Don't Let Young Professionals Off the Hook When it Comes to Public Service
Daniel Brook’s The Trap was perfect reading last week as the news broke that income inequality has hit its post-World War II high. As Brook writes, inequality in places like Manhattan rivals that of developing nations. The super rich buy up bohemian brownstones while undocumented immigrants deliver their take-out and do their laundry. In the middle, most teachers, journalists, and government workers take on longer and longer commutes just to be able to afford their rent.
What I loved about The Trap was Brook’s ability to enrage members of the middle class, upper-middle class, and yes – even the rich – about the shame of inequality. Brook does so by pointing to a contraction of choice, a very real feeling among well-educated young professionals that their career plans are dictated more by financial need than by passion. Indeed, income growth in the public and non-profit sectors has failed to keep up with skyrocketing corporate pay packages. But I worry that Brook overstates his case when he writes that careers in public service and the arts “have been relegated to a mix of moral giants, mental midgets, and trust fund babies.” Had I read The Trap in college, when I was deciding whether to pursue journalism or a more highly-remunerated career path, I might have had a panic attack.
But in reality, it isn’t impossible to make ends meet in a major American city on $30,000, a common starting salary at a non-profit. For one thing, you’ll have to have several roommates, living in what we young ’uns call a “group house.” No, it’s not a “group home.” It’s a single family dwelling, usually with just one kitchen and one or two bathrooms, that’s been packed to the rafters with five or six young journalists, teachers, Congressional staffers, and non-profit workers. Brook laments the loss of Virginia Wolf’s idealized “room of one’s own” for young writers. But lemme tell you something -- roommates are simply an accepted part of life for this young magazine journalist, and yet somehow, I meet most of my deadlines.
What other sacrifices will you have to make? You won’t own a car. Your neighborhood might have a higher crime rate than the one you grew up in. Many of the stores on your block will cater to customers who speak a language different from your own. It will help if you don’t have considerable student debt, so ambitious high school seniors should consider the trade-offs as they’re choosing between the flagship campus of State U and an Ivy League school.
Eventually, you’ll think about sending your own child (you may be able to afford only one) to a diverse public school, perhaps one of the new magnet programs, instead of to a private prep academy or a suburban practically-private district. You’ll look seriously at the statistics showing that attending racially and socioeconomically integrated public schools has no affect on the educational achievement and life outcomes of privileged kids, and has positive affects on outcomes for poorer students. You’ll take fewer vacations. You’ll learn to be a better at-home chef.
All in all, you’ll be happier, because you won’t spend 10 hours a day doing a job you hate.
In The Trap, Brook effectively demonstrates that progressives shouldn’t miss opportunities to talk about how society can help more people to patriotically serve their fellow Americans in altruistic professions. Like the poor and working class, college educated professionals would lead more stable, fulfilling lives if our government provided us a real right to unionize, with universal health care, and with more college grants instead of albatross loans. But while elite college and professional school grads should understand how rising inequality influences our choices, we should also be realistic about how many choices we still have, and we should continue to hold our peers to high standards in terms of public service.
Nobody ever forced anybody to become a management consultant or investment banker.
Well, okay. I see what you're saying. I've said it myself. People have said it to me too. If you're willing to make trade-offs, you're in a position to do most anything. You can't say "I want to live like a hedge fund manager but work as a guidance counselor." Fine. But you can work as a counselor if you're willing to live paycheck to paycheck for awhile and to maybe share quarters.
But that seems too easy an answer. The point here is that either the super rich are so overpaid that they have priced some goods out of the reach of guidance counselors or that guidance counselors are underpaid, especially against inflation.
The fact that one can sacrifice to be a guidance counselor doesn't solve the problem of the underpaid guidance counselor. And I would not judge a friend harshly for refusing a job that underpays.
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
October 15, 2007 8:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think you actually understate quite a bit how much harder it is when you have kids to make ends meet. It is incredibly difficult/nearly impossible to raise kids these days without a car, so add a car payment to the list of expenses. Roommates are no longer a viable option. Try saving for retirement and college for kids while paying a mortgage in a somewhat expensive American city.
What I really don't understand is why so many of these jobs still have to be located in such expensive cities in the internet age.
October 15, 2007 8:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
One reason they have to be located in expensive cities is that a lot of people who want to do those jobs and, more importantly, a lot of people who are in the position to hire people to do those jobs, want to live in expensive cities.
I love New York!
But here's another problem... I can and have worked in the same industry in cheaper cities. Wages there tend to be lower. All in all, it's mostly a wash except that here in New York I'm surrounded by things I like and in other places, not so much.
There is a cultural component to life, after all. Yes, $60k in NY is a $45k lifestyle most other places. But they're different lifestyles for the money. I like this one. Most don't.
Good on you for bringing up kids, though. Having kids is one of the things I've had to, well, not have in order to live in NYC on the money I make.
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
October 15, 2007 9:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
a very real feeling among well-educated young professionals that their career plans are dictated more by financial need than by passion
Hmmm . . . I wonder if the office cleaning lady has the same feeling.
October 15, 2007 9:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Shame of inequality! How is that different from rank envy? If that salary of $30,000 in NYC were the highest in town it would still be a tight squeeze. If that clown that is knocking down 500 times what I make drops dead tomorrow it won't improve my lot in life one whit.
The sons of the prophet are noble and bold,
and quite unaccustomed to fear.
But the bravest by far in the ranks of the Shah
was Abdul Abulbul Amir
October 16, 2007 12:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
I honestly didn't know how to take the post. I thought it might be ironic, given the pace of asides like that on you'll only get one child, designed to show the costs imposed by the new Gilded Age. But I've a feeling it's genuine, in which case it amounts to the pablum that we all make choices and money won't buy happiness.
Well, I've got news for you: for most Americans, the growing inequality isn't like an artist's choice to live out her dreams. And cheerful pablum isn't going to address real issues of economics, politics, and justice.
My father had another pablum that's equally true anyhow: rich or poor, you better have money. I've failed to live up to it, but I can't say I've disproved it. (Oh, and I agree with Destor that the tradeoffs of living in New York are worth it. In fact, I'd probably be poorer if I moved, as then I'd have the additional expense of a car, akin to a second rent.)
John
http://www.haberarts.com/
October 16, 2007 1:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
The compromises that Goldstein mentions aren't a refutation of The Trap, but an extension of it. These are, of course, exactly the compromises that a "saint" must make. But why must a saint make these sacrifices? Don't we all, as a society, value teachers and social workers and public defenders? Isn't a system that discourages these professions problematic?
My wife and I each went to Ivy League law schools. She went the academic route, and is still writing her dissertation. I tried to work as a public defender, but I had to sell out. We couldn't make it, what with over two hundred thousand dollars worth of loans to repay.
I think, the thing is, not everyone is equal. If you don't have the choice between the $135,000 dollar job and the $30,000 job, then there's not much of a compromise in taking the $30,000 job. But when you have the two offers, you really can't turn down the $135,000 job. You have too much debt (unless you have a trust fund). If you have the talent and intelligence to excel at top tier law schools, the marketplace demands are such that the "public good" will almost invariably be deprived of that talent and intelligence.
At least my wife and I were able to have a compromise of sorts. She is still pursuing her PhD, and I get vicarious gratification through her pursuits.
October 16, 2007 9:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
How would relocating to the other side of the country help the low-income people in my community with all the needs they have that the government has chosen not to fund anymore?
October 16, 2007 10:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't think that's the entire reason. Nonprofits are located in big cities because that's where rich funders are, that's where their client populations are, and that's where they can take advantage of volunteers from local colleges to provide unpaid resume-burnishing labor.
I used to work for a nonprofit in a semi-rural area. Finding volunteers and funders was murder, and the cost of living wasn't signficantly lower than the adjacent rich urban areas, so no one wanted to relocate to work there, either.
October 16, 2007 12:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, I've got news for you: for most Americans, the growing inequality isn't like an artist's choice to live out her dreams.
Aren't you sort of overextending her point? I don't hear DG saying that there is no inequality, or that it's not so bad because we can all live in the still-cool neighborhoods where we'll still be on the edge. I don't hear her saying anything about most Americans in that sense.
Rather, her point is that Brook overstates the disparity between public/nonprofit sector and private sector work. And I think this is correct. Wages in the nonprofit sector for the same jobs (functionally speaking) are all over the map, and some people are doing quite well. Wages in the private sector, for the average American, aren't all that great. Most of us aren't going to be hedge fund managers, and most of us in public servicey fields aren't going to subsist on $18K a year for the rest of our lives. Most of us live in the middle, regardless of which sector we are in. So I have to question the dichotomy Brook sets up myself. (Though I'm a reasonably comfortable nonprofit-side worker, and one who maybe believes he's better off than he really is.)
October 16, 2007 2:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
I thought Goldstein's post was so profoundly misguided, so bafflingly naive, that I actually dug up my old TPM Cafe registration just to comment on it.
Her point seems to be: If you are willing to sacrifice significantly in every area of your life, if you do not care about how many children you have, whether or not you're forty and living with a roommate, whether or not you have to go to a middling state college instead of an ivy league college, whether or not you ever get to go on vacation or have a nice meal, then you can work for a non-profit and "patriotically serve [your] fellow Americans in altruistic professions." Hell, maybe you can even get a job fighting inequality so someone else, somewhere can take a vacation or have an apartment that isn't cluttered with someone else's dirty dishes.
Look: The problem isn't that social workers or teachers or nurses can't buy mansions or luxury cars and eat caviar on their yachts. The problem is that anyone interested in a helping profession has to more or less make the decision that her professional drive to help others is worth some major, major costs in every other area of her life. And this is doubly true for anyone from anything but a wealthy background, since they cannot count on family money or family houses.
Brook's point, from wwhat I've gathered (haven't read the book) is that there's something profoundly screwy with a system that treats the best among us--social workers and teachers and so on--as so lacking in value that it's their responsibility to not simply do more emotionally taxing work than most of us can imagine, but to then go home and have no place to relax or money to relax with. Sure, there are some people who will be willing to make all of those sacrifices. But they shouldn't have to, and other people who would like to do good, but would also like to be able to raise children, should have that option.
And frankly, Goldstein's argument that public servants need to be willing to make all of these sacrifices is no more logical or decent than the conservative argument that families of six with $40,000 of income should buy health insurance for $1,000 a month because they need to "be responsible."
October 16, 2007 3:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why can't you go to your funders? You would still be far better off locating in Arlington, VA or Hoboken, NJ or somewhere like that. Whether a non-profit has local clients depends on what they do
Some non-profits need volunteers, and some do not. It also depends what they do. There are lots of volunteers in many rural and suburban areas for various things. Lots of big, non-urban colleges as well. I'm sure Madison, WI, for example, punches above its weight in this category.
October 16, 2007 5:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't think most people want to have to make a choice between living somewhere they want and having kids. That may actually comport well with the thesis of the book. If you want to have kids, you need to make a lot more than if you do not do so.
The difference between cost of living in NYC and any other American city is huge. In my experience, the wages paid in NYC are not high enough for the majority of New Yorkers (i.e. non-Wall Street) to make up for the higher cost of living. You could also live in lots of other much less expensive cities and have 99% of the same life. Chicago for example, but probably also D.C. or Boston/Cambridge, San Fran/Oakland/Berkeley.
October 16, 2007 5:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
$30,000.00 per year seems like alot when you're twenty-five and don't have children. $45,000.00 per year means living well when you don't have a child (especially if two spouses are making $45,000 each) (at least in Chicago).
Children, however, change the equation. Even with public schools, it is nearly impossible to make ends meet in a large city. There are things you just don't want your child to go without- like health insurance through a PPO. The family health insurance costs are huge- some times up to $1,100.00 per month (especially if one spouse starts working part time and loses health benefits). Most employers don't provide family health insurance, and if you're self-employed, health insurance costs are even more ridiculous). There is also day care and preschool which often must be paid for by the family (and can cost an extra $1,000-$2,000 per month). There are also things you just don't think about when you don't have children (a condo, apartment or townhouse is great when you're childless, but when children come, you really want a back yard). Your need for a car increases as well with children. Nobody wants to wait in below-freezing temperatures for an El train (to get to a doctor) with a baby or walk to the grocery store with a baby in the winter). You also want to buy mainly organic food when you have children.
Add in all the little costs like child- proofing your house and buying absurdly expensive car seats, music lessons, sports equipment, etc. and your expenses triple or quadruple when you have a child.
Many people would also like to have more than one child.
While it isn't impossible to do, working an entire life time solely in the public sector means denying your kids things you'd prefer they didn't have to do without. Society shouldn't be set up this way.
October 16, 2007 7:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't think most people want to have to make a choice between living somewhere they want and having kids.
I'm told that there are more four year olds in Brooklyn, per capita, than any other county in America. This doesn't really address the question of whether people with kids are making it in New York and other urban areas - I think many of us B'klyn parents are comfortable with the toehold we maintain in the middle cleass - but it's relevant to the question of what choices we are making.
P.S. You are probably right about the cost of living outpacing higher wages. I deal with this by comparing my salary to the national median. It doesn't give me a retirement, but there is advantage in not comparing myself to the I-bankers who live next door.
October 16, 2007 9:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
re: Most employers don't provide family health insuranc
I don't think this is true (at least not for full-time jobs). Most employers still do provide family coverage, however the employee generally has to pay most or all of the premium (ditto when covering a spouse). However these are at group rates at least, and generally the premium maxes out at two children. That's not cheap still, but at my last job where the employee had to pay the full family premium it maxed out at $440 a month (for spouse plus kids; the employee's premkium was paid 100% by the employer ). Obviously, if you have an inidividual policy not a group policy through work that will be much more. And yes, 440$ a month is not pocket change
Re: You also want to buy mainly organic food when you have children.
If you do you're paying mainly for snob appeal and a label.
October 17, 2007 3:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well, if that's the point, I agree with you. But I still don't see that this is the argument being made.
In any case, I stand by my point: I don't think that there is evidence that people in 'public service' professions are markedly worse off than those in the private sector. Given the current income inequality gap, I think that most private sector workers are in pretty bad shape, too. Nonprofit salaries vary widely - not so far as the space between a grocery store clerk and a hedge fund manager, but enough that you have people who live completely hand to mouth and others who are pretty comfortable.
If that's correct, then I question the idea that income inequality is squeezing people out of the nonprofit sector. To be sure, there are a lot of people who would consider work in one of these professions who might, instead, have the option of something much more remunerative. Some people make great sacrifices, others relatively minor ones. For the most part, though, I'd say that nonprofit workers are in the same squeeze as most everybody else.
October 17, 2007 8:36 AM | Reply | Permalink