Urban Issues and Actions

I read Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser over three years ago, but I still vividly remember the story of Kenny Dobbins, told on just a few pages near the middle of the book. Kenny, uneducated and unskilled, started working at the Monfort slaughterhouse when he was twenty-four. Kenny felt very loyal to the Monfort company, and he even protested labor unions after his supervisors told him that they were bad.  One day, a heavy box fell on Kenny and he was pushed into a conveyor belt. A piece of metal pierced his back. He took only a few days off work but had severe pain when he returned. He had back surgery, but it was ineffective. The stressful situation ruined his marriage. About a year after surgery, he returned to work. The company made Kenny do strenuous physical labor to try to make him quit his job. He was completely unaware and thought the best of his employers. One Saturday, Kenny was called in to disinfect the slaughterhouse buildings. He was not given proper protective clothing and suffered severe chemical burns in his lungs and on his skin. After spending time in the hospital, he returned to work with sensitive lungs. One night, he was driving a company truck. He stepped out of the truck and was hit by a train. Another time, Kenny broke his leg walking on the uneven slaughterhouse floor. Monfort continued to give him strenuous work, including carrying bags of knives up and down several flights of stairs. About sixteen years after beginning employment at Monfort, Kenny had a heart attack at work. While on leave after the heart attack, he was fired. However, no one called to inform him. He only found out because some of his checks were returned. He did not get a pension, so he filed for a law suit. The money he won was used to pay for his lawyer. (The full excerpt can be read here. Scroll to p186. It includes more tragic details and describes one notable act of bravery by Kenny.)

The story of Kenny is a memorable, real-life example of how many low-wage American employees are disposable to large corporations. Kenny was a loyal, hard-working and trustworthy employee to a company that simply traded him in for more efficient labor. He was disregarded as a human being. His courage and reliability earned him very little respect. Instead, when Kenny was injured several times (on the job) and his efficiency dropped, he was fired with no compensation. From the impersonal perspective of the large company, there were many people ready and willing to take Kenny’s job. Kenny as a person was less important than the potential for increased profit from a more viable worker. It is possible for companies to disregard current employees and easily hire new workers because there is an excess supply of workers. There are more people who want jobs than there are jobs available.

Part of what creates this excess supply of labor is the minimum wage. From an economic perspective, the minimum wage draws a line across the supply and demand curves. Because the minimum wage is above the market wage (essentially the wage that would exist without government regulation), the minimum wage creates a situation where companies supply less jobs than they would at the market wage and more workers are willing to take the jobs. The graph below helps represent this concept.

The blue line is considered the supply curve. It represents the supply of workers to the job market. The horizontal axis (L) represents labor. The vertical axis (W) represents wage. As wage increases, the supply of labor (blue line) increases. In other words, as the salary of a job increases, more workers are willing to take that job.

The red line is considered the demand curve. It represents the demand for workers by companies in the job market. As wage increases, the demand for labor decreases. In other words, as companies pay each employee a higher salary, they offer less jobs. If companies pay lower wages, they have money to offer more jobs.

The market wage (W0) appears where the supply curve intersects the demand curve. This represents the wage at which the number of jobs being offered is equal the number of people willing to work for that wage. There is neither an excess of jobs nor an excess of workers. L0 is equivalent the value of labor demanded and the value of labor supplied.

A minimum wage puts a “floor” in the graph. The dotted line Wmin represents a minimum wage that is greater than the market wage. Companies are not allowed to pay less than this wage. Looking at the intersection of the red demand curve and the dotted minimum wage line, the labor demanded is L1. If companies must pay a minimum wage, they only demand L1 of labor, which is less than L0. Companies demand less workers at minimum wage rates than they do at market wage rates.

The minimum wage has the opposite effect on the supply of labor. Workers want more jobs at the minimum wage than they do at the market wage (L2). With companies demanding less jobs, and workers supplying more labor, there is an excess supply of labor. This is considered unemployment.

People like Kenny are not valuable to companies when there is an excess supply of labor. If one worker is injured, he can easily be replaced because there are many unemployed people willing to work at the minimum wage rate. Without a minimum wage, companies would demand more employees (provide more jobs). The number of jobs provided would be closer to the number of employees willing to work at the wage rate, and unemployment would decrease. Individual employees would be more valuable to companies because they could not be so easily replaced.

I do not necessarily advocate for elimintion of the minimum wage. This is just one argument. I would like to hear others. What should America do for people like Kenny? Is the minimum wage causing more harm than good?

As a part of my leadership class I was required to read Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed, an ethnography about her experiences actually working and trying to live as a low-wage laborer in America.  She describes her efforts to give up her prior middle-class lifestyle and to authentically live a life like that of other low-wage workers who struggle to keep up with multiple jobs, work for minimum wage, and have to find affordable housing a continually more expensive market.  While she never truly gave up her former lifestyle, due to the fact that she continued to keep her computer with her and brought several thousand dollars with her into the project as a sort of safety net, she did get a taste of what it is to continually live on the edge of poverty.  Her interactions with the other workers were also very telling and interesting and gave a glimpse into the harsh realities that many Americans are forced to confront on a daily basis. 

            Barbara met several interesting characters throughout her experiences.  She started out as a waitress as a hotel’s restaurant and the people who worked here were generally friendly, attentive to the customer, and older in age.  From here, she switched to a more commercial chain restaurant where serving was a mechanical operation and interaction with the customer was discouraged.  In addition, she noted that the servers was so busy trying to wait on their numerous tables that they often had no time to interact with each other either.  Thus, the workers were isolated from each other and their customers and this resulted in a sense of loneliness and alienation.  Barbara commented on this saying how even though she was surrounded by people all day she never really connected to anyone and then after work she was so exhausted that she would just go home by herself and go straight to sleep.  This cycle, she said, resulted in a disconnect between workers and was management’s way to discourage or prevent the workers from joining together to talk which, God forbid, could lead to discussions of higher wages or more flexible hours.

            Barbara also noted this disconnect among workers when she was employed in commercial cleaning service.  While here she worked with another woman who was pregnant and had a severely injured ankle.  Barbara tried to persuade the woman to take the day off, however, the woman was adamant in her refusal to Barbara’s suggestion and, when Barbara told the manager that he should give the woman time off due to her injury, the woman was actually angry with Barbara.  This, Ehrenreich claims, is due to the “every man for himself” philosophy many workers have.  The woman understood that she was disposable to the company and that if she couldn’t make it to work then they could easily find someone else to replace her.  This could have been disastrous to the woman’s finances and to the health of both her and her baby.  In addition, Barbara mentions that many workers actually plotted against each other so that they could advance at the expense of others.  This, again, goes back to the notion that every worker is on his or her own and must look out for herself.

            However, why should the worker feel as though they are alone and alienated?  Our country continues to function because of the work these low-wage workers do and, as such, shouldn’t they be shown a little appreciation?  Barbara notes how she and her fellow workers were seemingly invisible to others, particularly when they were cleaning houses, and when I worked as a plant care person one summer I noted a similar sense of invisibility.  Sometimes I would go into a house to take care of someone’s plants and they would sit and watch TV as I pruned the exotic plant beside the television set without even acknowledging my presence.  It was very disheartening to see the total lack of respect and decency I was afforded simply because of the nature of my job and I could understand how this kind of treatment day in and day out could make one feel invisible and worthless. 

In David K. Shipler’s The Working Poor, anther book I read for my leadership class, many welfare recipient who were currently unemployed expressed a sense of worthlessness and attributed their failure to call work on days they weren’t coming in as a result of their sense of not being needed by the company.  If this is the case, then what role does the company have in making the worker feel valued?  And if companies did value the worker more how would this affect the worker’s future work performance?  I know that if I had received even a smile or a “Hello, how’s your day been?” while working I would not have felt so alienated and ignored.  And, really, how hard is that to manage?        

     On October 16, 2008, as a requirement for my Money, Politics and Prisons class, we visited the “notorious Richmond jail”, the jail with the reputation as the worst in Virginia. As the van approached the jail, located in downtown Richmond, I could see a brick building, surrounded by a fence with barbed wire located on the periphery. I stepped out of the van, approaching this building, as the family members crowded the entrance to see their love ones. Being welcomed by a yelling guard, we entered the building, passed the metal detector entering into a world of dehumanization, demoralization, suffering and pain.

      While walking down the long hallways, we were informed several things. First, the jail’s was built to house  about 800 people, but roughly 1600 people including juveniles, men and females are housed; therefore, the jail is overcrowded. Because of the overcrowded, most offenders were not housed in individual cells, but in large groups with flat beds and few urinals, which caused the offenders to fight over beds. In addition, the offenders, depending upon the offense committed, were specific uniforms. I am unable to recall all the colors, but the worst offenders (such as murders and rappers) are dress in white and black lined uniforms, many of whom were in the hallways standing and staring at us as we passed. On the floor of the hallway, are yellow lines on each side marking the boundaries in which the offenders were to walk. If they did not stay within those lines, more time could be added to their sentence. Alternatively, any form of disrespect and an attitude would result in disciplinary action; therefore, there is zero tolerance. Within the cafeteria, there were two compartments with bars located on the upper portion of the wall in which the armed guards would stand and monitor while hundreds of prisoners eat. If there was a disturbance, the doors were locked and pepper spray released.

     Walking throughout the jail was a very emotional and mentally draining experience because of the dehumanization, demoralization, suffering and pain of the offenders. First, my heart was ripped into two to see that the majority of people in their look like myself (Black American). In addition, it was difficult to see them caged like animals, told when to sleep, to eat and how to walk. They are not respected and have virtually no rights. In fact, they were not informed that we were coming, so some were not dressed, which further added to their dehumanization. In essence, we, University of Richmond students, were spectators as if we were at a zoo. So in essence, these people are treated as animals. Most of all, two things disturbed me the most: the experience of being placed in the whole and the use of Black Americans guards to implement a racist and dehumanizing system. When a person is out of control, they are placed in solitary confinement known as a whole, which is literally a whole in which a person stays for days and fed a “jail loaf”. The jail loft is all the leftovers cooked into a loaf.

        I decided to blog about this topic because it is important to make the link between systematic racism and discrimination, poverty and crime in urban America. It is interesting how the jail is located in downtown, inner city Richmond where the majority of the population lives below the poverty line, is predominately minority (Black and Hispanic) and are heavily policed because of inner city Richmond’s potential threat to Richmond suburbia. Also, there is a correlation between crime and poverty because in order to meet the basic necessities, one may have to steal or as housing projects are being displaced, more Blacks are forced into a small area (high density) were housing and job availability is poor. Therefore, the environment causes people to be angry and rebel against the system that created their plight. In addition, when Blacks enter into the jail, they are subjected to dehumanization and demoralization in name of control by the guards. For example, it is one thing to place someone in a whole, but why is it necessary to feed him or her the jail loaf? The reason is control through dehumanization and demoralization by breaking the emotional and mental resistance of the offenders. Because of what the offenders have to contend with, it was not surprising that they lashed out against us through verbal harassment. After, they are caged as animals and we were the spectators looking at them. The sad thing is that if animals were treated like this, millions of people including PETA would be angry. However, our society has been complacent and agreeable to this treatment of human beings.

       Because the jail is overcrowded and offenders controlled and disrespected, the “criminals” leave in worse shape than before. The warden of jail states that criminals are not adequately rehabilitated and leave the jail better criminals. He, along with his staff acknowledges that the system is flawed and needs to be change. Therefore, poverty, crime and imprisonment without rehabilitation and socio-economic endeavors to improve poor neighborhoods, continues to perpetuate a cycle of violence and contributes to the urban crisis.

A recent class discussion on ghettos prompted me to think back to my own childhood and upbringing. I remember clearly the word “ghetto” being thrown around amongst my peers, not as a derogatory term but as an adjective. “Yo he’s so ghetto, look at what he’s doing!” “Yo Jamal is ghetto”. But it wasn’t a negative connotation either. It was simply one of those words everyone wanted to use. It was “cool” to be “ghetto”. And the word wasn’t just limited to blacks; Hispanics, whites, Asians, and all other races all wanted to be termed “ghetto”. Even past middle school and into high school, the term was still widely used by all races amongst each other. There was no separation of the races and no restraint on who could, and wanted, to be termed “ghetto”.

The last few years of high school, however, proved to change the current racial atmosphere. “Clicks” and groups became more segregated, and racial “clicks” emerged. Terms and adjectives became exclusive and the description “ghetto” became a common usage among blacks, and only blacks. As we grew older we became aware of our racial identities and found pressure to conform to those identities. The sad truth is our age and wisdom made us aware of racial differences and subsequently pressured us into conforming to the “norms” of those identities.

Perhaps the absence of acknowledging racial differences existed because I went to school in a military community. Race and rank made little difference in the middle school times. Blacks, white, Hispanics, Asians, and all other races had no problem with each other, because those physical differences were not recognized. Only until the later years of high school did a separation between the enlisted children and the officer’s children become noticeable. Children of the enlisted members of the military became known as the more “ghetto” children and the officer’s children became known as the ones with more discipline and better behavior. Racial clicks are now more common, and I can recall one too many times when the Military Police (MP)s ran into my high school to break up fights. Debates among the senior class turned into racial battles more than once and we all wondered what happened to the carefree times of middle school. We didn’t want the racial differences to segregate us but we seemed powerless to stop the divide. We watched as terms such as “ghetto” moved from the carefree, cool kids word to one that became exclusive to race and status, and we watched as an integrated future slipped away from our memories.

               When I initially entered into the room to participate in the Poverty Simulation, I had no idea as to what to expect and the impact it would have upon my life. The overall goal of the simulation was to provide students some insight into the lives of millions who live below the poverty level. Although the simulation could not completely emulate poverty conditions, it served as a valuable learning tool that aroused mental and emotional responses of frustration, uncertainty, hopelessness and despair.

                One thing the Poverty Simulation challenged was my perception of what constituted as poverty. The image of poverty that I had was of working class, poor individuals, and many single parent families in the inner cities or rural areas. However, I learned that middle class, two parent families in the suburbs can also live in poverty. In the simulation, I was a married woman and mother to three children: a 16 year daughter with aspirations to go to college, a 9 year old son and another son with a criminal record for shoplifting the year before. We live in the suburbs in a house with two cars in which one was paid for and unreliable and the other was still being paid. My husband lost his job and I was the only working and had health insurance because it was too expensive to insure everyone.  My husband and daughter tried to find a job but to no avail. We went hungry at times, were robbed and could not pay the mortgage because I was laid off from my job. Therefore, my daughter joined a gang to attempt to help pay for the mortgage. Although we were a middle class, two parent household living in the suburbs, we live in poverty. Often, middle class families in the suburbs maintain their middle class status because one parent is the primary provider. Therefore, many middle class families are boarder line between middle class and working class, so when that primary provider is out of a job, the family sinks into poverty.

                Secondly, the Poverty Simulation reflected many of the systematic errors and issues in socioeconomic politics that creates a “culture of poverty”. One thing I noticed was that there are resources to help the families but they were either not advertised or they required tons of paper work to be completed in order to receive benefits.  So, parents had to look very hard to find these resources and/or spent a lot of time trying to acquire these resources when they need to work or care for their families.

                Lastly, this simulation evoked many emotions and allowed me to appreciate what my mother went through and continues to go through. Prior to the simulation, I never really considered myself poor or in poverty because my mother and I moved from the ghetto into a house in a “safe” and “respectable” neighborhood. The only thing I knew was that we struggled but whatever I needed, I was provided. For me to play the role of the parent and sole provider for the family, I became frustrated at my inability to provide for my family because I had no idea what to do and whom to contact for help. But, my mother was able to do this for my family. After the simulation, I had to call my mom and thank her for being a strong woman because if I was in her place, I most likely would not been able to survive.

I was glancing at the NY Times and I came across this article: Bipartisan Calls for New Federal Poverty Measure

The article talks about revising the current measure that is described as “hopelessly outdated”, so that the federal government may more accurately analyze and evaluate the impacts of current and future policies developed to combat poverty (NY Times).

What I find more interesting is that why, in 2008, are efforts only now being taken to evaluate the success of policies and programs? I don’t understand why Congress passes bills targeted at combating poverty, and yet does not bother to follow through and reflect on which of those policies worked and which failed to accomplish their goals. Isn’t an accurate measure of the effects of government action more important to solving urban problems, as opposed to simply throwing out legislation in an effort to appease constitutes? I know agencies have been created to asses the impact of specific factors of poverty and specific governmental programs, but most of these reviews fail to accurately include all factors that contribute to the definition of poverty. For example, a review might analyze the trends of unemployment for the lower class during a given point in time, but fail to include significant data such as welfare, government aid, and temporary and part-time jobs that affect the statistical measure of unemployment. Is the task to simply assess every factor included in the definition of poverty too daunting, or has no official, massive measure been taken to complete such a review?