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Beware
of angry, jobless men
By Alan
M. Webber
Summer
came and went — and it didn't feel much like summer. There may be a lesson
in that, because the recession came and went — and this doesn't feel much
like a recovery. That's because jobs are still disappearing.
Labor Secretary Elaine Chao
points to statistics that say the economy grew by 3.1% in the second
quarter.
But there are other statistics, gloomier and more
telling: The country has lost 3 million jobs over the past three years, 2.5
million of them in manufacturing. One survey found that 18% of American
workers reported being laid off in the past three years. And this summer
the average length of unemployment jumped to 19 weeks, the highest level in
20 years.
The statistics tell a discouraging story, and that
growing sense of discouragement is exactly the point: Beyond the numbers
are two critically important groups of American workers whose emotions,
beliefs and attitudes will have an enormous influence over the direction of
American politics as the presidential election heats up. For President
Bush, the key to the intersection of jobs and voting patterns is not women,
who lean more toward Democrats. It is men, predominately white, who tend to
be in the Republican camp.
Last week, Bush showed that he's serious about helping
them by pledging to appoint an assistant secretary of Commerce for
manufacturing.
One male group that Bush's election advisers appeared
to be most concerned about consists of middle-aged men who have lost
middle-income jobs. I'm not talking about the refugees from the dot-com
boom, men who a few years ago were making six-figure incomes selling
products over the Web but today find themselves barely making ends meet
selling khakis at their neighborhood Gap store. The dot-comers have gotten
a lot of press coverage, but they're a relatively small minority compared
with the men in their mid-50s who feel themselves in deep economic trouble.
Most of these men held down jobs in manufacturing, or
in related industries, such as shipping and logistics, where they made good
money and had reliable benefits. More than that, these men had a sense of
belonging. There was a place for them in the economy and in the future.
Today, these men feel dispossessed. A series of
events, some national, some global, have combined to rob them of their
future. The dot-com bust and the recession are partly responsible, but so
is technological innovation and global competition. Companies have been
forced to become more efficient, which suggests that many of these jobs are
gone for good.
As a consequence, there's a whole cross-section of
middle-aged American men who are angry and bitter. They don't know how
their final 10 years in the workforce will play out. Their old jobs are
gone. They can't find new ones. And nobody seems to be paying much
attention to the problem. They are feeling left out and betrayed.
These middle-aged men are matched by another
demographic cadre: Men in their early 20s who don't know where their first
years in the workforce are going to take them. In the old days, the script
was familiar: They would follow in their fathers' footsteps. They'd get
entry-level manufacturing jobs, or, more recently, start out at the bottom
in a job that involved computing or technology.
Today, the manufacturing jobs have disappeared and the
technology sector is still in recovery. If they're lucky, these young men
now can hope for low-level, low-paying jobs in the service sector. They
look to get hired as security guards at malls, or find work transporting
senior citizens or keeping tabs on needy kids. The future for the young,
who are looking for a chance to get started, is just as uncertain as it is
for their fathers, who are looking for an opportunity for a comfortable
retirement.
Of course, this isn't the first time in the country's
history that we've seen such a dramatic shift in the economy. New
technology and global competition swept away the textile industry, first
from New England, then from the South. The same
forces first flattened the old steel industry and then prompted the
creation of mini-mills.
More than once in the past whole industries have
disappeared, eliminating traditional and comfortable jobs in the process
and disturbing our national equilibrium. Most recently, the feeling of
economic uncertainty was the core of Bill Clinton's successful campaign in
1992 against the older President Bush. The slogan, "It's the economy,
stupid!" was a reminder that a significant part of the American public
felt left behind and out of touch.
But this non-recovery recovery is hitting this
President Bush at a delicate moment. The two groups that are most angry
about their economic situation have been a core constituency of the
Republican majority.
White men, particularly those who are at the beginning
or near the end of their careers, have gravitated to the Republican message
of military muscularity and economic self-reliance. Women, on the other
hand, have tended to favor Democrats for their positions on social
policies, education, health care and abortion rights.
The first question, as we arrive at the intersection
of presidential politics and national economics, is how these two male
groups will respond to an economy that seems to exclude them. If they feel
that the economy offers them no hope for a decent future, will they think
of switching their allegiance?
The second question concerns the willingness and
ability of the Bush administration to respond to these groups' economic
concerns. In the past, during troubling times of economic transition, the
predictable response was a call for new technological innovation to create
new opportunities, support for training and education to retrain workers,
and direct payments and benefits to give the unemployed time to reorient
themselves in the workplace. On occasion, even temporary measures were
proposed to curtail the direct impact or global competition.
At the moment, however, the Bush administration seems
hemmed in by economics and ideology. A ballooning budget deficit hampers
the administration's resources for such a package. Just as important, the
administration's conservative philosophy makes serious interventionist
moves unlikely. Rather than spur new jobs in manufacturing, this
administration's symbolic move is to hire someone in Commerce to keep track
of that sector.
As we move into the fall, with an economy that's
supposed to be recovering and two critical groups of voters still feeling
depressed, these are the questions of political economy that will shape the
debate.
The answers will shape the country's future.
Alan M. Webber is founding editor of Fast
Company magazine and a member of USA
TODAY's board of contributors.
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