Chris Slattery, Direct Assistance to Moms & Changing Laws, RIP
May 1: St Joseph the Worker and "Men Without Work"
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"Today, in 2022, American men suffer Depression-era employment rates-even though they inhabit the wealthiest and most productive society ever known. Millions of men in the prime of life languish in a state of economic inactivity and financial dependence, neither working nor looking for work.... Job openings so exceed the ranks of America's un-working prime-age men (those twenty-five to fifty-four neither working nor looking for work) that every member of this idle army could be placed in a job, and there would still be more than 3.9 million jobs awaiting candidates" (Nicholas Eberstadt, Men Without Work: Post-Pandemic Edition, introduction)
Introduction
Starting with the 2016 edition of Men Without Work, Nicholas Eberstadt maintains "unemployment rate" is of limited value in gauging the growth and impact of "men without work":
- "The rise of the unworking man underscores the antiquated and misleading nature of our major official measure of labor market health: the so-called unemployment rate" (p.38).
The unemployment rate only counts those unemployed who are actively looking for a job. If despair leads you to quit looking, you are no longer unemployed!
Nicholas Eberstadt also maintains that education has not been a hoped-for panacea:
- "the collapse of work for modern American men happened despite considerable upgrades in educational attainment" (p. 68)
My Sectarian Take
Nicholas Eberstadt rightly notes how "Roman Catholic doctrine condemns 'sloth,' a state of woeful inactivity" (p.79). Yet, the perspective goes far deeper. At the base of Catholic Social Teaching (CST) is uncompromising respect for the sanctity of human life and the sanctity of authentic marriage (cf, Catholic Stand, 11/13/2022). CST recognizes that work is vital for supporting a family and supports the notion of a family wage.
....From the very beginning We placed your Associations under the powerful patronage of St. Joseph. Indeed, there could be no better protector to help you let the spirit of the Gospel penetrate your life....it is not enough that you satisfy and exhort the fulfillment of religious obligations; it is also necessary that you deepen your knowledge of the doctrine of the faith, and that you understand ever better what matters in the moral order of the world, established by God, taught and interpreted by the Church, in what concerns the rights and duties of today's worker....For too long, unfortunately, the enemy of Christ has been sowing discord among the Italian people ....Especially among the working class it has done and is doing everything to spread false ideas about man and the world, about history, about the structure of society and the economy. It is not uncommon for the Catholic worker, for lack of a solid religious formation, to find himself disarmed when similar theories are proposed to him....the atrocious slander that "the Church is allied with capitalism against the workers" is spreading widely!....
The action of Christian forces in public life therefore certainly has to promote the promulgation of good laws and the formation of institutions suited to the times; but it means even more that the dominion of empty phrases and deceptive words is banished, and that the common man feels supported and supported in his legitimate needs and expectations....May 1st, far from being an awakening of discord, hatred and violence, is and will be a recurring invitation to modern society to accomplish what is still missing to social peace....a day of jubilation for the concrete and progressive triumph of the Christian ideals of the great working families....we institute - the liturgical feast of St. Joseph the Worker, assigning to it precisely the 1st day of May.... (Address to the Catholic Association of Italian Workers, Pope Pius XII!, 5/1/1955)
As someone who stays abreast of Catholic political advocacy, I often sense disconnects between the focus of Catholic advocacy by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and state Catholic conferences with the fundamental notions of the sanctity of human life and the sanctity of authentic marriage
A Missing Piece: Justice System Involvement
"By every indicator, men not in the workforce look to be less socially engaged than men with work....Working men were also consistently more likely to vote in presidential elections [The original was published before the 2020 election.]....the data here suggest that something like infantilization besets some un-working men" (pp. 92, 93).
"It is impossible to imagine any earlier generation in which such a huge swath of prime age men would voluntarily absent themselves from the workforce, living instead on the largesse of women they knew and taxpayers they did not" (p. 127)
"a single variable - having a criminal record - is a key missing piece in explaining why work rates and LFPRs [Labor Force Participation Rates] have collapsed much more dramatically in America than other affluent Western societies" (p.130)
Since 2010, when I published “The New Jim Crow” — which argued that a system of legal discrimination and segregation had been born again in this country because of the war on drugs and mass incarceration — there have been significant changes to drug policy, sentencing and re-entry....This progress is unquestionably good news, but there are warning signs blinking brightly. Many of the current reform efforts contain the seeds of the next generation of racial and social control, a system of “e-carceration” that may prove more dangerous and more difficult to challenge than the one we hope to leave behind.... As I see it, digital prisons are to mass incarceration what Jim Crow was to slavery....If our goal is not a better system of mass criminalization, but instead the creation of safe, caring, thriving communities, then we ought to be heavily investing in quality schools, job creation, drug treatment and mental health care in the least advantaged communities rather than pouring billions into their high-tech management and control. Fifty years ago, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. warned that “when machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism and militarism are incapable of being conquered.” We failed to heed his warning back then. Will we make a different choice today? (Michelle Alexander, NY Times, 11/8/2018)
Conclusion
Turning to St Joseph the Worker, let us absolutely commit ourselves to the sanctity of human life and the sanctity of authentic marriage. Let us support both the family wage and the return of those who have struggled with justice system involvement.
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About the Author
Joe Tevington is a proudly orthodox Catholic, a husband since 1986, a dad to two married adult children, a grandpa to two, and a civil service retiree. He is a sign language fluent certified rehabilitation counselor with graduate degrees in deafness rehabilitation, religious studies/moral theology, & Christian counseling psychology, as well as a catechetical diploma and certificates in benefits planning and Catholic social ministry. He deeply appreciates Catholic teaching on the sanctity of human life and the sanctity of the transmission of human life, as well as how they are to inform us in our apostolates and ministries.
On much lighter notes, he fancies himself to be the foremost authority on his native Brooklyn, when it comes to architecture, geography, history, Italian food, Saturday Night Fever, stick ball, stoop ball, or wiffle ball.
