Obama’s comments poorly worded, but on a real problem
Katie Strickland’s column (“Obama treats working class like children,” April 16) overlooks the broader problem that Obama’s clumsily expressed comments sketched.
Though his words were poorly chosen, the point of his comment was to highlight economic stagnation that has gripped Pennsylvania and the Rust Belt for at least 30 years.
Geographers, economists and sociologists have been examining the implications of deindustrialization and the shifting of federal technology and defense investment to the South and West.
They have been examining the growing liberalization of world markets that have encouraged the flight of domestic manufacturing jobs from Pennsylvania to other parts of the globe for longer than I have been alive.
Among the many findings, some commonalities include declining wages, the stymied clout of unions and stalled local economies in the Midwest and Northeast.
Lou Barletta, the mayor of Hazleton, Pa. told CBS in 2006 that he saw his “city gripped in fear.” To allay this fear the self-described “small town defender” pushed for ordinances punishing landlords and businesses in his town for contracting with illegal immigrants, adding “I don’t want them here, period.”
Punishing what businesses are left in a small rural town and blaming foreign low-wage laborers ignores and even exacerbates the larger economic shifts that are changing the distribution of wealth and jobs not only in Pennsylvania, but across America.
Solutions to this growing domestic inequality are what Obama needs to address more clearly than his recent awkward diagnosis of the problem.
David Mason
Graduate student, Department of urban planning