On NBC News last night, I saw the first of Tom Brokaw's series "in search of the American character on Route 50." Reporting from Maryland, Brokaw visited a crab-picking operation and was confused and appalled that the owner was having trouble finding people to work there. "With an unemployment rate of over ten percent," Brokaw asked the owner, "how can that be?"
The owner just shook his head. He was baffled, too.
Then, famous newscaster Brokaw and plant owner wandered down to the plant floor like old chums, where immigrants and old ladies were working at picking the meat from blue crabs. When asked why nobody wanted to work there, one woman said she figured young people just didn't want to mess up their hands.
Ah yes, the lazy poor; they'll always be with us. The message reporters like Brokaw transmit is that people are poor because THEY DON'T WANT TO WORK. It's their own fault. This sort of thinking leads directly to Reaganesque advice about pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and the wonders of trickle-down economics.
But there's something missing from Brokaw's bit of faux journalism: how much are these workers being paid? He apparently never thought to ask. It didn't occur to Brokaw or his producers that this information might be relevant to their story.
Wealth often has a deadening effect upon the mind. Some people manage to avoid it, but not having to worry about dollars and cents tends to make us forget that others do. This is why it's dangerous to go out for dinner with people who have too much money (assuming you don't); they'll think nothing of ordering bottles of expensive wine then expecting you to pay for half of it.
For Brokaw, apparently, simply having a job – even a seasonal, low-paying, no benefits job like crab picking – signifies stability and economic plenty. He can't imagine that people would turn away from a job that pays less then they need to simply survive. The old ladies had social security to supplement their income, and the immigrants (no doubt living ten to a rented room) take whatever they've earned back to Guatemala or Hondoras, where it's worth more than it would be to an American, paying American prices.
But don't ask Tom Brokaw to understand any of this. He's not a journalist; he just plays one on TV.
