Time to end this 'work and spend'

Wal-Mart recently bought Lord & Taylor. That has renewed predictions of the end for America’s middle class.

Wal-Mart caters to the growing ranks of the underpaid poor, while Lord & Taylor offers pricey items to the rich, whose ranks are also increasing. Who else would pay $200 for a pair of work boots?

Wal-Mart is even receiving praise from the profit-minded for their strategy of cutting out the middle. Meanwhile, stores like Macy’s, Toys R Us and Radio Shack, which have depended on an economically healthy middle class, are facing bankruptcy.

The demise of some of the middle-class retailers, however, seems to have as much to do with time as money.

As living standards have stagnated, sociologist Juliet Schor notes, American households find themselves locked into an “insidious cycle of work-and-spend.”

“Households go into debt to buy products they don’t really need, and then find themselves working longer … to keep up with the payments,” a New York Times review of Schor’s book summarizes her findings.

Schor goes on to observe, “Many potentially satisfying leisure skills are off limits because they take too much time.”

Examples she gives are sports, serious pursuit of a musical instrument, and community involvement.

Work doesn’t pay as much as it used to for most of us, so we have to work harder to maintain the life we think we should live, and it drains us from any activity more engaging than watching TV.

Stores like Gander Mountain, the outdoor-sports “big box” chain now facing bankruptcy, depend on a middle class that has adequate leisure time, energy and money for fun that requires time and effort, like distance running, cycling, weekend hunting trips and building radios from the transistors and diodes up.

Guitar Center and Sam Ash, large musical instrument chains, are deep in debt. Grandma’s Music, an independent big-box instrument store in Albuquerque, recently shut down. It’s cheaper and easier to download music than to learn how to play.

Middle-class restaurants like Applebees, Chili’s and TGI-Fridays note dwindling crowds. Their fare is too pricey for many working families but perhaps too starch- and fat-laden for richer folks.

Even golf is suffering.

Golf takes up too much time and money for too much of the population, according to a recent Forbes magazine article.

Middle-class pay seems to be a fading concept. More Americans are working harder at more jobs to maintain a pretense of middle-class life.

Sadly, the demise of the middle class seems also to be the demise of the kind of fun that demands involvement. You know, real fun.

I’m hoping it won’t be long before American employers rediscover that well-paid, productive workers not only deliver more good work in less time, they also expand markets and profits for things that make life truly enjoyable.

Steve Hansen writes about our life and times from his perspective of a retired Tucumcari journalist. Contact him at:

stevenmhansen

@plateautel.net