Employment Shifts and Expectations

It used to be one person in a household worked outside the home. That person earned enough income to pay for housing, food, clothing, entertainment, transportation, and healthcare. In addition that household managed to set aside enough to save for educating their children in college or trade school. In those days, too, householders set aside more savings to invest in their retirement plans.

Such was the case in the 1940’s, 1950’s and 1960’s. This was the norm for most families in America.

Standards of living became expansive in the 1960’s. New technologies were promising major changes in the standard of living. Houses grew larger. So did cars and the expectation that a second car was not only necessary, but a boost to the household’s pride.

Following those ‘improvements’ came nicer clothes (oh please, fashion!), travel, social mobility, expansive entertainment modes and an insatiable hunger for education, degrees and research and development. All of this fed a public sense of self much larger than what our society had once been satisfied.

In the 1970’s it was clear that two incomes in the home ensured that expectations regarding the kid’s education as well as family travel and life style were needed. Not only two incomes, but two significant incomes were the growing norm. Spousal income was based on meaningful careers outside the home based on education and management opportunities in expanding industries. Soon husbands and wives were earning similar incomes and benefit packages. Households were well funded. Homes became much larger (once the average was 1000 square feet, then 1800, 2200, and nearly 3000 became the standard). Two cars in the garage became three with special vehicles for sports or family vacation use.

By the 1990’s three car garages with homes of larger footprints became a burgeoning symbol of financial success. ‘Keeping up with the Jones’’ became an ever expanding theme. Travel grew quickly to exotic plans for annual journeys of discovery for the entire family. New industries popped up to attract household spending power. Day care, second homes, cooking and hobby interests soared.

There seemed no end to the bubble of expectations. Until 2001. The new millennia arrived on schedule and challenged old thinking. Although the world of possibility was still very much alive, the global community became much more real. The 9/11 terrorist attacks that year changed everything. America awoke on September 12, 2001 a different nation.

Introspection flooded the national consciousness. Who were we? Who attacked us? Why? What had we done to provoke such a vile attack? Were we vulnerable to more attacks?

And the truth was that America had become numb to its own cost to the world. Our standard of living was ridiculously out of step with that of the rest of the world. We were wasteful, domineering in attitude and expectation, and users of economic systems throughout the world. Oh, we thought this was our making and doing. But we did not build, manufacture or invent all the goodies in the world. Other nation’s provided much of the raw materials, labor and intelligence to make American wants possible.

I’m speaking here of consumer wants, individuals seeking to satisfy an inner hunger for consuming things and services. Increasingly, we consumers were demanding much more than what we manufactured in our own country. We relied on the world markets to satisfy our needs and wants. And wants is the operable term, here.

As American standards of living soared, they fell in many places elsewhere globally. Forests were despoiled, soils were mined voraciously for minerals and raw materials, and air and water pollution grew in places already unhealthy for local inhabitants. Industrial plundering might be a useful term here.

By 2009 the American economy was in deep trouble and unsustainable. Its plight infected the global economy in a huge swath that destroyed national economies world wide. Along with sagging production, incomes and standards of living came the awareness of sizable government overhead costs that were no longer sustainable.

Economic imbalance was everywhere. Disequilibrium is the term in economics. Supply and demand were grossly out of whack with one another, so too manufacturing, services, markets and expectations. Nothing seemed to be in balance.

Job markets were thrown into a tizzy. Housing markets collapsed. Financial markets followed suit quickly in step with the mortgage market meltdown. In 2015 we are still recovering from this horrendous mess. And lives have been affected.

Employment is slowly recovering but it is a buyers’ market. He who is hiring names the tune. Salaries are down, benefits have dwindled and many disappeared entirely. Entire industries have renamed themselves and are in the midst of reinventing themselves as well. There is a new normal taking shape. Until it matures we are all in a state of flux.

Bringing home the bacon is back to the original challenge. Someone in the home goes out into the world, does work for pay, and brings back an income that supports the basic needs. Not wants.

No, not wants. We have a long way to go yet before wants become a ready market for the masses. Needs continue to be shelter, food, clothing, healthcare, and transportation. Closely thereafter are education, retirement and travel.

Only in a market of plenty do wants become needs. And our journey to that market may forever be in want of discovery. Such are the new realities of America’s citizenship in the world community.

We may be strong, endowed with an irrepressible spirit and proud history. But that will no longer be enough. We must work hard and long for the right things. Only then will we find a sustainable model to fuel new futures. And keep our minds and tastes in balance with reality.

April 22, 2015