미연구원 두명이 현미국사회의 벗어날길 없는 구조적 모순에 대한 날선 비판을 담은 글이 화제가 되고 있다.
WSJ(월스트리트저널)은 ˂맨해튼연구소˃선임연구원 다이애나 퍼치곳 로스와 연구원 제라드 메이어가 기고한 ˂2015년 대학졸업생들, 너희들 큰일났다(Dear Class of 2015, You’re in Big Trouble)˃라는 제목의 글을 12일(현지시각) 게재했다.
이들은 글첫머리에서 ˂앞으로 몇주동안 대학생 350만명이 졸업을 하고 취업전선에 뛰어들텐데, 안됐지만 취업에 성공하기는 부모 혹은 조부모세대에 비해 훨씬 더 어려울 것이다˃라며 ˂여러분이 이전 세대보다 덜 똑똑해서도, 더 게을러서도, 혹은 아메리칸드림을 이룰 만한 자격이 부족해서도 아니다. 오늘날의 졸업생들이 암담한 미래와 마주하게 된 주원인은 바로 정부다˃고 비판했다.
이어 <여러분 가운데 70%는 1인당 평균 2만7000달러에 달하는 학자금대출을 안은채 졸업하게 된다>면서 <이것이 바로 연방 학자금지원제도의 현주소>이며 <대학등록금을 올려 졸업후에도 수년간 빚의 굴레에서 벗어나지 못한다>고 꼬집었다.
또 미국사회내 취업의 어려움을 실례로 들며 <무급인턴직은 어떨까. 금융권이나 출판계 사기업 인턴직은 기대하지 말아야 한다. 정규직으로 가기 위한 통로가 될 수 있을진 모르지만 노동부가 이를 사실상 금지하고 있기 때문이다>고 밝혔다.
계속해서 <어찌저찌하여 일자리를 구했다 치자. 이제부턴 세금을 내야 하는데, 여러분이 내는 세금은 대부분 일자리도 있고 재산도 있는 중년 미국인층을 지원하는 정부 프로그램의 자금원이 된다>며 일명 <오바마케어>라고 불리는 의료개혁법의 폐해를 지적했다.
그러면서 <이런 정책 대부분은 현 정부가 들어서기 훨씬 전부터 존재해왔다. 젊은층을 희생시켜 나이 든 기득권 세력을 보호하는 것은 미국의 전통처럼 되고 있다>며 <졸업후 남아돌게 될 시간에 여러분이 나라운영방식을 바꾸도록 워싱턴정계를 압박할 시민단체결성을 고려해보는 것도 나쁘지 않을 것 같다. 이름하여 <미국청년협회(the American Association of Young Persons)>다>고 비꼬았다.
다음은 원문이다.
Dear Class of 2015, You’re in Big Trouble by Diana Furchtgott-Roth and Jared Meyer Over the next few weeks 3.5 million of you will graduate and try to find jobs. We’re sorry to tell you that achieving success will be more difficult than it was for your parents or grandparents. Not because you’re less intelligent, or lazier or less deserving of realizing the American dream. The primary reason why today’s graduates face a daunting future: Government is making life more difficult for you. The youth unemployment rate for those between ages 20 and 24 is 9.6%, compared with 4.5% for those 25 and over. But America’s double-cross doesn’t start when you receive your diploma. It has been going on since elementary school, with too many American children badly educated at schools where ill-qualified teachers are protected by unions. As a result, the U.S. has steadily dropped in international education rankings—to an estimated 27th in mathematics in 2012 among Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries, down from 23rd in 2003. For those of you who majored in education, guess what? When bad teachers can’t be fired, there are fewer job openings for you. Harvard economist Raj Chetty has estimated that replacing a teacher in the bottom 5% of skills with a teacher of average quality results in an extra $9,000 in lifetime income per student. Replacing the bottom 5% of the nation’s 3.3 million public-school teachers would have collectively increased the lifetime income of 2015 graduates by $31 billion. Seventy percent of you are graduating with student-loan debt, and your average debt is $27,000, according to the New York Federal Reserve. It is the current system of federal student aid that is raising your college tuition, and your debt will burden you for years after you graduate. It gets worse. After an inferior education and taking on thousands of dollars in debt, you will find that state occupational-licensing requirements will stop many of you from starting a business. These rules are said to protect public safety, but instead they protect established businesses and hurt you. Forget about starting a tree-trimming business in Alabama, California, Connecticut, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland or Rhode Island, because doing so requires a license. How the greenery in the 43 other states survives unlicensed trimming is a mystery. If you live in Florida, Nevada, Louisiana or the District of Columbia and want to be an interior designer, good luck: It will take six years of experience (and paying average of $364 in fees) before you can get a license. Even becoming an emergency medical technician is easier: You need to take an average of 33 days’ training and pass two exams. About those unpaid internships: Don’t count on one from a for-profit company in banking or publishing. These might provide a path to a permanent job, but they have been practically banned by the Labor Department. The government and community organizers, on the other hand, are still allowed to sign up unpaid interns. Let’s say you do eventually find work. Then you will start paying taxes, mostly to subsidize government programs that increasingly benefit middle-aged and older Americans, many of whom have jobs and assets. The average household headed by an adult 65 or older has nearly 50 times the wealth of the average household headed by an adult younger than 35. In 1984, when the Census Bureau started compiling these statistics, the ratio was 10 to 1. Yet programs to benefit older Americans, like Social Security and Medicare, increasingly are eating up the budget of a federal government that is $18 trillion in debt. Those two programs account for more than four dollars out of every 10 in the federal budget. Oh, and many of you will pay taxes to help out state governments that are among those facing a collective $5 trillion in unfunded liabilities, mostly from unfunded promises made to government retirees. You’ll even be expected to pay for the health care of older Americans with your higher health-care premiums under the Affordable Care Act, just so older people get to pay less. So considerate of you. President Obama isn’t to blame for all of this (except for the higher health-care premiums and the vanishing of unpaid internships). Most of these destructive policies began long before the current administration. Protecting the entrenched interests of the old at the expense of the young is getting to be a U.S. tradition. AARP, originally the American Association of Retired Persons, spent $25 million on lobbying in the 2012 presidential-election cycle and more than $16 million for the 2014 midterms. AARP consistently ranks in the top 1% of lobbyist spending tracked by the Center for Responsive Politics. With the extra time many of you will have on your hands after graduation, you might want to consider starting your own group to put pressure on Washington to change its ways: the American Association of Young Persons. |
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