e-tat / digital wasteland

Monday, July 31, 2006

Breaking Bonds

Some salient bits from a NYT story about joblessness
To be honest, I’m kind of looking for the home run,” said Christopher Priga, who is 54 and has not had steady work since he lost a job with a six-figure income as an electrical engineer at Xerox in 2002. “There’s no point in hitting for base hits,” he explained. “I’ve been down the road where I did all the things I was supposed to do, and the end result of that is nil.
...
His father is his standard. At Mr. Priga’s age, 54, “my father was with Rockwell International designing the fiber optic backbone for U.S. Navy ships,” he said. “He got a regular paycheck. He had retirement benefits, medical benefits, all of that. I’m at that age and I don’t see that as even possible. I’ve kind of written off the idea completely. I’m more like a casual laborer.”
...
No federal entitlement program is growing as quickly, with more than 6.5 million men and women now receiving monthly disability payments, up from 3 million in 1990. About 25 percent of the missing men are collecting this insurance. The ailments that qualify them are usually real, like back pain, heart trouble or mental illness. But in some cases, the illnesses are not so serious that they would prevent people from working if a well-paying job with benefits were an option.
...
This same trend is evident in other industrialized countries. In the European Union, 14 percent of men between 25 and 54 were not working last year, up from 7 percent in 1975, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Over the same period in Japan, the proportion of such men rose to 8 percent from 4 percent.
...
“What happens to a lot of guys who become unmoored from family life, they become unmoored from everything,” Ms. Edin said. “They are just living without attachments and by the time they are 40 or 50 years old, the things that kept these men from falling away — family and community life — are gone.” (Kathryn Edin, sociologist at the University of Pennsylvania.)

1 Comments:

  • I am appalled by the lack of work ethic that is represented in the New York Times article. I am Mr.Priga’s oldest daughter and would like to say that "choosing" not to work and then glamorizing it in an article is reprehensible. His statements are untruthful – he was not left with custody of his 3 children from a divorce in 1996, and his disdain for work that was beneath him left myself, his parents (my grandparents) and my mother to care for and provide for my brother and my sister (by 1996 I was in college, living on my own AND WORKING). He did not have to quit working to care for my brother and it was not until recently that my sister (she was 22) moved back in with him because she also feels she does not “need” to work. The financial and emotional impact of growing up living with someone who does not fulfill even the most basic responsibilities is quite profound and had a big impact on myself, my grandparents, my mom and the rest of the family. How can a person continually borrow money (not only from the equity on his home which is bad enough but through revolving credit and from his retired parents who where far from wealthy and as he even stated worked for what they had) and neglect financial obligations while he waits for his “home run”. To hit a home run you have to step up to the plate. I am grateful that I had positive examples that showed me to get where you want in life and be a positive influence in society you have to work hard. I am deeply saddened to see this misreported information in a major news outlet.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 17 August, 2006 22:31  

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