For all the talk about our slow climb out of the worst recession since the Great Depression, this past week brought some alarming news: The unemployment rate climbed to 7.9 percent, and in the fourth quarter of 2012 the US economy shrunk again.
Most distressing is the years-long trend that shows no sign of reversing: The middle class is disappearing. A 2012 study by economists at Duke University and the University of British Columbia found that nine out of every 10 jobs lost during the recession were mid-level and mid-paying — positions often eliminated due to technology.
Of the 3.5 million jobs that have been added since June 2009 — the official end of the Great Recession — only 2% were middle-class positions. By contrast, 70% of jobs added were in low-paying sectors and 28% were in high-level ones.
“The jobs that are going away,” MIT’s Andrew McAfee has said, “aren’t coming back.”
Into this tragic, intractable economy comes a new CBS reality show called “The Job.” Premiering Friday, it’s billed as a feel-good program, a show that seeks to match middle-class job seekers of varying desperation with some of America’s most prestigious corporations.
But for all of the exploitations reality TV has to offer — from on-camera sex to drunken hillbillies — “The Job” may be the most offensive in television history.
We live in a time when a having a middle-class job has mutated from the American Dream to a luxury, when even those lucky enough to still have one live in perpetual fear that they’ll be fired next.
“The Job” turns this massive human toll into spectacle, dangling the prospect of an unspecified mid-level position in front of desperate contestants, who degrade themselves by telling their most pathetic personal histories in the paradoxical quest to regain some dignity.
Yet its creators believe they are doing middle-class America a great service.
“I’ve grown very tired of reality TV that is exploitative,” says Michael Davies, co-producer of “The Job.” “Yes, I’ve got to deliver an hour of entertainment, no doubt. But I don’t think this is gladiatorial.”
As much as the reality TV genre reflects — and contributes to — an intractable chipping-away of our national character, it’s usually easy to consign most shows to the bin of frivolity: sozzled, emotionally stunted housewives with status anxiety; proudly uneducated young adults aggressively making poor life decisions; weekend warriors willing to ingest bugs and risk tropical diseases in pursuit of money and fame; the aspirant looking to become America’s next top pop singer, designer, model, chef, comic, etc.
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America's hunger games
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America's hunger games
