Merry Chri$tmas

I ask you, did someone really have to die in an early morning Wal-Mart purchase lust to point out that American consumerism has gone too far? It has, and particularly around Christmas. As a third-grader, I developed a questionnaire for my classmates to gauge whether they had the "right" take on the Christmas holiday. OK, maybe it was an early journalistic instinct. Or perhaps I'm a closet evangelist who has yet to realize her calling. The students of Mrs. Doherty's class at Tarkey Elementary School in Woburn, Mass., were my field test. I asked them whether they believed Christmas was about presents or Jesus.

My subjects were pretty evenly divided at first. But, eventually, word of my objective got around, and everybody began answering, "Jesus." So go the good intentions of even the best pollsters.

I don't really believe that Jdimytai Damour's death is a wake-up call for consumerists. He, like other unfortunate people, was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and it all adds up to nothing. Like the victims killed in Mumbai this week. We don't live in a just world. But I will say that the purchase-lust aspect of Christmas has gotten me down for a long, long time -- perhaps since third grade in Mrs. Doherty's class. Every year, a gloom descends over me as I consider how few people really need the gifts I'm giving. Or how many people must be given a gift to avoid hard feelings. This list has grown as I have matured and now includes the paper delivery folks, the house cleaners, the hairdresser, a couple of babysitters, religion teachers, classroom teachers, classroom aides and the mailman. My family qualifies as its own small economy.

I'm not a stingy person -- not with money, anyway. But I do mind all the time it takes. The days between Thanksgiving and Christmas, to me, seem so bleak with obligation. This year, I have begun creating space for small indulgences of personal time to keep myself from succumbing to the depressing waves that accompany being over-scheduled. On Monday, I wrote a page of a short story that I've been working on. Today, I got my car washed after a long Thanksgiving trip that left it looking very junky. Little things, I'll grant you. But they keep me sane.

So, I guess that I am positing selfishness as an antidote to Christmas consumerism. Or maybe it's taking moments to stop and live life amid the demands. It feels right, and I believe that whatever satisfies our souls comes from God.

Everybody's in the unemployment pool now

Since I started writing this blog, the global economy has turned downward and almost everybody is now worried about losing their jobs. Especially here in New York, where many of the big banks are based, the layoffs are coming in huge, frightening waves. This is going to sound perverse, but it's somewhat comforting. The majority of my neighbors can now understand what we've been going through.

Sympathetic news stories have begun appearing, along with advice on handling the added family strife. Political leaders like New York City's Mayor Michael Bloomberg are talking about creating programs to get people back into jobs.

Of course, Dan has been newly employed for just three months. To me, this has become the only sort of insurance we can count on -- he's too new in the job to be let go yet. The company had a purpose for hiring him and, even faced with the crummy economic outlook, has not yet jetisoned his project yet. It's a project that ultimately saves money, so it may be something the company continues to pursue. Still, when the project is up and running, who's to say they'll keep any of the people who got it to that point? I would say that Dan safely has another 21 months of shelf life. If the company decides they don't need him, we will know because they will start giving him little hints. Far be it from corporate America to be straightforward. They might assign him someone to treat him badly -- this has happened twice out of the four layoffs. Then they could deny him an expected bonus. This is supposed to make him quit so that the company does not have to pony up for unemployment insurance. Only as a last resort will someone actually say to his face, "We don't need you any more."

One of the kindest layoffs, in retrospect, was by a company that was being sold and gave him three months to find another job. He was able to find one within that time, and we suffered no loss of income, no gap in our health insurance coverage. Plus, when you have a job, it's easier to find a new one, as the old addage goes.

So, corporate managers of the world, take heed. There is a morally superior way to fire people, should you choose to use it. Don't let me hear you whining over your martinis about how hard it is. You do have a choice.

Washington's still betting the bank on Trickle Down theory

I've been feeling a little Francis Fukuyama these days, feeling like I'm at the end of history. How can I complain about job loss -- even repeated job loss -- when people are losing their homes to foreclosure? People say that buyers should have been more wary and not jumped into subprime loans. I don't buy it. I think people were steered into these nasty loans. I heard last week that 20% of people in subprime loans would have qualified for regular mortgages. So, why steer them into a loan that balloons in 2 or 3 or 5 years, making the monthly payments skyrocket? Money, money, money. These mortgage brokers were out to serve themselves.

It shocks me that we, as a nation, are debating rescuing the enriched firms that caused this mess without also requiring that homeowners be helped.

I mean, here's the logic I keep returning to. If it's the bad loans -- the unpayable mortgages -- that are wrecking the balance sheets of the Lehman Brothers and AIGs of the world, then shouldn't we be trying to make sure those defaults stop happening? My logic doesn't penetrate the Trickle-Down types in charge, though. Here is Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's reasoning on how the panic will stop (via New York Times columnist Paul Krugman):

When he finally deigned to offer an explanation of his plan, Mr. Paulson argued that he could solve this problem through “price discovery” — that once taxpayer funds had created a market for mortgage-related toxic waste, everyone would realize that the toxic waste is actually worth much more than it currently sells for, solving the capital problem.

I've also heard the same explanation, essentially, in easier-to-understand terms. Paulson and the other rescue warriors believe that once the bankers feel it's safe to begin lending money again, potential home buyers will get the loans they need. They'll buy homes, prices will begin to rise again, the abandoned homes will be re-inhabited, and everyone will be happy. The reassurance that Washington is offering to bankers will have Trickled Down to us little people.

But it's beyond me how people can keep supporting Trickle Down when it so clearly has done nothing good for our economy since Ronald Reagan ran on it in 1980. Where are the results? And if it's not working, then why not help homeowners who are facing foreclosure directly?

Individuals are the last ones holding the bag

One of the most insightful comments on the U.S. Treasury bailout of the banks came from a recent "Doonesbury" cartoon. One character notes that America is privatizing wealth and nationalizing risk. In other words, people at the top are extracting riches from the financial system, while the taxpayers hold a safety net under those same institutions when they fail. They're "too big to fail," right? These days, I feel that we middle class householders are too little to succeed. I look at my 401(k) and college savings plans with real dread after last week's stock market plummet. The trend has all been toward handing us more risk for our own financial futures.

A story today from the Associated Press explains that college savings funds -- the New York State 529 plans -- have been hit by the recent whallop on Wall Street. Over the past two decades, secure company pension plans have mostly been replaced by 401(k) retirement savings -- which have also ridden the ups and mostly downs of the stock market. If President George W. Bush had had his way in 2005, the nation would have privatized Social Security as well.

Imagine tens of thousands of people waiting until the stock market recovers so they can retire, because both their 401(k) plans and privatized Social Security benefits were bottoming out with a bear market. As former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich argues in his book "Supercapitalism," in the past 40 years or so, we have gone from a nation of beneficiaries to a nation of investors. And we have taken on all the risk that implies.

Now, if only Americans can figure out a way to time college readiness, aging and death to coincide with the appropriate phase of the market, this investor nation idea just might work. (Insert sarcastic tone here.)

This timing thing matters a lot to the middle class, which has very little cushion. But surely it matters far less to people who are rich enough to be insulated from market swings. This is how politicians lose touch with middle-class reality -- they become rich. Mr. Bush and the people around him are far out of touch.

Middle class more vulnerable to financial shock

The Center for American Progress, a self-described non-partisan think-tank that is nonetheless fairly left-wing, has issued a report called "America's Middle Class Still Losing Ground." Authors Christian Weller and Amanda Logan find that middle-class families are less able to weather a financial disaster today than they were as recently as 2000. They write:

--The sharpest deterioration in middle-class financial security is associated with the cost of a medical emergency.

--Drops in personal wealth have contributed to the decline in middle-class financial security. Because house prices started to fall and debt continued to rise in 2007, we also observed the share of families who could weather an unspecified emergency equal to three months of income decrease to 29.4 percent in 2007 from ... 39.4 percent in 2000.

--The share of families who had enough resources to cover a spell of unemployment has declined since 2000. (To 44.1 percent in 2007 from 51 percent in 2000.)

Weller ads in a video presentation that middle-class Americans have been whalloped by a "trifecta" of decline in wealth: a stock market crash in 2001 that is repeating itself in 2008; falling home prices; and high and increasing mortgage levels.

The report's prescription includes a bigger earned income tax credit, easier access to union membership, universal health care and a stronger program of unemployment insurance. At the same time, the Center's David Madland finds that unemployment figures hide some of the job loss that is happening today. Many people are being asked to work fewer hours for less pay. And only 35 percent of people who are unemployed are getting over the hurdles to actually receive unemployment checks.

Madland writes:

The job numbers released today by the Department of Labor provide further evidence that that the economy is not working for most Americans, with new indications that the labor market is likely to remain weak for some time. In July, the economy lost another 51,000 jobs, and unemployment increased to 5.7 percent from 5.5 percent, its highest level since March of 2004. Job losses were widespread, declining in construction, manufacturing and several service industries....

The economy has lost jobs for seven straight months—the longest stretch since the period ending May 2002—shedding 460,000 jobs since January. This is the longest stretch of job loss since the period ending May 2002 – the tail of the last recession....

Not only are people losing jobs, but those with jobs are increasingly likely to have their hours reduced to part-time. The number of people who are working part time involuntarily—predominantly those who have lost hours or cannot find full-time work—jumped to 5.7 million last month, an increase of almost 1.4 million over the last 12 months. And many people who have lost jobs are having significant difficulty finding new ones. The number of people who have been unemployed for 27 weeks or longer increased to 1.7 million people, up from 1.6 million the previous month and 1.3 million the previous July.

... when Congress returns from their August recess, one of the first things they should address are reforms to unemployment insurance. They should temporarily extend the length of time the unemployed can collect benefits, and significantly expand the reach of unemployment insurance. The reason: currently only about 35 percent of those who are unemployed receive unemployment benefits due to structural rigidities in the system that do not take into account new work patterns in the economy.

Vacation interruptus

So, Dan's new company has shifted an overseas meeting right into the one week of summer vacation we were planning to take this year. And how can he say no, really? He is under tremendous pressure to prove himself, and if he keeps getting another job every two years, he'll pretty much always be under pressure. The corporations have we peons right where they want us. I've spent a lot of time and care planning this vacation. It's a week at the beach, Sunday to Sunday, and now Dan has to leave on Thursday. My resentment level is pretty high.

I am not my job

Newspaper people are losing jobs left and right. And, you know, being verbal types, they are writing a lot about it. The Columbia Journalism Review is giving them a forum to sound off, called "Parting Thoughts." Most of the posts are good reads. But there is one I particularly enjoyed, by Todd Engdahl, a 31-year veteran of the Denver Post. Engdahl is merciless with people who don't adjust to the changing times. His post is entitled, "Sorry to be blunt, but get over it." Yes, it's a little journalist-style macho. But I loved this line (last paragraph): "Your job is not your identity."

For so many of us, this is what job loss is about, losing our identity. I was lucky in that I confronted similar identity issues when I had a baby and, about two years later, left my high-profile reporting job for stay-at-home mommy status and a little freelance writing. I suffered the entire meltdown at that time and so no longer have to worry about losing it ever again. (Maybe.)

For three months, my heart raced at odd times throughout the day. I saw a doctor, who gave me a portable device to record my heart rhythms. I would then connect the device to a phone and beam them in to the lab, as a sort of progress report. I believe the technical term for my problem was panic.

How much of this is going on with the current wave of layoffs? Do people become immune to it after being fired a few times? Or does it slowly destroy their souls?

Why do we judge each other based on our professional titles, anyway?

If you're out there reading, why not post some ideas on this.

The vicious shopping cycle

Unemployment rates hit a four-year high in July, says the federal government, peaking at 5.7 percent.

At the same time, consumer spending fell in June, the poorest showing since February.

You wonder sometimes if the Powers That Be recognize that there's a connection between these two statistics. Families that are out of work don't spend money. A shocker! But, hey, just keep sending those stimulus checks, Uncle Sam. Maybe we'll somehow be fooled into thinking that a one-time check for $600 is as good as having a steady job, and we'll spend, spend, spend.

Globalization pauses to take a breath

Today's New York Times has a well-displayed story about how rising fuel prices are making it less attractive to outsource jobs overseas. Actually, New York Gov. David Paterson mentioned this in a speech last week (6th paragraph), predicting hopefully that companies could return to blighted upstate New York to be closer to their American customers. I think Paterson is grasping at any sign of prosperity, and Times writer Larry Rohter seems to agree (see below). Still, this trend is good news for American workers, rising from a sea of bad news for many months. Here is what the Times story says in its last two paragraphs.

But a trend toward regionalization would not necessarily benefit the United States, economists caution. Not only has it lost some of its manufacturing base and skills over the past quarter-century, and experienced a decline in consumer confidence as part of the current slowdown, but it is also far from the economies that have become the most dynamic in the world, those of Asia.

“Despite everything, the American economy is still the biggest Rottweiler on the block,” said Jagdish N. Bhagwati, the author of “In Defense of Globalization” and a professor of economics at Columbia. “But if it’s expensive to get products from there to here, it’s also expensive to get them from here to there.”

It's funny that the Times would save this downbeat angle until the very end of a very long story. I think it shows that the newspaper is as eager as the rest of us for good news.

So, here is a dose, again from Rohter:

“If we think about the Wal-Mart model, it is incredibly fuel-intensive at every stage, and at every one of those stages we are now seeing an inflation of the costs for boats, trucks, cars,” said Naomi Klein, the author of “The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.”

“That is necessarily leading to a rethinking of this emissions-intensive model, whether the increased interest in growing foods locally, producing locally or shopping locally, and I think that’s great."

... To avoid having to ship all its products from abroad, the Swedish furniture manufacturer Ikea opened its first factory in the United States in May. Some electronics companies that left Mexico in recent years for the lower wages in China are now returning to Mexico, because they can lower costs by trucking their output overland to American consumers.

Decisions like those suggest that what some economists call a neighborhood effect — putting factories closer to components suppliers and to consumers, to reduce transportation costs — could grow in importance if oil remains expensive.

The emergence of global supply chains is one villain cited by Robert Reich in his book "Supercapitalism," which I have just finished reading. Companies have sought low wages in China, call centers in India and the like to reduce their costs, which forces their competition to do the same. American companies seek ever-higher profit margins so their investors will stick around. It does seem that we live in a hyper-fast, hyper-competitive world now.

I think it would be a good thing if globalization were to slow down. The diaspora of American jobs overseas certainly raises the living standard of people in poor countries, and that's a good thing. But it's happening so fast that individual Americans have little time to seek other options, and it can be devastating to us and our families.

I'm thinking about a narrative writers' conference I attended in Cambridge, Mass., in 2002. Larry Summers, the Harvard president who quit after implying that women aren't as smart, gave a speech applauding globalization because it helped poor countries. He chastized jouralists for overplaying the pain Americans were experiencing as a result.

I have not done the relevant content survey. But I would bet with a high degree of confidence that reading the press generally, one would find that there was almost no discussion of the benefits in terms of international trade of making goods cheaper for people to buy and therefore making people richer. And that there was relatively little discussion of the experiences of individuals who have better jobs than they otherwise would have because of the opportunities to export created in the American economy by trade agreements, in contrast to an enormous volume of writing about jobs lost. There are almost certainly tens of thousands of jobs that have been lost because of the increases in the price of steel that were imposed by trade policies in the United States nine months ago. I would be surprised if the up-close-and-personal story of a single one of those job losses has been told. In contrast, the story of pain in Steeltown has been told again and again and again.

Meanwhile, back home in Pittsburgh, my kids were being cared for by the wife of a retired steelworker, whose company had gone under, taking his pension with it. They were living hand-to-mouth. I wanted to sock Summers, but subsequent events have done it for me. It's nice when life works that way.

Rising from the bleak

OK, look, I'm going to admit that the last post was pretty bleak. Yes, I'm fearful. But Dan has also been lucky to find a job. The New York market is better than so many others. And now I have total dominion over the kitchen again, which is a very, very fine place to rule. Let me tell you. It's true that I have to call Dan each afternoon on the cell to ask how to cook the meat. Is that really such a big deal? Have I lost all credibility as a female for admitting that? I do bring something to the party, and what I bring is roughage. Yes, yes, fruits and vegetables and all the wonderful nutrients they carry. Last night, we ate two cucumbers from our neighbor's garden. Ralph, our neighbor, brought them over in person and delivered about seven cucumbers. OK, so, who wants to guess whether Ralph is Italian?? Anybody? He used to own a butcher shop with his son, R&S Meats. Anybody?

Yes, OK, I know that it was not much of a contest. Ralph is indeed of Italian descent. And you know, I love this about Italian men of a certain generation that they grow all this fresh produce in the season. When I was a grade-school girl, I lived across the street from Ann-Marie Andrews whose grandfather was named Parisi.

Mr. Parisi had this extraordinarily tiny garden fenced in in the back yard, but he grew an amazing amount of produce on that plot. He staked his tomatoes high -- they were Romas, I think -- and they were beautiful. Very red and bottom-heavy. I had dinner with the Andrews/Parisis one time. They asked me, have I ever tried mushrooms? Never, I said. I remember my first taste of the mushrooms over pasta, and I have loved them ever since. Buon apetito!

Wait, OK. Isn't this a blog about job loss? I am lost in the past (and the pasta) and reminiscence. I apologize. One last indulgence before I sign off. My daughters loved Ralph's cucumbers. That's what I meant to say when I started out here. The vegetables were especially flavorful because they were locally grown and they were a gift -- or at least, so we imagined. Also, I love having some of my domestic role restored. I love making dinner, even if we are sitting down late (8-ish) for a bite and shared conversation.

A job, but for how long?

So, Dan started his new job today. He had to take a train into the city, which was so wonderful for me, because he left a full 15 minutes before I had to get out of bed. I wanted to let my dreamy thoughts wander around, but mostly they took two directions. One, I was extremely relieved to feel a sense of loosening in my whole body of the pressure of holding the familiy finances together. And the second, I was frightened that he was stepping out into another world of pain and failure from which he will return in roughly two years, battered and hardly the man I found him to be when I met him 17 years ago, so full of optimism and dreams. I fell on my knees out of bed, good Catholic girl, and prayed God to let him rack up a few years this time. Is there something about Dan that makes him a target of layoffs? Are there certain people who should be laid off? Clearly, that's what my co-workers believe. They are very merit-based, no room for bad luck. Today, they were discussing whether a political candidate had a job or was unemployed. As I approached, their circle throbbed in and out with the discomfort of allowing in an avowed kin to the unemployed. A sympathizer. Someone who mingles with non-winners. I want to say to them, "Hey, relax. I understand there's a stigma. I know it looks bad that my husband has been laid off a lot, but really, he's a great guy." It's clear that I can't really convince them of that. Words can't really convince them. The prejudice goes deep, and it is reinforced when their colleagues are laid off (I'm in the newspaper business, after all), and they are asked to remain working. There is survivors' guilt and also survivors' superiority. I share it, I admit. I know what I am -- productive -- or I would not be holding my job. I'm like the Albert Brooks character in "Broadcast News." They keep me because I'm versatile.

So? It's a living. I never pretended to be Anna Quindlen.

A trio of books on middle class woes

A wave of books about the dwindling prospects of America's middle class is hitting the shelves. Author Nan Mooney has written "(Not) Keeping up with Our Parents: The Decline of the Professional Middle Class." For the book, she interviewed more than 100 social workers, product managers, college administrators, factory-equipment salesmen and other members of the middle class about their financial lives. Here's what they told her, according to a Q&A with Salon.com:

Most of them earned between $30,000 and $70,000 a year, yet despite good educations and respectable incomes, many still shouldered crushing debts and had serious doubts about their financial futures. They all aspire to basic comforts -- a place to live, reliable healthcare, education for themselves and their children -- but come across as a little bewildered by their seemingly perpetual state of financial insecurity. "As you get older, it becomes less okay to admit that you're struggling," one 42-year-old graphic designer tells Mooney. "People just assume that you must be doing okay. I've noticed that those who are still having trouble start to go underground about their financial lives."

Next up with his concerns about the American middle class is Peter Gosselin, an economics reporter with the Los Angeles Times (or, at least he's with the Times as of this current writing. The newspaper is planning to announce a huge layoff next week, which may have influenced Gosselin's mood as he wrote.)

Gosselin is the author of "High Wire: The Precarious Financial Lives of American Families." The book was reviewed in the New York Times last week.

The author focuses on how much more we feel our financial lives are at risk, according to reviewer Noam Scheiber, who writes:

Americans have seen their financial situations grow far less stable over the last few decades, he reports ....

Scouring the data, Gosselin finds that the income of a middle-class family in the early 1970s typically rose or fell by no more than 17 percent in a given year; today, that range is plus or minus 26 percent. And it’s not just the middle class who’ve seen their incomes fluctuate wildly. The most affluent tenth of the country saw a slightly greater rise in volatility.

The cause of this increased turbulence, Gosselin says, is a changing labor market and a decades-long erosion of the corporate and social safety net. A generation ago, when unemployment relief was more generous, when companies provided liberal health and pension benefits and private insurers weren’t as stingy as they are today, a serious illness or the loss of a job usually wasn’t devastating. Now, such a setback is much more likely to bring economic ruin.

Finally, there is "Strapped" from Tamara Draut, who works at the Demos think tank. Her subtitle is "Why America's 20- and 3-Somethings Can't Get Ahead." That pretty much says it all. Draut, like Mooney, places a lot of blame on the rising cost of college and health insurance. Here's a good link if you want to read more.

A good job offer

So, Dan got a good job offer yesterday, but it's in the city, which makes me nervous. That's an 80-minute commute, roughly, one-way. I know because I did it for nearly five years. I'm worried about being the parent who has to get home and fix dinner. For the past five years, Dan has been working closer to home than me, and he's taken on that responsibility. Mostly I worry that I'll be late sometimes. In my office, people generally leave at 6 or 6:30, and it's a half-hour trip home. Maybe I could work it out with my boss. I KNOW she would understand, but we are pretty short-handed here, and I hate to give her yet another management challenge. Plus, 7 or 7:30 is pretty late for a child to have dinner, and it doesn't leave us much time for homework or just plain hanging out together. We're covered for the summer because we have a college student watching our daughters, and she's great and makes them practice their violin and piano. But I worry about the YMCA, where the girls have been going after school three days a week. They don't do homework at the Y, and it closes at 7.

On the other hand.... it would be nice for Dan to have a job where we can save for college and retirement, etc., etc., and stop worrying about that. In 2-3 years, I could probably scale back if I felt the girls needed me to be home more. I could freelance, or ask about part-time.

Where the layoff culture began

I remember when companies laid people off reluctantly, for fear the company would be branded a Bad Place to Work. The last time I remember being aware of this was in the early 1990s, when I was working as a business reporter for the L.A. Times. So, I was in the milieu. When did the culture change, so that Wall Street now frequently views layoffs as a reason to invest? Most discussions I read start with Jack Welch and his 20-year reign at General Electric (1981-2001). Tom O'Boyle accused Welch in the 1998 diatribe , "At Any Cost: Jack Welch, General Electric and the Pursuit of Profit." And so does Robert Reich, the former secretary of labor for Bill Clinton, in his latest (2007), "Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Democracy, and Everyday Life."

Welch was one of the original super-downsizers. "Before Welch arrived," Reich writes, "most GE employees spent their entire careers with the company and knew they'd be looked after when they retired. Welch put an end to that." (Full disclosure: my Uncle Jack retired from GE and is somewhat in awe of Welch.)

Between 1981, when he became CEO, and 1985, Welch laid off one in four employees, or more than 100,000 in all. This earned him the nickname "Neutron Jack." Even when times were good, Reich says, Welch encouraged managers to lay off their bottom 10 percent of subordinates each year "to keep GE competitive."

Sounds more like he wanted to scare the pants off anyone working there. I'm sure they were working long hours to meet these demands -- not exactly a family friendly environment. Funny how this macho stuff all dovetails together -- be the best, work the hardest, abandon your family for all practical purposes. Did these GE employees have working spouses?? The nannies of the world really should form a union. They have two-income couples at their whim more than they know.

But back to Jack. Reich says he was simply responding to Wal-Mart-style pressures from investors. Just as Wal-Mart was able to bargain for lower prices from suppliers by attracting legions of shoppers, so have the managers of mutual funds and pension funds squeezed companies for higher profits.

Bad news and callousness

A story in today's New York Times announces that the "deepening cycle of job loss" might last into 2009 -- bad news for those of us who were hoping for a short recession. Economists are making this prediction based on gloomy sales numbers that U.S. automakers reported on Tuesday. The news reminds me of a pet peeve: the Bush administration's attitude toward job loss. Robert Kimmitt, deputy secretary of the Treasury, wrote an op-ed piece in the Washington Post entitled, "Why Job Churn is Good." He points out that while 55 million Americans left their jobs in 2005, there were 57 million hires that same year. This indicates a flexible and dynamic economy, Kimmitt says, which allows America to compete globally.

The economist in me (I majored in economics in college) likes this argument. But personal experience has hardened me to this blythe treatment of disruption in families' lives. Maybe it can't be helped. Maybe we'll all be better off in the long run, and our economy will have successfully shifted from manufacturing to service -- or whatever the new frontier is.

Here's some of the Times' story today:

Joblessness has accelerated, and employers have slashed working hours even for those on their payrolls, shrinking the size of paychecks just as workers need them the most.

Now, add to that unsavory mix the word from automakers that sales plunged in June — by 28 percent for Ford, 21 percent for Toyota and 18 percent for General Motors — a sharp sign that consumers are pulling back, making manufacturers more likely to cut production and impose more layoffs. Until recently, the weak labor market has been marked more by the reluctance of employers to create new jobs than by mass layoffs.

This sort of news always worries me when Dan is between jobs. I fear that employers will just decide they can't afford that new hire after all -- at least not for now, while the economy is still sliding down and no one can see the bottom.

As for Kimmitt, as I have whined here in the past, employers are still doing old-economy things like offering two weeks' vacation to new hires, even people in their 40s with master's degrees like Dan and me. The rewards, at least in terms of vacation time, are based on longevity. And let's face it, people out of work have less and less bargaining power when the economy sours. So, often, we take the two weeks -- or the lower salary, or work that is far less challenging.

Not surprisingly, when Kimmitt published his piece in January 2007, responses came from the Midwest. Newspaper editorialists in Pennsylvania and Kansas pointed out that "churn" might be fine for urbanites, but rural workers suffered disproportionately.

From the Centre Daily Times in mid-Pennsylvania (no free link available):

For some, churning is positive if the person moves from a job with lower pay and unattractive working conditions to a better situation. But for others, churning results from forced movement -- layoffs or restructuring -- not a deliberate move to a better job.

Contrary to Kimmitt's rosy assessment, statistics on layoffs and plant closures suggest churning is liable to result in long periods of unemployment, forced shifts to other industries and lower wages. Lost wages and decline of steady work are particular problems today for workers living in rural areas and those employed in manufacturing industries or with jobs requiring few skills and little education....

Kimmitt's argument falls short by ignoring the transaction costs associated with shifting jobs. As anyone who has ever lost a job knows, re-employment rates depend on the condition of the local economy or the national economy and often are tied to whether you are willing to bear the cost of relocating.

Low-skill workers, particularly in rural America, are the most vulnerable to displacement caused by increases in productivity and international competition.

Rural workers tend to be less educated than urban workers and were more likely to be displaced. Rural workers also were less likely to be re-employed during the 1997-2003 period than urban workers and for rural workers the length of time out of work was 20 weeks longer than for urban workers.

Upon re-employment, urban workers were more likely to work full time compared with rural workers. And rural workers were more likely to receive a wage less than that provided in their previous employment compared with urban workers.

Yes, such evidence makes me feel very whiny when I complain about reductions in vacation time. But we spent one period when Dan was out of work (in Pennsylvania) for 20 months, and I feel I earned my right to complain after that. Especially in light of people like Kimmitt making little of the personal toll.

Three possible offers

So, Dan said no to the low-ball offer. Now, he has three companies that say they are working on offers for him. Amazing! I never really understood how a man who saved his company $4.5 million last year, buying the same amount of goods and services, could not be worth hiring. Certainly, he did not receive anywhere near that in salary in return. I'm here to tell you. This leads me to believe that some stigma might be falling away from being laid off. Interviewers certainly ask him about his two-year job stints. But they do not seem put off by it. I have to infer it's becoming more common. On the other hand, it's still hugely disruptive to family life. Congress has just extended unemployment benefits, for a total of 9 months, so you know they're expecting a long and brutal job-hunting season. And the family down the street from me has set out its sticks of furniture on the curb, having broken up and moved. The little-girl plastic doll house on top breaks my heart.

The husband had a Wall Street job and lost it. Then they tried going into business for themselves, landscaping. Stories differ about what happened next -- they couldn't get steady clients, they didn't pay the business taxes properly. Anyway, within two years, they had to shut down. Now they are divorced, with three kids. They were a great, big-hearted couple who probably would have made it, marriage-wise, if the job calamity had not hit them.

Dan and I have been through enough of this now that it's probably made our marriage stronger. Clearly, blogging here is my effort to push it out of the personal realm and look for wider causes other than, my husband is a complete failure in life.

And long term, I'm wondering if Uncle Sam will really approve of our life. Aren't we supposed to be saving for retirement and college? Isn't this our personal responsibility, as the Republicans would have us believe? I worry that we'll be left without much savings, because of this job churn. Social Security doesn't offer much comfort. And our home value has probably eroded because of the subprime crisis.

Health insurance? We've been through three plans since January, and we're stuck now with one that requires more than $300 from my paycheck every month, plus $30 co-pays at the doctor's office. Vacation? I'm officially back to two weeks, plus some personal days. If I do a good job, my employer will allow me a little wiggle room on that. If.

Older workers getting shafted

Remember the phrase, "getting shafted"? Did it come from the movie, "Shaft"? Or was it the other way around? Anyway, older workers are taking some of whatever it is, according to a New York Times business section story this weekend, as well as a US Supreme Court decision from last week. The Times story, by writer Steve Lohr, says that Social Security would be a lot more secure if workers would hang in there for another few years past the 62 or 63 retirement age and keep contributing. However, many employers are not willing to allow that, believing that older workers are less productive and out-of-touch with new technologies.

There are, it seems, too few such workers and employers. The average retirement age for men now is 63 and for women 62. But the emphatic conclusion of recent research into retirement policy and labor markets is that working another two or three years would have a surprisingly powerful impact on the retirement living standards of millions of boomers and on the economy.

The economic gains, according to a report published this month by the McKinsey Global Institute, a research group, would include increased household savings, higher tax collections and a reduction of the fiscal strain on Social Security and Medicare; together, that would add an estimated $13 trillion to the economy by 2025, or about a year's total output of goods and services today.

The reality that Lohr is not willing to confront in a meaningful way is that people are getting laid off in later years -- past the tender age of 40, even -- and fairly often don't have the option of working into their mid-60s.

The Supremes have made it easier, with their recent decision, to sue for age discrimination in job terminations. However, some brave soul is going to have to wade into the courtroom to build a record of decisions against individual employers before the court decision is put into practice.

Low-ball offer

Dan has been offered a job. This is extraordinary, since he's only been out of work for two months. He has turned over a layoff this fast once before, finding a new job before he had to leave the old one. But the problem is the offer is a low ball. By which I mean that it's a $20,000 pay cut, two weeks vacation, a very iffy bonus (his last job was a 25% bonus if goals were met) and no stock options -- another $17,000 cut from last year. All of this I'm willing to live with. We can get by, though our retirement and college savings might suffer. The only aspect that really bothers me is the minimal vacation. It's what a kid out of college would be offered.

A couple of times we've waited out the first year of one of his jobs with meager days off -- one week in the first year. It means we don't visit our families at Christmas, and that our daughters and I have invented what we call "girl trips." Meaning that I take them on trips by myself rather than miss out altogether. Niagara, Washington, DC, Sturbridge Village. They're sweet memories, but they leave me exhausted. Don't get me started about how we're never going to Disney World. Yeah, OK. I have an entitled attitude.

What middle class family doesn't want to go to Disney World once while the kids are young? Dan won't bump up to 15 days vacation for five years. Our daughters will be in high school.

It's not only the particulars of this job offer that have me steamed, but the way in which it's been laid out. It took 2-3 weeks for them to make the offer, after Dan took a drug screening. Who moves that slowly? I wonder if they were trying to make him sweat, make him more desperate, so they could get him cheaper.

They won't tell him the generally accepted work hours, which is maddening. I don't get out until 6 or 6:30 p.m., kind of a late day. How do we know we'll be able to pick up the girls from after-school care every night? It closes at 7, and I have a half-hour drive from my office. This company makes out like it's unreasonable for Dan to ask these questions or to negotiate on the vacation.

He's got interviews with two other companies lined up in the next six days. One interview is the third time he's spoken with the company. But the unemployment rate keeps climbing. Do we dare risk it?

Bring on the advice columns

By now, things have gotten bad enough in the US economy that business columnists are starting to write that perennial favorite -- how to survive a job loss. I checked the number of stories on layoff advice in March and April 2007 and compared them with the same two months this year. The count rose from 29 to 68. Another unofficial indicator of recession. Kathy Kristof of the Los Angeles Times delivers the usual litany about applying for unemployment insurance immediately and asking for details on your severance package, unused vacation, COBRA health benefits and the like. It's a good rundown. But I found this passage a little ill-informed:

If your spouse is still working, your goal should be to live on the one income, plus unemployment benefits, without dipping into savings, Jones said. If no other family members have jobs (or you're single), you will need to consider cutting expenses to the bone.

The biggest mistake that the unemployed make is adjusting their budgets too late. People often assume that they'll get a new job quickly, so they're loath to cut out luxuries such as cable TV and housecleaning and gardening services. But that money spent early on can't be recovered. If it takes longer to find work than you anticipate, you can find yourself economically devastated in record time.

By cutting back immediately, you will have bought yourself extra weeks of solvency, Jones said. If you do get another job in short order, you can just as quickly rehire the gardener and the housekeeper and turn the cable back on.

The author doesn't account for the hardest part of being unemployed, and that is trying to keep things on an even keel for children. Dan and I have always kept regular babysitters through layoffs -- they are more sensitive to being out of a job than a gardener, and they would almost certainly find new jobs before we were able to rehire them.

We try in other ways to keep the bad news from affecting our kids' lives. For example, this time we eliminated their expensive gymnastics classes, but we're still sending them to violin and piano lessons.

Avrum D. Lank, a business columnist at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, offers a realistic assessment on balancing your new jobless reality with the fact that life goes on. He quotes Michael P. Haubrich, a financial planner with Financial Service Group in Racine, Wisc.

Calculate how many months of your survival budget shortfall are covered by your liquid assets and credit lines. You now have your timeline to find employment before you have to make drastic financial changes.

I agree that drastic changes should be the last resort. During our first layoff, this really tore me apart, trying to act like everything was normal when it was not. However, having survived a few times, I look back and appreciate that we didn't panic and move in with our parents.

Young, unemployed and invisible

New York Times columnist Bob Herbert writes today that the US Labor Department statistics, which are pretty grim by themselves, fail to count anyone under age 24. Herbert says that 4 million young people between 16 and 24 are looking for work but are not reflected in the official jobless figures. This is bad news for society, Herbert writes.

This is the flip side of the American dream. The United States economy, which has trouble producing enough jobs to keep the middle class intact, has left these youngsters all-but-completely behind....

It’s not as if these kids don’t want to work. Many of them search and search until they finally become discouraged. The summer job market, which has long been an important first step in preparing teenagers for the world of work, is shaping up this year as the weakest in more than half a century, according to the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston....

As the ranks of these youngsters grow, so does their potential to become a destabilizing factor in the society.

I love that he gave a nod to the middle class, which I think is in big trouble of disappearing. He ends up by calling on the presidential candidates to figure out how to create full employment, put America back to work. I wonder when things will get bad enough that someone starts to listen.