More homeless children and a poverty rate that will likely hit 25 percent in the not-so-distant future -- that is what is emerging from America's so-called economic recovery, according to a 60 Minutes report last Sunday.A new generation of Americans will be raised in sketchy motel rooms, parked cars and worse places. These are the children of the previously stable, hard-working middle class -- not kids born into decaying urban neighborhoods or to transient families on perpetual welfare. These are the kids who would have gone to college or trade school and become taxpayers themselves one day, helping to pay down the national debt that we've created for them. They have parents who were accountants and teachers, writers and secretaries -- responsible folks who played by the rules, only to find out the game was fixed (and still is).
Parents have been unable to find comparable work for a variety of reasons. Age discrimination, companies stubbornly sitting on piles of cash, politicians using joblessness as venom ... we know what's happening. The point is, kids are now paying the price for a lack of political will to fix the damn problem. We will all be feeling the effects of this institutionalized neglect for a long time. The backbone of this country -- the middle class -- has all but been broken, and few people have given more than lip service to a problem, that if addressed, might also mend or prevent other social and financial problems.
What did we think was going to happen to the families who depended on the 8 million-plus jobs that were lost since 2008? Whatever modest employment gains have been made recently don't even keep pace with the number of Americans who are entering the job market for the first time. Underemployment figures are worsening. Men and women are accepting lesser jobs that don't pay enough for them to live on, let alone enough to raise a family. What will be the mindset of this generation as it grows into adulthood in the back of a Dodge Caravan?
The new norm for millions of Americans is an unfolding tragedy that will transform the United States in ways that go beyond the despair of mass homelessness or the expanding federal debt. The spirit of millions of people -- young and old -- is being shattered with each foreclosure sign that goes up and each rejection letter that is received by a desperate jobseeker. Tax collections are shrinking as layoffs continue. Yes, people are still getting laid off, although you'd never know it based on the lack of news coverage.
The unemployed and underemployed are slowly being forgotten by a society increasingly distracted by celebrity news and other trivial matters reported by mainstream media fighting for its own financial survival and making decisions based on ratings rather than sound news judgment. A free press is only beneficial to a democratic society if it lives up to its responsibilities and the citizenship shows more of an interest in being informed on important topics.
At a time when things are getting bleaker for young and old -- as kids who were once riding their bikes along pristine sidewalks are disappearing from the suburban landscape and Baby Boomers are abandoning retirement dreams -- we could use more informative reports like the one on 60 Minutes.
