Overcoming tough times
We need to get serious about supporting working families in Massachusetts
October 2010
CommonWealth Magazine
Fall 2010 Issue
Published October 19, 2010
By Robert J. S. Ross and Deborah Connolly Youngblood
"ECONOMIC CRISES ARE social accelerators—things that were abstractly understood as trends are suddenly new and crushing realities. Twenty-five years ago, while the “Massachusetts Miracle” of growth charmed a generation of optimists, some observers of “deindustrialization” warned us about a looming vision of an hourglass economy of un equal incomes and unremitting pressures on single-parent families and those without technical credentials. Since the Great Recession began in 2007, the steady erosion of sustaining jobs for middle-income families has become a flash flood.
In an earlier era, many working families’ incomes and benefits were buoyed by unions, but the hardest hit sectors during this recession are those that used to have the most union density, manufacturing, and construction. The Commonwealth now waits for a real, rather than abstract, recovery, for the time when new job creation once again outdistances labor force entries. While we remain hopeful that this will happen in the not-too-distant future, and that unemployment rates will finally come closer to or below 5 percent (rather than 10 percent), there is reason to fear that recovery will not provide adequate financial support to many families struggling to make ends meet on diminishing real wages."
