Unemployment

Unemployment. Last month it reached the "double digits": 10.1 per cent of the American labor force is out of work; more than 11 million people are without jobs. For black Americans the unemployment figure is double: 20.2 per cent. For black teenagers that figure is an astronomical 48.5 per cent.

Predictably, the Republicans rose to defend themselves, while the Democrats rushed to attack. The Reagan administration insisted that the economy is in the "recovery stage," despite the highest unemployment figures in 42 years. The Democrats, under whose reign unemployment also rose, now intend to make it a key campaign issue. They probably will be successful.

The administration insists that things are getting better for most Americans and that high unemployment rates are an unfortunate cost of the effort to bring down both inflation and interest rates. The Democrats make it a point to say how unfair that policy is, but so far they have not come up with any real alternative to Reaganomics. Those who are without work suffer further indignity as their hardship becomes a political football thrown back and forth by two political parties, neither of which has shown much passion for justice.

The latest report is that the Reagan administration wants to start counting the military as a part of the American labor force. To consider the armed forces as employed people would bring the jobless rate below 10 per cent. Well, that's one way to lower the unemployment figures.

Some critics have suggested that this desire for a change in policy might be politically motivated. It will take more than manipulating numbers to respond to families who have lost all their security and are gradually losing all their hope.

The suffering of those on the bottom is the biblical measure of any society, and the unemployment rate is a strong indictment of America. Unemployment is a cruel and sinful waste of human resources and lives, particularly at a time when there is so much good work that needs to be done. The masses of unemployed people are human testimony to our nation's lack of political will and imagination and compassion.

In our neighborhood, unemployment is more than mere statistics, it is something that has happened to friends and neighbors, families and children. Unemployment shows its face in the men who waste away on the street corners, every year moving further and further away from ever having a job and basic human dignity. It is seen in the young mothers who once used our daycare center but now no longer need to because there is no work for them to be away from home doing. Unemployment shows itself in the young people for whom the present is empty and the future is without promise.

The last time I checked black youth unemployment in Washington, D.C., the official figure was 61 per cent. The real rate of unemployment is always higher, and in my observation only about one in every four kids has a job. Most just sit around or hang out or get into trouble. Many have already quit school. Others stay but wonder why they should when they know there won't be any work for them anyway after graduation. The value of an education is harder and harder to explain to these kids.

It is a terrible thing to waste human energy and creativity. Take meaningful work away from people, deprive them of the opportunity to earn their own livelihoods, and they will gradually lose their self-respect. Watching so many young men and women sitting on the stoop or getting high in an effort to escape it all is enough to make you cry, and it often does.

What do you say to them? How do you offer them any hope? How can you speak of better times ahead when you and they know that they are expendable in this economic system?

The TV news the other night reported that unemployment causes increases in family violence and child abuse and affects children's education. It creates anger and depression among the young. Well, the news reporters are right. It's all painfully evident in the lives of the families around us.

Few things are more basic to people than a job. Take that away and everything else begins to unravel. God created the energy, strength, creativity, intelligence, imagination, and gifts in people that we are wasting. Such waste is as sinful as it is painful, and for Christians it should be unacceptable.

Earl, a young man who once lived with us and whom we watched grow up, came by the other day. He wanted to work out a plan to pay back the $15 he had borrowed from us. He didn't have regular work yet but said he hoped he would find something soon. As far as I know, he is still looking.

Jim Wallis is editor in chief of Sojourners.