In the News Presented by Prairie Title
September 29,
2016
Our Social Compact in the New Economic Reality
By Frank Pellegrini, Prairie
Title CEO
Not
so long ago, Americans chose careers (or happened into them), worked for a
single company or a few companies over the course of a lifetime and felt a
sense of security based on loyalty and the employer-based benefits they
received. As we all know, that world has substantially gone the way of all
flesh. What now?
The
New York Times recently published an
article by Michael Lind of New America, a non-partisan public policy think
tank, that examines the social compact in modern America by posing the intriguing
question, Can You Have a Good Life
if You Don’t Have a Good Job? Lind’s answer: Yes.
“Americans
have been moving away from a system in which a good job with a generous
employer was the key to having a good life to a new system in which even people
with low-wage jobs can have access to the basic goods and services that define
a decent life in a modern society,” Lind writes.
“The unelected policy experts who envision a
future of multiple job types and a greater, if hidden, role for government in
maintaining minimum incomes and providing health and retirement benefits are
essentially right. From the 1970s to the present, then, mostly with bipartisan
support (the glaring exception was Obamacare), American policy makers have
responded to the decline of high-wage jobs and generous employer-based benefits
by gradually expanding the role of the government in ensuring that Americans
have adequate income and adequate benefits.”
As you
listen to politicians leading up to November’s critical election, keep in mind
that what government officials and those who aspire to replace them say about
taxes and benefits while campaigning often contradicts what they do in office. It
is up to us to try to tell the difference.
What’s
your point of view? Keep the conversation going by calling or emailing me, or
write a comment below.
Other
stories we’re following:
Housing market paradox.
