We’ve seen the future of employment and it is frightening.  If we don’t alter our concept of work and of providing for the common good, then we may be facing a bleak world where an increasing number of American families are just scrapping by.  Welcome to the contingent economy.

Nearly all the jobs created between 2005 and 2015 were contingent jobs, according to Brandon Busteed, Executive Director, Education and Workforce Development at Gallup.  The data cited by Busteed is sobering:

• Leading economists estimate that almost all (94%) new jobs created between 2005 and 2015 were contract, temporary or on-call work.
• Nearly a third of all working U.S. adults (34%) have gone backward in their overall income compared with five years ago; that is, they report making the same or less total income than they did five years ago.
• Only 12% of working U.S. adults say they have the "best imaginable job" for them.

Given this data, it is easy to see how millions of workers might be left behind to make do on part-time or temporary work that barely pays the bills.  In this “contingent economy”, workers will be earning less because minimum wage or overtime pay won’t be guaranteed and benefits such as health care or retirement savings will become uncoupled from work with the employee left to fend for themselves.

Just pause and think about this for a moment.  Hundreds of thousands of “traditional jobs” with wages and benefits have been lost in the decade cited above while nearly all new jobs created during that time were alternate jobs providing no security.  We begin to see a slow and nearly invisible transformation of work and an equally invisible decline in family income and security.  This is especially troublesome for the 275,000 workers in the city of Milwaukee where the median wage is only $37,500 which is less than half that of a worker in Waukesha county.  The city of Milwaukee is already home to 72% of the region’s poor and anything that reduces wages and income will only exacerbate an already difficult situation.


The future of work becomes even more disconcerting when data from a Brookings report on the “New Economics of Jobs” is taken into account.  This report shows that college graduates made up 37% of the 134 million people in the labor force but they garnered a full 71% of all new jobs gained between 2008 and 2017.  And when looked at from the other side, we are forced to ask about the fate of those workers without a college degree.  They make up two-thirds of the workforce but are shut out of nearly three-quarters of new jobs.  Does this portend a future where a worker will need a college degree to win a job, but the job attained will be one that is temporary and without any benefits? 

The social contract on work has been broken.  It used to be that if you worked hard, you would be rewarded with good pay and benefits, and with a job that lasted – sometimes - for a lifetime.  Now, that may no longer be the case. 

Perhaps the ugly demeanor of our time is an outcome of these imperceptible changes in our economy.  People are feeling the results of this shift but don’t have any way to understand or to articulate accurately what is driving the change.  It is no wonder there is an undercurrent of rage and mistrust running through our country.

 But now that we are beginning to understand these new workforce and economic realities, it is time to stop and evaluate the value and policy implications.
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When nearly all new jobs are contingent jobs and workers are left on their own to secure minimum benefits, it is time to create a new social contract for employment; one that provides health care, child care, retirement and a wage floor as a prerequisite of a caring and civilized society.

All of the benefits that we recognize in the world of work today were hard fought victories in the past by workers united for the common good.  A united workforce changed the workplace dynamics before and can do so again.  All we need do is organize.  And if we don’t, we will have already seen our future.

I didn’t know how much I loved America until now, as I watch it being pillaged by powerful predators.  I weep for the America that today is being dragged bare and in chains through the streets by brigands who defile her, who want only to use her for their own selfish gain.

I know that the America I long for – my America –  is only a dream.  But that’s what America is: a country born on an ideal written in the Declaration of Independence - “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…”

This unifying dream helped to build a country and bound a diverse people together.  It was the power of this dream that provided a rallying point for those souls who have been treated as less than equal.  The Civil Rights movement, the Gay Rights movement, the Women’s movement all were spawn from the same seed of the dream of a community built upon equality.

This dream that is America has been fading for quite some time.  For some – primarily people of color – the American ideal never was real.   But for many, the American dream has been visibly slipping away within our lifetime.  Communities are overwhelmed with drug addiction.  Small towns are struggling for economic survival, and with them the survival of an entire way of life.  Middle class and low-income wages have stagnated for a generation, while inequality in America has grown to levels unseen since the 1920s.  Older adults are working long after they hoped to retire because they relied on their home values and lost pensions for security. 

Into this death-watch of the American dream stepped the populist pretenders.  They are politicians who promise to “make America great again” - not by helping those in need or inspiring a renewed sense of community - but by vowing to vanquish our “enemies”.  We are told that our struggles have little to do with growing inequality and the real culprits are those immigrants who are taking our jobs and who must be banned from our shores. Our social and economic systems have become unstable – not because of de-regulation and lax oversite of multi-national corporations they say - but because people are abusing the system, taking what they didn’t earn and freeloading on “your tax dollar.”  And the answer has been to force the unemployed and those receiving food stamps to submit to drug tests in order to qualify for benefits.   

Our fear and our growing social and economic insecurity is used against us.  We are pitted, one struggling family against another struggling family.  We are encouraged to view the “other” with suspicion, scorn and sometimes even violence.

It doesn’t have to be this way.  Antoine de Saint-Exupery summed up our task beautifully when he wrote: “If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.”

And so, our job is this: remind all our family, friends, and neighbors of the dream of America as a place where everyone is equal; a place where we measure our success by how well the most vulnerable are treated.   It is this dream of America that built our communities and our country.  It is this America that attracted our parents and grandparents to its shores.  We can’t “make America great again” through division, hate, and lies.  We make America great again by appealing to our better angels.  We make America great again by sharing our country’s prosperity, by getting back to the idea that we lift as we climb.  As we advance up the social and economic ladder, we turn around and help those who are struggling to acquire a better stage in life.

We may never achieve the dream of an America where every person is treated equally but we’ve seen the America where that dream has faded and that’s not a place where I want to live. 

​America may be a dream, but it is a dream I’m willing to fight for.

The phrase, “My way is cloudy, Lord, send them angels down”  is taken from an old African American Spiritual and was one of the opening songs of the Black Nativity play which ran recently here in Milwaukee.  It is also how many feel about America today.  The issues and assaults to our values and way of life seem, at times, overwhelming.  Some days I look around and I don’t recognize who we have become as a nation.  I don’t understand how some decisions are made and shake my head at the values these decisions reflect. 

• Tax cuts that favor the rich and exasperates inequality.   Lord, send them angels down.

 

• Adding $1 trillion to the deficit through a tax give-a-way to the wealthy while at the same time discussing cutting Medicare, Social Security and Welfare because the deficit is too high.  Lord, send them angels down.

 

• Five years after Sandy Hook we saw the largest mass killing in American history.  Each year, more than 30,000 people are killed by firearms, and still there is no gun control legislation.   Lord, send them angels down.

 

• Billions of dollars lost and millions of people displaced through wildfires and hurricanes of epic proportions – but our leaders deny climate change.  Lord, send them angels down.

 

• Rampant misogyny and sexual misconduct.  Lord, send them angels down.

 

• Repeated efforts to dismantle healthcare for all and tens of millions threatened with loss of coverage.  Lord, send them angels down.

 

• Nearly 1,000 people are killed by police each year, causing unrest across the nation.  Lord, send them angels down.

 

• We attempt to ban Muslims from America and threaten to deport children of immigrants – the majority of whom have lived here most of their lives.  Lord, send them angels down.

 

• A resurgence of white nationalists and violence against people of color.  Lord, send them angels down.

 

• The threat of Nuclear war with North Korea.  Lord, send them angels down.

​This is my list.  I encourage each of you to add your own intention.  But I caution you, don’t expect any miracles.  Don’t expect God to intercede and bring peace on earth.  As a Quaker, I don’t believe in prayers that ask God to intervene.  I’m more in line with Rabbi Jack Riemer when he wrote, We Cannot Pray to You”  in which he said:

“We pray…for strength, determination, and willpower, to do instead of just to pray, to become instead of merely to wish.”

Pray for strength – as you work for social justice.
Pray for wisdom – as you choose your elected officials.
Pray for guidance – as you decide whether to run for office.
Pray for determination – as you hold your elected officials accountable.
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You see, I believe that we have all that we need to succeed on any of these concerns.  The way may be cloudy, but this we know: we are the answers to our own prayers.  We are the angels God has sent.  And, it looks we have our work cut out for us.