“For Jobless, Little Hope of Restoring Better Days,” New York Times, December 2, 2011

“Report highlights jobless workers’ stories of frustration, despair and economic uncertainty,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, December 2, 2011

“Jobs Report: Long-Term Unemployed Tell Congress They’re Hurting,” Huffington Post, December 2, 2011

“Jobless Rate Drops, But Pain, Despair Persist In Weak Economy,” In These Times, December 2, 2011

“Voices of the jobless,” Workers Independent News, December 2, 2011

Radio Interviews with Wayne Person and Eric Braddock, Associated Press Radio, December 2 and December 5, 2011

“Jobless Rate Dips to Lowest Level in More Than 2 Years,” New York Times, December 3, 2011 – regional pickup includes Columbus Dispatch, San Antonio Express-News, Bend Bulletin

“Desempleo todavía continúa para latinos,” La Opinión, December 3, 2011

“Unemployed and liberal groups to hold week of protests in D.C.,” McClatchy News, December 3, 2011 –picked up in over two dozen outlets including Kansas City Star, Nashua Telegraph, Sacramento Bee, Charlotte Observer, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Miami Herald, Boston Herald, Raleigh News & Observer, Macon Telegraph

“Casualties of the recession,” Akron Beacon Journal (Editorial), December 4, 2011

“Many who lost jobs finding it hard to bounce back,” San Francisco Chronicle, December 4, 2011

“Two Burlington County residents highlighted in unemployment report,” Burlington County Times, December 7, 2011

“Jobless and hopeless in America,” Los Angeles Times (Opinion), December 7, 2011

For the full PDF of Hardly Working, click here.

For the full PDF of Hardly Working, click here.

Introduction

At minimum, 14 million Americans are unemployed. At least 26 million are un- or underemployed.We crunch the monthly unemployment reports until our brains are numb. Are we up or down? Losing or gaining? Is our nation moving forward at long last or falling farther behind?

Those are the “official” numbers. While these numbers are not precise, they do help quantify the misery, sadness and tragedy that defines our country today.

In August 2011, USAction asked our online members to share their stories of un- and underemployment.

More than a thousand responded. We learned much from their stories:

• Pervasive discrimination exists. The barriers to getting a job are much greater if you are old, if you don’t have a job, if you are a young college graduate, if you are “over-degreed,” or if you are unlucky enough to be in a profession disproportionately hit by today’s economy.
• Financial hardship and emotional duress overwhelm many of the un- and underemployed. We repeatedly heard stories of life savings exhausted, attempted suicide, and middle-aged adults moving in with their parents to make ends meet.
• Americans are fed up with, and despairing of, the conditions we face in today’s economy. What has happened? Many people’s jobs have been outsourced to other countries. And now, some Americans are outsourcing themselves to other countries in order to be able to work.

After sifting through 1,199 stories we received from our members, we carefully selected a collection of stories we feel best define the experience of unemployed and under-employed Americans.

These stories are not a statistical representation of unemployment in America, but rather offer an anecdotal glimpse of what life is like for people struggling in today’s economy.

What do these stories teach us?

They teach us of the vital importance of unemployment insurance as a lifeline. If millions lose unemployment benefits, it will only compound the human suffering that is sweeping through our cities, our suburbs, our rural areas and our exurbs as a result of the Great Recession.

They teach us of the vital importance of other lifelines – Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are even more important during hard times.

USAction Education Fund carries out powerful public education, outreach and advocacy efforts to achieve liberty and justice for all. We believe in our nation’s founding promise that every human being has equal dignity, equal worth, and an equal claim to pursue a meaningful and fulfilling life. We believe that strong communities create the conditions that allow for individual success.

We can create Good Jobs for America, and our sister 501(c)(4) organization, USAction, has a campaign to do it. There is more than enough vital work to be done in our country, and Americans stand ready and eager to work. Together, we can build an America of shared prosperity and opportunity for all.

We hope you will read the stories outlined in Hardly Working: Stories from Unemployed and Under-Employed Americans. We hope you will share this report with your friends, family members, clergy, and neighbors. And we hope you will share your own story with us at www.usaction.org/stories.

For the full PDF of Hardly Working, click here.

Across the country, more than a dozen USAction Education Fund partners engaged in activities to promote the need for immediate, robust action to turn our economy around.

The Good Jobs for America campaign is both short-and long-term. In the short term, USAction Education Fund plans to fight for an extension of the federal unemployment insurance into 2012 – just as we successfully fought to extend the program last December. For the long term we are organizing for the American Jobs Act, a downpayment on Good Jobs for America. It’s a fight that will continue to Election Day 2012 and beyond.

In Iowa, USAction partner Iowa Citizen Action Network stood with SEIU, CWA, AFL-CIO and other groups to demand congressional action on jobs. Some 75 people gathered in Iowa City and marched toward a bridge in need of repair. Among the speakers was ICAN’s Amy Logsdon. “We need to turn up the heat like never before,” Amy told the crowd. “We need to move our members of Congress away from the right wing’s destructive focus on deficits, budget cuts and austerity measures – a focus that undermines workers rights, living standards and our communities – and move them to a clear focus on the creation of good jobs that ensure workers’ rights, support families and build strong communities.”

In New Jersey, rebuilding bridges and creating jobs also was the theme of the day. New Jersey Citizen Action’s Lauren Townsend gathered with the New Jersey Working Families Alliance at a bridge located in Springfield to highlight the need for investment in New Jersey’s infrastructure.

“Springfield has at least three bridges that have been deemed ‘structurally deficient’,” Townsend said. “America’s infrastructure is crumbling.”

In West Virginia, where USAction Education Fund partner West Virginia Citizen Action Group enjoys longstanding ties with leading labor organizations, WVCAG organized an “America Wants to Work” event. “They’re tired of the status quo,” said WVCAG Executive Director Gary Zuckett. “The economy’s not working for the majority, for the 99 percent of the country.”

In New Britain, USAction Education Fund partner Connecticut Citizens Action Group (CCAG) stood outside a public high school and stressed the need for President Obama’s American Jobs Act (AJA). The AJA, among other things, provides funding for bridge and school repair.

“We call on Senator Liebermann to do the right thing and join the rest of the Connecticut delegation in calling for passage of the president’s jobs plan as a down payment to putting America back to work,” said CCAG’s Tom Swan.

Labor ally Susan Truglio, president of the New Britain Federation of Teachers, noted that Obama’s jobs plan would put 280,000 public-sector workers back to work, including teachers and first responders.

In Middleton, PA, Penn Action dogged Republican Rep. Michael Fitzpatrick – an opponent of jobs legislation and occupant of what could be one of the nation’s most closely contested House seats in 2012. “He can take an active step to create jobs,” said Penn Action organizer Robin Stelly. “Now is the time, and we can’t fool around. This is about getting people to understand that the government has the money for the American Jobs Act.”

Another election was on the minds of USAction Education Fund partner New Hampshire Citizens Alliance. Along with the Granite State Organizing Project, NHCA took advantage of a GOP presidential debate to organize a “flash mob” outside debate headquarters at Dartmouth University.

The song-and-dance routine featured activists singing and dancing to the tune of Motown’s “Stop in the Name of Love.” The message – don’t cut Social Security.

In Maine, USAction Education Fund partner Maine People’s Resource Center joined the AFL-CIO in marching through the rain to the State House with a simple message: “We are the 99 percent, we are the 99 percent, we are the 99 percent,” they chanted.

The rally featured unemployed electrician Dawn Frank,. “Workers like us didn’t crash the economy; Wall Street did,” Dawn said. “It’s been rough. It’s been rough for everybody.” Let’s get Maine workers like me rebuilding our country.”

USAction Education Fund and partners have been working to collect stories of the un- and under-employed, as part of a larger effort to organize those most affected by the jobs crisis. This summer, USAction Education Fund collected 1,199 stories from its online members about un- and under-employment, and shared those stories with affiliates.

USAction Education Fund partners this past week also began interacting with Occupy events, joining events in some locales and providing assistance, when asked, in others.

In Boise, USAction Education Fund partner United Vision for Idaho (UVI) helped host a National Week of Action featuring former Labor Secretary Robert Reich as well as student activists from a half dozen states, including Wisconsin. UVI also provided assistance to Occupy Boise, and managed to add 2,000 people to its listserv, a move that will come in handy during the next legislative session.

In Kalamazoo, USAction Education Fund Michigan Citizen Action (MCA) attended an event put on by Occupy Kalamazoo.  MCA leafleted the 200 or so people in attendance, and urged participants to call Rep. Fred Upton, a member of the so-called Supercommittee, and urge him to oppose potential Medicaid cuts. In all, 34 calls were generated to Upton’s District and D.C. office in a short period of time.

One of the most common criticisms of progressives is that, unlike the right, we don’t have simple messages that tell our story. Our young leaders at Occupy Wall Street have come up with a powerful answer: We are the 99%.

For the past several months, I’ve been working with a group of progressive leaders and communicators on the development of a “progressive economic narrative,” a way of telling our story about the roles of the individual, business, and government in creating shared prosperity. The right has a well-developed view, to the point where after several decades it can now be summarized in three brief phrases: free markets, limited government, and individual liberty.

If we as progressives do our job well, we will also get to the point where we have three such phrases that are widely recognized. But that actually takes a long time. (Here are three candidates, but the fact that you may not nod your head readily when you read them is because you can’t shorten the process: shared prosperity, government that works for all of us, and liberty and justice for all.)

For now, I’m celebrating the fact that we now have one phrase that tells much of our story: “We are the 99%.”

This phrase’s power is in the emotions it elicits. It is triumphant, not defeatist. It says, “We have the power and the moral authority, not you!” It conveys action — we’re standing up for ourselves and occupying your turf. It declares our common humanity. It is hopeful.

The progressive economic narrative I’ve been helping to draft has five conceptual pillars, and understanding them helps illustrate why “we are the 99%” also works intellectually. The first pillar of the narrative defines the progressive view of our economic problem: the crushing of the middle class by the rich and by corporate America. “The 99%” is a great unifying expression of inequality, as it avoids the separations that come from labels like “the middle class,” “working class,” and “poor.” It says we’re all screwed together by rising inequality and highlights those who are responsible: the super-rich and big corporations.

The second pillar defines what makes a successful economy: the well-being of our families in a big middle class and the productivity of our nation, not the stock market and corporate profits. “The 99%” is a simple declaration that our economy is driven by the vast majority of people, not a few super-rich.

The fourth pillar (I’ll come back to the third) defines the political problem: our government has been captured by the super-rich and corporate America, corrupted by big money and politics. “We are the 99%” affirms that we have to take our democracy back to ensure that our economy works for all of us, not just the richest few. This has been a consistent message from the Occupy Wall Streeters, who seamlessly link inequality, corporate power, and corruption.

The fifth pillar is a call to action. And here’s where the triumphant power of “We are the 99%” works so well. It’s no accident that the phrase took root in an action that people could easily do – posting a picture of themselves with their story — and was adopted instantly by a movement.

The third pillar explains the role of government in building a successful economy and the relationship of public action to individuals and business. It can be summarized thus: We build a large and prosperous middle class through the decisions we make together, investing in our people, expanding opportunity and security, paving the way for business to innovate, and doing business in ways that create prosperity and economic security for Americans.

This third pillar is essential to explaining how we should solve our problems and refuting the conservative view that the economy is driven by natural forces, best left on its own without government interference. “We are the 99%” opens the door for us to tell that story, but we need to fill in the blanks. When people say that Occupy Wall Street doesn’t have demands, we should look at that not as a criticism, but as an invitation to complete the story. Everything about the phrase establishes the point that we build an economy that works for all of us when we make decisions that benefit the 99%.

Helping the American public understand a progressive worldview about the economy starts with our being clear on what we believe and telling that story consistently and widely. The best evidence that we’re on the right track is when a simple message captures the hearts and minds of us, the 99%.

Richard Kirsch is a Senior Fellow at the Roosevelt Institute and a Senior Adviser to USAction, whose book on the campaign to win health care reform will be published in 2012. He was National Campaign Manager of Health Care for America Now during the legislative battle to pass reform.