad at work at the beginning of the year, but I was very well paid and couldn’t find anything else with a salary even close.  As the months wore on and the situation deteriorated, my wife (always my steady ballast) urged me not to quit so that, in the worst-case scenario, I could at least collect unemployment.  By October, I was doing just that.

In retrospect, I was fortunate that my employer chose not to contest my unemployment claim.  My sudden joblessness threw me into a funk from which it would have been difficult to effectively fight a denial of unemployment.  I updated my résumé, networked with all my contacts and got on the Internet to apply for everything in sight.  It was lucky that my wife had some seasonal data entry work for a few months that helped slow the exit of funds from our savings account.

As the months rolled by, I became increasingly panicked and began applying for jobs all over the United States.  I kept a little outline map that I highlighted with an orange marker.  Soon, I had 23 states filled in.  I decided I probably didn’t want to go to Alaska.  North Dakota, however, I would consider.

Yes, I said North Dakota.  Any Dakota would have been bad enough, but I had to choose the northern one!  Images of blizzards danced in our heads.  My wife started to wonder why she married such an idiot.  Was this plan in pursuit of a wonderful position that paid six figures?  More like nine dollars an hour.  I had a phone interview and they seemed to like me.  I started perusing maps.  My poor wife started to panic.  At about that time, I learned that the city of Devils Lake, N.D., site of said job, had a little problem with flooding that rendered most of the housing stock uninhabitable on a more or less annual basis.  This resulted in a little situation with mold.  Luckily, my wife put her foot down this time.

Next was the job in Massachusetts.  This would have meant transporting all of our household goods and belongings three thousand miles across the continent.  I felt badly about dragging my wife so far away from her family, but how else were we going to pay for rent and food when the needle on our back account hit E?  I figured I’d try to make the best of it.  After all, I did have some distant relatives living in the area, and as I reminded my wife, we’d be located only three hours from New York or Boston.  Oh, did I mention that I’d have to make a lot of trips to corporate headquarters in Nebraska?  Not Omaha or Lincoln, mind you, but a little town out on the wild prai-ree.  I am the original white knuckle flyer, but I figured, hey, I’d just have to get used to it.  After the second phone interview, I never heard from them again.

After that was the job in Washington State.  At least this one was in a place we had been to before.  My wife took a few days off work and we drove up to Olympia.  We even arrived on a day when it wasn’t raining.  And we happened upon a gorgeous view of Puget Sound.  The Pacific Northwest was starting to look better and better.  The interview went fairly well and I was told that the finalists would be asked back for a second round of interviews in a week or so.  Donna couldn’t take off more work, so I started lining up family members who could help me make that long drive.  I waited by the phone like a teenage girl for a call that never came.

About this time, my depression started mixing with an unhealthy dose of anger against those at my old job who were determined to see me gone.  I started sleeping all day, rousting myself out of bed just before my wife got home from work.  I began reading entire books of the Bible aloud with as much dramatic flair as possible as a vent for my frustrations.  I started playing chess with a local shut-in as a means of getting myself out of the house for a few hours.  And I applied and applied and applied, for just about anything I could find, no matter how far the distance or how low the compensation.  We started planning on moving in with relatives.

Then I got onto a kick about moving to Dothan, Alabama.  I had heard online about a group that was paying the moving expenses of people relocating to that town and even helping them to find jobs in the area.  I applied immediately, even though I knew it didn’t look good.  “Unemployed over-the-hill geek with a never-used law degree and data entry operator wife wish to take advantage of your generosity before penury and homelessness set in.”

I started posting Facebook updates listing the number of weeks I’d been unemployed and the number of jobs for which I’d applied.  Amazingly, no one unfriended me, but then again I stopped getting comments on my Facebook status.  It’s just as they say, “laugh and the whole world laughs with you, cry and you cry alone.”

I decided that perhaps a job in the public sector would be more stable than a mom-and-pop shop like the one I had been summarily tossed out of.  I spent hours at a time on USAJobs with the feds and on every state’s personnel website.  Being a New York boy, I had no special attachment to California, but since my wife had lived here all her life and wished to stay, I regularly checked the websites of each of our state’s 58 counties.  Well, almost each one.  I actually found a few counties that still don’t have their own websites.  Applications went out via email and fax to county governments from Yreka to San Diego.  Many of the positions I applied for were clearly not job matches, but it made me feel better to do something rather than nothing and to be able to make another notation in my little notebook.  I started hating the sight of that notebook.  For me, it served as a symbol of double failure — failure at my last job and failure at finding another.

One Saturday night I spent three hours writing the essays required to apply for a managerial position with the court system in Riverside County.  A position for which I lacked the requested experience, I should add.  I asked Donna to help me come up with ideas for some of the difficult essay questions, but I did not tell her that the job was located in Blythe, an outpost on the Arizona border located eight hours from Fresno and nearly twelve from her family.  I had been through there on the interstate a couple of times on the way to Phoenix, so I figured it couldn’t be too bad.  I looked around online for information about Blythe and quickly learned that they typically have less than two inches of rain per year and temperatures over 100 degrees for at least six months out of the year.

When I finally got up the nerve to confess to my wife, she was a very unhappy camper.  I think she accused me of wanting to take her to hell, being out of my mind, and a few other choice things that I’d just as soon forget.  I wasn’t really that concerned, assuming that this application would meet the same fate as all the rest.  It didn’t become real until a few weeks later when I was asked to come for an interview.

We drove down the day before the big show and camped out in Motel 6.  The temperature was 107°.  Donna and I looked at each other and knew that this entire venture was insane.  We cranked the AC in our motel room and avoided going outside.  “Can we leave and just say you did this interview?” she asked.  I was very tempted to go along with this plan, but decided that I may as well go through with it since we were already there.

Well, nearly a year and a half has passed since that June day and I am pleased to say that, praise God, we are happily ensconced in Blythe.  Both my boss and my staff have been very good to me, I have learned a lot and we have even gotten (somewhat) used to the horribly hot summers that are the norm here.  As the memory of my troubles with my former job in Fresno and my eight months of unemployment begin to recede into the distance, I realize that being fired and going through the existential struggle of being out of work were not all bad things after all.  They did lead me to a better place in my life and to a location that I am convinced was God’s destiny for us.  We have met many wonderful people here and everyone has been friendly and helpful.  I like to tell out-of-town visitors about our neighbors, one of whom climbed on our roof to fix our air conditioning one night when it was 110°, and the other who takes in our mail when we are away and has become a friend to my wife.  Back in Modesto, we barely knew who are neighbors were.  And in Fresno, we got to know our neighbors very well, because they’d get drunk every weekend and throw things at each other.

Can something that started out bad turn into something good?  You betcha.  Or maybe all I chose to see was the bad when there were good aspects that I had yet to notice?  I think the lesson here is to avoid the temptation to see things in black and white.  Just as man contains both the good and evil inclinations, so does every situation have its positive and negative aspects.