Letter from two Labor Days
Posted by Billy Shore on Monday, September 7, 2009
Four years ago, as we were heading into Labor Day weekend, the Share Our Strength staff was on the phone almost around the clock planning a response to the terrible toll Hurricane Katrina was taking on our fellow Americans. This year, the Friday before Labor Day brought word of a different kind of disaster&emdash;a rising tide of joblessness that brought unemployment to a 26 year high of 9.7%.
Since the recession began in December of 2007, 6.9 million jobs have been lost. The devastation and dislocation caused by Katrina was concentrated and visual&emdash;shockingly so&emdash;that none of us could fail to see the damage. But the devastation and dislocation taking place in literally hundreds of communities across the U.S. due to the economy melts into more diffuse and less dramatic images.
As a nation we were slow to respond to Katrina. It was not “on strategy.” The unforeseeable never is. But Share Our Strength, other nonprofits, faith-based organizations and thousands of individual volunteers acted nevertheless. That continuing commitment remains one of our finest moments. In relative terms we did not have a lot to give, but what we did have we gave quickly and without bureaucratic obstacles.
As with Katrina, very few expected the depth and steep cost of our depth of our economy’s slide. One could argue that responding to it is not on strategy. But only if you view strategy in the narrowest way. In fact the consequences of such massive unemployment put our signature priority of ending childhood hunger at risk and much more difficult to achieve.
Unemployment is expected to top 10% in the next few months. We need to respond in a way that is direct, right, relevant, and on strategy, and explore and consider options such as (and just for example) establishing a pool of funding (from existing or new funds) to grant to organizations helping families with children extend their unemployment benefits and access other resources. I’m sure there are many other possibilities. But not acting at all should not be one of them.
We are about to learn the meaning in human terms of the oxymoron “jobless recovery.” The stock market is posting gains and the investment banks are thriving again. The urgency with which those crises were dealt doesn’t exist when those suffering are laid off factory workers, waiters, single moms, and even former service men and women. Instead we enjoy a long lazy three day weekend.
As it did during and after Katrina, the nonprofit sector should lead in bearing witness to these needs. As a society we must develop the capacity to act not just on what CNN brings into our living rooms, but on what is unseen yet within our grasp.
There are failures less visible but even more devastating than the failure of the Louisiana levees. We risk a failure to keep faith with Americans who have worked hard all of their lives and for the first time finds themselves in dire need of assistance. That not only jeopardizes our childhood hunger strategy, but our humanity.
What do you think? How can we build a movement to bear witness to these needs?
September 7, 2009 | | Tags: economy, hunger, Hurricane Katrina
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