Sabbatical Over

A book proposal wasn't the only reason I suspended posting to this blog.  My cousin Alex, an ardent Trump supporter, suggested that I wasn't so much affirming specific policies as I was simply bashing Donald Trump

Since March, I've concluded that the two aren't mutually exclusive, and that even by itself, the latter is well worth resuming.  So I'm back to 15104.

This time around, though, I'll do more than criticize Mr. Trump; that's easy.  I'll offer detail as to why and how Trumpian policies threaten, rather than strengthen, the social and economic futures of the working class and middle class.

Work Harder?

There’s a scene in the 1960s science fiction film When Worlds Collide in which those attempting to save humanity from Earth’s impending destruction are exhorted to work harder!  One can make a case that the Trump Administration’s recent happy-talk regarding our economy is of the same ilk.

The Administration has noted correctly that:

• more than 155,000 jobs were added in June 2018 
•  unemployment is at an historic low of about 3.9%
• tax cuts are available to many of us

Unfortunately, it’s also the case that: 

•  wages are flat, having failed to grow significantly for years
• the small amount of wage growth that has taken place - about 2.7% - has been outdistanced by the increase in the cost of living - at least 2.9%
•  only a small handful of states offer a minimum wage adequate to supporting an individual, let alone a family

Be grateful you don’t live in any of Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, or Tennessee.  None of these states even have a minimum wage.  Nor are residents of Georgia or Wyoming much better off; their minimum wage clocks in at $5.15.   In Pennsylvania, as in 12 other states, the minimum wage is $7.25 an hour.  That means that an individual working full time would net, after taxes, only about $1,700.00 per month.

Our hypothetical minimum-wage earner would therefore have a hard time covering the expenses below, typical in Delaware County, PA:

Rent (one-bedroom apartment)	$900.00
Utilities (electric, phone, cable)	$250.00
Food (without eating out)	$300.00
Car expenses (including gas, insurance)	$150.00
Health care	$200.00
	$1800.00

All of which leads me to agree with MSNBC’s financial journalist Ali Velshi, who noted recently “We don’t need more jobs; we need better-paying jobs.”  If one also factors in the job- and wage-busting effects already being produced by the Trump tariffs, working faster and harder may be the only alternative available.

Diversity

I spent the first dozen-plus years of my life on the 1300 block of Bell Avenue in North Braddock, PA.  North Braddock is:

• southeast of downtown Pittsburgh
• just above the Monongahela River as it wends its way north to meet the Allegheny and form the Ohio

and was the home of Andrew Carnegie's first steel mill.

In those 13 years, I regularly heard five languages other than English.  From the corner of 13th Street and Bell Avenue, I could look down the hill toward:

• Braddock and the tracks of the Pennsylvania Railroad
• the Edgar Thomson mill

and the spires of at least a half-dozen ethnic-centered churches.

But let me be clear.  The 1300 block wasn't all white or all eastern-European.  There were two African-American families who lived a few doors down from us; one of their sons was our paperboy.  As significant, one regularly heard blues and R&B on my block, and indeed all over western Pennsylvania.  The vitality so characteristic of black popular music was everywhere in the 1960s, thanks largely to a disk jockey named Porky Chedwick.  From the small AM radio station WAMO, across the Mon in Homestead, Porky gave the region the only largely black playlist in a largely white major metropolitan area.

There's a trail of breadcrumbs here that Hansel and Gretel would appreciate, and Trump and Company could benefit from emulating.  From five languages on one block, through the ethnic churches of Braddock, to the joy in black music that Porky taught, one finds a path to celebrating, rather than fearing, diversity.

During the civil unrest of the late 1960s, Allegheny County was notable in remaining peaceful.  To this day, a rich mix of ethnicities lives amicably in North Braddock.  How much better off would the entire country be if Mr. Trump would cease trading on fear.

Perhaps we can send a message to that effect on November 6th ...