The unemployment powder keg

Paul Simon, Let's Put America Back To Work, Chicago: Bonus Books Inc., 1987, 216pp., $14.95.

If Sen. Paul Simon's new book accomplishes anything, it will be to drive home the pain of unemployment and to warn of its long-term effects on society as well as individuals. Let's Put America Back To Work presents in clear, simple language the anguish associated with the lack of a job in the land of opportunity.

Packed with anecdotes and enough statistics to make a case, the book shows that much more than productivity can be lost when people are out of work. "Those who are unemployed feel left out of society," Simon writes. "Employed America is blissfully unaware of the powder keg on which it is seated."

Simon's eleventh book pushes a full employment bill, the Guaranteed Job Opportunity Program, that Simon expected to introduce in late February. Reminiscent of the New Deal, the bill calls for government jobs for all who want them and describes how the plan would be implemented at the local level. He agrees that it represents a high degree of social engineering, made necessary, he says, because continued unemployment, even at 7 percent, is unacceptable and higher than in many other countries, including the Soviet Union.

To illustrate the need, Simon introduces us to 28 people whose statements span 50 pages, about a quarter of the book. The common thread in all the interviews, 25 done by Simon and three done by his son, Mark, is a hopeless, drifting feeling.

"You get sick to your stomach; you just get depressed" without a job, says Gerald Yushko, 52, a laid-off Streator factory worker.

"With three small children, my wife can't work," says Ruben Gonzalez, a 23-year-old welfare recipient in Chicago. "Sometimes we need food, and there's no money . . . ."

Jon Bierman, 45, a former Caterpillar Inc. worker who was making $60,000 a year, says, "I'm just pulling my hair out just sitting here and trying to land a position . . . ."

As a start toward a solution, Simon lays out what have become rather typical calls for economic action: the deficit must be reduced; tax policy should encourage stability and better productivity instead of mergers; labor and management should work together. But he dismisses the idea that the private sector alone can produce full employment.

He then explains the basics of his plan, which he says represents "a choice of paying people for doing nothing or paying people for doing something." The latter, he says, "makes infinitely more sense."

Under the plan, each state's governor would appoint seven people to map out program districts. A bipartisan panel of 13 in each district, including business and labor representatives, would administer the program and choose jobs to be done. No more than 10 percent of total cost could go toward administration.

Basically, anyone 18 or older from a household with less than $17,000 annual income would be eligible. The maximum work week would be 32 hours, with up to 16 hours a week of outside work allowed. It would be up to each state to decide if welfare recipients had to sign up. Pay would be $3.35 an hour, the minimum wage, or 10 percent above welfare or unemployment benefits that had been received. Anyone without a high school diploma would be required to work toward it in addition to working on the job. All people involved would be tested for reading and writing skills, and counseling would be available. Projects would range from building bike trails to planting trees to teaching people to read to tutoring students to helping in day care centers.

Simon calculates that if three million people took jobs in the program, the maximum cost would be $24 billion. He compares that with $46 billion that would be needed in welfare payments to raise everyone to the poverty level and $31 billion that President Reagan asked as a defense budget increase in fiscal 1987.

Let's Get America Back To Work is straightforward and bold. In parts it also appears naive, or presented from the typically favorable viewpoint of an advocate, Simon says that no new bureaucracy would be formed because the existing Department of Labor would administer the program. But certainly, more employees will be needed. What's the difference if an agency is created or an existing one expanded?

The book makes brief mention of the kind of person who has poor job skills or work habits. It describes one man who has lost jobs because of a short temper and another who doesn't always show up for work. While skeptics might see pitfalls in having such people get guaranteed jobs, Simon writes that under the program, "they could be contributing at least a little." "Our answer for the problem people now is just send 'em home and we'll send you a check,'' Simon said in an interview. "I don't think that's the right answer for them or for society."

Despite some gaps, Simon's new book is strong on logic and common sense. He suggests that cities work together and improve their quality of life to help local economies. His advocacy of volunteer work as a means of gaining self-esteem and possibly meeting contacts for jobs, seems like sound advice. His call for out-of-work people to do something productive, such as planting a garden, to feel useful seems a bit starry-eyed, but ask a gardener and she'll describe how rewarding it can be.

Simon has sometimes been rumored a presidential candidate, though he says that only others have brought up the subject. "It is not a promotional piece for a presidential election," he said. "In fact, the lesson of presidential elections is 'don't stand for anything'; you've got a much better chance of winning."

The book definitely stands for something, and if not a suspense thriller, it at least makes a well-reasoned case for an innovative plan.

"If your reading takes you no further than this chapter, remember," he wrote to finish his introductory section, "we have an urgent, potentially explosive unemployment situation that will not be resolved without action."

That point, at least, is well made Bernard Schoenburg, a former Statehouse reporter for The Pantagraph of Bloomington, is with the Associated Press in Chicago.

34/March 1987/Ilinois Issues