For Working People, Every Day Feels Like a Recession

The New York Times held an online discussion on layoffs. Here's Big Con favorite Tom Geoghegan's contribution:

So far as I can tell, in my labor law practice, every year is a recession for working people, even in a boom. In 2007, over 15 million were out of work at some point in the year — typically for three to four months. Over two years, 20 million to 25 million could face such a catastrophe. Over three years, millions more. And that’s when things are good. Economists used to take a cheerful view of this: “It’s just rolling unemployment.” But it’s more like a rolling heart attack. Three months without a paycheck is a near-death experience.

It’s this rolling unemployment which helps explain why we binge and don’t save: eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we are going to have a near-death experience. When they’re employed they know what’s coming.

By the time they’re my age in their late 50’s, many have come back from near death in this way three or more times. But this year, it might be for good. Of course people are terrified, especially if they’re sick.

I think here of a client I had the other day: he has cancer. So the loss of his job means the loss of his health insurance, and the loss of his job, at age 61, really could be a death sentence. It’s a long trek from age 61 to Medicare.

He took it calmly. I didn’t.

With all these prior near-death experiences, people who get a new job come back, quiet, passive. More than ever they’re afraid of making trouble. But perhaps they’re also getting ready for it. They don’t want to be laid off again. To my shock, in my home town of Chicago, a group of workers actually took over a plant until they get their 60 days of pay (under the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act) when there is no notice of a closing. Maybe this 1930s type of tactic is a comet in the sky that a New Deal is just ahead.

At least they didn’t feel they had to go quietly. And there is something reassuring about a recession: we all have these near-death experiences together. After all, a layoff in a recession is less shameful than all the other layoffs in the “good” times. People don’t feel the sense of shame. And think of the people who have already dropped out of the labor market. I think again of so many men and women who are my age, late 50’s or early 60’s, who wonder if they will ever find work again. We can face ourselves in the mirror: “Well, naturally I’m out of work.”

They can’t make us feel ashamed. Aren’t they bailing out the banks?

Views expressed on this page are those of the authors and not necessarily those of Campaign for America's Future or Institute for America's Future