By: Javier Sanchez

The American dream seems to be dying.  No matter how you define it—whether it means owning a home or making it big—advancing in America seems harder to achieve.  A parent’s ultimate goal has always been to see their child prosper more than they did.  Upward economic mobility means giving your child the tools to be better off.  It doesn’t always work.  But why?  What makes mobility possible and why do we fail?  After over a decade of research, economists at Harvard published a paper last week that gives insight to the poverty trap and a way out.  If our city and state are to improve, we must concentrate on one thing:  jobs.  

 According to a Wall Street Journal article that summarized Raj Chetty’s findings from the Harvard group, researchers found that when employment among poor parents of children in a community improves, those children are better off economically as adults.  This was across all races.  Importantly, research showed that the employment level of the general community around them played a role in their future outcomes.  Success breeds success it seems.  The dynamic works in reverse as well.  In communities where employment levels deteriorated, child outcomes dropped.    

 It is noteworthy that these results came from the general employment level.  In other words, it had less to do with the “kind” of job than it did just having a job.  For all of the chatter that says we need “good” jobs or “well-paying” jobs, research does not support claims that these kinds of characteristics improve a child’s upward mobility.  The thing that mattered most was absolute job growth and whether parents of children worked at all.  Keeping a job was crucial and families that valued having and holding a job did better than families that didn’t.    

 Which leads us to how we compare to the rest of the country.  The labor force participation rate is the number of people between the ages of 16 and 64 actively engaged in work or looking for work—basically our work force.  As a whole, the US labor force participation rate (LFPR) has remained steady at 62.7%.  For the state of New Mexico, that rate comes in at a beleaguered 57.3% ranking us 48th in the country. When you go to a local hardware or grocery store, restaurant or anywhere and can’t get service, now you know why.    

 A community that doesn’t value employment will produce children worse off than they are now.  Every thing we do as politicians, leaders and members of our community ought to be geared toward one thing:  job creation.  Our government needs to remove disincentives to work and improve job creation.  Seemingly well-intentioned laws that protect workers or supposedly improve working conditions often do the polar opposite.  They make employers think twice about hiring or expanding and put the brakes on economic growth.  I was told once by a local New Mexico State Representative that she wanted to create “real” jobs, not restaurant jobs.  As a restaurant owner in northern New Mexico you can imagine I was insulated.  Not for my sake.  But for the sake of the 70 employees who depend on restaurant work for their livelihoods.  Work by the way, that according to Harvard research, has a better chance of improving the economic mobility for their children.    

 According to the publication, counties in and around Santa Fe, Española, Las Vegas and Taos all saw negative job growth from 2004-2013 putting northern counties on track to produce worsening future outcomes for our children unless we do something.  With the exception of Roswell and Farmington, almost all of New Mexico falls behind.  It isn’t without irony that these areas rich in natural resources come under attack by some politicians wanting to get rid of gas-powered cars and trucks yet take credit for budget surpluses created by the oil and gas industry.    

 The research is clear:  every ounce of our being ought to be directed toward job creation.  Any job is a good job.  So long as it’s an honest job and you work hard at it.  We can’t afford to strangle job growth with disincentives to work or put up deterrents to hiring.  Politicians don’t create jobs even though they love to say they do.  People and entrepreneurs do.  A community thriving with ideas, easy access to an educated workforce and a solid plan will do more to pull us out of the poverty trap and create the upward mobility our children deserve.    

Javier Sanchez is an El Rito Media columnist, former northern New Mexico mayor, and restaurant owner.

Sanchez.pdf

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