In today’s Washington Post, there’s an incredibly affecting long article about a down-and-out family in Indiana. It’s called “Nowhere to Go But Down.” Husband and wife have both lost their jobs; there’s a teenage son and a very young daughter, and it looks like they’re all going to have to move back to Michigan to live in the basement of the wife’s mother. I urge you all to read it, and to look at the photo gallery too.
The thing is, I wonder in which direction most of you will be affected when you read it. There are a variety of options. Some readers will see the family as innocent victims of a brutal economy. Others will see them as entirely responsible for, or at least deeply complicit in, their economic failure. I have a feeling that many readers of this blog will lean toward the latter — in the photo gallery, we learn that the husband buys $20 worth of lottery tickets a week, e.g. — but I may be wrong.
Here’s a passage that is hard to ignore. The wife has just returned from her first job interview in months:
He doesn’t look up from the wall he’s touching up with white paint. The landlord is due soon.
“It’s 28 hours, eight bucks an hour,” she says. No benefits, she adds.
“You say, ‘Thank you, but –’ ?”
“Yup,” she says. “I make more on unemployment.”
The article is also a great piece of fly-on-the-wall journalism. The writer is Paul Schwartzman. He must have spent a huge amount of time with the family to come away with a story this deep and rich. Judging from his archive page, it looks like he’s been working on this article for the better part of a few months. If so, it really shows.
I couldn’t help but think about how much money the Post spent to generate this article. Tens of thousands of dollars, I am guessing, once you account for the salaries for the writer, editor/s, etc., and travel expenses. I also couldn’t help but wonder how the family in the article would have spent that money if the Post, instead of using it to generate this article, had simply given it to them in a paper bag.
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I was also struck by the fact that they watch cable TV, the kid has an X-Box, etc. They certainly don’t seem to be using their resources as wisely as they could be.
The story also mentions that the husband was a profligate spender when he had a job, running up huge bar tabs and the like. It is certainly hard to commiserate too much with people who have so obviously planned so poorly for the future. I mean, living paycheck to paycheck on $53,000 a year in Northern Indiana? Crazy.
I am squarely in the latter group. Not only is this man buying $20 of tickets every week, he is sitting in a bar drinking beers for “hours.” Also, did anyone else notice what the family is eating in the picture that describes the family has taken free food from the church pantry? Sure looks like delivered pizza to me.
I have nothing against any of the actions if the family wasn’t in such dire financial straits. Sure, it isn’t entirely their fault that they are in the shape they are, but they must shoulder some of the blame. It looks like in edition to finding new jobs they should take some classes on fiscal responsibility.
Here’s a totally different take–
Thank goodness this family has an extended family to rely on. This underscores the importance of a strong, healthy, and mutually supportive family, particularly in difficult times.
The institution of marriage and family is a far better stimulus than borrowing from future generations to hand out $4,500 like candy to people to trade-in for new cars.
This article is fascinating. These people are blaming the economy, which certainly hasn’t helped, without considering many of their problems are the result of their own choices. The guy drinks 8 beers as soon as he gets the unemployment money. He half heartedly looks for jobs. He says he doesn’t want to pursue further education b/c he has a folder full of certificates which never got him anywhere. One of the certificates is for Glass Installation training. He wants to be completely unskilled and make big bucks. Welcome to reality! Picking the least effort path, wasting money, and making bad choices is what is causing this family’s issues. They got by with this behavior when the economy was fat, but it simply is not a successful long term strategy.
After reading the story, my reaction – to it, not to your post – is complicated.
1. People don’t get what they deserve; they get what life gives them. Very few people have control over the forces that knock them around. I can’t blame this family any more than I can blame my ancestors who failed to leave Europe and thus were murdered in WWII.
2. People can’t be judged on an objective scale. We all make bad decisions. Some of us get away with a lot of bad choices and some get screwed or even killed by just one mistake.
3. While the tone of the article was Grapes of Wrath-like, I thought the family has a lot going for it. This is a tough time for them, a terrible time, but they’ll come through it.
I agree with Brian. The first thing I though about when I read they would go to live in her mother’s basement was “They are very lucky to have family.”
I know that if anything happened to me, I have family. Not everyone can say that.
Read the story, and it is incredibly affecting. How sad. But you’re right: I would have a lot more sympathy for the Nicholses if they had made better financial decisions. Oddly, I can’t help but think there is something distinctly irrational about the economic choices they’ve made.
I’m one of the latter. When I intially read the article, I thought I may have been classified in the first catergory which sympathized with their economic misfortune. This is just a grasshopper / ant situation. Poor financial management.