An economy stuck on ‘trudge’

PHOTO: HonestReporting.com, flickr/truthout, Flickr CC, BY-SA

According to Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development data from late 2014, for the first time in the 14-year history of this survey, there are more jobs available for residents of Northeastern Minnesota than there are people seeking jobs. That sounds pretty good, until you read the fine print.

Last week, the Jobs Now Coalition sent me a fact sheet about employment figures for Northeastern Minnesota, broadly defined as St. Louis, Itasca, Aitkin, Lake, Cook and Carlton Counties. In their review of the same data, they made these observations:

Other findings for the Arrowhead Region include:
* Sixty-five percent of all openings are part-time.
* The median wage for part-time openings is $10.00 per hour.
* Only 30 percent of all openings require education or training beyond high school.
* Only 7 percent of all openings require a four-year degree.
* Nearly half of all openings are in the four largest occupations—personal care and service, sales, office and administrative support, and food preparation and serving. These openings have a combined median wage of $9.54 per hour.

According to DEED’s Cost of Living in Minnesota research, the Arrowhead Region average for a family-supporting wage is $13.96 per hour. To see the updated Cost of Living research by county, use DEED’s Cost of Living Calculator at http://mn.gov/deed/data /data-tools/col/index.jsp

I teach at a community college on the Iron Range. As far as teaching jobs go, this kind of work puts me on the front lines of our enduring social battle with poverty and the struggles of those seeking upward economic mobility.

My job also gives me a good look at family economic collapse, the effects of divorce or health problems, substance abuse and mental illness. Now, I don’t speak for my students, and what I write here certainly isn’t representative of my employer. Further, it’s not accurate to substitute my anecdotes for actual economic data. Nevertheless, my work shows me interesting examples of economic trends all the time. It informs what I believe about my community and my world.

In my 11 years of classroom teaching, these last two years have showed me something I didn’t see much at the beginning of my tenure. Students have been actively struggling with whether to go to college and absorb the resulting costs or work in low-level, relatively low-income jobs that allow them to live independently. The jobs are nothing special, but in the last two years they’ve been winning this struggle more often.

Sometimes it’s students who sign up for class and either never come or quit when it become evident they’ll need books and a computer. Sometimes it’s students who complete a semester, but decide for myriad reasons to abandon the pursuit of a degree for something that pays the rent.

It’s hard to understate how much most community college students are fixated on how to pay basic living expenses like rent, transportation and food. Good students shuck a speech or paper to work a few extra shifts to make a payment. Child care and health are constant factors. I’m not saying that every student would be guaranteed to succeed, but many folks in this situation never really have a chance to find out what they’re capable of doing in school.

What the good news/bad news data also show is how Northeastern Minnesota’s economy is much more impacted by the lack of opportunity outside traditional fields like mining, logging and manufacturing. The rhetoric often seems to suggest that all of these folks could be “saved” by new mining jobs, but the numbers of people who need quality employment are far, far greater than even the most fanciful mining employment projection.

Further, the fact that so many part-time, low-pay jobs are available shows what businesses are doing to make it in this same economy. Every year there are more humans, but the jobs we offer them are increasingly less human. Indeed, many of the honorable trades of the past are now handled exclusively by machines.

There’s another thing I see in my Northeastern Minnesota students — and now I’m talking about the ones that graduate and transfer to four-year schools. Because of my interest in the topic, I do a number of assignments related to improving communities and solving problems in our region. I don’t direct students how to respond; I simply give them a prompt like “what can we do to attract and keep more young people in our region?”

What often emerges from the assignment is the kind of frustration with the status quo that would likely chill the spine of politicians and consultants alike. I don’t mean these students are agitated; rather, they’ve quietly accepted that they’ll need to move on. Meantime, the ones who want to stay would happily work anywhere in exchange for proximity to hunting, fishing, lakes and family.

This is the stone cold crux of our situation in Northeastern Minnesota, found with increasing ease in economic data or out on the street. Our economy is stuck on “trudge,” no matter what happens in Minneapolis, St. Paul, the skyscrapers of New York, or the halls of Washington, D.C.

We’re not alone. This is happening all over the country in places like this. Addressing this growing disparity is the challenge that will define the future of our country, and certainly the lives of the students that I’ll proudly watch graduate this week.