As a kid, I was told to do well in school so that I could get into a good college. In high school, I took all the honors and AP classes I could and was a contender for valedictorian at my first high school. For my junior and senior years of high school, I was accepted into the North Carolina School of Science and Math, which I firmly believe is the best high school in the country. It was challenging, but I loved it.
I got into a good college, the University of Richmond. Now I was told to pick a major that would provide for a good career. I picked economics as I found it fascinating and I was told that economic majors were some of the top income earners. I finished with a respectable 3.1 GPA.
My first job out of college was teaching English in South Korea. It had nothing to do with my major, but I wanted to learn about Asia and the job paid well. Always being a frugal person, I saved nearly two-thirds of my income. I hated the job, but I did everything that was asked of me and worked there until my contract expired.
I returned to the US September 20th 2008, five days after Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy. Still, I was optimistic. I was a dedicated worker, I had gone to a good university, earned a useful degree, and had $20,000 in savings. With this attitude, I spent over $1,000 on suits for interviews and for my future job. For the next few months I filled out dozens of job applications with almost no responses. I attended job fairs where no one was hiring unless you were willing to work for free or on commission.
Eventually, I was offered a temporary job with the Census Bureau. I worked hard, I was even told to slow down at one point because I was completing work at twice the required rate. When that came to an end, I spent several more months searching for a full-time job, but ended up working with the Census Bureau again. This time, I was promoted to crew leader assistant. It didn’t pay more, but it meant I would be working more hours and had more responsibility. One week I worked 60 hours. Twice I voluntarily worked until 5 AM.
With no job prospects, I applied to graduate school and was accepted into the School of International Studies at the University of Denver. I started in the summer, taking four graduate-level classes in just four weeks. I lost around five pounds during that month due to stress and not eating properly, but I was determined, and completed all my work on time. By the end of the spring semester, I had completed all my coursework. Still, I was no more hopeful of finding a job than I was before and now I had $40,000 in student loans to repay. With no improvements in the job market, it seemed that my best option was to join the Peace Corps and delay starting a career another two years.
In three years I’ve gone from living on my own with $20,000 in the bank to being $40,000 in debt. With no job security, I was stuck living at my mom’s house. I didn’t want to be dependent on anyone else, but my circumstances left me with no better alternative. I was left wondering what had I done wrong? Why couldn’t I find a good job?
Then I looked at my friends, the same dedicated and ambitious students I went to high school and college with. Some of them had found good full-time jobs. However, many were underemployed. Several people were working at temp agencies, at fast food restaurants, as substitute teachers. Many, like me, had gone on to graduate school when they were unable to find fulfilling employment. Now I was wondering what we all had done wrong?
Then I heard about the protest on Wall Street and how it spread across the country. I heard about the people who were getting involved. They had gone to college. They had taken on student loans. Then, when they were ready to enter the job market, they were met with silence and indifference.
That’s when I realized, I had done nothing wrong. I studied and worked hard with the promise that one day I could get a full-time job and I would be independent. I took on student loans with the promise that my future income would cover my payments. I was part of a whole generation that had been made this promise. For most of us though, this promise never came to fruition. We worked hard only to achieve underemployment and debt.
Finally, after three years of underemployment, we’ve started to realized that all the things we were promised are never coming. We did everything we were told to do and received nothing in return. We feel cheated and lied to. We don’t work temporary, part-time, and other low-paying jobs because they’re easy; we do those jobs because they’re the only ones available to us. Many of us are working at unpaid internships in hope that maybe we will get a paying job out of it. We don’t live in our parents’ houses because we’re lazy; we live there because we have no job security.
The most infuriating part is that the money to provide us with jobs is there. We’ve constantly been told that businesses need tax cuts in order to create jobs. We’ve been waiting for three years for these jobs, but despite corporations reporting record profits, despite wealth becoming more and more concentrated in the hands of “job creators”, these jobs have never materialized. Unemployment has been hovering around nine percent since January, with no sign of improvement. Wages for the majority of Americans have been stagnant since at least the early 1980’s while income for the top one percent has skyrocketed. If anything, tax cuts have destroyed jobs by reducing government spending. We need more teachers, more people maintaining infrastructure. There are plenty of government departments that are chronically understaffed where we could create more jobs right now, increasing incomes and increasing consumer demand. Yet, instead, we’ve become sold on this myth that lower taxes equal more jobs that has so far failed to live up to its promises.
OWS is criticized for having no message, no demands. But why does it need to make demands? Shouldn’t the fact that thousands of young people, those who should right now be the most productive members of society, are living in tent cities around the country be enough of a sign that there’s something seriously wrong with the current system? OWS is the result of a multitude of failures in the current political, economic, and social system. Politicians have failed us by allowing themselves to be bought. Corporations have failed us by suppressing wages while giving billions to executives. Government has failed us through ineffectual and costly actions. Financial institutions have failed us by putting short-term profits before long-term sustainability.
We’ve reach a point where more and more people are realizing that they will not be better off than their parents. Despite all my academic accomplishments, despite all my hard work, I don’t see a future for myself or for many of my friends. At this point in my life, I can’t imagine ever owning a house as large as the one I grew up in. I can’t imagine ever being financially secure and independent as much as I want to be.
This is why I find OWS so exciting. Finally, something is happening in America that I can participate in, where I can contribute and help improve society. I can finally put all that I have learned, all that I have been raised to be to use and make a difference instead of wasting it on menial jobs that give me nothing but another bullet point on my oft ignored resume.
The people that are actively participating in OWS, who are putting together the general assemblies, setting up kitchens to feed people, organizing demonstrations, aren’t lazy. These people are ambitious, dedicated to their work, and highly educated, just as they were told to be. Like me, they’re not looking for hand-outs, they’re looking for jobs. They want that opportunity to contribute to society. They want to rectify the growing inequalities in our society. They want to end corporate influence over politics and media. They want to give a voice to the poor and disenfranchised. These are not divisive ideas; these are goals that I would hope all Americans could agree with. Even if we don’t agree with every idea being expunged by protesters, we should at least recognize that they want to make life better for everyone and could probably do a better job at it than the current establishment because they at least care about the people. The established system has failed me, it has failed my family, it has failed my friends, and it has failed the millions of other Americans who are unemployed, underemployed, without health insurance, living in poverty, in debt, have lost their homes, and been continuously marginalized and disenfranchised. I’ve given up on the status quo and want to support something new.
