New Deal Safety Net Not Catching Today's Middle Class

[paulk]

"The social safety net established as part of the New Deal in the 1930s is missing a huge swath of today's middle class, according to a new report by the Freelancers Union.

"The middle class is no longer made up of those blue-collar factory workers you think of from 50 years ago," said Althea Erickson of the Freelancers Union, a New York nonprofit that provides benefits to members across the country. "The new middle class are software developers, they're bloggers, they're psychologists, they're graphic designers. They're these workers that make up our membership and they really are driving the economy at this point."

According to the Government Accountability Office, there were 42.6 million "contingent workers" -- freelancers -- comprising 31 percent of the total American workforce in 2005.

Eighty-nine percent of the more than 3,000 freelancers who answered the survey said that they faced periods either without enough work or no work at all in 2009. By comparison, in 2006 freelancers found full employment at a 10-percent higher rate than this past year."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/13/new-deal-safety-net-not-c_n_535634.html


No one seems to be talking much about this - neither the pundits or the politicians - I know this article pretty accurately describes what's been happening to my wife and I these last two years - just curious to know if any other DUers find themselves in this position - unable to collect unemployment insurance, unable to find enough work to pay the bills, running out of savings, cashed in mutual funds, 401k's, etc - running out of time and hope that the "recovery" is going to happen in time to save us from losing what we've worked our entire lives for...

[snot]

1. Absolutely! And don't forget, higher health insurance costs!

[awoke_in_2003]

2. It is not a net anymore....

we have been cutting holes in it since 1980

[MadHound]

3. Well, it doesn't help that there's been a bipartisan effort to shred the social safety net

Going back thirty years now.

[sandnsea]

4. Well the New Deal never did catch the self-employed

unless you pay your own unemployment insurance, which you are certainly free to do. You can also apply for food stamps, energy assistance, in some states health care, and the other benefits from the Great Society; same as the folks who are collecting unemployment.

[paulk]

5. it seems to me that the point of the article is that things have

changed since the New Deal safety net was devised. Self employed people make up a far larger percentage of the population now...

[sandnsea]

6. Well they count the neighborhood lawn guy now

Or someone selling their clothes on Ebay. In the past, those folks would have been considered either unemployed or not in the labor market at all. I don't know how reliable those numbers are.

Regardless, no matter how many self-employed people there are, they still have access to a safety net. As bad off as some of them may be, I'd be the majority is still making more than they would on unemployment.

[paulk]

8. I really find that a weak argument

but I don't feel like arguing with you about it

whatever

[amborin]

7. K&R