The Working Poor

They are legion, and their presence is growing.  As most countries of the world report the growing gap between their upper class and their lower classes.  The Occupy Wall Street movement was established as a result of a growing awareness that in the wake of the global financial set-back that led to a recession, government assisted huge corporations to weather the storm, but there was little trickle-down in the economy to result in job renewals.  Unemployment in the United States reached an all-time high and it isn't being resolved as the economy slowly recovers.

It has been acknowledged that the gap between the rich and the poor is steadily increasing.  In Israel, new reports have emerged that the gap between wealthy and poor has increased to the extent that it is the largest in the OECD.  Canada has lost what most who are now unemployed would claim, with justification, more than their share of well-paid, permanent employment.  As manufacturing companies that have long been established in Canada are shutting down their factories and migrating elsewhere, and workers are left angry and puzzled.

In Europe, the PIGS countries (Portugal, Italy [Ireland], Greece and Spain) have been forced to take concessionary measures leading to true austerity to satisfy the EU bankers that have been compelled to rescue them from bankruptcy.  Spain has an incredible 29% unemployment rate, young graduates have no jobs to look forward to, and they're living in their parents' homes, demoralized and hopeless.  In France a growing number of people who are still employed find it difficult to make ends meet and live in trailer camps.

Even while the recession has finally shown symptoms of recovery and the issue over the euro crisis is diminishing, the financial pain visited upon Greece and Spain has brought people out to protest in the streets and occasionally rioting has erupted, as people become more furious over what they see as a betrayal of their futures by their governing elite.  Across the European union millions of people cannot afford the basic cost of living.  Europe's social safety net is itself impoverished.

And there doesn't appear to be any rescue of the situation on the near horizon. Economists are warning that the situation is set to deepen as budget gaps are being forced closed by desperate governments and people are left out of the workforce, or earning salaries barely sufficient to keep them out of dire poverty. Europe's minimum wage laws and the EU's generous social welfare system was supposed to be insurance against this depletion of human capital's safety net.

"France is a rich country.  But the working poor are living in the same condition as in the 19th Century.  They can't pay for heating, they can't pay for their children's clothes, they are sometimes living five people in a nine-square-metre apartment - here in France!"  Jean-Paul Fitoussi, economics professor, L'Institut d'Etudes Politiques, Paris

According to 2010 data, 8.2% of workers in the 17 EU countries using the euro live under the average poverty threshold of E10,240 ($13,500) for single adult workers, and the situation is twice as bad in Spain and Greece, according to Eurostat.  The U.S. Labor Department estimates 7% of single adult workers earned less than the poverty threshold in 2009 of $10,830.

And in France, half of the country's households bring in less than $25,000 annually.  The country looks prosperous, but the working poor numbers are growing, and experts predict it will continue to grow.  The median monthly pay cheque is $2,199, 26% over the EU average.  But the high cost of living and the unavailability of affordable housing leaves people desperately unaccommodated.

In France, people no longer think of their country as one of personal opportunities and advantages available for those willing to work to achieve them.  They have replaced their image of France as the land of opportunities with that available elsewhere.  They cite the American dream: "There, you arrive, you know how to do something - you can climb.

"Never anywhere int he world do you hear anyone talking about the French dream.  There is no such dream in France."  Little do they realize that dream is no longer quite as compelling nor as valid in America now, either.