Throwaway Americans, 10th Anniversary Edition

In "Throwaway Americans," Stu Bykofsky has the audacity to wave a white race card and get the reader to sympathize with a guy who went to private schools, once owned an airplane, and even has a part-time job, and, alas, maybe because the guy is 54, just as in my 1994, non-airplane-owning, flat-broke father's experience as fictionalized for "My Father's Great Recession," I do, at least somewhat, even as I wonder where I'll be in ten years. In 2024, just as in 1994 and 2014, it seems likely a majority of the folks making the "hiring decision" will be other white men.

At least that was certainly true in my dad's situation 20 years ago when he finally found his way back into the world of employment. I've noted this before at L.U.S.K., that he wound up getting his 15 seconds of fame as "the poet, Jay Roberts" while working at a gas station convenience store off A1A in Ponte Vedra, Florida after his downstairs neighbor in the beach bungalow they split a low rent on was kind enough to bring back an application and help return him to work. My father did about 20 to 30 hours a week at minimum wage, $5.05 at the time, I think, and enjoyed the job because playing cashier reminded him of working in a liquor store thirty-five years previously. He had time to walk on the beach and write his poetry, and he was quite happy for those reasons.

"My Father's Great Recession" is included in the limited edition paperback published in Romania (and available in English, Romanian, and Spanish soon), and we are looking for an American publisher to produce an e-book version of these texts.

2014-15: inequality, unemployment, poverty

One reason Fight for Your Long Day is worth reading is that the novel clearly predicts the direction we are heading in--toward contract work (35% of all U.S. Workers), increased inequality, and global "flattening" for most of us even as the elite prospers. In 2014, from Robert Reich's "Why There's No Outcry" to Stu Byfosky's "Throwaway Americans," inequality, unemployment, and poverty articles remain the easiest ones to find between Miley, Bieber, and Sochi headlines. Apologies again for pasting in URLs, but I'll update this list as I see them, and I'm sure it will prove impossible to capture even "the 1%" of the total. So to speak.

Inequality:

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/the-state-low-wage-america

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-11-03/how-401-k-plans-have-fueled-inequality-in-america?campaign_id=yhoo

http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-us-income-inequality-is-bad-20141024-column.html

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/oct/24/tale-of-two-cities-new-york-inequality-john-tim-freeman?CMP=fb_gu

http://mashable.com/2014/09/25/this-really-depressing-graph-about-the-u-s-economy-is-turning-heads/

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/09/upshot/how-are-american-families-doing-a-guided-tour-of-our-financial-well-being.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=HpSumSmallMediaHigh&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0&abt=0002&abg=0

http://news.yahoo.com/americas-wealth-gap-unsustainable-may-worsen-harvard-study-110255435--business.html

http://phys.org/news/2014-08-great-recession-americans-unhappy-pessimistic.html

http://www.vox.com/2014/8/25/6063831/two-numbers-that-show-how-badly-america-s-middle-class-is-hurting

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/why-theres-no-outcry_b_4666330.html

http://barrygrahamauthor.com/post/74927339360/guest-blog-post-a-brief-primer-on-inequality-by-larry

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/03/business/the-middle-class-is-steadily-eroding-just-ask-the-business-world.html?action=click&contentCollection=Europe&module=MostEmailed&version=Full&region=Marginalia&src=me&pgtype=article

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/02/02/how-inequality-hollows-out-the-soul/?_php=true&_type=blogs&hp&rref=opinion&_r=0

http://www.newstatesman.com/economics/2014/02/gender-inequality-costing-global-economy-trillions-dollars-year

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/14/opinion/krugman-inequality-dignity-and-freedom.html?_r=0

http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/21841-paul-krugman-redefining-the-middle-class

Unemployment:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/31/america-unemployment-map_n_5744656.html?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592

http://news.yahoo.com/30-percent-retirees-return-labor-093000852.html

http://news.yahoo.com/long-term-unemployed-improving-us-economy-39-hope-155005064.html

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20140214_Throwaway_Americans.html

http://www.ibtimes.com/us-january-jobs-report-2014-unemployment-rate-falls-66-nonfarm-payrolls-rise-113k-1553925

http://www.philly.com/philly/wires/ap/business/20140213_ap_97aa78f9a8514fc2a176869f28786b75.html

Poverty:

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/majority-children-us-public-schools-are-low-income

http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-child-poverty-20141021-story.html

http://qz.com/282841/who-and-where-americas-poor-people-are-in-charts/

http://news.yahoo.com/us-losing-generation-poverty-094500940--politics.html

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/nation-jan-june14-povertysuburb_01-11/

http://www.freep.com/comments/article/20140818/NEWS07/308180088/Hunger-America-1-7-rely-food-banks

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/the-hunger-crisis-americas-universities#

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/breaking/20140822_Hunger_survey_shows_46_5_million_Americans_hungry.html