http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/11/28/051128ta_talk_surowiecki
An especially interesting point this article makes is that because Americans work more hours, they pay other people to do many things that they could do themselves, but don’t want to (eating more at restaurants instead of cooking dinner, dropping the kids off at daycare, etc). The result is that there are more underemployed people (often young people and women) in the workforce stuck behind the counter of a Starbucks or a Qdoba so they can fill the needs of cubicle-dwelling paper-pushers and bureaucrats. Just today I received an email advertising Lazybones laundry service. At least the name suits it: I can’t imagine what else I would call someone who would rather pay for someone to do their laundry instead of doing it themself (except maybe “dumbass”). But I don’t think underemployment is the only issue at play here. What else would these young and underemployed people be doing with their time?
Getting educated.
Think about how many more 5th-year seniors there are at universities across America than there were a decade or two ago. I’m assuming that working low-paying college jobs tend to set more students back in getting their degrees.
Say we have a cubicle-dwelling paper-pusher bureaucrat workaholic. We’ll call him Rodney. Rodney wakes up at 8 to drop the kids off at daycare, pick up a coffee and something to eat, and then go to work a ten-hour shift. He’s tired and miserable at the end of the day. But what if he wakes up at 7? He makes breakfast and coffee, and packs a lunch. Maybe he even does laundry and plays with the kids. He gets to work and doesn’t have to work as long of a shift because he’s saving money on services he can do for himself. He gets home earlier and is probably in a better mood, and he can play with the kids again.
One critique would be that of reduced workload. Rodney works less, and so less is accomplished unless he gets more efficient. But what if we hire more Rodneys? Increase the self-sufficiency, and there’s less demand for the service industries that people can provide for themselves. Suddenly a barista gets hired to be Rodney’s new coworker and is not underemployed anymore.
The pressure point is in education. If we have equal access to education (meaning cheaper tuiton) maybe this could happen and underemployment could be reduced. I suppose this would have to be done by increasing taxes or passing another stimulus package or something. But I can’t see anything deleterious happening to our society if more money is reasonably allocated to education. It would make our society more egalitarian and probably happier and more efficient. Paradigm shift, anyone?
*I can hear them screaming “damn communist” already. No, I’m just musing on what could happen if people became more self-sufficient and had equal access to education. The free market is generally pretty cool- it lets me buy a beer once in a while.
