economy

With the economic downturn and an $800 billion stimulus and recovery package going through the Hill, it’s no surprise that welfare, or the “W” word as the New York Times termed it in an article yesterday, is making the rounds once again. If ever there were a need for an influx of research into the journalist’s notebook and the politician’s rationale, it is now when the word “welfare” will be sure to once again pervade popular lingo with all the attendant stereotypes.

The Times article cites Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation’s taking a traditional, conservative, Reaganesque stance on welfare:

“I find it offensive that they’re trying to sneak things in there,” Mr. Rector said of the bill’s supporters. “None of these programs deals with the fundamental causes of poverty, which are low levels of work and lower levels of marriage. They just say, ‘Give me more.’ ”

With 524,000 jobs lost in December and joblessness at 7.2%, a 16-year high, I wonder what Rector and other conservatives expect those who just can’t find work to do in the years ahead while the economy, as Obama has emphasized, will very slowly repower itself (hopefully). For many, jobs will be hard to come by.

But most offensive is the myth of the “welfare queen” that Rector invokes with references to “lower levels of marriage” and welfare as a direct underminer of marriage. Rector is well aware that such language is meant to image up racialized and gendered ideas of the innercity single mother who ostensibly gets herself pregnant and remains unmarried to bring in optimal welfare income.

To give credit to the Times, on the same day, it published an editorial entitled “No Welfare, No Work” defending welfare programs:

The truth is, there will always be people who need to rely on welfare, especially when the economy takes a grim turn. Civilized societies make sure that when people are in desperate need of help, the money is there to take care of them.

Yet the article on the W-word relies on more of a he-said, she-said back-and-forth, playing into people’s preconceived stereotypes, referencing no studies on the actual benefits and repercussions of welfare as studied by sociologists and economists. I’ve recently begun to read works on urban poverty, including William Julius Wilson’s When Work Disappears: The New World of the New Urban Poor. Published in 1997, just after Congress did away with Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), the study reveals the conundrum of a new urban poor defined primarily by the lack of jobs available to them.

Importantly, Wilson stridently emphasizes the lack of evidence for the idea that “a direct causal connection exists between the level of welfare benefits and the likelihood that a young woman will bear a child outside marriage,” as pundits and politicians often claim when criticizing welfare.

Wilson writes:

The scientific evidence offers little support for the claim that AFDC benefits play a significant role in promoting out-of-wedlock births. Research examining the association between the generosity fo welfare benefits and out-of-wedlock childbearing and teen pregnancy indicates that benefit levels have no significant effect on the likelihood that African-American girls and women will have children outside marriage; likewise, welfare rates have either no significant effect or only a small effect on the likelihood that whites will have children outside marriage. There is no evidence to suggest that welfare is a major factor in the rise of childbearing outside marriage.

As a discussion on welfare once again becomes part of the national dialogue, I hope that it doesn’t fall into the typical stereotypes it did back in the ‘90s. Growing up in a predominantly white, middle-to-upper middle class suburb in Connecticut, I have multiple memories of adults and news programs discussing the “Puerto Rican, welfare queens” in neighboring Hartford. Let’s hope that discussions today will be more nuanced, infused with better research and with a deeper understanding of those very real problems that face all who are affected in this downturn, but particularly the urban poor.

NYTimes Business section, today: A Site Chronicles Ways to Adapt in the Downturn.

If I look half as good in a little black dress as my Reccessionwire.com editor (Laura Rich, center) and her partners do, I’d be a slightly happier recessionista these days.  In the meantime, new installment (“Love in the Time of Layoff”) from me over there coming on Thursday!

And a hearty thanks to PursePundit, Bob, and Jen for their comments on my last one.  You keep me going; you really do.

And according to a cover story in today’s NYTimes,“As Layoffs Surge, Women May Surpass Men in Job Force”. Writes reporter Catherine Rampell:

“A deep and prolonged recession, therefore, may change not only household budgets and habits: it may also challenge longstanding gender roles.”

I have so much to say about this I can’t contain it in a post! More soon though, I promise, as the gender&recession story continues.

Watch for a new installment of “Love in the Time of Layoff” — my new column over at Recessionwire.com (the upside of the downturn) !  The feature will be appearing regularly, on Thursdays, and today’s should go live soon. (My previous one is posted here.)

Meanwhile, those savvy bloggers are doing all sorts of clever over there — Recession Concessions, Productive Loafing, Recession Lexicon, and more!

Ok America, time to step up. Our friends at The Guardian are covering how recession is hitting the ladies–and writing about how it’s largely men created this mess.  So now it’s your turn.  Let’s hear about it.  Some links:

As the worldwide recession continues, will women bear most of the job losses? The Guardian

While the economic mess has been mostly created by men, should women clean it up? Also, where are the women at Davos 2009? The Guardian

Though to be fair, check these out too:

If women face discrimination and stereotyping on interviews, how can they ever get jobs during these tough times? Management Issues

When Pregnancy Collides with a Recession, The Wall Street Journal Juggle Blog

And my personal favorite:

To recover in these tough economic times, many argue that diversity is a necessity for recovery and success. The Wall Street Journal

(Thank you to Laura Sabattini and Cheryl Yanek at Catalyst for the heads up!)

From “Why the Sting of Layoffs Can be Sharper for Men,” NYTimes Jan. 31, 2009:

As job losses reverberate across the economy, differences in “his” and “her” layoffs are beginning to take shape — revealing gender dynamics that may not have been as apparent when the Dow was at 14,000.

Dr. Louann Brizendine, author of “The Female Brain” and a psychiatrist at the University of California, San Francisco, says that women who lose their jobs “aren’t going to take as much of a self-esteem hit” as men. That is because the most potent form of positive social feedback for many men comes from within the hierarchy of the workplace. By contrast, she said, women may have “many sources of self-esteem — such as their relationships with other people — that are not exclusively embedded within their jobs.”

She said that over the past six months, her clinic has had an increase in the number of men seeking help for difficulties related to job loss.

Terrence Real, a family therapist and the founder of Real Relational Solutions in Arlington, Mass., said the difference in reactions could be explained by the idea of performance esteem.

“Everyone who has written about male psychology has acknowledged that men base their sense of self on the maxim that ‘I have worth because of what I do,’ ” Mr. Real said. The feeling is that “you are only as good as your last game or your last job,” he said.

In his practice over the past 12 months, Mr. Real says, he has seen a roughly 20 percent uptick in the number of men seeking help because of the economic downturn.

Interesting….More from me on all this to come.  (Check out Recessionwire.com, plug plug!)

Today marks the launch of the best little darn thing, IMHO, to come out of this damn recession so far: GWP readers, please meet Recessionwire.com.

It’s the upside of the downturn.

This new pop-up site promises to chronicle these tough economic times until they end. Content is aimed at urban professionals looking for news, inspiration, advice, cultural insights, and a dose of humor. Think of it as your user’s guide to the recession.

Here’s how it all began, as described on the site:

A party, wine, conversations about layoffs—it was so very holiday ‘08. It was also where Lynn Parramore, a freelance writer who had lost several gigs to the downturn, and Laura Rich and Sara Clemence, who had just been laid off from Condé Nast Portfolio, decided to turn misfortune into opportunity. Inspired to capture the stories and improve the lives of urban professionals who, like them, were getting effed by the economy, they founded a website in early 2009. And that’s how Recessionwire was born–as a pop-up site™, ready and willing to die.

The editors’ vision was so in sync with my own–the desire to do something creative with misfortune, the impulse to make lemonade from shit–that I just had to be a part.

As ya’ll know, I just haven’t been able to stop writing about gender shakeup in the wake of recession after Marco got laid off. So now my musings have a home. I’ll be writing a regular feature for Recessionwire called Love in the Time of Layoff. It’ll appear every Thursday. The first installment–“Honey, They Shrunk My Job”–is now live.

In addition to my rather personal (ahem) take on the ways and woes of relationships in tough economic times though, please look to Recessionwire every day for perspective, work (or out-of-work) advice, spending tips, and more.  Other regular features include:

Recession Briefing: A daily roundup of the news you need to survive and thrive
Lemonade Makers: Spotlights on people seeing opportunity in this economy
Redux: A cultural series that looks into history to see the path ahead
Retooling: Profiles of companies working out New Reality strategies
Recession Lexicon: The new terms, expressions, euphemisms that are coming out of this economy
Recession Concessions: Peeks at what people are giving up as they cut back–and the luxuries they won’t concede.

I promise you will find some solace here, or at the very least a snort or a laugh.  Personally, this site has made my month.  I can’t wait to share it all with you.  Do take a look, and then please please pass it on!

Reccessionwire.com

There’s been a huge spike in the number of SAHDs (stay-at-home-dads, for those not in the know). From 2003-2006, the number actually rose a full 62%–that’s really high! And this was before the current tsunami of layoffs. I’d be so curious to see what that number is now.

Jumping on the trend, yesterday The Today Show featured a segment called “The New Face of Mr. Mom.” Some good stuff, but my question is this: When will a SAHD become something other than a “Mr. Mom”? You can watch the video here and see what you think (and let me know!):

Why does the New York Times keep printing stories about gender relations in the wake of layoff that make me want to throw up?

The latest (thank you, Shira!): “It’s the Economy, Girlfriend.” Some snippets, so that you can consider barfing, between the tears, too:

Once it was seen as a blessing in certain circles to have a wealthy, powerful partner who would leave you alone with the credit card while he was busy brokering deals. Now, many Wall Street wives, girlfriends and, increasingly, exes, are living the curse of cutbacks in nanny hours and reservations at Masa or Megu. And that credit card? Canceled.

Raoul Felder, the Manhattan divorce lawyer, said that cases involving financiers always stack up as the economy starts to slip, because layoffs and shrinking bonuses place stress on relationships — and, he said, because “there aren’t funds or time for mistresses any more.”

The article goes on, but you get the point.

You could say I’m bitter because I live in New York and have never eaten at (nor even heard of) Masa or Megu.  But as I’ve said before, and as I firmly believe, loss is relative.  That’s not what bothers me about this piece.

Here’s what bothers me: Among other things, aren’t women on Wall Street also losing their jobs? And are all the women in Manhattan who date bankers as shallow as the women profiled in this article? I think NOT (and personally, I know quite a few–but then, most of the ones I know are bankers themselves, too).

So why, then, must we continue to be treated to stories about how the elite are suffering by cutting back on their Botox?  Aren’t there more pressing stories to tell?

Regardless, and as a bit of a tangent, here’s where it gets a little more interesting.  My favorite tidbit from the article?  The fact that a number of these Wall Street widows have gotten together and created a blog, Dating A Banker Anonymous (DABA).  From the site’s description:

Are you or someone you love dating a banker? If so, we are here to support you through these difficult times. Dating A Banker Anonymous (DABA) is a safe place where women can come together – free from the scrutiny of feminists– and share their tearful tales of how the mortgage meltdown has affected their relationships.

As a scrutinizing feminist, I confess to enjoying the frivolity, humor, and enterprising spirit of the site.  Some of it also makes me rather queasy, as I think it’s intended to do.  But check it out for yourself.  Whatever else it is, it’s highly over the top.

Following on the heels of Virginia’s post from yesterday, I just saw this Reuters article (“Job Losses Hitting Men Harder Than Women”) about how the economic crisis is hitting men much harder than women in the workplace, largely because male-dominated industries like construction and transportation are bearing the brunt of job losses, figures show.

Women, meanwhile, dominate sectors that are still growing, like government and healthcare.

But I have to ask: Are articles like these minimizing the recession’s effects on women?  What about the hard times for women seeking to re-enter the workforce because hubby just got laid off?   When calculating unemployment, do you count the number of jobs lost or jobs unfound?  I’m not an economist and I’m SO not into playing the recession oppression Olympics here, believe me, but Linda Hirshman had an interesting take on it all in Slate the other week and I just wanted to share.