2. Work and in the Workplace

The opportunity to work and pay your own way.

Americans favor individuals working their own way up rather than getting massive government handouts. They mean it. But they expect jobs and the ability to earn a living to actually be available.

Most Americans believe that work is a responsibility. The able-bodied should work. Americans have long opposed a “guaranteed income” regardless of work. They are split on providing generous benefits to the unemployed, out of fear that it would blunt incentives to find a new job.

But for those who are ready to work, Americans view the opportunity to have a decent job as a right that the government should enforce. Some six out of ten of all Americans, of Republicans, and of higher-income earners believe that the government in Washington should“see to it” that everyone who wants to work can find a job. The large-majority support among all Americans is not new; it appears to date back at least half a century. Remarkably, a narrow majority of Americans now actually support direct government hiring, despite widespread press coverage of politicians’ calls for fewer government jobs. Most Americans—includinghalf of all Republicans—now believe that the federal government should “provide jobs” for everyone able and willing to work but who cannot get a job in private employment.

Americans’ pragmatism prompts them to strongly support two bulwarks for meaningful employment that reduce economic inequality by enabling individuals to advance themselves. The first is job training. Three-quarters or more of all Americans, of Republicans, and of the affluent favor using their tax dollars to help pay for retraining people whose jobs have been eliminated. Even after our interviewees were told that some people say federal retraining programs “just create big government programs that do not work very well”, solid majorities of all Americans and of the affluent still favored more government investment in worker retraining and education to help workers adapt to changes in the economy. Majorities of the public have felt this way at least since 1999.

A second bulwark for meaningful employment is having the government help ensure that work pays. More than two-thirds of all Americans, Republicans, and high-income Americans favor having the government set the minimum wage high enough so that no family with a full-time worker falls below the official poverty line. This view is bolstered by new research debunking assertions that the minimum wage just causes unemployment.

The American public also supports a program presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton expanded that helps low-income working families by reducing their income taxes or giving them refunds, a program known officially as the Earned Income Tax Credit （EITC）. About half of all Americans （48 percent） want to increase help from the EITC; only 5 percent want to decrease it. More than six out of ten of all Americans, of Republicans, and of the affluent favor expanding this program to cover workers who are single, rather than only those with families（as is the case in the current program）.

In the era of downsizing, outsourcing, mass layoffs, stagnant wages, and rising prices, many Americans are afraid that they or other Americans may lose their jobs and not find new ones while bills mount.

Americans across parties, races, classes, and income levels come together behind the principle that everyone should work to make ends meet and that government should make sure they can do so. The much-ballyhooed class and partisan warfare is hard to find in our communities around the country.

Work hard and retire with dignity.

Americans of all backgrounds expect seniors, after spending most of a lifetime working, to be able to retire with dignity and economic security. Well into the 1900s, most peopleworked until physical decline made it impossible and then they relied on family, friends, neighbors, or local charity. But the idea that “the community” should support seniors is now rejected by six out of ten Americans overall （as it was already rejected back in 1958） and by majorities of Republicans and the affluent. Backing for a more organized system to support seniors in retirement stems from respect for a lifetime of work as well as from self-preservation: families struggling to provide for themselves cannot afford the cost of supporting their parents.

As in the case of health insurance, Americans are open to more than one approach to providing decent incomes to retirees. Employer-based pensions are one. Substantial majorities of all Americans, including majorities of Republicans and the affluent, believe that it should be the responsibility of all employers to provide retirement benefits coverage. Although employer-based programs could do this job in theory, only half or fewer of Americans are now actually covered by their employers. Even well-established programs have vanished in bankruptcies and downsizing. Half of all seniors, and millions of those with disabilities, would fall into poverty if left to rely solely on what employers now offer or on their savings. To ensure that this private-sector option would actually cover all employees, therefore, would probably require a government mandate that employers must do so.

Another approach supported by large majorities of Americans involves direct government provision of retirement pensions. Confronted with the stark prospect of poverty in older age, most Americans count on Social Security for a minimal level of support. They favor Social Security even if it means shifting some income from the better-off—hardly a message that we hear in today’s polarized debates in Washington. Solid majorities of all Americans, of Republicans, and of the affluent want Social Security to ensure a minimum standard of living to all contributors even if some receive benefits exceeding the value of their contributions （as is often the case among lower-income workers）. A majority of Americans already felt this way back in 1998.

More than half of all Americans and of Republicans, and nearly half of the affluent, favor expanding Social Security; the rest mostly want to keep it the same. Hardly anyone wants to cut it back. Decades of polling have shown similar majorities in favor of expanding Social Security, as well as large and persistent opposition to reducing benefits by cutting cost-of-living adjustments, raising the retirement age, or taxing payments more heavily. Broad public support for maintaining and expanding Social Security has held up in the face of tireless campaigns to reduce benefits by elite pressure groups like the well-funded Concord Coalition⁴.

Mobility and Its Consequences

All this opportunity tends to make Americans a restless lot. It stands to reason that no matter how good you have it in one place or in one job, it must be even better somewhere else, which is what makes Americans such a mobile people. The average American changes jobs eight times, changes career three times, and moves into a different house every seven years.

This great mobility in turn explains why loyalty is neither expected of nor received from the typical American worker. If a worker finds a better opportunity elsewhere, he or she will take it, and the employer will usually understand （or at the very least not be surprised）. High turnover and frequent job changes are the norm in a culture where people are always looking for ways to “better themselves”. Indeed, recognizing this dynamic, many employers offer their most prized workers incentives to stay with the company or organization, trying, in effect, to buy loyalty that cannot otherwise be guaranteed.

Change for the sake of change—the notion that change in and of itself is a good thing—doesn’t resonate with a lot of non-Americans, which can make working with Americans a harrowing experience. If you come from a culture where the pace of change is more gradual or where there is a lower tolerance for change, you may be wary of making long-term commitments to or otherwise involving yourself too deeply with Americans. This may explain why many foreign companies prefer to deal with Americans as vendors, to limit their exposure as it were, rather than as full partners.