My heart is in Boston today.
At the heart of our
decline is the fundamental truth that we have willfully ignored and stubbornly denied,
gripped as we are by a powerful collective cognitive dissonance: We foolishly
deny the immutable connection between having a designated person who keeps the home fires burning – a
homekeeper - and stable, healthy, and enduring families, economies and communities.
A corollary of that dissonance is seen in the complete lack of conversation
about the damage that is done to labor markets when they are flooded with cheap
labor (it bears repeating: wages are determined the same way as other prices
are: by supply and demand), which of
course ultimately wreaks havoc on families because it impacts both the husband’s
and the wife’s income if both are in the wage market; however she will only
earn a fraction of those lower wages because the gender gap predictably follows
male earnings – when male earnings go down, female earnings correspond to
retain the 20 – 30% gap. The loss of the homekeeper, combined with a cheapened
labor force is a recipe for disaster, and we can see the results of the
disaster everywhere we look.
Things have to change. We
must seriously reconsider returning to the sustainable model of traditional
labor division that has cradled human civilization since its birth. To that end
I have come to the radical conclusion that what the United States needs is not
more jobs, but fewer people competing for those jobs in the labor market. I am
calling for a movement that culminates in a voluntary reduction in the American
labor force, specifically, for women to stay home and operate their homefronts
in a more logical and productive management of their assets - like the family
business that the homefront is.
http://livingwage.mit.edu/
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