We added 39,000 non-farm jobs, but that result was weaker than expected. So…say goodbye to any middle-class expectations you may have had and say hello to your fellow members of the working class.

Here’s something to remember about your new status. Your labor is not worth what you think it is, it is only worth what someone else thinks it is and these two views are not the same.

Your entrance into the working (and often non-working) class is going to swell the ever-increasing number of people looking for work. With your un-employment checks running out in December you no longer have the luxury of turning down work because “you can’t live on that.”

Millions of people do and now you will, too. Or learn to live in your car.

You will have to learn that the expensive University degrees that you may still be paying for either haven’t prepared you for the jobs that are available, or have actually made you unemployable. Dumb down. No one wants a grocery store bagger, mall greeter, or a burger flipper with a master’s degree in computer engineering. Employers know you’ll be gone if anything any better comes along. Welcome to the world of the high school graduate.

You will probably find yourself working more than one part time job. Full time employment sometimes means paying for benefits. On a per-hour basis part time employees are cheaper than full-timers.

Congratulations, you are now the working poor!

This entry was posted on Friday, December 3rd, 2010 at 10:24 am and is filed under Politics, Working Poor. Tags for this post: Homeless, Rubber Bums, Unemployed, Working Poor. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.