TV REVIEW : ‘Moyers: Minimum Wages’ Cuts Through Rhetoric

Jobs, jobs, jobs.

Already, this is the mantra of the ’92 presidential campaign. It’s the linchpin phrase behind President Bush’s current tour through the Asian capitalist powerhouses of Japan, South Korea and Singapore. But, as usual for campaign rhetoric, it’s an empty phrase--if we accept the Milwaukee we’re presented with in “Moyers: Minimum Wages” (at 10 tonight on KCET Channel 28).

If the United States has entered the post-industrial world with a vengeance, then Milwaukee, once a symbol of honest work, big smokestacks and rich beer, is having a major identity crisis. For this hour at least, Bill Moyers has the city stand in for the rest of the country.

At first glance, though, Milwaukee doesn’t appear to be going through an economic crisis. In the past decade, it created more jobs than it lost, unemployment dropped and in the wake of plant closings have come new high-tech companies. What’s the problem?

Plenty. During this same decade, according to analysts interviewed by Moyers, the city’s per capita income has dropped along with the unemployment rate, while 85,000 manufacturing jobs in the state vanished. Now, there’s the typical sight of 20,000 people competing for 200 job openings--when they occur.

Those are the jobs that might pay something close to what a good Milwaukee union worker used to earn: $15-$20 an hour. But most available work today pays a sad fraction of that, and it’s this insidious difference that Moyers says is creating “a silent Depression” in Milwaukee, and the country.

Moyers effectively demonstrates that two oft-touted solutions--retraining and minority-owned businesses (especially needed in the inner city)--aren’t exactly the rose gardens promised. The Milwaukee Training College is turning out graduates, but there are currently 60,000 vying for some 8,000 low-paying jobs. Minority-owned Steeltech Manufacturing Inc. is hiring, but only up to 100, and with a starting wage of $5.50.

This seems to be the reality of the new “working poor,” and Moyers’ documentary goes beyond the rhetoric we’ll be hearing in the coming months.