By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZThe Paz Files
HARLINGEN, Texas - One of those starched-shirt Eastern varmints walked into town a few weeks back to survey the local culture. He was armed with notebooks and tape recorders, and he wanted to look into the entire cornucopia that is employment and its consequences in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. His name is Paul Osterman, an economist at the prestigious M.I.T. Sloan School of Management. It was not the first time the Valley was being studied. This time, however, it had all to do with jobs and illnesses.
Osterman gathered his notes after countless interviews and visits here and there, and then he issued a report that was both alarming and predictable. His conclusion: Valley residents work cheaply and they get sick too-often.
Specifically, the report noted that the median wage for adults in the Valley between 2005 and 2008 was an astonishingly-low $8.14 an hour. And, he went on, one in every four workers earned less than $6.19 an hour. Osterman was drawing from statistics gathered by the Federal Reserve Bank in Dallas that said the per capita income spanning the Valley's two prinicpal metropolitan areas - Brownsville and McAllen - ranked lowest and second-lowest in the country.
Osterman further notes that he interviewed a wide range of locals, including priests, operators of medical clinics, school principals and four focus groups of RGV residents, teenagers included. His principal finding: All residents characterized their lives as being that of scraping by, living from paycheck-to-paycheck and fearing job loss would equal homelessness.
The Valley's children drew a harsh review, as well. Osterman's study showed too many school-age kids are latchkey children; that is, they come home to no adult supervision because parents are at work. In other cases, he found that many children are deposited with relatives on a merry-go-round basis that has them with staying with aunts, uncles and grandparents in an effort to save the family on expensive childcare. Plus, those same children are watching "too much TV," the report added.
Economic strain apparently has Valleyites selectively choosing which bills to pay, opting to delay paying one in favor of paying another. Interestingly, Osterman writes he noticed some residents study the collection habits of certain companies and play the "deferred payment game;" that is, they wait until the very last possible day to pay some bills. Much of this, he adds, contributes to reasons that strain marriages. Teenagers in church groups often asked priests about the value of schooling when it's only low-paying jobs they have upon graduation. In other words, why waste your time in school for a $6.19-an-hour job.
About what ails the Valley, Osterman said his interviews with doctors at various clinics yielded this distressing situation: Many, many patients are suffering from anxiety and depression, and children are falling victim to Type 2 diabetes, an illness that is a direct result of a family's inability to buy needed medicines.
The Valley is not alone in suffering the pain of the nation's strugging economy. Across the country, one in five adults work in jobs that pay them poverty-level wages. Osterman looks at economic trends and worries that unemployed Americans have given up, have stopped looking for work or stopped dreaming of better days and lives.
There is no "Culture of Poverty" in the RGV, he concludes. What is hard to overcome is the region's historic low-wage economy, a lingering situation he says is corrosive and continues to arrive with tragic consequences...
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9 comments:
exellent article.We don't get this stuff from our local bloggers. They are addicted to low baseball and endorsing idiots. thanks again.
the valley will always be the valley. No need to worry about progress or good jobs when no one wants to do a damned thing.
Yeah, Jerry Deal wanted everybody to break out their wallets for taht lousy basebal team and now they're playing the whole series in another town? We must be the biggest idiots around! But i know I won't be supporting those losers next season. that's for sure.
In Perry's case familiarity might be a bad thing. The more voters get to know him and his record and his thinking then the less they will like him.
Your reporting sounds like the way things are all over America, why just the Valley. Maybe the NUTTY professor ought to look into are regions of the states.
Anytime someone wants to dump on someone, South Texas is the perfect basketball of reporting.
Olivia
I hate to say this, but Valley People deserve what they get, worthless two bit politicos, most valleyites are lazy, just about everyone is big and fat, including JP's, all of them over eat, tacos and Mexican plates are the thought of the day, many locals if not all, don't have an education, they are satisfied with left overs, like tony chapa and Juan el tamalero, just about every 3 person have dwi, or drug charges, family violence is part of the norm.
Yep, the professor was right.
The Valley is the armpit of 48 states.
OLIVIA:...Let me return you to the 8th paragraph of the story. You must have missed it. The next-to-last one, we mean. In case that,too, is unclear to you... - Editor
This Olivia is a member of that Jerry Deal gang. Watch out for her. She's going to criticize you at every opportunity. She's bad news, DP-M. Bad news in a dress if you get my drift.
Teabaggers! can read those broads from across the street. Jerry Deal is being played. Por old dude.
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