We are more than the title on our business cards
This week has been pretty bad for admin purposes. The ‘powers that be’ lost both my applications for a work permit and for a tax identification. So I’m still unable to get a social security number, earn any money or pay taxes in the United States (well, there’s an upside to everything!). And I have very little to demonstrate that I exist here. In a country where work IS the ultimate form of identity. Where the first question a stranger will ask you is usually “so what do you do?”*
The average working American clocks more hours per year than most of their European counterparts. Americans have fewer allocated vacation days than other countries and rarely use up all of this time. And they want more work. The number of part-timers who wanted full-time work but couldn’t get it because the hours weren’t available was around 6 million at the last count, although this has been falling as the job market has recovered post-Great Recession and more hours have become available.
It appears that if you want to do better in life, you have to work harder. Over the last 40 years, the bulk of the rise in earnings for low and middle-income earners can be attributed to longer hours. For the highest earners, the improvement in earnings has come from being paid higher wages.
That’s because wages haven’t grown very fast for the majority (which is why there is demand for longer hours). The federal minimum wage, in particular, is now far below what it should be to reflect how hard people are working. If the minimum wage had kept up with the level of productivity (how much each person produces in an hour), it would be around three times its current level. There are lots of arguments about why it shouldn’t be as high as that (for one, we don’t actually know the effect on employment) but it is certainly clear that it is too low. After all, the majority of Americans living in poverty are in work. Taken together with the rising number of hours clocked and the increase in people holding down more than one job, this suggests that the minimum wage is a poverty wage. And rising wages at the top only serve to widen existing income inequality.
But working longer hours is not good for us. For starters, it’s detrimental to our health. But more than that, it reinforces the belief that we are defined by our work. It does not acknowledge our value as a parent or caregiver, or as a partner or friend. And in doing that, it excuses the system that undervalues these activities. The United States is the only advanced economy that doesn’t offer paid family leave to new parents. Some states, like California, and some companies, like Netflix, have been ahead of the game in trying to offer better leave policies but they are the exception rather than the rule. And in the case of state-sponsored policies, they tend not to be generous enough.
The US has been at the forefront of academic research about the importance of early years care to child development. Those children who are behind when they arrive at school at age four have a tough time catching up. Achievements gaps, once opened, are hard to close. Studies in the UK show that development differences at age 10 can predict adult earnings 40 years later. Those parents who need to spend the most time with their children, providing them with a strong foundation, are often the ones who can least afford to do so, because of a lack of a financial cushion to support time out of the labor market. So the over-emphasis on work — and under-emphasis on the “infrastructure of care” — exacerbates existing income inequality.
But even for those parents who don’t have a financial obligation to go back to work, what are we — as policymakers, employers, commentators — doing to value the care that they provide and the caregivers that they are? Do we make it relatively straightforward to work part-time or using other flexible arrangements? Do we make it straightforward for them to move in and out of the labor market without affecting their promotion prospects? Do we offer equal opportunities to men who want to be caregivers as well as women? The evidence and commentary suggest not.**
Which means that as long as we live in a country that values work more than any other activity, we will uphold a system that drives inequality — income, gender, employment — among working adults and developmental differences among their children. Today’s development differences are tomorrow’s income inequality statistics. But they are also tomorrow’s productivity statistics. If we don’t nurture our children today to prepare them for work tomorrow, then we cannot possibly expect to increase our overall growth. And there are only so many hours in a day to try and catch up.
*Apparently, when HM Queen Elizabeth meets new people, to avoid embarrassing those who may not have a job, she always asks, “so what’s been keeping you busy?” I’ve tried it out a couple of times, you end up having far more interesting conversations.
**For a great articulation of the gaps in our system architecture and what we need to do to continue our progress towards full equality in the workplace and in the home, I recommend “Unfinished Business” by Anne-Marie Slaughter.
Originally published at tellingtimes.me on January 27, 2016.
