Native Intelligence:

a column by

Jack D. Forbes

Native American Studies

University of California, Davis

COMPENSATING WORKERS

WHO ARE UNWAGED

Many workers are not waged. This is due primarily to the fact that most unwaged work has been predominantly "female work" such as caring for children, the aged, and handicapped or convalescent persons. Reservations and other Native communities include large numbers of unwaged workers. (The so-called high unemployment rates on reservations are partly a fiction, since most adults and many youth are employed but are unpaid).

The failure to compensate such workers has many negative results. The unpaid individuals are, of course, monetarily deprived or are forced to apply for "welfare" or "general assistance" rather than being waged. Instead of being recognized as valuable "social workers," such caregivers are often denigrated and forced, in effect, to subsidize the rest of society with their unpaid labor while being treated as "deviants" placed under the control of often hostile bureaucratic agencies (whose rules are determined by male-dominated legislative bodies or the federal government).

Why should hard-working caregivers be forced, under increasingly harsh conditions, to ask for support instead of wages?

Another negative result of the above system is that unwaged workers do not contribute to Social Security or retirement plans and, therefore, have no pension of their own available at retirement time. This is a major form of discrimination and undoubtedly violates international human rights law (as well as constitutional "equal protection" rights). Caregivers, after a life of often hard work, are sometimes forced to live in poverty when old and infirm because of not having been paid for their work.

Caregivers are also often forced to go without health insurance, unless, of course, they have a spouse with enough income to pay their share of the premium. To be without health insurance, life insurance, etc., is to be placed in the position of being damaged healthwise and losing years from one's potential life span. Such jeopardy is certainly a violation of human rights and equal protection principles. "Mother's Day" once each year hardly makes up for such jeopardy!

It is not enough to say that married couples are taken care of if the "breadwinner" earns enough to feed the caregiver and dependents. If a breadwinner earns $10 per hour but has to share that income with two persons instead of one the wage has been immediately reduced to $5 per hour apiece, and if there are two dependents in addition, then $10 may be divided by 4, giving $2.50 per hour apiece.

Such income levels are incredible in an era in which CEO's are paid from $1,000 to $35,000 or more per hour! A dependent in a CEO's family might have from $300 per hour (and up) to meet health, educational, shelter, food, and entertainment needs, as opposed to $2.50 per hour for a dependent in a more-than-minimum-wage worker's family. Hardly "rugged individualism" for the CEO's dependents!

The above situation has forced large numbers of women to seek waged work outside of the home, and thus the dependents in the household are left without anyone to care for them during the greater part of the day. Also in a two-outside-worker household, both waged workers are often too tired in the evening to supervise youth or to engage in any kind of valuable educational or recreational activities. The results certainly show up on a daily basis, with juvenile delinquency and social/educational problems of an increasingly alarming nature. The fiscal and social cost is immense!

The forced entry of both parents into the job market also contributes to a surplus of labor, especially at the lower-waged levels of employment, and has the effect (I would argue) of lowering wages and weakening worker solidarity. This, in turn, contributes further to the extreme distortion in the distribution of incomes which we have been seeing since the late 1970's.

What should we do? First, we should stop collecting income tax from persons earning less than the poverty level. (I would personally like to see the first $25,000 of the income of small businesses and small farms tax-free, in order to encourage small enterprises, and at least the first $15,000 of all waged worker's salary tax-free, or perhaps $25/30,000 per couple).

Second, let us find a way to record the hours worked by unwaged caregivers, with voluntary participation by the latter. Then let us pay each caregiver perhaps $10 per hour for care work. This could include raising children, doing housework, providing transportation, caring for older persons, caring for mentally-retarded persons, doing the shopping for the infirm, and so on.

If a father spends 4 hours per day at caring for a school-age child, then 4x365=1460x$10 or $14,600 per year. A great side effect of this approach may well be to eliminate the need for much assisted-living care in institutions for older persons and to also cut down greatly on the need for day-care for children. It would be a positive gain to have families and other loved ones caring for both children and elders.

We would have to build in safeguards against having children solely to qualify as a caregiver (such as no increased income for a third child. Perhaps also the dependent deduction on the income tax can be phased out after a second child).

The federal government can certainly afford such a compensation plan: (1) by eliminating corporate welfare; or (2) by restoring corporate and upper-income taxes to their pre-Reagan levels; (3) by tremendous savings in education, juvenile detention, probation, prisons, rehabilitation, and police work; (4) by huge savings in the social welfare system; and (5) by savings in long-term-care of the elderly and handicapped.

And for all you conservatives out there, remember that paying people for work performed is not a form of socialism, but a great example of free enterprise capitalism at work. (March 19, 2000)

[Professor Jack D. Forbes, Powhatan-Delaware, is the author of COLUMBUS AND OTHER CANNIBALS, RED BLOOD, AFRICANS AND NATIVE AMERICANS, AZTECAS DEL NORTE and other books.] All Rights Reserved by Jack D. Forbes. Phone:(916) 752-3626/3237; Fax: (916) 752-7097

30