NOW's David Brancaccio hosts a special conversation with Barbara Ehrenreich on the state of American workers and wages today.

Download the MP3 here.

Comments

[Gar Lipow]

Hi Barbara. Listened to this - a very interesting conversation and overall very good.

One thing that strikes me as problemeatic - one part of the conversation bothered me. I sure it was not intended the way it sounded.

There seemed to be the idea that if a white collar worker with a college degree can't get a job as a white collar worker, it is completely understandable that he (and you seemed be talking about men in particular) would choose not to work at all and live off his wife's earnings? So it is OK for the wife to go on doing this sort of work? And it is OK for people without college to degrees to be treated like cockroaches? I mean the problem is not that someone may have to do a different job than they trained for - but that different job does not pay a living wage. And I know that is what you support - living wages, high quality single payer health care, decent public education and child care and so on. But the conversation kind of gave a different impression - that a college degree is supposed in some way to be a guarantee of higher wages compared to the undegreed.

I understand that is the official ideology, and one you never held, but it sounded like part of you did buy into it.

[Tom the Temp]

This is affecting ALL workers. I am writing an anonymous blog detailing the working conditions for attorneys (yes, attorneys) who were recently laid off/newly graduated and are now temping. Surprisingly, there are now thousands of these so-called temp attorneys. On one project I was on, there was 100's (yes, 100's) of temps shoved into a hot, cramped basement with cockroaches! The job required 80 hrs. per week/ 7 days a week. On another project, the cubicles were constructed of solid glass, and the boss hung up little pictures of owls all over the room -- talk about psychological warfare!
http://www.temporaryattorney.blogspot.com

The thing that struck me most about Nickel and Dimed was the belief by the working poor that things could only get better -- that somehow if you worked hard, achieved an education and played by the rules you would get ahead. Unfortunately, this is not how it works for many people in America today.

[Gary J. Arzt]

I heard you yesterday on NPR; I went to your web site last evening (www.barbaraehrenreich.com)and endeavoured to return to it this morning. I keep getting a web page saying it has EXPIRED. I googled you; went to the URL and got the same notice. Please check it out.

[Barbsright]

I used to want to be a lawyer so I look forward to reading your blog Tom the Temp.

[Avedon]

Gar Lipow, having a degree is supposed to be some sort of guarantee of having a good job with a better-than-living wage.

That's what we're being told, about how we have to get more educated, re-train ourselves, or whatever, and if we are just industrious and smart we will still be able to have a good job even if our jobs are all sent to China.

The point is not that it's okay to treat the untrained like roaches, it's that it is complete and utter bull to claim that whether we have been industrious and stayed in school and all that is what's responsible for whether we succeed or fail.

The entire education debate at this point is no more than a distraction from the fact that public policy has been aimed at completely destroying the economic structures that gave most of us a chance to improve our lives or at least stay even with some kind of dignity.

[Gar Lipow]

>The point is not that it's okay to treat the untrained like roaches, it's that it is complete and utter bull to claim that whether we have been industrious and stayed in school and all that is what's responsible for whether we succeed or fail.

Fair enough. But I honestly think the first viewpoint is common enough that you need to be a bit explicit about not reinforcing it.

>The entire education debate at this point is no more than a distraction from the fact that public policy has been aimed at completely destroying the economic structures that gave most of us a chance to improve our lives or at least stay even with some kind of dignity.

True enough. But there were always some people excluded from that chance. I think you have to move the goalposts. The goal should never have been (and should not be now) to "give everyone a chance" but ensure everyone willing to work (and those with disabilties that prevent them from working) with a decent life.

[Tom the Temp]

All they give us are small chances and false hope.

[Anarcissie]

Things certainly seem difficult, yet people don't organize. In fact, unions seem to be having a hard time and I hear little about cooperatives these days. I find the passivity, the acceptance, very odd. The only remedy suggested seems to be some forlorn hope that politicians are going to somehow make things right -- the same people who have made them wrong up till now.

[Tom the Temp]

Yes, everyone seems to be waiting on the politicians. They figure that if things were in fact really that bad the government would step in and do something. The fact of the matter is that the politicans really don't care.

Elliot Spitzer, for example, is very popular here in New York and it looks like he is going to be our next governor. He made a reputation for himself by going after corporations and bad business. Recently, his old law firm employer fired a large group of workers when a group of them went to the legal media and complained about cockroaches in their cramped, basement workspaces, and their 12 hour work days. Someone sent me an internal e-mail from the firm saying that they were fired for this very reason. (clearly an illegal retaliatory discharge on a massive scale). When this evidence was presented, Spitzer's office did nothing. You can't count on the Republicans OR the Democrats to protect the rights of the employee. WE have to do it.

[Tom the Temp]

This is the article I got written that got dozens of my colleagues fired from white-collar temp hell.

American Lawyer Magazine
Julie Triedman

SLAVES OF NEW YORK;
Law firm temps are furiously blogging about their work conditions

AT 4 P.M. DOWN IN the basement of a large New York firm, a temporary attorney plots his escape. After days of staring into a flickering computer screen for 12 hours, he can't bear to code another document. The temp's destination is modest: a Starbucks across the street. But aside from lunch and bathroom breaks, he can't leave the floor. If he does, he'll lose his job.

At another firm, the temps were first assigned to a conference room with a window, but then transferred to a room they call "the pit."

These are the kinds of stories temps tell each other from the comfort of their anonymous blogs. And to hear them tell it, working conditions are awful now that law firms are hiring more temps to do the drudge work formerly reserved for associates.

There is Temporary Attorney, whose anonymous protagonist, "Tom the Temp," says he was downsized from a big firm; DC Temp, written by a self-described "attorney in waiting"; and Cribspace, whose author claims to be a 28-year-old licensed attorney recently employed at Cravath, Swaine & Moore. The relevant URLs are dctemp.blogspot.com, temporaryattorney.blogspot.com, and cribspace.blogspot.com.

One reason for the surge in temp work is that firms now perform more discovery than ever. Another is that many grads of second- and third-tier law schools are unable to land associate jobs at big firms. Rather than take a low salary at a small firm, they sign on for steady temp work with the big firms. (New York Law School, for example, says that its 2004 grads at small firms earn between $35,000 and $51,000.)

By contrast, temp agencies pay $19 to $25 an hour to unlicensed J.D.s. Licensed J.D.s can earn up to $35 per hour, and specialized lawyers can top $100 an hour, say two staffing agency recruiters. Most temps are paid time and a half when they work more than 40 hours.
But oh, the pain of it all. At most firms, temps do online document review, a process that involves reading e-mail and documents and tagging them with a code that states their relevance to the case at hand. It's grueling work, made more so by their invisibility.

"Tom the Temp" has sparked a lively debate by declaring the system inefficient and urging temps to unionize. But one of his anonymous posters calls the system efficient, saying, "The bottom line is that utilization of [temps] increases the revenue stream, and profits, for the partners at the firms where [they] are utilized." Otherwise, the source says, firms wouldn't use them.

That opinion was seconded by a partner at a top New York firm who spoke on condition of anonymity. This source says he uses temp lawyers because he can bill the work to clients at associate rates, or $180?$200 an hour. His firm pays the agencies $50?$65 per hour and pockets the rest. (Recruiters confirm those agency rates, but say that rates and law firm markups are dropping.)

One firm in particular has come under fire for its work conditions: Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, which Tom recently named "Sweatshop of the Year."

Tom's complaints were corroborated by a Paul, Weiss temp who provided proof of his employment and spoke on condition of anonymity. This source says he was one of 40 temps working 12-hour stints six days a week at the firm's New York office. He says they were corralled in a windowless basement room littered with dead cockroaches, and that six of seven exits were blocked.

Paul, Weiss managing partner Alfred Youngwood concedes that some "J.D. paras" work on the "concourse level" and that in one room a few exits are blocked. But, he says, the firm complies with safety codes. He declines to say how much the firm bills clients for the work. These "are not the people who are getting billed out at $200 an hour," he says. "They're not doing legal work."

The Paul, Weiss temp disagrees. Along with coding for responsiveness, he says, he is expected to review for privilege. "It's true we spend probably 80 percent of the day bullshitting and wandering around," this temp confides. "But when you're paying an attorney $20 an hour, what do you expect?"

[Jacqueline]

It's not that those of us who suffered, struggled and sacrificed to earn college degrees feel we're unjustly entittled to a guarantee of some sort of a "good life". Rather, it is the fact that the "experts" and corporate America have consistently told us that if we're poor, it's our fault for not being educated enough, skilled enough or adaptable enough. But college educations are not free. I will NEVER be able to repay the $54,000 in student loans I owe the federal government because I am middle-aged and no employer wants to hire middle-aged people who have to start all over in a new field when they can hire healthy young kids.

Now, after becoming disabled BEFORE going to college in my late 20's, I relayed these concerns to the bureaucrat caseworker employed by the PA OVR Agency only to be told that I had a "negative attitude" which wouldn't get me anywhere and that I shouldn't want to be a welfare bum because I was expected to try and get that college degree (graduating in my mid-30's and I am now 40) to make myself desirable to employers by getting the degree that employers demand of applicants before even considering them for a chance for a job.

So fine. Now here I sit with my degree in math/IT and I NEVER got a chance for a job using that knowledge. Nor did I get a chance for any other white collar job that paid a living wage so I could live and repay those expensive student loans, all incurred at the behest of all the "experts". Now these "experts" are enjoying their cushy government jobs with adequare salaries and benefits regardless of whether or not people like me have their lives end up further down the toilet with no jobs, unaffordable student loan debts that went into default as a result of taking their advice and doing what we were told.

I sell insurance working 60-70 hrs/week for commissions-only because it's the only "job opportunity" I could get as a middle aged woman with health problems. I make less than $15,000/year. Out of that, I must pay for mandatory E & O insurance and bond fees of about $3900/year just to be allowed to work as a self-employed, as an "independent contractor" selling insurance so that brings down my gross commissions-only pay to less than $12,000 a year which is less than $6.00/hr - not enough to live on never mind repay my student loans, save for my own old age and afford my own health plan. I am not covered by workers comp like a regular employee is. So if I am injured in a robbery (agents are responsible for taking cash payments of premiums in their offices)I am not covered at all and I am liable to the insurance company for the money that was stolen if that should occur. I get no benefits at all - other than I can call the shots with working however many hours I want to - or not.

It was either that or end up destitute out on the street with no place to go and no means to economically fend for myself at all.

I get to put up with self-centered inconsiderate people who get paid hourly wages at their jobs for their time who don't care that I am only paid if I get a sale, that I am not paid for my time and use of my home office equipment and electric & phone line to work providing them with endless free quotes and consumer education services and expecting me to work for free providing the services of free quotes and free hand-holding (only to hear them bitch about the rates as if it's somehow my fault when companies set the rates - NOT the poor agents!).

I get to put up with insurance companies stealing what little bit of commissions I DO make from me by charging me for MVR & CLUE reports that are pulled automatically by the companies in order to issue auto policies. AIG, Progressive, Victoria and others now charge agents $8.00 per quote that does NOT result in a sale for the MVR's & CLUE's (MVR = motor vehicle report and CLUE = Claims Loss Underwriting Exchange)The MVR's and CLUE's are required by the companies to issue policies because it is the information contained in them about prior insurance claims, credit problems, accidents and tickets that determine customers' rates so there is no way around that.

If I proceed with processing a policy and the Point-Of-Sale part of the quote which automatically pulls these MVR's and CLUE's results in a higher revised quote, people walk out and don't buy. So I not only worked for free when I can't afford it, but I also get charged $8.00 for each quote that this happens with.

Now, PA and most other states prohibit agents from charging extra fees to cover this cost that the insurance companies are passing onto us, even though the insurance companies themselves have alot more latitude in adding policy fees and could very easily fold that MVR & CLUE report cost into their policy fees. But agents like me don't have any recourse because we're more heavily regulated by the state than the companies regarding what fees we can charge. The only recourse agents have is to turn away prospective customers because that $8.00/quote adds up to hundreds of dollars per month so by the time we get paid anything at all, it's nowhere near enough to live on. Yet on this poverty level unstable income, I'm supposed to buy the clothing and the office furniture and rent "approved" office space to "fit the professional image" when I can't afford it because I can't even afford to live.

When I try explaining this to demanding, inconsiderate jerks calling me from the comfort of their living rooms wanting free quotes acting like their time is more important than mine (when I'm the poor commissions-only paid salesperson, NOT them), I get told, "well that's your own fault for choosing a job like that. Do something else if you don't like it."
They don't acknowledge the fact of lack of enough jobs and age discrimination really left me with no other options or choices for doing something else to try to make a living.

Damn right I feel cheated, betrayed, resentful and very, very angry after all I've been through. Who wouldn't be? I could be just as poor with no economic security, no health & dental benefits, NO pension or retirement account, waiting each month for one of our utilities to be shut off - again - for lack of money to pay the bills WITHOUT the student loan debt I incurred all in the name of doing what was expected of me by society - getting the "right" education in the "right field" - with having to additionally cope with a learning disability to boot that I didn't choose to be born with in struggling to make it through school - at a steep unaffordable debt I can't even erase with filing bankruptcy since student loans are exempt from bankruptcy relief.

Ironically, middle-aged commissions-only paid salespeople without any security and benefits like me with no other options for employment due to age discrimination were totally left out of all this living wage debate. The fastest growing number of poor are people like me who have the almighty educations that all the employers demanded, unaffordable student loan debt, who are middle-aged and/or who have aging-related health problems limiting our occupational choices and "career options" whom everybody else has discarded, forgotten about and decided that we are just somehow not important enough to be included in any plan for a living wage or healthcare plan campaign.

[Tom the Temp]

yes, student loan debt is another crises that we hardly hear anything about. Along with unaffordable housing and healthcare, student loan debt is helping to destroy our middle class. I met many people on my lawyer temp jobs - esp. those with children - who are foregoing health insurance just because they can't afford their $1,000 a month student loan payments.

We have kids coming out of college today (working in low wage Nickel and Dimed kind of jobs) that simply can't afford the monthly payments. Sallie Mae adds massive penalties which are non-dischargeable. Check this out: http://www.studentloanjustice.org/

[barbsright]

Jacqueline, I can relate to your OVR experience because I live in PA, and have worked with them and another bunch of morons called LETA. OVR were geniues compared to those 'bozos'. Why don't you set up your own computer consulting business instead of selling insurance? A friend of mine does well that way.

[Jacqueline]

To Barbsright:

In response to your question, first, my computer related knowledge is now obsolete, and; two, I struggled with a learning disability (I am dyslexic)to get through that curriculum in college (it took me alot longer than the typical 4-5 years to get through successfully because of having a learning disability). I don't feel I have enough talent or skill in that realm to be able to do a computer consulting business - especially with obsolete skills I NEVER got to use after I finally did manage to graduate. I don't even remember how to write a simple Visual Basic program anymore. If you never get to use it, you lose it. So I'm basically stuck and shit out of luck - with a crippling student loan debt I incurred all for nothing.

[Jacqueline]

I went to the website that Tom the Temp referenced about the student loan debt crisis. I submitted my own story which hopefully they will publish there. It's a bit long but there was actually stuff I cut out - like how OVR has STILL not helped me one iota to date. Here it is:

It all began when I was left disabled at age 24 back in 1991 when I was hit by an uninsured driver who was "judgment proof". Prior to that, I had just started out in a high paying union skilled construction trades job (I was the only woman in the plasterers & painters union then). The accident left me with permanent problems with both knees and my back where I cannot stand for any length of time or bend over repetitively or lift. That ruled out waitressing, Wal-Mart greeter, and even McDonalds jobs. I filed for social security disability but was denied because I was "too young" (I was 24 back in 1991)and didn't have enough working year credits paid into the social security system. Because I wasn't a crack addict, an alcoholic or a single mother, I didn't qualify for any help at all from welfare either, even though I had no money, no income and no way of being able to earn a living and had health problems. I was sent by the social security bureaucrats to see someone at PA OVR, the state agency that is SUPPOSED to help the disabled get re-trained and get placed in new careers - which ended up being a real joke.

I met with the intake caseworker at the local Allentown PA OVR office and had a skills assessment done. I had been pushed through the public school system. I was in special ed since 7th grade all the way through high school for having learning problems (I have a learning disability - dyslexia)and thus did not have the academic capabilities beyond the 4th grade level even though I was a high school grad. Yet, these clowns at OVR told me I needed to "just go to college to learn something else to be marketable and have a new career". When I asked them to please look at my high school records, told them that I am learning-disabled and if I couldn't grasp basic math - never mind algebra and trig - in junior high and high school, how the hell could they expect me to "just go to college" - especially when I had no money, when I was eating in soup kitchens as a poor disabled woman with no family support network? The response I got was: " You can't use your learning-disability as a crutch. It just means it will take you a little longer. Now, if you do what we tell you to do and get a degree in computer science, we will help you. We will place you in another good job that as a disabled person you CAN do. But you have to make the effort and try hard enough. There's no free ride for excuse-making slackers. If you fail it will be your own fault that you're poor for not trying hard enough."

Well, I DID try. I tried a hell of a lot harder and for a lot longer when most others in my boat would have tossed in the towel. I started out having to go get literacy help first. Then I had to go to community college for remedial level classes for the material I couldn't grasp in 7th through 12th grades and struggled to get through them successfully - often having to put in 8-12 hours into my homework because having a learning disability means you just can't grasp things as quickly and absorb as much at a time as everybody else. Of course, this meant I couldn't even work in a part-time telemarketing job while going to the community college. Since I was in my mid-20's and wasn't a high school merit scholar or football player, I couldn't get any scholarships. Thanks to the Gramm-Rudmann Bill passed before I was old enough to vote (remember, I'm a Gen-Xer and it was my parents' generation, the Baby Boomers, also known as the "Me Generation", who made sure after years of getting to have theirs that everyone else coming up after them wouldn't have any chances to get ours), Pell Grants were decimated to a minimum and many non-college type schools that might have been a better fit for someone like me were no longer Pell eligible.

So as a poor disabled woman, I had to take out student loans to help meet my education related expenses. Having to start out behind the 8-ball due to the learning-disability problem, it took me 5 years to make it through a 2-year community college starting out with remedial classes and finally graduating with a regular college course curriculum under my belt with an A.A. degree. As a dyslexic and an older learner, I felt that the math and computer classes were really too hard for me. I had an easier time in my creative writing and criminal justice classes. I told the OVR caseworker who was monitoring my progress that I really felt I should be going for a degree in pre-law and then on to law school because of the difficulties I was having getting through math and computer classes (which are a nightmare for any dyslexic). I told the caseworker how I was being denied the accommodations of extended time for taking tests by the professors - even though this caseworker said that under the A.D.A., I was entitled to this very reasonable accommodation. I endured ridicule from the younger non-learning-disabled students (smart enough to get into college straight from their college-prep high school classes but not smart enough to refrain from making fun of people with disabilities and problems, go figure!) Of course, the OVR worker's response to my concerns was "You just have a negative attitude. It's your negative attitude that will let you fail. you just have to keep trying. No, law school is not an option for you. The job market need is for IT people, not lawyers. Either you do this OVR's way or you will not get any help with job placement from OVR." Being poor and disabled with nothing and at the state's mercy, I forged onward to transfer my A.A. degree to Kutztown State University to complete my B.A. in math/computer science - just like I was told to by the OVR "experts".

I transferred my community college degree credits to go forward towards getting my bachelors beginning in August, 1997. I was 30 years old by then and already out of the workforce for 6 years since my accident. Since not all of my A.A. degree credits were accepted for transfer, I had to go to school an additional 3 years instead of 2, which would put me another year behind the 8-ball of not being able to re-enter the job market. My entire time at the university was fraught with professors treating me like crap because of having a learning disability they didn't feel they should have to accommodate and ridicule and bad treatment from the younger, smarter, faster learners I felt out of place among in all my classes when I had to ask questions they thought were dumb - and they let me know it, too. Of course, I was closer to the top in my classes (except for C++ which I failed twice due to my dyslexia so I substituted that for a course in Visual Basic, which I aced)so I was managing to keep up with the best of them.

Then, in my junior year in 1999 when I needed to take Advanced Calc I (it was a prerequisite for other classes I needed to graduate), the school canceled the class for lack of enrollment. Since less than 10 students enrolled in the class, the math department arbitrarily canceled the course for a whole year, which put me behind schedule for graduating yet another year. Then the same thing happened with Abstract Algebra II in 2000, which was also required in order for me to graduate. This put me a total of 2+ years behind schedule for graduating. I looked into taking those courses at another school, but because I would not be matriculating (graduating) from the other schools that DID offer these two courses, I would have had to come up with over $2000 out of my own pocket instead of getting financial aid to pay for these courses I needed to graduate. I had no way of coming up with $2000 on my own to pay for these two courses at Muhlenberg College so as to keep my Kutztown University graduation date only one year instead of two, behind schedule. My only other alternative was to get the professors who respectively taught those 2 classes to teach the material to me on an I.I. (Independent Instruction) basis. The one professor was the math department chair, Mr. Bateman. I approached him about teaching me Abstract Algebra II and explained, very concisely and thoroughly, the urgency of my situation being 100% reliant on student aid for my education, for my degree that was supposed to be my ticket back into the workforce. His response, sent to me by email (which I still have a copy printed out in my personal records file) basically stated that because I wasn't a gifted student able to maintain straight A's due to my having a leaning disability, I wasn't academically "worthy" of his time to teach me this required course on an I.I. basis. The other professor who taught the Advanced Calc II class was much nicer to me but told me she had a policy of NO I.I.'s for any students because professors were not paid their regular salaries for teaching a whole semester-long course in an I.I. set-up so she apologetically declined to teach me the other course I needed.

I complained to the President of the university. Got nowhere except told, "I'm sorry. But the Professors' union has a contract clause called "academic freedom" so they can pretty much do whatever they want and there's nothing the administration can do about it. Looks like you might have to start over again with a whole new major. I don't know what else to tell you except I'm sorry." I had to fight all the way to the Chancellor's Office in Harrisburg, PA (the Chancellor oversees all state colleges) to get some resolution to this matter, which I did. The University was forced to allow me to substitute the Abstract Algebra II and Advanced Calc II classes with Operations Research I & II (an intense, graduate level applied math course involving real life projects) which I got an A and B in respectively.

Thus, I finally did get to graduate at age 35 on May 19th, 2001 with $38,000 in student loan debt from Sallie Mae, PHEAA and William D. Ford Direct loan programs combined - 2 yrs after I should have been able to graduate and re-enter the workforce. I was out of the workforce for exactly a decade at that time, having to compete at age 35 against 23 year yr old non-handicapped kids with no experience in the same field I struggled and fought so hard to get my degree in for jobs that, to my dismay, were being off-shored faster than I can type on my keyboard.

With my $38,000 in college loans in deferment, I wasted no time in sending out resumes, attending job fairs and when I met with my OVR caseworker, he presented me with clipped out classified job adds that were over a week old and told me to check up on and apply for those jobs. This was the "help" with job placement OVR was going to give me - after suffering through 10+ years with no medical & dental care, no resources, no ability to earn a living, struggling to get a college degree in what THEY told me to get as a condition of getting helped with job placement! I finally managed to get hired as a stockbroker (which is a commissions-only paying high-stress job with no health, unemployment, workers comp or retirement benefits) by a brokerage firm in 7/2001. But a few months later, the 9/11 attacks messed that career opportunity up for me, so once again, I was left unable to earn a living and was facing very bleak prospects of getting any kind of "real" job because of the age discrimination I am up against in the job market being that I am now middle-aged and no longer a skinny young piece of "eye candy".

I am now going on 40. I never did get any chances at all for a job in that field, not did I get any chances for any other white-collar entry-level professional type job paying a living wage with health benefits so that I could support myself, get the health and dental care I desperately need that I had been without for over 15 years of my life, and repay the $38,000 in student loan debt I was on the hook for - all for trying to do "all the right things" and do what I was told by the "experts". Since you are only allowed a maximum of 36 months of deferments for unemployment/economic hardship, whether or not you are able to get a job that pays enough to meet your basic needs plus make the student loan repayment schedule, my loans went into default after 4 ½ years of enduring a fruitless job hunt which yielded me nothing. My credit is destroyed and I'll never be able to recoup. I have no savings for my own old age, and no healthcare - but I can't get Medicaid either because I don't have any kids. No one will give me a chance for any kind of good job that pays a living wage with health benefits and a stable paycheck (salary instead of commissions-only) because I am middle-aged, have been without a job since 2001, and despite making super human efforts to get another job after 9/11, I now have ruined credit because my student loans went into default when I couldn't begin repaying them because of not getting any chances for jobs so employers hold that against me, too.

A year ago, the William D. Ford Direct Loan Dept of the US Dept of Ed offered me the option to consolidate all my student loans so I could go on an income-contingent repayment plan. But any unpaid interest (mine is locked in at 8%)was capitalized so now my student loan debt is at $54,000 and growing because I simply don't have the opportunity to earn enough money to meet my basic needs and repay them. And being older, I know I'll never get any chance for a good job so I can make it thanks to off-shoring and age discrimination ensuring that too many people like me who have been economically left out get kept left out, poor and screwed over.

Because my student loans went into default, I can't qualify for any job placement program through the local unemployment office under the WIA (Workforce Investment Act) to pick up anymore training and job placement in anything else like the medical field, although I am cynical that it would help me be anymore employable than I was at age 35 five years ago when I graduated with my "marketable degree" because if nobody would give me a chance and hire me then when I was 35, my chances certainly aren't going to be improved the older I get and I am now going on 40. The only "job opportunities" that have been made available to me are commissions-only type sales jobs so I scrape by on food stamps, selling insurance, with no help for medical and dental care and not enough income to keep my utilities from being shut off. There is no way I can afford to repay my student loans.

But ending up in this boat with defaulted student loans wasn't my idea when I got injured 16 years ago and was told by all the "experts" to "just go to college and learn something else" when they promised job placement and help. That OVR caseworker and others like him continue to get their decent paychecks, their health and dental benefits, their paid vacation and retirement accounts with scheduled raises all on the taxpayer dole - whether or not their "guidelines and advice and job placement programs" results in people like me having our lives go further down the toilet, with no hope for anything better than dying young from lack of access to healthcare, stress from poverty and ending up out on the streets or living in our cars, and our own eventual meager social security checks garnished for student loan debt that we couldn't repay because we couldn't get any good jobs.

In sum, the banks, Sallie Mae, the corporations who have lied to us and kept us jumping through more and more hoops to be "worthy" of jobs that they continued to off-shore or otherwise take away from us, the state employment and disability agency “experts”, the self-centered tenured and coddled state university professors and administrators in the higher education racket, and the politicians in bed with all of these cretins ought to be held accountable for destroying entire generations in this country. Anyone in favor of re-introducing the guillotine and storming the Ivory Towers like the Bastille?

You may contact me about this, publish my story and quote me verbatim. I am available and willing to testify in front of a congressional committee on this matter.

Jacqueline S. Homan, Erie PA tel: (814) 452-4844

[gaby]

Thanks for sharing your story, Jacqueline. It makes my situation benign in comparison. While I don't regret having attended the University, I am disillusioned by the opportunities a college degree is supposed to provide. I have graduated in 1997 and am still paying on my student loans, which are currently in deferment because of underemployment. Whenever I hear the phrase "America is the greatest nation on earth" and silently add "only as long as nothing bad happens to you". The minute you become injured, jobless, divorced or seriously ill, chances are very good that financially you will never recover.

[eternalsquire]

Jacqueline,

I hate to say this but you might be better off leaving the US. Join a church and do foreign missionary work in a third world country. You'll get food, a roof over your head, and medical care, all tax free because your wages will be subsistence level by US standards.. however that subsistence goes much further in your host country than you might realise. Mormon, Baptist, and Salvation Army are excellent examples. I also suggest you look up the Catholic Worker website, there are also shared subsistence living arrangements at various of thier centers.

[eternalsquire]

Gaby,

I too am disillusioned by the quality of work I expected to undertake with my training. I hold a bachelor of electrical engineering, a master of computer science, but NOT ONCE have I ever found a job that could last more than a few years over my 15 year career. And now I am priced out of the market. I Thank Gawd I decided to swap roles with my wife... I work sunrise to sundown on cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc... but I find it a lot more satisfying and far less stressful than being relegated to a cube with literally nothing but paperwork to do, simply because the true R&D assignments went to the popular rather than to the diligent.

[eternalsquire]

I sometimes wonder if people like Jacqueline ought not defect to Cuba. Granted it is a reprehensible regime and also granted it is highly illegal for a US citizen to aid, comfort, or travel there. But in practical terms, it seems to me that Fidel and Raul might be the type welcome a massive influx of overeducated and unemployed student loan debt refugees with open arms. Being fed beans, rice, and a little meat plus given dependant albeit drafty shelter may seem to some people to be better than living in constant threat of homeless.

[gaby]

Well, eternalsquire, leaving the US or defecting to anywhere is a problem in itself, because by the time most of us acknowledge the futility of our job search and are ready to abandon hope, we have become too impoverished to go anywhere.

[eternalsquire]

Gaby,

I might say that the moment of decision to defect could be when one realizes that only 3 months remain in the downward financial spiral toward homelessness. Then just save the 3 months for travel expenses.

[db]

I'm not sure that moving to a foreign country is the answer.

ESL teachers in Russia and Asia have been overworked and underpaid and basically exploited. When they find out what a farce they've gotten themselves into, they have to find a way back to the US without much help.

What's the solution? Send our educated, intelligent people overseas to chase after their jobs?

Open our borders to anyone who will work for $5 per hour?

Or, get elected to Congress. It's the quickest way to get rich.

No, the solution is obvious: VOTE!!! Let's send them a message. Let THEM walk in OUR shoes for once!

VOTE!!!

[wb]

Jacqueline,

I believe you would have an opportunity as a middle school or high school math teacher. Eventually, it would involve night classes in education and a subject matter test in order to get your certification. However, you may be able to get a teaching job (or teaching assistant job) and take classes over a period of 3 years so you might not even have to take out additional loans. Many states need math teachers (especially Florida, where I live) and as long as you have a B.A. and the requisite college math courses, you can get a temporary certificate and start applying for jobs. It is an area where there are a lot of career changers your age and older. I understand your frustration. I, too, am in my forties and have already changed careers once and am trying to do so again and there is prejudice out there. Teaching math in middle school has its stresses, but you would be able to survive on the wages and benefits, and it sounds less stressful than the financial situation you are in. I think you are definitely qualified and would not find so much age discrimination in that field.

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