{"id":17621,"date":"2009-12-06T10:45:21","date_gmt":"2009-12-06T15:45:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=17621"},"modified":"2009-12-06T01:48:02","modified_gmt":"2009-12-06T06:48:02","slug":"what-is-economic-hardship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2009\/12\/06\/what-is-economic-hardship\/","title":{"rendered":"What is Economic Hardship?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gwen and I were both so troubled by a story on NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday that we decided to break our rule that all posts must contain an image and offer you a sound <\/em>instead. The six-and-a-half minute story and a transcript can be found here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This is the letter of protest that I sent:<\/p>\n

Dear NPR,<\/p>\n

I am sadly disappointed in NPR after listening to the latest installment of “Recession Diary,” featuring Caitlin Shetterly and her family.<\/p>\n

The story features a husband and wife team of freelancers who have to take part time wage work and move in with their parents to support themselves and their new baby. \u00a0Caitlin gets a book deal that puts them back on their feet (but it’s not enough “even to buy a house,” so apparently it’s not a lot of money).\u00a0 Her mother tells her that it was hard work and not good luck that made the difference.<\/p>\n

Not only is this a wildly upper-class version of “hardship,” but the final evaluation of their “turn in fortune” as due to hard work and not luck is a slap in the face to the millions of Americans who work one or more demanding jobs and will likely never escape economic insecurity, recession or no.<\/p>\n

The Shetterly’s had their fair share of good luck long before the recession hit, the kind of good luck that allows you to follow your dream of being a freelancer in the first place. \u00a0And while I’m sure they worked very hard, they were already situated such that their hard work could make their dreams come true.<\/p>\n

This Recession Diary does an injustice to economic hardship. \u00a0It likely resonated with the public radio producers, staff, and talent, but I doubt it resonates with Americans whose dreams involve feeding their kids and getting their rent paid, with just a little left over to sock away for the next emergency.<\/p>\n

Lisa Wade, PhD
\nAssistant Professor of Sociology
\nOccidental College
\nLos Angeles, CA<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Okay, I can’t resist.<\/p>\n

Here is a picture of a cake I made for my friend, Dorotha:<\/p>\n

\"Monster<\/p>\n

What you can’t see is that he is balding and has liver spots on top of his head.<\/p>\n

I am still quite proud.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gwen and I were both so troubled by a story on NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday that we decided to break our rule that all posts must contain an image and offer you a sound instead. The six-and-a-half minute story and a transcript can be found here. This is the letter of protest that I sent: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[29],"class_list":["post-17621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-class"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17621"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17621\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17642,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17621\/revisions\/17642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}