By The Year 2000; A Class by Itself

<v Val Zawala>Middle class jobs are disappearing in Southern California. <v Man>Downward mobility really says work hard and you <v Man>still lose. <v Val Zawala>Should displaced workers be given a helping hand? <v Speaker>Major funding for By the Year 2000 is provided by the James Irvine <v Speaker>Foundation to promote civic and social responsibility and the development <v Speaker>of sound public policy through the understanding of community issues. <v Speaker>And by the Michael J. Connell Foundation. <v Speaker>Additional funding is provided by the law firm of Latham and Watkins proudly <v Speaker>supporting public discussion of community issues and by Kaiser <v Speaker>Permanente working with Southern California for a healthier tomorrow. <v Val Zawala>Hello, I'm Val Zavala. This week, we begin a month long look at the Have Have

<v Val Zawala>Nots Society and we welcome Mr. Joseph Benti, new co-host for By the Year 2000. <v Joseph Benti>Thank you, Val. It's a pleasure to be working on an important program. <v Joseph Benti>It's important because it focuses on where we might be going on our way to the 21st <v Joseph Benti>century. We're going to begin this month's series with the middle class. <v Joseph Benti>It's a class that appears to be in decline. <v Joseph Benti>After World War two America's middle class came to symbolize our long held belief that if <v Joseph Benti>any of us worked hard enough, there was always plenty of room to grow. <v Joseph Benti>That most of us could enjoy the good life and, of course, the opportunities that life <v Joseph Benti>offered to us and to our children. <v Val Zawala>But in the past decade, middle income jobs started disappearing. <v Val Zawala>America has been struggling to keep up in a new global economy. <v Val Zawala>The By the Year 2000 staff examined the numbers and what we found were startling changes. <v Val Zawala>Between 1981 and 1988 in Southern California the numbers <v Val Zawala>of low income and high income households increased dramatically, but <v Val Zawala>the portion of households earning between fifteen thousand and fifty thousand dollars <v Val Zawala>dropped by half. It's that area that we call the waning middle.

<v Speaker>["Ozzie and Harriet" plays in the background] <v Val Zawala> In the 1950s, everyone in America knew what it meant to be middle class. <v Harley Shaiken>The dream of the 1950s personified by Ozzie and Harriet <v Harley Shaiken>had an important grain of reality. <v Harley Shaiken>A lot of poor people in the 1950s. But the notion of opportunity <v Harley Shaiken>is what held the society together. <v Val Zawala>In the 1950s, John Rementeria was a poor boy growing up in East L.A. <v Val Zawala>dreaming of making it to the Middle-Class. <v Val Zawala>He went to college, got a job as a mechanic with a company that rebuilt auto engines and <v Val Zawala>worked his way up to management. <v Val Zawala>And in 1972, his dream of a middle class life in the suburbs came true. <v John Rementeria>It was the height of success for me at that time. <v John Rementeria>I always lived. He needed my parents home or rented places. <v John Rementeria>When I was younger and I was born and raised in that part of Los Angeles, that's not <v John Rementeria>necessarily known for its status.

<v John Rementeria>And so when I moved right into the middle of Orange County, smack dab in the middle <v John Rementeria>of College Park, I really felt that I was uh I thought I had arrived. <v John Rementeria>Around here we could leave our doors unlocked. <v John Rementeria>There's times that I even left my my garage wide open and never <v John Rementeria>had any problems. <v John Rementeria>I still haven't fixed that up yet. <v Val Zawala>Today, John Rementeria still takes a lot of pride in that neighborhood. <v John Rementeria>This is it right here. <v Val Zawala>And he still takes a lot of pride in the home he bought in 1972. <v Val Zawala>But today he can only show you the outside. <v Val Zawala>His dream house no longer belongs to him. <v John Rementeria>This is it right on the corner here. <v Val Zawala>The neighborhood he loves so much is no longer his home. <v Val Zawala>In 1989, his middle class American life went bust. <v John Rementeria>My base income at that time was around twenty eight thousand seven hundred dollars. <v John Rementeria>I was getting a company car, company gasoline, credit cards. <v John Rementeria>And then I was getting a a bonus that was up to sometimes fourteen thousand on our best

<v John Rementeria>year. And I was living on that more than anything else. <v John Rementeria>I was definitely living beyond my means. <v John Rementeria>And then when that virtually disappeared overnight, I was in trouble because I couldn't <v John Rementeria>I couldn't pay some of my bills. <v Val Zawala>Since 1989, the self-storage locker is the closest thing. <v Val Zawala>John Renteria has had to a permanent address. <v Val Zawala>Inside are all that's <v Val Zawala>left of his possessions and of his middle class identity. <v John Rementeria>I truly felt I was middle class. <v John Rementeria>We had a Mercedes Benz, had all of the other little amenities and features that I felt <v John Rementeria>um epitomized middle class life. <v John Rementeria>There's some very good sheet music.Oh, this is like the navel navel photograph. <v John Rementeria>Being able to delve into these things, be able to enjoy these things. <v John Rementeria>It was almost like something that was only reserved for like a privileged few. <v John Rementeria>And here I had some of these things in my very own home. <v John Rementeria>Some of these art books were marvelous. The ones that came from Europe, the colors and

<v John Rementeria>the plates were just unbelievable. <v John Rementeria>This must be a Spaniard. This guy's a Spaniard. <v John Rementeria>You're looking at the Titanic. <v John Rementeria>The details here. This guy is a Spanish painter. <v John Rementeria>Sometimes I wish I had nothing. I really do. <v John Rementeria>Well, because it's so hard, you know, hard to see the contrast, to <v John Rementeria>see that the difference, the way it was, the way it is now. <v John Rementeria>It was really hard to take sometimes. <v Val Zawala>After a lifetime of upward mobility, of successfully pursuing the postwar American <v Val Zawala>dream, John Rementeria is now part of a new and disturbing American trend, <v Val Zawala>downward mobility. <v Harley Shaiken>It really is running the American dream in reverse. <v Harley Shaiken>That's what downward mobility is all about. <v Harley Shaiken>It's looking at what you lose rather than what you can gain. <v Harley Shaiken>And that's hardly the formula for a society that prides itself on opportunity. <v Harley Shaiken>Downward mobility really says work hard and you still lose. <v Val Zawala>Harley Shaiken is Professor of Work and technology at the University of California, San <v Val Zawala>Diego. He's worried that America's middle class is fast becoming an endangered

<v Val Zawala>species. <v Harley Shaiken>What we're seeing in the 1990s is the promise itself is under threat. <v Harley Shaiken>The whole notion of what the American dream means is becoming increasingly remote <v Harley Shaiken>for many middle class Americans. <v Val Zawala>A study by the UCLA School of Urban Planning shows that middle income jobs in <v Val Zawala>Los Angeles jobs which pay 20 to 30 thousand dollars a year in 1986 <v Val Zawala>dollars declined from one third of all jobs in 1969 to <v Val Zawala>one quarter in 1987. <v Val Zawala>What's puzzling about this is that in Southern California, the job situation appears to <v Val Zawala>be better than ever. From 1969 to 1987, overall employment in <v Val Zawala>Los Angeles rose by 38 percent. <v Val Zawala>Since 1972 over a million new jobs have been created in Los <v Val Zawala>Angeles County. Far more jobs than were created in Chicago or New York. <v Val Zawala>But Goetz Wolff, chief economist for the Los Angeles Economic Roundtable <v Val Zawala>believes those numbers are deceptive. <v Goetz Wolff>The problem is the kind of jobs, the kind of industries, the studies

<v Goetz Wolff>that we've done at the economic roundtable indicate there's a kind of dual growth taking <v Goetz Wolff>place. On the one hand, there are the obvious kind of <v Goetz Wolff>high tech, high paying kinds of industries. <v Goetz Wolff>But at the same time, at the bottom end, there's been a massive growth of low wage <v Goetz Wolff>industries, including things like retail, garment industry, <v Goetz Wolff>manufacturing area, restaurants are the examples. <v Goetz Wolff>Beauty shops, these kinds of industries do employ <v Goetz Wolff>people. But on the whole, these, at least according to our data, <v Goetz Wolff>indicate that their average wages are fifteen thousand <v Goetz Wolff>dollars a year and under. <v Val Zawala>Wolff says his own studies show little or no growth in middle income jobs <v Val Zawala>in Los Angeles during the last decade. <v Val Zawala>Many liberal economists warn that the statistical shape of American wages may be changing <v Val Zawala>from the traditional football - wide in the middle - to something more like a pear. <v Val Zawala>Small of the top and huge at the bottom, with very little in between.

<v Goetz Wolff>We really are in a different era. <v Goetz Wolff>The fact of global economic relations has such a profound <v Goetz Wolff>effect. <v Val Zawala>Global economic relations cause John Momenteria his job, <v Val Zawala>his house and his marriage. <v John Rementeria>Here's an engine here, a complete four cylinder Toyota engine for one hundred seventy <v John Rementeria>five dollars. We charge one hundred and eighty dollars for a voucher. <v Val Zawala>Suddenly finding itself in the new Pacific Rim economy, LA's engine rebuilding industry <v Val Zawala>has struggled to survive an onslaught of foreign competition. <v Val Zawala>Some companies have survived by quickly acquiring the latest computerized repair <v Val Zawala>technology. But for John Rementeria's company it was too late. <v John Rementeria>By the time we got to that point, we were - our income was so low and we started selling <v John Rementeria>off so much of - so much of our own equipment that we can no longer keep up can no <v John Rementeria>longer stay open. <v Val Zawala>Last September, the company went out of business. <v Val Zawala>By then, John had been forced to sell his home. <v Val Zawala>His wife had divorced him and left California, taking their son with her. <v John Rementeria>I think I could have patched things together. I think I could have made things work if

<v John Rementeria>these other circumstances weren't just like piled in the way. <v John Rementeria>You know, I've gotten over all the pain and the anger, but that doubt is still there. <v John Rementeria>Like this little black cloud, it's thinking that maybe I could have turned it around, <v John Rementeria>that maybe I could've stayed together, that maybe I would have still had my son. <v John Rementeria>I'm not sure, you know, that doubt, is always knawing ast me. <v John Rementeria>That's never leaves me. <v Val Zawala>But John does have hope. <v Val Zawala>He's been accepted by a program which trains unemployed people in new technologies and <v Val Zawala>places them in new jobs. <v Speaker>Everyone here said they're receiving unemployment. <v Speaker>Are you receiving a check? Can I see your hands? <v Val Zawala>Faced with growing numbers of the downwardly mobile, labor unions, businesses and <v Val Zawala>government are working together to retrain them for the good jobs of the future. <v Speaker>I will tell you, we can trust to you that we go. <v Val Zawala>But some workers laid off after decades in the old economy say they're having trouble <v Val Zawala>learning the skills of the new. And some economists question whether simply retraining <v Val Zawala>displaced workers will save the waning middle class.

<v Goetz Wolff>You can't retrain people if there aren't industries with jobs that are hiring. <v Goetz Wolff>And in the view of the Economic Roundtable, which is part of the L.A. <v Goetz Wolff>County Private Industry Council, the emphasis should be linking training to <v Goetz Wolff>economic development that you can't do one without the other. <v Val Zawala>Conservative thinkers like Larry Arnn say retraining isn't the issue. <v Val Zawala>Arnn criticizes studies of Middle-Class Decline for ignoring entrepreneurs. <v Larry Arnn>What they are underestimating is the fact that an enormous proportion <v Larry Arnn>of the new jobs that have been created are in very small businesses, and an <v Larry Arnn>enormous proportion of the salaries are going to the owners of those businesses. <v Larry Arnn>What that means is there is upward mobility. <v Larry Arnn>But the way you get it is much different than the way you used to get it. <v Larry Arnn>And those who are not willing to get it that way and there are going to be more <v Larry Arnn>of them as time goes on, are are going to be part of a <v Larry Arnn>large bulge at the bottom. <v Val Zawala>Conservatives and liberals agree on one thing.

<v Val Zawala>Future Harriet's will have to be just as highly educated and work just <v Val Zawala>as hard as their Ozzies for a couple to achieve a middle class lifestyle. <v Val Zawala>If Ozzie and Harriet tried to buy their home in Hollywood today, it would cost them over <v Val Zawala>a million dollars. They'd need two pretty hefty paychecks to cover that mortgage. <v Val Zawala>And they'd also wonder at all the strange new signs in their old neighborhood signs that <v Val Zawala>times aren't quite as good as they used to be and that the American dream Ozzie <v Val Zawala>and Harriet personified for millions may soon be out of reach for all <v Val Zawala>but a privileged few. <v Harley Shaiken>Ultimately, this is not an economic question. <v Harley Shaiken>The decline of the middle class at its core is a social and political issue <v Harley Shaiken>because the middle class was more than an economic category. <v Harley Shaiken>It was the social glue that held the democratic society together. <v Val Zawala>To discuss what's happening to the middle class and what might be done, we go to our <v Val Zawala>panel of experts.

<v Joseph Benti>Our guests are the chief economist for the Los Angeles Economic Roundtable, Goetz Wolff, <v Joseph Benti>who believes the middle class is in serious trouble, but that trouble is symptomatic of <v Joseph Benti>some deeper problems in our society. <v Joseph Benti>Kathye Murphy is a career planning executive. <v Joseph Benti>She works in the trenches with victims of the changing economic picture. <v Joseph Benti>Those who lose their jobs. She believes that private industry could be doing more to <v Joseph Benti>solve the problem and Finis Welch, who teaches economics at UCLA and who <v Joseph Benti>is on the research staff at Unicon Corporation, believes that whatever is happening <v Joseph Benti>to the middle class is the result of the free play of our free enterprise system, which <v Joseph Benti>he wouldn't change. <v Joseph Benti>Now, Mr. Welch, what would you do over the next nine or 10 years to make it work? <v Joseph Benti>Whatever making it work means for the betterment of guys like John who are out <v Joseph Benti>of a job and out of luck? <v Finis Welch>Well, there's there's absolutely no question that the world is in transition. <v Finis Welch>Continual training is very important simply because old fashioned skills, <v Finis Welch>physical skills are becoming very obsolete. <v Joseph Benti>So if we cared about John in the army, the growing army of Johns, we would do

<v Joseph Benti>something to see that they were bumped up in skills. <v Finis Welch>Well, first, I think the most important concern is the younger John's. <v Finis Welch>The people are in their formative years that we can see right now, and we can send <v Finis Welch>signals to seeing move toward universal education, stay flexible, acquire <v Finis Welch>skills, use your head, do the best that you can. <v Finis Welch>And I think, by the way, the earlier question, what should corporations do? <v Finis Welch>I think they're doing just fine. They're sending signals as to the kind of people they <v Finis Welch>need, the kind of people who are productive for them. <v Finis Welch>Back to the schools. The schools need to be careful attention to the signals <v Finis Welch>that they're receiving and make sure that the students understand. <v Finis Welch>For the older displaced workers, that's very tough. <v Finis Welch>I don't know what kinds of programs were optimal to the extent that they can be re- <v Finis Welch>retrained and can pick up flexible skills and can be usefully <v Finis Welch>employed. Of course, you'd like to see that. <v Finis Welch>But it's true for many of us that the skills that we once had

<v Finis Welch>are just not highly valued in today's world. <v Finis Welch>And that's just the way it is. <v Joseph Benti>We always get back to a real person and we saw one and Kathye, what do you do with it? <v Kathye Murphy>I think the test - I think the solution will come if we start with our young people now. <v Kathye Murphy>But the test is on all of our shoulders right now in the next 10 years, because the <v Kathye Murphy>number of displaced workers is growing dramatically and will continue to grow. <v Kathye Murphy>Often it is a case like the Metrocolor labs closing down at Lorimar Studios. <v Kathye Murphy>Those people, 50 percent of them were over 50 years old and <v Kathye Murphy>had worked for the company from 15 to 20 years. <v Kathye Murphy>Those skills, a lot of that labor has moved to Canada because they can get it done <v Kathye Murphy>more cheaply. The technology has changed. <v Kathye Murphy>They're using laser equipment to do that kind of film processing that was done. <v Kathye Murphy>The hardest thing to deal with with a group of people such as those, is <v Kathye Murphy>for them to come to grips with the fact that the chances of their finding a job <v Kathye Murphy>with the same skills that they dedicated their lives to is very slim.

<v Kathye Murphy>And in the meantime, in the months that it takes to come to grips with that and and also <v Kathye Murphy>come to grips with the fact that they will have to probably exist on a lower wage, within <v Kathye Murphy>that timeframe, many of those people are looking at losing their homes and their <v Kathye Murphy>and their lives. <v Joseph Benti>I don't want to leave you sounding heartless, Mr. Welch, but they were in that contrast. <v Joseph Benti>How do you handle that? <v Joseph Benti>What would you recommend? <v Finis Welch>I don't know. One I want to correct what I think of is <v Finis Welch>mis misperceptions. <v Finis Welch>It's my impression that the number of displaced workers associated with <v Finis Welch>plant closings etc is not rising in the US, that <v Finis Welch>it reached a peak in the early 1980s and has been falling subsequently. <v Finis Welch>There are lots of studies as to what happens to displaced workers, and <v Finis Welch>what we find is that when following a plant closing, if you track the individuals <v Finis Welch>who are displaced, that their unemployment experience is not unlike <v Finis Welch>the unemployment experience of people who lose their jobs, any

<v Finis Welch>running concern. Just the ordinary friction associated with job change <v Finis Welch>that displaced workers will be unemployed one or two weeks longer. <v Finis Welch>But that's all. <v Finis Welch>The desperate exception of the individual who moves from a highly paid, stable <v Finis Welch>position of a long time to facing a <v Finis Welch>very severe long term reduction in his or her wage. <v Finis Welch>In order of magnitude, save a 50 percent cut in wage rate is very clearly <v Finis Welch>an exception. <v Joseph Benti>Mr. Wolff, I take it you disagree with the basis upon which Mr. Welch <v Joseph Benti>is basing his argument, but why do you disagree? <v Goetz Wolff>Well, there's several different components to it. <v Goetz Wolff>One, with regard to the fact that significant plant closings are sort <v Goetz Wolff>of a thing of the past, or lay offs. <v Goetz Wolff>I think we're neglecting a very real process <v Goetz Wolff>that's taking place right now, which is going to be the cutbacks of procurements in <v Goetz Wolff>defense. And Los Angeles has been an incredible benefactor

<v Goetz Wolff>of a protected industry coming with federal defense dollars. <v Goetz Wolff>Those cutbacks will create a situation, I think, in Los Angeles, where very, very <v Goetz Wolff>many high paid, high skilled people will not have equivalent <v Goetz Wolff>positions waiting for them in the past. <v Goetz Wolff>There might be a contract loss, but then the employees could shift over <v Goetz Wolff>to another firm. But the fact that we're having now is a restructuring. <v Goetz Wolff>I think we already see that to some extent with some of the aerospace firms anticipating <v Goetz Wolff>that. <v Finis Welch>I don't know why that's such a frightening specter of this kind <v Finis Welch>of change. The world is changing. <v Finis Welch>Opportunities are emerging. <v Finis Welch>Some people are not winning. There are some losers. <v Finis Welch>That's unfortunate, but that's just a tiny part of the overall picture <v Finis Welch>by rapidly changing world. <v Goetz Wolff>Well, one of the images at the beginning of this program <v Goetz Wolff>vividly displayed these new private guard security <v Goetz Wolff>services that the affluent, semi affluent feel they need to

<v Goetz Wolff>protect themselves. <v Goetz Wolff>And I don't think they're doing it to protect themselves from their neighbors. <v Goetz Wolff>I think they're protecting themselves against this lower bolds, which is expanding. <v Goetz Wolff>And I think one of the things that we have to recognize is do we view <v Goetz Wolff>our society as one which is a healthy one, where you do have this kind of bifurcated <v Goetz Wolff>growth? Or is it really what we want is a society where <v Goetz Wolff>there are sufficient opportunities at all levels. <v Goetz Wolff>I mean, just the studies which indicate the dollars per capita spent in schooling <v Goetz Wolff>at the university level in California, at the state college level in California and the <v Goetz Wolff>junior at the community colleges, it is a profound fact that the <v Goetz Wolff>per capita student cost for the for the community college student <v Goetz Wolff>is something like one sixth of what the University of California student gets. <v Goetz Wolff>And if you look at the class breakdown of where the students come from <v Goetz Wolff>to go to those various institutions, you essentially have public institutions

<v Goetz Wolff>subsidizing the more affluent students in the University <v Goetz Wolff>of California system. And you have the same time, the students at the very bottom, <v Goetz Wolff>who perhaps are only eligible for the community colleges getting the short end <v Goetz Wolff>of the stick. So we aren't even giving them, in a sense, the tools, the opportunities, <v Goetz Wolff>because nobody can deny that they want to achieve, that they want to <v Goetz Wolff>do more. We don't need only go into some of these third world areas of Los Angeles <v Goetz Wolff>and you see bustle and hustle. <v Goetz Wolff>You see people desiring to advance themselves. <v Goetz Wolff>You find people overloading the schools and trying to learn English. <v Goetz Wolff>But there aren't enough schools to provide that. <v Joseph Benti>But I would get the impression that Mr. Welch would say that's a sign of health. <v Joseph Benti>That's the very thing America promises that that kind of <v Joseph Benti>cauldron of life and seething hope to better oneself can only be <v Joseph Benti>an American realization. <v Goetz Wolff>If it's not denied. <v Kathye Murphy>But the schools are not really educating.

<v Kathye Murphy>They- the people may desire it and may be motivated for <v Kathye Murphy>it. But the schools are not educating, not only for reading and writing, which is <v Kathye Murphy>why I'm sure some people put their children in private schools, but even greater <v Kathye Murphy>even at the university level, in the community college level, they're not educating to <v Kathye Murphy>the realities of the labor market. <v Kathye Murphy>And that's really what we're talking about, is how can you survive in the year 2000? <v Joseph Benti>I have a terrible time trying to get someone to say, where do we start? <v Joseph Benti>Who do we work on? <v Kathye Murphy>Kindergarten. <v Joseph Benti>Ok, kindergarten. <v Joseph Benti>Los Angeles Public Schools. Orange County Public Schools. <v Joseph Benti>Is that where we begin? And how do we get them to change to see what you see? <v Joseph Benti>Because I don't see that kind of reaction. <v Joseph Benti>Mr. Welch, do I? <v Finis Welch>Yes, I, I, I just don't understand the sources of the comments. <v Finis Welch>I'm not aware that crime rates are rising. <v Finis Welch>In fact, I think to the contrary, crime rates have fallen in the last decade, they've <v Finis Welch>fallen very precipitously, particularly crimes against property. <v Finis Welch>Largely because the number of young people of teenagers has gone down as the baby boom

<v Finis Welch>has aged. But the fact demographic solutions. <v Finis Welch>Sure. With crime rates have gone down. That's the fact. <v Finis Welch>We opened this program talking about high priced housing in L.A. <v Finis Welch>as if what drove up the price of housing wasn't people with dollars to spend. <v Finis Welch>And we're acting as if dollars that people have spend are going away and things that <v Finis Welch>they're buying are becoming more expensive. <v Finis Welch>I don't understand. <v Kathye Murphy>But housing - <v Finis Welch>We act as if schools are educating less? <v Finis Welch>All of the statistics on student performance that I'm aware of show that sure, in <v Finis Welch>a 25 year period, what high school students know seems to have deteriorated, <v Finis Welch>particularly relative to the Japanese. <v Kathye Murphy>Particularly relative to we're 14th in the world we're not first anymore <v Kathye Murphy>at secondary school level. <v Finis Welch>We're probably not 14th either. That's that's tough. <v Finis Welch>I mean, we're the bloom is off the rose as far as the United States being <v Finis Welch>number one and outstanding source of growth, the shining light.

<v Finis Welch>Average incomes in the U.S. have only increased five percent in the last 20 years <v Finis Welch>rather than the 30, 35 percent that we had become accustomed to. <v Joseph Benti>But we thought young people were not seeing the way to the Shining <v Joseph Benti>Hill. How are we getting to the 21st century in light of what you just said? <v Joseph Benti>What are you recommending for us and citizens watching wanna know what do we do? <v Finis Welch>If I only knew I wouldn't be here. <v Joseph Benti>That's why you're you're an economist. <v Joseph Benti>All of you have to have some sense of where the right way to go is. <v Goetz Wolff>Let me suggest something here. <v Goetz Wolff>I think part of it really is how we look at a problem. <v Goetz Wolff>And I don't mean to beg the question. <v Goetz Wolff>I think too often sometimes we feel we have to act before we know. <v Goetz Wolff>On the other hand, people spend too much time studying these things to death. <v Goetz Wolff>I'm not suggesting that, but there is evidence, for example, yes, the housing market is <v Goetz Wolff>booming in one sense, but at what end? <v Goetz Wolff>I mean, it's not booming for the people who really desperately need housing. <v Goetz Wolff>You do have vacancies. We have vacancies at the high end in rentals.

<v Goetz Wolff>So you don't have the vacancies at the bottom end in the sense that we have to recognize <v Goetz Wolff>that as long as we simply let dollars be <v Goetz Wolff>the vote, in a sense, of for public policy, those people who don't <v Goetz Wolff>have very many dollars have very few votes as to what's going to take place. <v Goetz Wolff>The example I was giving with regard to community colleges would be an illustration of <v Goetz Wolff>that. I think the issue is time to marshal the interests <v Goetz Wolff>of corporate interests, that there is an enlightened self-interest from <v Goetz Wolff>their part to enhance the educational quality of the region. <v Goetz Wolff>There's something called Workforce L.A. in Los Angeles, which is trying to bring together <v Goetz Wolff>enlightened corporations and the school districts and so on to the extent to which this <v Goetz Wolff>is just going to be another meeting of people and patting themselves on the back <v Goetz Wolff>or whether they will be addressing the issues and doing something else, it's another <v Goetz Wolff>question, but at least there is a formal recognition for the need for <v Goetz Wolff>this kind of improvement in the very fundamentals for

<v Goetz Wolff>for for the labor force. We also have to recognize that Los Angeles perhaps is <v Goetz Wolff>somewhat more exceptional than perhaps other parts, the United States, simply <v Goetz Wolff>because it is a pull for a great deal of immigration. <v Goetz Wolff>It's a combined immigration. There are immigrants who are coming here highly skilled with <v Goetz Wolff>money and also people coming in here with very few skills and the extent <v Goetz Wolff>to which that there is this very low skilled labor pool there is a kind of an <v Goetz Wolff>encouragement for low wages, indeed, probably <v Goetz Wolff>more of the upper middle class and upper class people are benefiting from these very, <v Goetz Wolff>very low wage people who are probably off the books. <v Goetz Wolff>They aren't in the numbers that neither of us count. <v Goetz Wolff>They're the ones who are in the informal economy and they're the ones who, in effect, are <v Goetz Wolff>subsidizing the life for some of the people can't afford otherwise. <v Joseph Benti>As you look through this next decade and you try to offer some <v Joseph Benti>prescriptive solutions for our viewers, would you summarize what <v Joseph Benti>you think we can do?

<v Kathye Murphy>We must all as individuals, not become complacent, knowing that tomorrow we may be one <v Kathye Murphy>of the people looking for work. <v Kathye Murphy>And secondarily, to encourage our government, <v Kathye Murphy>our schools and our corporations to take an active interest in the realities <v Kathye Murphy>of the labor market and the realities of the people that are fighting to get training and <v Kathye Murphy>to make the training available, not just to put it push it under the rug. <v Joseph Benti>Mr. Welch, I will give you the last word. You're now looking at California for the next <v Joseph Benti>10 years. What do we do? <v Finis Welch>I think we should ask ourselves why it is that we lost. <v Finis Welch>U.S. share of auto production. <v Finis Welch>Why it is that reliability seems to come from abroad. <v Finis Welch>What we've lost in terms of leadership in performance of <v Finis Welch>students in the schools. <v Finis Welch>I think industry should be concerned with change <v Finis Welch>that's occurring and should be capable of providing retraining opportunities <v Finis Welch>if people are willing to take them.

<v Joseph Benti>And I want to thank you, all of you, for being our guests. <v Joseph Benti>Now to Val for a preview of next week's broadcast. <v Val Zawala>Next week, we continue our look at the have have not society with a focus on the wealthy <v Val Zawala>while the middle class and poor are getting squeezed, other economic forces are producing <v Val Zawala>a healthy group of well-paid professionals. <v Val Zawala>Join us next week on By the Year 2000 for a class by itself. <v Val Zawala>And we thank you for your letters, for the praise, the criticism and the ideas. <v Val Zawala>Here's a sample. We've received several letters suggesting we do a program on the growing <v Val Zawala>population. David Martin of Santa Barbara writes, The population explosion is woven <v Val Zawala>into most of your topics. Why not give it a program? <v Val Zawala>Mr. Martin, we will. It's on the agenda. <v Val Zawala>Regarding our program No Place to Rent. <v Val Zawala>Jay Schwartzbine was highly critical of our reporting on so-called slumlords. <v Val Zawala>Shame. Shame on you. You didn't go into the reason of how they are created. <v Val Zawala>On the same subject, Vivian Zanini of Torrance suggests that old military bases <v Val Zawala>be turned into low income housing.

<v Val Zawala>Mrs.. In any rights, imagine how cost effective it would be for the government to lease <v Val Zawala>those bases to private nonprofit developer. <v Val Zawala>If you have any comments or a show idea, write us said By the Year 2000, <v Val Zawala>4401 Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, 90027. <v Val Zawala>I'm Val Zawala, we'll see you next week. <v Announcement>Major funding for by the year 2000 was provided by the James Irvine Foundation <v Announcement>to promote civic social responsibility and the development of sound public policy <v Announcement>with the understanding of community issues led by the Michael J. <v Announcement>Connell Foundation. <v Announcement>Additional funding was provided by the law firm of Latham and Watkins proudly supporting <v Announcement>public discussion of community issues and by Kaiser Permanente <v Announcement>working with Southern California for tomorrow.