Chronic Unemployment: Crisis or "Correction"

By Terrance Heath

Created 06/08/2010 - 2:07pm

Like any parents, we want the best possible future for our children, and we're doing all we can to prepare them to attain it as our parents did for us. Being the grandson of sharecroppers and the son of 1st generation Polish immigrants, to us that means getting an education, being able to land a "good job" with the possibility of moving up the economic ladder, and possibly doing better than one's parents did. But the current rate of long-term joblessness, and Washington's apparent lack of political will to remedy it make me wonder if our elected officials see long-term unemployment as a crisis to be averted or "the new normal" — a "correction" [1] that must simply be accepted.

Every night I help our seven year old with his homework. In the event he doesn't have any, then we work on other things with him to help him in school; like handwriting practice or going through his math flash cards. He's a bright kid, bright enough to have been placed in an advanced math class — which, in the first grade, means he's already taking on some second grade math. His teacher also says he's one of the best readers in his class, which I think is due to the fact that we started reading to him at an early age and keep him reading with regular trips to the nearby public library.