National Survey of 950 2012 voters conducted by Democracy Corps for the Roosevelt Institute, October 16–21, 2014.
The ordinary citizen has lived with these structural changes for a long time, but the elites and national leaders viewed the job situation through the lens of the so-called building recovery. In the years after the financial crisis, few things have enraged people in our focus groups more than simply reading a positive government jobs report. One moderator was almost attacked after reading a news report on the jobs gained in one month during the recovery. Voters in Ohio and Denver talked over each other as they disputed and qualified the news, rushing to dispel the conventional wisdom about the recovering economy.38
[They] keep saying they created 225,000 jobs—and what is the job doing? I mean, you can work for McDonald’s for $9 an hour to $11 an hour. (non-college-educated man, Ohio)
Yeah, you can always sway numbers. (non-college-educated man, Ohio)
What kind of jobs are they? (non-college-educated man, Ohio)
Exactly, and who got those jobs? I mean, who got those jobs? (non-college-educated man, Ohio)
What was the average salary of those jobs.… That would be my first question. (non-college-educated woman, Ohio)
Where are these jobs? (non-college-educated woman, Ohio)
What types of jobs? (non-college-educated woman, Ohio)
Are they part-time? (non-college-educated woman, Colorado)
Yeah, fast-food jobs? (non-college-educated woman, Ohio)
Are these jobs that people can live on? Or are they jobs you take because you have to? (non-college-educated woman, Colorado)
What kind of jobs? (non-college-educated woman, Colorado)
Or there’s 2 million applying for the 240,000. (non-college-educated woman, Colorado)
Democracy Corps tracked aspects of people’s personal economic experiences during the recovery and found that people continued to report stubbornly reduced wages and benefits, the loss of health insurance, struggles with prices at the grocery store, or needing to move in with a partner or into a multigenerational home. The results in the fall of 2014 looked painfully similar to those from early 2012.39
From Democracy Corps surveys from February 2012 to present. Data reflects the total of those who have felt a personal impact or an impact on someone in their family.
These findings are corroborated by Pew, which also reports on the continued difficulty of paying for medical care, rent, and mortgages. With that unchanging reality, the adjustments people are making look increasingly like long-term strategies and enduring struggles, not short-term reactions to a crisis.40
What was once the story of the aftermath of the financial crisis is now the story of every focus group we conduct, whether it is with the college-educated, new graduates, people living in the growing metropolitan centers, unmarried women, or working-class people without college degrees. They recall the “career jobs” that paid enough to live on, but now they are piecing together a bunch of “disposable jobs,” often part-time jobs that pay much less.
The lower-income jobs, those grew exponentially … a lot of them in the mid-range, you know, where most middle-class people are, those really kind of stayed static in the last years. I’m actually looking for a job right now. There are lots of jobs out there in housekeeping, things like that. (young college-educated woman, Florida)
I always wonder how many of those jobs created are because of like what I talked about earlier where places are having two part-time workers versus one full-time worker. I think a lot of it is service industry jobs or part-time jobs. (non-college-educated woman, Ohio)
My mom works for Wal-Mart and she has to work on the night because the only position that they offer as full-time is the overnight … but that doesn’t mean that it’s full-time and offering benefits and everything else that people need. (young college-educated woman, Florida)
[I have] a job working overtime, my husband [has] one full-time job and a part-time job … and we are still just scraping by. (non-college-educated woman, Ohio)
It’s getting better, but there was a hard point where I was out of work for six months, and I had to work five jobs, ten full shifts a week just to try and get back. (college-educated man, Ohio)
Temp work has become a lot more prevalent. (college-educated man, Oregon)
Last week at my part-time job I worked thirty hours and made $180. That’s where a lot of people are at with being underemployed. (some-college-educated woman, Oregon)
That leaves them consumed with the cost of living. “It’s very depressing” (non-college-educated woman, Ohio). “The cost of food is going up but raises aren’t happening in the workplace so it’s going to be really hard for people to afford food” (non-college-educated woman, Ohio).
They respond to the challenges with much more bargain hunting and some “extreme couponing” (non-college-educated woman, Ohio). They also engage in more bartering or share with their friends and neighbors to avoid large expenses.
I know with my girlfriends and I, we trade clothes like between our kids. I mean, I haven’t bought clothes for my children in a long time. (non-college-educated woman, Ohio)
Our neighbors are all doing the same, we’re … not buying extra stuff that we don’t need. We borrow each other’s lawnmower.… We help each other out. (non-college-educated woman, Ohio)
I’ve noticed there’s this subeconomy of people who find a way to get the things that they need without having to make a lot of money.… I call it the Bartertown, like Mad Max. I don’t have a lot of money; I trade for haircuts, I trade for my car getting fixed, my care of my animals. (college-educated woman, Oregon)
They are also making enormous changes in their living arrangements, including moving in with or taking in family members. Today, one in five Americans lives in a multigenerational household—and that number has doubled since 1980. During the recession, some young people moved back in with their parents and some parents moved in with their adult children, but five years later this is looking like a more enduring strategy for dealing with low wages and underemployment. Immigrant families and the financially pressed Millennials marrying five years later are the most likely to live in multigenerational homes. One Florida woman described her experience: “I moved my mom in with me last month. I am currently supporting my mom; her factory shut down and she was on unemployment” (college-educated woman, Florida).
In discussions with unmarried working-class women in Wisconsin, the younger women were more apt to say that they are “comfortable” but then qualified that definition by explaining that means they are just able to make ends meet or staying afloat with help from family or public assistance such as food stamps. One of the young women described “comfortable” as “I live check to check” (non-college-educated woman, Wisconsin). It was much tougher for the older unmarried women in the groups. One said she was “hoping for more but broker than poverty”; another reflected it “gets worse as the years go by”; another admitted, “I don’t have any money” (non-college-educated unmarried woman, Wisconsin).
When the moderator mentioned the “recovery” to the older women, they erupted in laughter. When told that laughter was difficult to transcribe, one woman narrated, “Everybody’s laughing really loud,” and then she summed up her experience with the new economy for the elites:
I was working two jobs, working fifty to sixty hours and not even making what I made when I was eighteen years old … and that was fourteen years ago. It took me until now to finally find a job that is close to what I was making. I was working retail, and in retail they do give you nothing. (non-college-educated unmarried woman, Wisconsin)
She isn’t the only one zooming in on that inescapable equation:
You’re still making the same salary when you get a job that you made ten years ago, but you can’t even pay your bills. You’re drowning. You’re drowning. (non-college-educated unmarried woman, Wisconsin)
You have to work twice as hard to make half as
much as you used to. (Hispanic man, Florida)
Back six years ago, 2006, 2005, you know, I was making double the income that I’m making now, you know, and every year, I just see a decline. (Hispanic man, Florida)
That means being forced to make impossible trade-offs: “After we pay our bills we make sure that our children eat, but there’s times my husband and I can’t afford it and we eat peanut butter, potatoes, or rice. We make sure our children are eating four food groups, but we can’t” (non-college-educated woman, Ohio).
Even those in “career jobs” feel the squeeze. One former payday loan employee observed the pressure of lower wages through the types of customers frequenting the store: “Watching as the economy got worse, the clientele that we had through the door started as people that just wanted extra money to go have fun and ended up as people that were teachers and worked for the IRS and had good-paying jobs but just weren’t getting enough money” (college-educated man, Texas).
So what about the better-educated Americans who are better placed to adjust to the new economy? In the early summer of 2014, Greenberg Quinlan Rosner and North Star Opinion conducted extensive online focus groups for the Markle Foundation among those with some college education, a four-year college degree, or an advanced degree, as well as in-person focus groups with those with a four-year or postgraduate degree in the growing metropolitan centers of Portland, Oregon, and Austin. And guess what? Even though they are a step back from the edge, it is clear by their shared frustrations that they work in the same economy and live in the same America.41
The better-educated begin with a more stable foundation and bring more skills and capital to the challenges of the new economy. But most of them are focused on the same negative equation as those without a degree.
I’m doing okay but constantly find myself living paycheck to paycheck. (college-educated man, online)
Huh! Well, I’m doing okay. I have not lost my job. However, I think wages are stagnant and it is difficult to meet all expenses. (postgraduate-educated man, online)
Jobs pay less compared to inflation. (college-educated man, online)
Prices are going up on everything … yet we still earn what we earn. (some-college-educated man, online)
My experience with the economy can be stated as okay. I am happy to be employed. That is going right for me. I am happy to be married as well. I just feel that the workforce isn’t exactly where it should be and companies aren’t paying the salaries they should and sometimes I feel unappreciated. (college-educated man, online)
Everyone in the household has a job but raises are far and few between. It is hard to make ends meet and I am always watching my money. There is no discretionary money to use. Very hard to save anything except in 401k. (college-educated woman, online)
My wife and I still have jobs, unlike some of our friends. We have not gotten raises in about three years or more. Our expenses still go up and so has our credit card debt. (college-educated man, online)
It seems like it’s about the same amount for the last five years. I don’t feel like I’m making any gains. Perhaps, maybe at an inflation rate 0 to 1 percent, but from an income standpoint that’s how I perceive my own condition. (college-educated man, Oregon)
Things are tight right now and have been for about the last two years—grocery prices are higher, gas prices are higher, insurances (car + health) have risen in cost. It seems like the price of everything is rising lately—and quickly and noticeably. (postgraduate-educated man, online)
Salaries for me personally and in general do not seem to be keeping up with inflation, with the rapidly rising costs of food, gas, and stuff. (postgraduate-educated man, online)
I am currently earning a reasonable amount, but the cost of items does add up. My family bargain-shops more than we use to. (college-educated woman, online)
Some of them lost businesses, houses, and jobs during the financial crisis and Great Recession and are getting back on a stable footing, though they are still conscious that they are living at a somewhat diminished level.
I am an architectural interior designer. When the housing market died so did my business. Being older it has been hard to find a job. My income has really dropped. I am doing other work, but it is just a job. (college-educated woman, online)
My spouse lost his job at the end of 2013 and he only recently got a new position. Unfortunately, this job pays only about half of what he was receiving before. Needless to say, the economy and its personal effect has been difficult for us. On the other hand, we feel fortunate that he has a new position and that it comes with health benefits! (college-educated woman, online)
I am doing well based on years of saving but it would have been better if the economy allowed my investments to do better. My husband had to take a job making less money for a while. It’s a good thing we did so much saving over the years. (postgraduate-educated woman, online)
We walked away from a home we were buying in 2010 because the lender would not work with us. We have been living in an apartment. My husband has been underemployed for over two years. Hard times have brought our family close together. I have been steadily working. I feel hopeful about our future. (college-educated woman, online)
Equally striking are the efforts these people are also making to adapt to the new economy—to what they spend, how they live, what further education they seek, and what businesses they seek to create. The recent college graduates prepared themselves for the new economy. There is more than a little sense of entitlement to a certain type of job and level of income, and none of them are forced to decide whether their children will get four food groups each day, a choice described by one of the non-college-educated women above. The jobs available do not come close to getting them on a path that would make them confident, however, and they are adapting like everyone else.
I’m doing pretty well. I just graduated from college with my master’s degree in chemical engineering and have been looking for a job. Currently I have a temporary job as it is pretty hard to find a permanent position. Therefore, I’m also trying to start my own company in biosensing, which is challenging. So I have a job, which is pretty good. I’m twenty-four and not making at least six figures so I would consider that not going right. (postcollege-educated man, online)
As a recent college graduate, I am quite sensitive to the current economic situation. I am currently unemployed and have quite a bit of debt to pay off. So my decisions on spending money are usually not to spend much money, which I know won’t stimulate the economy. (college-educated man, online)
It seems people are now in a never-ending search for better jobs that pay enough. A majority nationally said they or a family member started looking for a better-paying job in 2014, though even those with a college education are having a difficult time finding one. That reflects the lower-paid jobs that dominate the new economy.42
Principle Two: People face an endemic cost-of-living crisis
People are coping with stagnant or falling wages, and that makes them acutely conscious of rising prices, even though economists tell us inflation is tame and prices are barely rising. In Democracy Corps’s poll for the Roosevelt Institute in late 2014, 55 percent of people said their family had to make big changes to their habits at the grocery store to deal with rising prices, and more than a third said they took on a second job or worked extra hours to keep up with expenses.43
For the college-educated participants in the online focus groups, this was top of mind when asked about their understanding and experience with the “new economy” and how the nature of the economy has changed.
INFLATION!!!! (college-educated man, online)
Inflation inflation and more inflation. (some-college-educated man, online)
Jobs pay less compared to inflation. (college-educated man, online)
We have to pay more with less income. (some-college-educated woman, online)
Capturing the essence of their struggles with wage stagnation and the feeling of inflation,
one man used the sobriquet “stagflation” (some-college-educated man, online).
They know that struggling this seriously with everyday items is not what it should feel like to be in the middle class.
Whatever happened to middle class???? (college-educated man, online)
New economy = being forced to live much more modestly. (postgraduate-educated man, online)
We struggle more. (college-educated woman, online)
Everyone is hurting. (some-college-educated man, online)
The new economy to me means that the rich rule. (college-educated woman, online)
Rich keep getting richer. (college-educated man, online)
Larger spread between well off and the poor. (some-college-educated man, online)
The long-term stagnation of income in the country has led both working-class and middle-class Americans to believe that there is a cost-of-living crisis. “Everything keeps getting more and more expensive and cost of living is increasing but wages are not” (college-educated woman, online). That weighs down on even the better-off, as reflected in these responses from post-high-school-educated online:
I think everything is just so much more expensive and such higher expectations. (college-educated woman, online)
America Ascendant Page 13