Working & Homeless: The Death of the American Dream | Poverty in the USA Documentary

right now we're on um 192 west arlo drive this world leads to um disneyland sea world and stuff like that it was really quick for me to find for her job because i have so many different businesses here to apply to and it's it's mostly they're always looking for employment everywhere fate led her to this highway in florida this evening along route 192 we crossed paths with germania and her all to normal life a life which resembles those of millions of other americans following the recession okay so i got a double quarter pounder a cheeseburger plane nine million jobs have been created since the recession most of which like germania's at this fast food giant the second largest employer in the country they say that there's jobs out there but they're not paying you well they're not paying you all that you have to go and get a second job minimum wage jobs good morning thank you for choosing dunkin donuts which means that americans are working even more than ever a medium hot coffee or ice cream they pick up part-time jobs working 70 hours a week often seven days a week have a good day huh you know two jobs right now is nothing like i could probably do three jobs if i wanted to but then i would definitely get no sleep these hands the hands which work to keep the american economy turning at full steam the workers that helped bring the country out of the economic downturn that had brought the economy to its knees are far from reaping the benefits today this is a struggle every day how am i going to make it today like how am i going to make money to buy food how am i going to make money to cook my kids dinner at night you know every day is a new chapter of my life so it's a success story the story of america's amazing economic recovery eight years after the crisis their politicians and companies hammer home the message and the statistics seem to confirm it the leading global power has saved its economy [Music] this is hanging on our continuing series about the american middle class never before has the country created so many jobs never before have their companies made such huge profits the american dream should then be back on track but at what price a lot of economic indicators suggest the country is on an upswing there have been 73 straight months of job growth in the private sector in this country which is huge the recession in this country is long over the economy has recovered so why does it still feel so shaky [Music] since its emergence from the downturn florida one of the hardest hit states has created more than a million jobs jobs like germanius at this multinational fast food corporation wow guys she works nights there 37 hours per week for about 900 a month tired i'm very aggravated my head hurts i don't feel good usually i leave earlier usually i leave at like four they know that i have another job but then they just like but you need to finish this and you need to do this and you you need to do that like a whole bunch of other stuff i feel like they don't really care i really hate overnight i believe if i was to start regular times it would have probably started me like at 8 50. and i really needed the money so i was like you know i'm gonna do the overnight if i'm gonna get paid nine dollars and five cents then i'm gonna do nine dollars and five cents like just suck it up it's like 50 cents more i pay too much for it because i have lack of sleep my appetite is gone because i'm so tired and i'm so like trying to focus on about how to come home how to figure out how i'm gonna pick the room and stuff like that [Music] tonight germania won't even have time to sleep it's 6 a.m and already time to leave again dude i'm freaking late alex can't wait to get on the bus like close my eyes second part of my never ending day i just came out of mcdonald's about like two hours ago now i'm gonna go start my other job just four months ago germania was a shift supervisor at a restaurant up north then the all too common story of a breakup and the desire to start over i happened about it real real hard before i came down here about like four or five months and i actually like you know what i'm like i need a fresh start like a brand new paper just go somewhere start all over it doesn't matter if i had to do a low-income job all over again to get back to the top that's what i was gonna do you know and that's basically what i'm doing right now for her fresh start germania chose to move to florida at the end of this road is disneyland orlando and it's 100 million tourists who come every year bringing the region and this state to full employment [Music] when she was younger germania had a different dream to be a pediatrician hi how are you guys for now she's serving coffee one small coffee so you just want him egg and cheese or just ham and cheese so no egg i love all my jobs like every job i get i'm very committed to 100 hopefully this is just like my beginning and eventually i can work my way up you know 55 and yeah one and two i'm trying to give myself at least a five to six year period to reorganize myself and be like okay i did it now i'm working this good job and i'm driving i have a house my kids are happy they're grown so you know i'm trying to give myself that time period i say six years and all six years since the recession america has commended itself for having created nine million jobs but at least half are modest underpaid jobs in order to escape living in poverty in the u.s you would have to earn 15 an hour but germania only earns eight they do give a lot of few money when when you start working and then to get like a raise or something it takes like six months eight months just to get like 10 cents for ease you know so really at the end of the day you're like working and you're not making anything because they're giving you minimum wage you know and to further increase their profit margins leading employers are pushing the limits even further they parcel out hours and break up shifts germania's boss doesn't even try to hide it yeah we have benefits yeah we have to you know yeah you know we offer health insurance but you have to be like a full-timer to get it that's oh yeah number one so you think companies are using like more and more part-time jobs yeah to avoid that yes since we came out with this new health plan yes a lot of employment i hired part-time so they don't have to pay for the benefits you know we have a lot of competition out there so they you know but it's all up to you know you know the politics you know it's the law of the market yes [Music] unstable part-time and underpaid jobs this is the reality hiding behind the american economic miracle [Music] [Applause] [Music] this reality has put almost one in every two workers into poverty [Applause] today the american middle class is disappearing replaced by the working poor this has affected one out of three families in the u.s along the road to disney cheap motels are filled with these workers who can't afford to rent an apartment 1 700 families are living just on this stretch [Music] completely exhausted after 18 hours of work germania can finally return to the nights inn her motel she pays about 850 a month for her room there that's three quarters of her salary i'm staying at the knights inn because i don't have enough money to save for a deposit to get an apartment how is it to live in the motel not fun at all [Music] this is my son pedro fernandez he's four years old this is my mother-in-law marilyn and this is our room where we stay in the night inn um my bed and my daughter's bed i didn't really think i was going to stay in a hotel for so long i really thought i was going to find something quicker than what i thought and it ended up that i didn't michelle where's your pjs on top of here germania has just a few hours of respite to spend on doing her third job being a mom it is very difficult because you have to keep opening and closing them and open them and take out their school clothes take out their clothes that they're gonna wear for the day a lot of organization last time bath time marilyn is the mother of germania's ex-partner she left her town in the northern u.s to help keep up the illusion of a normal life in a room that's just 15 meters square she looks after the three children while germania is at work you try to make it as comfortable as you can for them making them feel like it's not a big place but this is our tiny little home for now and sometimes they're okay with it and sometimes they're not but why they are the famous question is why why it's no fun we're up to my granddaughter why can't everything be 99 cents because at least they know 99 cents is not that much try to get by it you have to go sit down sit down sit down sit down who wants cheese who wants pepperoni [Music] i want you some pepperoni and um all right well i'm gonna start off with one slice and then when you're done with that slice i'll give you another slice okay cause we don't have a lot of big balls yummy huh yeah the pizza was just literally a few dollars that i had left in my card so um kids wanted to have pizza so i was like all right let's buy you know some pizza now i have no money but at least they ate something um i want to say like eight dollars uh yeah like eight dollars i'll have to my name right now [Music] why this guy is far away why is this guy so far away i don't know either [Music] now i'm gonna lay you guys down and i'm gonna talk you in and i'm gonna put on my shoes and go outside while [Music] the break was short-lived germania only gets to see her children for four hours a day she's unique i've never met somebody like her um she doesn't give up easily i just feel bad that it takes her freedom she's not able to enjoy all that quality time with the kids she's only getting a few hours of sleep maybe an hour maybe two hours when she has to go back to work and she's 25 and she's only 25. i think she'll be stuck in the system for a long time she's uh she's always going to be working so everybody that doesn't i say this american dream saw a whole bunch of crap in my eyes it's all a bunch of crap it's only to make those that are rich and have more make the less fortunate work harder more money for their pocket and less money for the ones that are really busting their butts out there or sacrificing what they it's not fair so i don't find it an american dream american workers have come out of the crisis more vulnerable and even poorer than ever condemned to always working more hours just to get by [Music] in order to find a job most of them move to the most prosperous cities in the country [Music] seattle is one of them this is joe he's 39 years old and has a family to feed it's five o'clock in the morning he's discovering his new city it's a new beginning today first day of work get to uh yeah see what see what they got for me joe has just arrived from california he's a construction worker and here in the fourth most expensive city in the country there are new buildings being built non-stop here the economy is doing pretty well in seattle relatively compared to everywhere else i mean that's why there's so many a lot of people are fucking to the places where the economy is you know actually growing it's like i'm an economic refugee i feel i feel i feel that way i think a lot of people are nowadays but since yeah the collapse whatever i think yeah a lot of people are just yeah you gotta move around adapt and overcome i guess you gotta go where the money is at least there's a chance you have a chance more of a chance on the other side of the city seven-year-old amber joe's daughter is discovering what will be her new house this morning in her cherry print pajamas she's a little overwhelmed by the camp a camp which is home to those who have been left behind by the city amber is a little girl who's been dragged around from town to town when her parents go searching for work amber changes school she hasn't even enrolled yet in seattle whilst waiting she's making friends chelsea amber's mom is a cashier in the city center she earns almost one thousand three hundred dollars a month working full time wash your hands down there before leaving for work she has to prepare a baby bottle for astoria her youngest yeah that's the bathroom you have porter parties in the bathroom it really sucks you know it's hard you know because you have to share with i don't know maybe 40 50 people you know it's not exactly what i expected in life you know after having spent what remained of their money on motel rooms joe's family had no other choice but to end up here in this church parking lot okay okay it's worrisome you know because i don't want to be living like this you know i never figured i'd be in this kind of situation for my kids to be in this kind of situation never done it and this is the first time i've ever had to do it you know because i've had tons tons of money and now it's just like i'm dumbfunded you know it really it's really bothersome being here in seattle 500 families live in these temporary camps tolerated by the city they house people whose insufficient wages mean they can no longer live in cities which have become too expensive these are the americans who were hit hardest by the recession and who never managed to get back on their feet [Music] these families on the street these childhoods spent on the roadside represent the hidden face of the economic recovery a story that a supposedly wealthy america finds difficult to tell [Music] in the richest country in the world more than a million children are homeless two times more than before the economic crash [Music] reduced to gathering the crumbs of opportunity on foot by bus joe has been on route for two hours trying to remain hopeful about finding work his remaining hope this morning lies behind this door here day work is offered for the city's construction sites they sent they're done they're done it sucks i had to get a real job this ain't fine for me it's the only yeah i said he only sent like three people out this morning but yeah yeah there's a guy still sitting in there fuck pissed at myself i should have got up earlier i guess i i just overslept 10 minutes so i guess i'll have to get up even earlier round four now to make it here i gotta be probably here by 5 30 in the morning to maybe go to work maybe not and yeah every day yeah pretty much every day [Applause] but i would shovel shit right now if i had to [Music] if i should head north [Music] for these workers who live day to day come here let me change a little um thank you their often inevitable fall to financial ruin is dizzying well you weren't supposed to eat it arsenio used to have his american dream within his grasp [Music] see daddy see your uncle [Applause] see your other uncles during the time when his music video was played on repeat on american tv his song was called be number one [Music] that's the thing about america you're gonna have your others you're gonna have your downs you're gonna have your greatest moments you're gonna have your your hardest moments but the thing is to stay true to yourself and the key thing is to keep going never stop you never stop i think america is just a playground for upscale people you know because i've dealt with a lot of people that's been high up there and um when you when you meet these type of people it's just like they don't they don't think of life as as we do you know it's just like oh anything i can make i can make something happen if they're snapping my finger you know i believe it's all for the rich you know it's all for their game i wouldn't say they pick on the poor you know because i don't think nobody picks on the poor um but they look down you know and to be somebody in once uh top position before to here it can make you realize like did i look down on that person [Music] here socks socks hey baby come on socks socks we do not do that the young lady are you still proud of being american me yeah oh yeah yeah boy hmm why still america we're still i mean yeah our light's a little dimmer now i don't know america oh yeah wow it's a difficult question i i am proud still to be an american it's almost hard to find a reason now wow it really is i think i mean i i think it's just in my blood i was born here my family's been here since before we were a country i'm not proud of us a lot of things right now i'm not a proud american per se i guess i love my country i would die for my country but yeah i mean things got to change the poor again poorer because the rich want more money or whatever you know they want more and more which i'm fine with that i i really am i have nothing against rich people i think yeah that's awesome awesome but like i said i've never gotten a job from a poor person not once but there is a limit i think and i think some should be turned back i mean i mean yeah tent cities i mean look one of the wealthiest cities in the country you know this stuff shouldn't be going on i mean i'm ashamed ashamed this is a real blow to my pride yeah i mean yeah sucks [Music] sacrificing its most vulnerable citizens to remain the leading world economy at all costs is this the new american dream [Music] it's a dream for the giants of finance a remarkable economic upturn with the workers paying the price erie itself used to actually be one of the industrial capitals of the united states basically if it's made out of plastic wood or metal there's no reason it can't be built here as the cradle of american industry the factories in erie put more than 75 percent of the country's locomotives in circulation on the tracks they helped build america yuri is dying the ones that are still here are a shadow of what they used to be the ones that still remain uh and the ones uh a lot of them just simply closed up if you see in front of us up here there's i mean the building is literally falling apart now but these are all old factories over here that has since shut down [Music] that's another one we shut down scott slauson is at the head of one of the oldest trade unions in the usa in other words he is the sworn enemy of the multinational company whose employees he defends ge is right over here we'll actually get a front front view of it from the north side general electric american energy giant 36 branches in 142 countries the seventh biggest company in the world their most successful branch is based here transport but here they are living on borrowed time general electric decided that the wages they were paying us were too high and weren't supporting the profit margins that the company wanted even though those profit margins were in the 19 and 20 percent range so they built a low-wage factory in fort worth texas and that's led to the layoff that we're at today because they just don't understand at some point that is going to cause a collapse of the united states it's the new strategy of big american companies relocate within the u.s and move to where the salaries are lowest for these locomotives will be made in texas a state without trade unions the workers there will be paid half what they were paid in erie and the redundancy plan is already in place here general electric is laying off 1 353 people hello hello hello hello tom swarak is next on the list a lot of people honking oh yeah [Music] as a ge technician tom swarak makes electric wiring for locomotives what's going on is people are leaving the plant right now and they're honking their horns in solidarity for just us standing out here fuck that horn since they started laying off five six months ago they people have been coming out here every thursday [Music] my name is tom i'm 43 years old i've been a ge employee for 13 years and i've worked in the union for 11 of those 13 years and tomorrow's my last day of work i'm permanently laid off my name's sal and i've been a ge for 11 and a half years day-to-day i don't know if i have a job tomorrow or whatnot [Music] i received my notice the other day due to a reduction in the workforce you will be removed from your current job this contact serves as 40-hour notice of your permanent lack of work a few quick sentences on a piece of paper is what you get when you leave after 13 years of service after 13 years of work at a major corporation this is exactly what you got when it's your turn your boss comes to you your pta your business leader and your they come they hand you a paper they walk you down the aisle has every one of your fellow employees through the building to their office to give you the paper and saying when your last day is it's very humiliating everybody looking at you knowing what's happening you they know their day's coming but to have that walk of shame and losing your job for nothing that you've done is wrong the recession was the perfect pretext to put the new rules of the game into place by lowering salaries and relocating to factories without trade unions i mean you guys can either go back across the street or call lawrence park for these blue collar workers they had to take it or leave it [Music] i was born and raised in erie i love being here i love the city but i don't know with being laid off if i'm going to have a chance to stay in the city that would be very sad if i had to leave a lot of people that got laid off they decided that they're going to move away and do something else i don't want to do that you know this place is home it was a it was a different day because my i had to um i had to clean up my locker i had to return tools to the tool area i had to make sure everything was ready to go for tomorrow on my last day uh yes can i have a diet coke please thank you yes i was very proud to work for gm 13 years ago and to a point i still am because i mean we do good work there i think at one point um it might have been part of the american dream to work at ge but um my aunt worked at gme and she worked her entire uh her entire career at jean and she was on the floor and she eventually ended up in the offices working for ge and when i graduated high school she told me when i was fresh out of high school she said you need to get a job at ge because i worked there my entire life and it was a good job and a good thing and here i am 25 years later working at ge and getting laid off from ge within 15 years 5 million industrial jobs have been destroyed in the u.s it is indeed the end of the captains of industry the paternalistic companies that built america into a leading world power hand in hand with their workers [Music] this morning like every other for the past 13 years tom swarak got up at 5 45 a.m he is a punctual man even on the day of his layoff i did have a little hard time sleeping last night looking at my clock thinking what time is it or what what time do i have to get up the more i think about it the more i think it's it's going to be a stressful day think i'm going to miss is the getting up every day and the inner um the daily routine because i'm a person of habit i like getting up i like having a place to go and have to be there at a certain time and and getting my day done and doing certain things every day getting up and not having anything to do is kind of a little unnerving [Music] in a few hours the seventh biggest company in the world will have taken away his badge his job and his certainty that he's still part of the american middle class in the usa unemployment benefits are not compulsory but thanks to his union's negotiations tom will receive seventy percent of his salary for six months afterwards who knows so what's the thought process behind that at the general electric union headquarters scott slauson has just received more bad news the company wants to get rid of 181 more jobs we're not going to sell the farm for 181 jobs because that's not fair to number one everybody that is out on the street and everybody that is currently working it's just not fair but we'll see all right later bye the company we work for they're not very admirable but general electric's profits keep increasing they just redistributed 26 billion dollars to their shareholders from the beginning of negotiations scott slauson has felt like he's fighting a losing battle they can very much afford to keep them the the fact that the matter is is they're looking for ever increasing profit margins and you know you can keep smacking a rock until you turn it into dust but once it's in dust you're not going to beat it any smaller but they're going to try to get what they want there remains one thing standing in their way the trade unions the final line of defense protecting workers and for them this is a death sentence planned by the financial districts of america back then people knew what it was like to struggle for a cause just 50 years ago one in every three americans were protected by a union now it's only one in 10. [Music] at the government level and at the employers level they've done a good job of breeding that fear into people that if you bring a union in uh we will close our business and move somewhere else so there's a there's just an inordinate fear of losing your job if you form a union you know basically they've got you so you're going to agree to things you otherwise normally wouldn't agree to [Music] backed into a corner american employees have no one to turn to tom and his colleagues now only hear news of the company they've devoted their lives to through reading the local paper did you see this no i don't even read the front i don't even read the paper front page of the erie paper when they're laying people off the same day they put that on there ge fort worth they they made their they manufactured a thousand locomotives the same day and they put it in the paper the same day that we got laid off how's that for a smack in the face there chris general electric celebrated a milestone thursday afternoon in texas that could be read as a message for union leaders in erie that would be us not leaders but union people as they continue to negotiate with the company you still love america oh always will it's my country i have a flag in front of my yard so it's very patriotic these big companies moving out of here and you know slapping people down and make him feel like crap and the american dream is it's going to be tougher it's not just about wages not just about benefits it's about treating you like a human being you know it isn't this is in the third world country that we live in this you know this is the united states but these big corporations they they want to treat you like they treat these uh these countries that have no laws you know like like china making 50 cents an hour or whatever it is they they want to treat you like that they see what they're doing over there and why can't they do it here the economic recovery has only really enriched a tiny fraction of america the middle class which for decades embodied the american dream has fallen by the wayside hey [Music] in florida we've caught up with germania and her family six months after we first met [Music] for her nothing has changed she still works the same long hours and still has no apartment i've never expected me living or removing from hotel to hotel down i want to have a happy family not a family that's hopping from here here in here and having my kids confused and asking me questions why we're here where's my puppy what are we gonna do you know we don't get down into details and before we're staying here in the hotel and we're homeless and all this i just say this is gonna be our temporary home and they they tell me okay mommy okay that's why they started saving their piggy bank the little piggy i have because they were like oh let's save all that change that we have money so we can move out you know along the road to disney motels put up with these semi-homeless families so long as they don't stay for too long this motel is already the fifth one germany has stayed in in four months until now the motel hasn't dared to kick them out perhaps because tomorrow is the start of school for me for marilyn it's time to leave she has to go back to her husband who she hasn't seen for six months yeah my heart's divided i don't want to leave my grandchildren huh mommy but i also need a life mom i think the hardest part is not hearing um good morning no no what's for breakfast mother can i have this or his favorite words i'm hungry he's always hungry yeah no more than anybody's ever done for me oh give me oh this one made me stronger oh [Applause] i love you peter i love you i love you more you take care if okay let me know okay i love you more all right stop crying oh [Music] packing after spending one month in this tent joe chelsea and the children are getting ready to leave the camp a place has just become available in an emergency shelter in town one more step up to civilization [Music] they'll have beds actually sleep on instead of crates you know grow bags we'll have our own bathroom take showers whenever we want to yeah i need to carry my first night forget to move again one more time it is in a way yes you gotta do what you gotta do how many times in the last year you would say in the few years we'll see one two three four five six seven one eight probably about ten times [Music] they're refugees in their own country [Music] keep it strong [Music] they'll have the right to stay for six months in the center they're moving to six months to get back on their feet find a stable job and an apartment before people get punished you know this is pretty much punishment and not be able to support your kids the way you want to or a house to live in that you call home this ain't home for me home is a kitchen a living room picking your kids up from school and be able to go home and say we're home kids you know this isn't home this ain't at home for me it's hard it's very hard but i gotta start to stay strong for my kids you know yeah you're a strong woman you know that yeah i know but six months wasn't enough having failed to find an apartment joe chelsea and their children are back in the tent camp where we first met them let's go guys come on come on for germania and her children however life is changing a family aid program has found her an apartment this three-room apartment which they will pay the deposit for oh check out this bedroom in here whose bedroom is this [Music] in the stove now we can bake again [Music] it's comfortable i love the rooms i love how there's two rooms or bathrooms in it it's very nice it's beautiful [Music] a long time ago germania made a promise to her daughter on her ninth birthday she would have a house [Music] [Applause] [Music] living life on a knife's edge a precarious balance [Music] it took a recession and then a so-called recovery to make america reveal the true face of their economy [Music] there's always that possibility that you might fall down always and i will always watch me i'm just and they have to keep that in their mind all the time it is part of the american dream at the end of the day it is part of their magic everybody thinks there's handy here [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] [Applause] the three of us [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] everybody

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Length: 52min 18sec (3138 seconds)

Published: Tue May 03 2022