Amazon.com’s Whitestown, Indiana warehouse is a hell of a place to work

Here also are three articles published between 2011 and 2013 on Examiner.com on work conditions in Central Indiana.  I have worked industrial and warehouse jobs there as a temp since 2005, and these are complementary to two articles Central Indiana work conditions that also originally appeared on Examiner.com in 2014, and were reprinted by me on "Politically Incorrect Leftist"  in February 2015:  "Work, fatigue, frustration, and--finally!--creativity again" and "Dispatch from the work shift from hell.  "Work, fatigue, frustration" also covers working at Amazon, which I have done since 2009, and am presently employed doing; while "Dispatch" describes the hellish conditions at another Central Indiana warehouse--there not being a whole lot to differentiate conditions from one warehouse to another.  Choose your poisonous work environment, they are all toxic--GF

Online retail giant Amazon.com has its largest warehouse in the U.S. located in Whitestown, Indiana, about 30 miles north of Indianapolis.  A sprawling rectangle of a building that appears to stretch on endlessly, this Amazon warehouse seemingly provided me a pretty good job; or initially, what I thought would be a pretty good job. But as I write below, not nearly so good a job after all, not by a long shot.

As is pretty well known now, Amazon has come under national scrutiny for its working conditions ever since when, in September 2011, the Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania newspaper The Daily Call ran a story on heat prostration at the Amazon warehouse in Allentown, where temperatures had gotten to 110 degrees; http://www.mcall.com/news/local/mc-allentown-amazon-complaints-20110917,0,7937001,full.story. 

The story was picked up nationally by the Huffington Post, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/20/amazon-allentown_n_971851.html, and Amazon came to national notoriety because of its warehouse working conditions, of which heat was only one of the problems. (The Whitestown warehouse is now air-conditioned, so while I worked there extreme heat was not a problem.)  Amazon working conditions also came under scrutiny the British press as well, in a 2008 story carried by the Times of London.

Still, such scrutiny and surely embarrassing resultant media coverage hasn’t dented either Amazon’s profits nor its market share, where it dominates the online retail market that has only bourgeoned in recent years.  Shopping online having become a commonplace now for all kinds of goods, quite a change from what it was only a few years ago.  The sluggish economy has also helped Amazon, as its warehouses everywhere across the U.S. and even overseas are an economic opportunity for many a fortuitously-located small town.  This is especially noticeable in Central Indiana, as the Hoosier state has moved to become a warehouse hub because of its midpoint location, where interstates and railroad lines crisscross, and Indianapolis International Airport is nearby.  This makes for a significant economic opportunity for the many small towns that dot the perimeter of Indianapolis such as Plainfield, Whitestown, Noblesville and others, which now boast warehouses as a major source of blue-collar jobs and community revenue. With the steep decline of manufacturing jobs in Indiana, once the mainstay of employment for its largely low-skill, ill-educated workforce, this new “logistics economy” of warehouses moving manufactured goods from one place to another steps in to replace those jobs lost; jobs often lost because goods that were produced in the U.S. are now made overseas. 

These warehouses have become a major source of employment now, especially for Amazon in the peak Christmas season, where thousands of temporary employees are put on the payroll, and constitute for many an opportunity that otherwise wouldn’t exist. And Amazon is a big employer in the Indianapolis area, with three warehouses in the vicinity—one in south Indianapolis itself, and one each in Whitestown and Plainfield, a small town 25 miles west of Indianapolis.  (The Whitestown warehouse alone increases its employment by 3,000 jobs over the Christmas season, from a normal of 2,000 to 5,000 at the holiday peak.  This was stated to us as we started work there in 2012, and comes from managers themselves.) This despite the relatively low wages common in Central Indiana for warehouse temp work, which range from $9.00 an hour in many places to Amazon’s top-end standard wage of $12.50 an hour, which even rises to $14.50 an hour when it’s difficult to fill these Amazon positions, as it was in the Christmas season of 2012.

That’s because Amazon really is a hell of a place to work.  Hell as in hellish, hellhole, “You don’t want to work here if you don’t have to.”  As this writer can personally attest, having worked as a temp three times now since 2009; and the Whitestown warehouse is the worst, the most hellish, the most demanding in its pace of work.  It chews up people and spits them out.  As I directly experienced there both in 2011 and 2012.

 

There are three categories of workers where temps are widely used during the holiday season:  in receiving, in inventory stowing, and in order picking, and the pace of work increases upward with each of these three categories.  There are production quotas to be met in each, and proficiency in meeting the quota is demanded after only a week’s experience learning the job and adapting to the harsh physical demands of the labor pace.  People are routinely dismissed for not meeting the pace and the expected quota, which would be grueling even for a twentysomething, but which positions also draw a lot of older workers—there being little opportunity elsewhere.  Of course people falling short do get warnings, and often written reprimands, but no slack is cut; these warnings are simply ultimatums, and only three are allowed.  Managers are sometimes up-front about the physical demands of the job, but not always; and one can leave early usually if the pace interferes with the physical ability to do the job, but there are penalty points assessed for that, and only a maximum of six points allowed for absences or leaving early, unless scheduled—one-half point for leaving an hour or less than before the end of the shift, a full point if leaving more than an hour before.  As for assistance in meeting this work pace, all management will do, in accordance with Amazon policy, is recommend that the workers wear athletic shoes and drink lots of water from the ubiquitous water fountains.  (Employees are also allowed to bring clear personal water bottles.) Gatorade was provided free in Amazon warehouses up to October 2012, but that was discontinued.

At Whitestown the normal work week was four 10-hour shifts, for a 40-hour full-time week.  There are no part-time positions.  During the Christmas season peak this increased to a 50-hour week, then to a 60-hour week (five days of 10-hour shifts, and five days of 12-hour shifts, respectively) and the overtime work is mandatory, with not working it subject to the same absentee/leaving early policies as given above.  There are day and night shifts, and I worked the night one. During the 12-hour shifts, the time allotted for the second break was lengthened, but the allotment for the first break and lunch remained the same.  Also, at the start of the shift and after returning from lunch, there are short bouts of stretching exercises gone through, but no resting during the time of actual work, and, of course, no sitting down during work time, ever.

I worked in receiving during 2012, which I thought would be a job I could handle, as my time spent in 2011 stowing had not worked out; but would this time, as the pace of receiving was slower.  As I found out, not slow enough not to be a major physical strain, especially when the 10-hour shifts became 12-hour shifts.  I had really wanted this job to work out, as I badly needed the money, especially the time-and-a-half for the mandatory overtime.  In fact, I was making quota pretty consistently, and was not having trouble with the 10-hour shifts, but the extra two hours that later got added on turned out to be more than this person in his mid-sixties could handle.  I left the shift exhausted, and even after waking from a very sound sleep, was still exhausted.  I somehow managed to get through two days of 12-hour shifts in a row, but on the third day major exhaustion made me have to leave early—and I do mean major exhaustion, complete with grogginess, disoriented sense of space and time, and of course, making a lot of mistakes—which fortunately I caught, but which slowed me down considerably.  The day after leaving early I woke up still absolutely exhausted and barely able to move.  So I called the office of Integrity Staffing Services, the temp agency that fills these Amazon positions nationwide, and resigned; that ended my career at Amazon, as there is a policy that one must give two weeks’ notice when resigning, no matter for what reason, in order to be allowed to ever return.  I had been able to return in 2012 despite problems working in 2011 because instead of resigning, I had luckily called in sick (because I had a virus).

When the group of us in receiving started work, we were told that the work would be demanding, but the grueling extent of this “demanding” work was not indicated.  An impression was given that it would be strenuous, but not as severely so as it turned out to be, at least in my case.  I believe fully that Amazon is aware of just how grueling the work is, but that it’s much more profitable to work employees as inexhaustible mules rather than make conditions more humane.  That is why it especially uses this small army of temps to handle its peak business times, and tries to psych its employees, temp and regular alike, into thinking Amazon is a hip place to work with the offering of Amazon.com logo merchandise, special meals occasionally, and other small perks. (However, even when a special meal is provided, served cafeteria-style during the normal lunch break with a queue in line to get the food, no more time is allotted to eat than the normal half-hour; but it may take up to ten minutes in line just to get the food.)  One special way Amazon tried to psych up us workers during the 2012 season’s mandatory overtime period was to have a live DJ play a continuous stream of pop music interspersed with occasional promotional patter for the last five hours of the shift; music and patter that was piped throughout the warehouse at quite loud volume.  While this helped make us feel better, distracting us from the actual harshness of the workload and thus making the work more pleasant as the adrenaline provided by the music overcame the exhaustion, this turns out on examination to be only an all-too-typical Amazon palliative, a psychological cheap shot to make the worker feel good, not actually work good, work at a pace and in a way that enables proper rest of body and mind.  Which is to say that the workers at fiercely anti-union Amazon very badly need a union: need a union because, without one, the work will still be hell, people will continue to be chewed up and spit out, leave at end of shift  exhausted, and manipulated by psychological perks to perform in a way that simply shouldn’t be tolerated.  But as of now, Amazon has prevented unionization anywhere in its sprawling network of warehouses and order call centers, which makes it the Wal-Mart of online retailers.  (In contrast to unionized Powell’s Books, still a significant competitor of Amazon despite allegedly costly unionization.)        

   

Indiana Democratic Senatorial candidate Joe Donnelly’s jobs program is Tea Party Light

This commentary on new Indiana Senator Joe Donnelly's political platform is slightly edited from its original publication on Examiner.com.   This author found Donnelly's platform and program to be Tea Party Light despite his running  as a Democrat; and this judgment has been confirmed by what he has done in office since his election in 2012.  An avowed Blue Dog Democrat, Donnelly follows that pattern of somewhat economically liberal but socially conservative Democratic politicians that are the norm generally in Indiana.  A socially conservative, even hidebound, state that traditionally swings Republican, Donnelly won election narrowly because his Republican challenger, Richard Mourdock, made a major faux pas in the 2012 election by saying that if  woman became pregnant through incest or rape she still shouldn't have access to abortion, because "that's what God intended."  Yet, despite this, Mourdock still got 47% of the vote--GF

Indiana’s Democratic Party Establishment is at it again:  against a strongly right-wing Republican challenger in Indiana, a state so traditionally extremely conservative it can be called hidebound and politically, economically ignorant, the Democrats have once again turned to a self-professed Blue Dog Democrat, Joe Donnelly, as challenger to Tea Party-endorsed Republican candidate Richard Mourdock, who handily defeated veteran “moderate” incumbent Richard Lugar 61-39% in the Republican primary.  Once again, as with the successful running of Blue Dog Democrat Evan Bayh for Indiana Governor and Senator and the hapless campaign in 2010 of Blue Dog Democrat Brad Ellsworth against Republican Dan Coats, Indiana’s Democrats are taking “progressive” and labor voters for granted, assuming they will automatically support Democratic candidates who are more akin to Republicans than they are to traditionally-labeled “liberal” Democrats. 

But while this paid off electorally in the case of Bayh, the result was not good for either Indiana or the nation.  Bayh, who as Governor labeled the state’s labor movement, which had supported him, a “special interest group” and introduced a punitive “welfare reform” measure while saying that single mothers needed to be “slinging burgers” rather than receiving welfare assistance, further demonstrated his self-identified “fiscal conservative” leanings as Senator by being not only the Democrat in office who had voted the most times with the Republicans, but was also a “bipartisan” co-author of the Congressional authorization for George W. Bush’s ill-fated war in Iraq as well as a co-author of the “bankruptcy reform” law that penalized the “middle class” that Blue Dogs claim to support against those “undeserving poor” allegedly leeching from the teat of federal largess.  Bayh, who resigned from the Senate, went on to work for the Chamber of Commerce as an advocate against business regulation, when deregulation itself was a major contributor to the economic recession that has plagued the U.S. since 2007 (which is more than simply a “liberal” view, unless one considers the views of Nobel Prize-winning economists Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman to be based on “liberal” ideology rather than professional understanding).

Currently the Donnelly-Mourdock race is a dead heat, with each candidate having 40% support each among potential voters, with 20% undecided.  Of course, the Donnelly campaign is having a field day decrying Mourdock as a Tea Party extremist who appeals to the far right while alienating independents and moderates, including many supporters of former Senator Richard Lugar.  (The Donnelly campaign has actually launched a “Republicans for Donnelly” committee to pick up support form disaffected Lugar voters, which is already reaping some success).   Further, for the Donnelly campaign to label both the Republican Party and Mourdock himself as dominated by the far right is a pretty easy task, as shown by the items posted on the official Donnelly website, linked at http://www.joeforindiana.com/news, which contains not only Donnelly-camp press releases and citations of Mourdock’s official stances on issues, but news stories taken from the Indianapolis Star and the New York Times.

It doesn’t take much to demonstrate that Richard Mourdock is heavily indebted to the Tea Party not only ideologically but financially, having received important campaign contributions from groups linked to the Tea Party and the far right, and that Mourdock himself expresses positions that many self-identified “moderates” and even “conservatives” would find extreme.  Donnelly’s website shows that very well.  But does Donnelly himself, as a self-identified Blue Dog, i.e., very conservative, Democrat, offer a positive alternative?  A look at his Jobs Program, linked at http://files.www.joeforindiana.com/DonnellyJobsPlan.pdf, shows Joe Donnelly’s proposals themselves to be Tea Party Light, as opposed to Mourdock’s Tea Party Heavy.

And it’s more than a question of “liberal” versus “conservative” ideology; it’s a question of what’s really going to work to create jobs and a vibrant economy both in Indiana and nationally, and what is just a repackaging of the neoliberal economic nostrums that have been around ever since the Reagan days from 1980 until now,  a time already marred by three major recessions, stagnant wages for working people while the already-rich have become even richer, economic inequality that’s at its greatest since 1929 (itself a major contributor to the severity of the Great Depression of the 1930s), significantly increased poverty and intractable unemployment even in good times, and the undermining of the “middle class” that has been going on since the 1970s and which is continuing with a vengeance.  These are all demonstrable facts, and it doesn’t take a “liberal” to see that none of these are desirable; nor does it take much to see that the much-decried New Deal reforms that raised taxes on the rich, provided for Social Security, unemployment compensation, collective bargaining rights for unionized workers, and put into place a minimal social safety net, were positive contributors, not drags on, the prosperity that characterized the U.S. economy from the late 1940s into the mid-1970s.  Anyone saying that they didn’t goes against the palpable realities of economic history and statistical measurement, even though denouncing the New Deal is currently politically fashionable; which by no means would be the first time that ignorance and dismissal of fact became politically fashionable!  Even the most cursory look at U.S. and world history would demonstrate that.

When Richard Nixon and Milton Friedman said in the mid-1970s that “We are all Keynesians now” they were stating economic reality, not political ideology.  Regardless of political opinion, John Maynard Keynes made major contributions to economic science as such, and he and his successors among economists and economic policy makers did something far more that simply spout some new “liberal” orthodoxy.  So did another derided economic thinker, Karl Marx, who is returning to deserved recognition now, thanks to the Great Recession of 2007.  “By their fruits ye shall know them”:  and the fruits of neoliberalism, extreme political conservatism, and centrist political adaptation are much in abundance, have been since the 1980s, and certainly since 2007—and they are unpalatable indeed.  This author submits that not only as a self-identified person of the political left, but also as the holder of an actual university degree in economics itself.

So let’s look at Joe Donnelly’s Blue Dog program for job creation, as stated in the PDF linked above.  The first thing to note is that his proposals are not all bad, as even hard-line economic conservatives would have to admit; but those that are manifest reliance on ‘big government” and applying Keynesian measures in economic policy!  Those that express the current nostrums of political conservatism and economic neoliberalism would actually work against job creation, as I shall demonstrate below.

First, on the positive side, Donnelly demands, “Oppose unfair trade deals that ship Hoosier jobs overseas” and “Close tax loopholes that encourage some Wall Street corporations to send American jobs to other countries.”  Good ideas advocated by many, but also good ideas that run counter not only to neoliberal orthodoxy, but which were also placed into practice by conservative and centrist political practice under Ronald Reagan, both Bushes, Bill Clinton, and are maintained today by Obama.  Renegotiating “free trade” pacts such as NAFTA and CAFTA would be a very good idea, and would benefit not only workers in the U.S. but also workers in countries such as Mexico, where workers emigrate, often illegally, to places such as the U.S because of the poverty engendered by destruction of their own domestic economies by multinational corporations enhancing profitability through unregulated markets that undercut domestic jobs throughout, trample on environmental protections and workplace safety regulations, slash wages, and engender race-to-the-bottom “free market” trade policies.  Same goes for “tax loopholes,” again another manifestation of “unregulated free market” economic policies that supposedly bring benefits to all by enabling the free movement of capital to the most productive workforces, but only mean job cuts for “overpaid” workers and starvation wages for those workers elsewhere who have “more competitive” wage rates.  As Joseph Stiglitz has written so accurately on markets:

 

This we should know by now: markets on their own are not stable. Not only do they repeatedly 

generate destabilizing asset bubbles, but, when demand weakens, forces that exacerbate the downturn come into play.  Unemployment, and fear that it will spread, drives down wages, incomes, and consumption—and thus total demand.  Decreased rates of household formation—young Americans, for example, are increasingly moving back in with their parents - depress housing prices, leading to still more foreclosures. States with balanced-budget frameworks are forced to cut spending as tax revenues fall—an automatic destabilizer that Europe seems mindlessly bent on adopting. (“After Austerity,” Nation of Change, May 7, 2012, http://www.nationofchange.org/after-austerity-1336401779.)

The dismal jobs report released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday, June 1, which reported a dismal creation of only 69,000 jobs in May and the first rise in the unemployment rate in nearly a year, only underscores the need for a proactive program of direct job creation.  Donnelly indirectly understands this by calling for an increased share to Indiana of federal revenues for road and bridge upgrades, which would directly employ more workers to work on such projects; but then he undermines this understanding by emphasizing “trickle-down” indirect job creation by calling for more tax cuts and economic incentives for small businesses—which may, or may not, result in increased hiring by such businesses.  And though historically small businesses (officially defined as those businesses with 100 employees or fewer) are the biggest job-creators, they are also the biggest creators of jobs with lower wages and fewer benefits, if indeed, any benefits.  What would be far more effective would be a policy of direct job creation such as a new Works Progress Administration (WPA) modeled on the WPA created under the New Deal that provided direct employment to some 8.5 million workers in the late 1930s.  (On such a program and its historical effectiveness see the following articles on the New Politics website: George Fish, “Open Programmatic Proposal to the Broad U.S. Left for Directly Dealing with the Present Unemployment Crisis,” http://newpol.org/node/425; Brian King, “Jobs for All,”  http://newpol.org/node/445; and Jesse Lemisch, “Occupy the American Historical Association: Demand a WPA Federal Writers' Project,” http://newpol.org/node/555; as well as UCubed, “WPA 2.0 is Solution to Unemployment Crisis,” http://www.unionofunemployed.com/blog/recent-news/ucubed-wpa-2-0-is-solution-to-unemployment-crisis/.)

Donnelly also endorses the shibboleth of retraining unemployed workers, which is at best only a partial solution.  First, because skills demanded by employers at any one time are regularly changing, and retraining programs through technical colleges and other places traditionally teach the skills that used to be in high demand, but are not necessarily so at present; second, many laid-off workers are older, and/or have family obligations that interfere with going back to school; and third, the need for employment for the unemployed is now, at whatever skill level the unemployed have now—which can often be quite high, as many potential workers who are classified as “unskilled” or “lacking in experience” are in fact well-educated college graduates!  (See Bonnie Kavoussi, “Unemployed College Graduates As Vulnerable As High School Dropouts to Long-Term Unemployment: Report,” Huffington Post, February 2, 2012, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/02/long-term-unemployment-college-graduates_n_1250418.html;  Catherine Rampell, “Many with New College Degree Find the Job Market Humbling, New York Times, May 18, 2011; and Hope Yen, “1 in 2 new graduates are jobless or underemployed,” Associated Press, April 22, 2012.)  This is especially true in Indiana, which has long suffered a “brain drain” due to the lack of high-skill jobs, and where many Indiana college graduates are unemployed, underemployed, or have only temporary jobs.  (See in particular on how college graduates in Indiana can be derisively dismissed as “unskilled” George Fish, “Add another Frustration to Being Unemployed: A Case in Point from Indiana’s WorkOne State Employment Agency,” New Politics, http://newpol.org/node/564, and George Fish, “Indiana’s Brain Drain: the problem that won’t go away,” Examiner.com, reposted on "politically Incorrect Leftist.")

Last, Joe Donnelly advocates measures that would actually be counterproductive to job creation, such as calling for a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution and being fixated on the so-called “deficit problem,” which, as economists Paul Krugman, Joseph Stiglitz (as mentioned above, both Nobel Prize-winners in economics) and University of California economist and former Clinton Administration Secretary of Labor Robert Reich have all emphasized numerous times, is a pseudo-problem manufactured by conservatives.  Krugman, Stiglitz and Reich have all demonstrated that truth of “Keynesian orthodoxy,” also confirmed by economic history, that the use of temporary deficit spending by government to create employment (coupled with progressive income taxation on higher income brackets) not only directly produces revenue for paying off the deficit by making unemployed workers employed taxpayers, those same workers’ wages also directly fuel consumption which further creates jobs.  A full-employment economy is a win-win situation, whereas an economy with significant unemployment is a downward-spiral lose-lose situation.  (In fact, the budget surplus that was created under the Clinton Administration was turned into a deficit under George W. Bush by tax cuts for the very rich coupled with high defense spending, notably for the futile wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.) 

Donnelly also indulges in the all-too-common “bash China” syndrome, by which the U.S.’s economic ills would be solved if China would only revalue the yuan and “play fair” in trade.  But that argument is only partially true, and contains fundamental fallacies.  As the report by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) cited by Donnelly himself in support of his hard line on Chinese trade, that of Robert E. Scott, “Growing U.S. Trade Deficit with China Cost 2.8 Million Jobs Between 2001 and 2010,” EPI Briefing Paper, September 20, 2011, http://www.epi.org/publication/growing-trade-deficit-china-cost-2-8-million, states (p. 18):

 

Is America’s loss China’s gain? The answer is not clearly affirmative. China has become dependent on the U.S. consumer market for employment generation, suppressed the purchasing power of its own middle class with a weak currency, and, most important, now holds over $3 trillion in hard currency reserves instead of investing them in public goods that could benefit Chinese households. Its vast purchases of foreign exchange reserves have stimulated the overheating of its domestic economy, and inflation in China has accelerated rapidly in the past year. Its repression of labor rights has suppressed wages, thereby artificially subsidizing exports.

 

So, while Joe Donnelly stands as fundamentally different from open Tea Partier Richard Murdock, by staying within the Blue Dog Democrat framework he himself does not propose an adequate solution to either Indiana’s or the U.S’s fundamental unemployment problem.  He may be the “lesser of two evils,” but the lesser of two evils is not in itself a positive good.  

 

           

 

 

 

 

 

 

     

 

   

The Tea Party and the 2012 Indiana elections

This, and another article from the 2012 Indiana elections, on how Indiana's new Senator, Joe Donnelle, ran on a platform in 2012 that was Tea Party Light, were both originally published on Examiner.com that year, and are reprinted on "Politically Incorrect Leftist" because they have stood the teat of time:  they are both still highly relevant to today's politics--GF

Indiana is traditionally a very conservative state with a penchant not only for electing Republicans, but also a state where Democrats tend to be Blue Dogs and Republicans outright reactionaries.  But Indiana can also surprise on that.  In 2008, while incumbent Republican Governor Mitch Daniels and Senate hopeful Dan Coats beat their Democratic opponents by nearly two-to-one margins, Obama narrowly carried the state by 30,000 votes. Governor Daniels, a fiscal conservative who enthusiastically signed into law bills that established Indiana as a right-to-work state and cut unemployment benefits, and said that unions were no longer needed, also called for a Republican “truce” on divisive social issues—even as he signed into law the defunding of Planned Parenthood in Indiana (however, a federal district court issued a preliminary injunction against defunding).  Richard Lugar, a long-established moderate Republican who’d served as Indiana Senator since 1976 and earned the respect of Democrats as well as Republicans, lost to Tea Party-backed insurgent challenger (and state Treasurer) Richard Mourdock in May’s primary by a 61%-39% margin—but Lugar isn’t campaigning for Mourdock, and Mourdock’s Tea Party support could make him Indiana’s Sharon Angle or Christine O’Donnell in the tight Senatorial race with Democrat Joe Donnelly.  Angle and O’Donnell, Tea Party-backed Senatorial challengers who handily defeated more moderate Republicans in the Nevada and Delaware primaries in 2010, respectively, went on to major defeats in the general election. 

 

Now, with Mourdock and Donnelly running neck-to-neck, with latest polls showing them in a statistical tie, a Donnelly win would help ensure Democratic control of the Senate.  Whereas Lugar was nearly invincible each time he ran, Mourdock clearly is not; and his hardball campaign against Lugar in the primary has alienated a lot of moderate Republicans and conservative to moderate Democrats who would’ve gladly supported the six-term Senator.  That handily-received Tea Party endorsement that was an asset to Mourdock in the primary could well turn out to be a serious liability in the general election.  That, and non-support from Lugar Republicans. 

 

Joe Donnelly certainly hopes so, and is vigorously trying to appeal to disaffected Lugar supporters as well as portray Mourdock as a Tea Party extremist.  Mourdock, for his part, is now trying to tack to the center, portraying himself as a typical Indiana conservative rather than a Tea Party fanatic, and trying to make what political hay he can by vaguely referencing Lugar’s stated wish after the primary that he hoped for a Republican majority in the Senate (which a Mourdock victory could enable).  But Lugar’s office recently slammed as unauthorized a mailing from an outside group that claimed Lugar support for Mourdock, and Lugar himself has refused to campaign for Mourdock.

 

Another Republican candidate with strong Tea Party ties is Mike Pence, a six-term Congressman running for Governor against Democrat John Gregg.  Only this race isn’t even close—at least not yet.  Pence has a two-digit lead over Gregg in statewide polls, has far outdone him in fund-raising, and has been further aided by an initially lackadaisical campaign on Gregg’s part, along with his inability to rally Democrats and reach out to women and independents.  But Gregg has been aggressively trying to change that lately, pointedly reaching out to disaffected Lugar supporters, attacking Pence’s ultraconservative record as Congressman, and his fixation on divisive social issues such as being staunchly anti-abortion, supporting a cutoff of all federal funding for Planned Parenthood for any purpose, defining marriage as only between a man and a woman, and a family as consisting of a married man and woman only couple as heads of household (single-parent households would thus not count as families, nor would households where heads of household were not married, or of the same gender).   Pence also wants to put into Indiana law a stipulation that no other state has—that each piece of proposed legislation be subject to an impact study on how it would affect such “traditional” families as defined above.

 

Gregg has also been actively pointing to Pence’s unabashed Tea Party support and participation—regularly speaking at Tea Party rallies, and being the first member of the Republican Congressional leadership to join Michele Bachmann’s Tea Party Congressional caucus.  To counter this, Pence, like Mourdock, has been trying to tack to the center—emphasizing on the campaign trail job creation, economic development, and restructuring education to give more emphasis to vocational training rather than college prep.  But Gregg and the Democrats charge that this soft-pedaling of social issues that Pence engages in now could all change in January 2013 should Pence become Governor, and have the power to force his prior widely-publicized far-right social agenda, which Gregg calls “social engineering.” Pence is also widely considered as planning to use his Indiana gubernatorial victory, should it come, as a springboard from which to launch himself as a future Republican candidate for President. 

 

Both Gregg and Donnelly are conservative Democrats.  Donnelly, a Congressman from Indiana’s northwestern Second District, is a member of the House Blue Dog caucus, while Gregg, former Speaker of the Indiana House from 1996-2002 who describes himself as a “gun-totin’, Bible-quotin’ Southern Indiana Democrat,” was Honorary Chair of the Hillary Clinton for President Indiana Campaign in 2008.  And while Donnelly supported aspects of Obama’s program such as the bailout and Obamacare, he’s also dissented from other aspects of it:  he supports building the Keystone XL pipeline, and opposes cap-and-trade legislation. 

 

While Gregg chose liberal present Indiana House Minority Leader Vi Simpson as his running mate for Lieutenant Governor and actively worked with liberal Democrats and Republicans as Speaker of the Indiana House, he implores prospective voters to “Look beyond the party label” in this conservative state that last elected a Democratic Governor in 2000.  Donnelly calls for tax cuts for small businesses to create jobs and supports a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution, conservative measures criticized by this writer in his Examiner.com article, “Democratic Senatorial candidate Joe Donnelly’s jobs program is Tea Party Light,” reposted on "Politically Incorrect Leftist."

 

As for Indiana grassroots Tea Party activists, they are enthusiastically working for both Pence and Mourdock.  A news story from Indianapolis TV station WTHR, “Mourdock finding support among Tea Party,”  http://www.wthr.com/story/19608135/mourdock-finding-support-among-tea-party, quotes Indiana Tea Party activist Greg Fettig as saying that while Mourdock never said he was a Tea Party candidate, “The Tea Party claimed him.”  Fettig said this as he delivered a bundle of pro-Mourdock signs to a fellow Tea Partier for placing, 25,000 planed for strategic placement in Central Indiana alone.  WTHR political analyst Robin Winston says of the Indiana Tea Party and Mourdock, “He was bought and paid for by them and supported by them.”  Dr. Theo wrote enthusiastically in the conservative Dakota Voice of a 2010 “Get Out the Vote” rally in Plainfield, Indiana, where both Richard Mourdock and Mike Pence spoke, that was sponsored and organized by the Indianapolis Tea Party.  (Plainfield is a small town to the west of Indianapolis; the link to the story is http://www.dakotavoice.com/2010/10/pence-and-murdoch-at-indianapolis-tea-party/)

 

Of course, Pence always had Tea Party support in Indiana because of his open affiliation with the Party at the national level.  The Tea Party at Perrysburg blog gushed on January 18, 2012 that Pence had already raised $5 million for his campaign. (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/may/9/tea-party-wins-in-indiana/) But William Teach admonished Pence in the June 17, 2010 Right Wing News for trying to tie the Tea Party movement to a moral agenda that was heavy on social issues such as support for “traditional” marriage and against abortion instead of focusing exclusively on political issues such as limited government, “loyalty to the U.S. Constitution” and individual liberty. (http://www.rightwingnews.com/republicans/mike-pence-states-tea-party-should-also-focus-on-morality/) Of course, sentiment such as Teach’s is not shared by many Tea Partiers, who are enthusiastic supporters of draconian social legislation such as Pence endorses.  Further, Kentucky Senator and Tea Party supporter Rand Paul avidly praised both the Tea Party and Murodck’s primary victory over Lugar in the conservative Washington Times of May 9, 2012. (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/may/9/tea-party-wins-in-indiana/)

 

However, in mid-October a Tea Party group in northeastern Indiana was forced by the property owner to move a billboard comparing Obama to Osama Bin Laden from its original spot near the Allen Co. line (Indiana’s second-largest city, Ft. Wayne, is located in Allen Co.). (http://www.courier-journal.com/viewart/20121015/NEWS0203/310150113/Indiana-tea-party-group-forced-move-anti-Obama-sign)  In September, John Gregg got into trouble for calling Mike Pence a “Teabagger,” a term many Tea Party members consider a slur. (http://blogs.wishtv.com/2012/09/10/did-john-gregg-direct-a-slur-at-mike-pence/)  And in early October an outside group supporting Gregg, Believe in Indiana, posted ads in Indianapolis and Ft. Wayne that show Pence speaking at a 2011 Tea Party rally in Washington, D.C. and tying him to Mourdock as “Tea Party and extreme.” (http://www.wishtv.com/dpp/news/politics/new-ad-attacks-mike-pence)   Tensions and tempers are running high this election season in Indiana.

 

As is seen from the above, the Mourdock-Donnelly and Gregg-Pence races, and the role of the Tea Party in each, are generating a lot of media attention, far more than usual in Indiana elections.  And this attention is not just confined to Indiana media.  Nationally-read newspapers such as the Louisville Courier-Journal, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, and Slate have all run stories on these races and the significance of Tea Party involvement, and the defeat of Richard Lugar by Richard Mourdock was a national story as well. Mike Pence and his political career and predilections have long been items of national interest, and have generated further commentary in such Internet outlets as the Daily Kos, Politico and Talking Points Memo.  Indiana newsman Brian Howey published a piece on the vicissitudes of John Gregg’s campaign that was reprinted widely. (Linked at http://www.nwitimes.com/news/opinion/columnists/brian-howey/brian-howey-the-curious-campaign-of-john-gregg/article_bd0c126f-2010-5982-9e79-f774baa6cd8d.html)   From these extensive media sources both nationally and in Indiana this writer has drawn much of the material from which this story has been composed—and the links that carry these items of reference,  while far too numerous to list, show up readily on Internet search. 

 

Indiana is normally a sleepy place for news, even local news, so it’s really unusual for such media attention to be drawn to anything Hoosier outside of the Indianapolis Colts.  However, these are unusual elections, and considerably more than usual rides on the outcomes.

 

Riding especially on the outcome of the Mourdock-Donnelly race are control of the Senate and the political future of the Tea Party, both intertwined.  The Tea Party’s had a history of winning handily with its candidates in the Republican primaries, only to lose by large margins in the general elections, and turn what should’ve been easy victories for Republicans for Senatorial seats into resounding defeats and major victories for Democrats.  It happened three times in 2010, with Sharon Angle in Nevada, Christine O’Donnell in Delaware, and Ken Buck in Colorado.  It could happen again twice in 2012:  had Lugar won the Republican primary, he would’ve been close to invincible in November; and had Todd Akin not won the Missouri primary against the  Republican establishment candidate, that seat, too, would’ve probably gone to the GOP.  As it is, Akin, who notoriously bawled that women never get pregnant in cases of “legitimate rape,” is in a tight race with Democratic former underdog Claire McCaskill; and Akin’s candidacy has been essentially disavowed by the Missouri Republican Party because of that remark.  While political handicapper Charlie Cook gave the Republicans a 60%-70% chance to gain control of the Senate in 2011, he now gives a 60% chance to the Democrats to stay in control.  (The information for the above comes from Dana Milbank’s October 19, 2012 column in the Washington Post, “The Tea Party is helping Democrats,” which has been syndicated widely; link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-the-tea-party-is-helping-democrats/2012/10/19/815e07e0-1a08-11e2-aa6f-3b636fecb829_story.html)   Tea, anyone?        

Indiana FSSA and the shredded Hoosier safety net

Originally published March 2013 on Examiner.com.  Since then, while there has been some improvement in some areas, overall the situation in Indiana has gotten worse.  This particular article was much praised for the thoroughness of its research.  Some editorial changes--GF

Indiana’s Family and Social Services Administration (FSSA) was established in 1991 as an umbrella agency to coordinate and provide all human services in Indiana, from welfare through mental health, child care and rehabilitation services.  The brainchild of Democratic Governor Evan Bayh (1988-1996), it was supposed to make the delivery of these services more efficient, and also cut costs.  It has five major divisions: the Division of Family Resources (DFR), which handles eligibility for Medicaid, SNAP benefits or food stamps, and Temporary Aid for Needy Families (TANF) cash assistance, i.e., what is generally known as welfare; Office of Medicaid Policy and Planning (OMPP), which administers Medicaid; the Division of Disability and Rehabilitative Services; Division of Mental Health and Addiction (DMHA); and Division of Aging, which handles long-term care under Medicaid. (State of Indiana, http://www.in.gov/fssa/2406.htm)

 

Also in need of mention under human services, though not part of FSSA, is the beleaguered Indiana Department of Child Services (DCS), which handles issues of child neglect, abuse and foster care in the state.  Indiana’s child abuse and neglect rates are among the highest in the country, where child deaths due to neglect and abuse are noticeably high, standing at a rate of 12.2 instances per 1,000 children under 18 in 2011, according to the Indiana Youth Institute.  (http://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/bystate/stateprofile.aspx?state=IN&loc=16; Indiana Daily Student, “Indiana child abuse rates 1.5 percent times the national average,” September 13, 2007, http://www.idsnews.com/news/story.aspx?id=56055&section=search; Niki Kelly, “Indiana’s fatal child abuse rate increases,” Ft. Wayne Journal-Gazette, April 2, 2010, http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20100402/NEWS07/304029971/1002/LOCAL; “More Indiana Children Die from Abuse, Neglect, Report Says,” November 1, 2011, http://www.sjccasa.org/images/images/Indy%20Channel%20News.pdf)

 

The DCS’ “Annual Child Fatality Report, July 1, 2009 through June 30, 2010,” issued February 2012, http://www.in.gov/dcs/files/fatalitiesreportSFY2010.pdf, has a revealing chart on p. 3, which I’ve copied below:

 

SFY Total   Abuse   Neglect   Previous Involvement

2003   51      34           7                               11

 

2004   57      22         35                               19 

 

2005   54      24         30                               20

2006   53      30         23                               11

2007   36      17         19                                 9

2008   46      24         22                               15

2009   38      24         14                                 9

2010   25      19           6                                 4

 

As shown, there were 360 children’s deaths from abuse or neglect in Indiana in the eight years from 2003 through 2010; further there were over 50 deaths annually from 2003 through 2006.  Also, and quite disturbing, these deaths occurred despite DCS prior involvement in 98 instances, and DCS intervention was quite prevalent during the years 2003-2006, when the most death occurred.  While both the number of deaths and the pattern of previous DCS prior involvement both tapered off from 2007 on, the DCS had already established itself as a troubled and troubling government agency which had undermined itself and its mission; and even the DCS itself admitted in 2002 that there had been ongoing underreporting of abuse and neglect deaths since at least 1999. (Indiana Youth Institute, http://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/bystate/Map.aspx?state=IN&ind=1131&dtm=2469&tf=18)

 

These are but some indication of malfunction in the delivery of human services in Indiana.  As for the FSSA itself, its performance generally pleases no one.  The various Divisions often do not communicate with one another, as I directly experienced from the 1990s through the present—when disability had not only made me eligible for food stamps and Medicaid, I was also receiving mental health services through Community Mental Health Centers operated under the aegis of the DMHA.  I found out directly both through my experiences and the anecdotes provided by my psychotherapists that persons receiving both welfare and mental health services are stymied by lack of coordination among programs and services.  My long-term pharmacist regularly complains of the arbitrariness and sudden rule changes under Medicaid, as well as the opaqueness of the language FSSA uses, often decipherable only by a lawyer.  Further, three times I’ve been ruled ineligible for benefits I was entitled to, which I won back on appeal—a process usually taking six months, and in one instance, over a year.

 

In 2006, under Republican Governor Mitch Daniels (2000-2012), the FSSA contracted out its welfare eligibility determination to IBM, an ill-fated move that lasted until 2010, and was marked by repeated malfunction by IBM, resulting in delays for benefits and the turning down of applicants who were, in fact, eligible for benefits.  Ironically, Daniels privatized welfare services in the same year that Texas, which had earlier privatized such services, abandoned privatization because it hadn’t worked.  Now Indiana has a hybrid system of local offices and centralized call centers and document centers which Indiana residents can use to apply for benefits, handle appeals, and provide documentation for their cases.  However, as I’ve directly experienced, at least in 2012 these centralized services worked none too well; in particular, I remember a call on December 18, 2012 to the central call-in center on a denial of eligibility issue, and found that the center only had data through the middle of November.  Also, as I no longer had a specific case worker, each time I called I talked to a new case worker who was unfamiliar with my case, and had to waste time reviewing the documents which were each time presented anew.  However, I must say that services from the FSSA had considerably improved in 2013, when I received prompt phone calls in both January and February from an FSSA representative on my pending cases, and where the service provided was competent.

 

Indiana has been hard hit by the recession that started in 2007, with both massive increases in poverty and unemployment, making more Hoosiers eligible for both welfare benefits through the FSSA and unemployment benefits through the Department of Workforce Development under the Department of Labor.  However, the response of the Governor’s office and the Indiana General Assembly has been to cut benefits and blame the poor and unemployed for their plight.  In 2011, the General Assembly passed a law which governor Daniels signed that reduced unemployment compensation by 25% and capped the maximum weekly benefits allowed at $360/week, or the equivalent of a full-time job paying only $9/hour.  In 2012 the General Assembly passed legislation, which Gov. Daniels signed, making Indiana a Right-to-Work state, the first such state to enact such legislation since Oklahoma did in 2001.  Touted as a job-creation measure, to date it has not paid off in increased employment, but has, instead, undercut worker protection on the job and undermined unions.  However, Indiana’s unemployment rate stood at 8.3% in December 2012, above the national average of 7.9%; (Bureau of Labor Statistics, http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LASST8000003) and if the Bureau of Labor Statistics U-6 measure of unemployment is used, which includes not only those officially unemployed (i.e., actively looking for work), but also discouraged workers and those only marginally attached to the workforce, as well as those employed only part-time when they’d rather be employed full-time, the rate jumps to 14.2%.  In people terms, this represents 262,000 officially unemployed Hoosiers statewide, and if the U-6 measure is used, 448,500 persons. (Bureau of Labor Statistics, http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LASST8000003; http://www.bls.gov/lau/stalt/htm)

 

Similarly with poverty.  Indiana had a 2007-2011 average poverty rate of 14.1%, which compares to 14.3% nationally.  However, Indiana’s poverty rate for 2007, before the recession, was only 11.8%, and climbed steadily thereafter:  in 2008 it was 14.3%, 1n 2009 16.1%, in 2010 16.3%, and in 2011 15.6%.  Poverty among children under 18 stood at 22.6% in 2011. (Indiana Youth Institute, http://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/bystate/stateprofile.aspx?state=IN&loc=16 )  So, from 2007 to 2011, Indiana’s overall poverty level increased by 32%, rendering 989,000 Hoosiers living in poverty in 2011, out of a total Indiana population of 6,500,000. (US Census Bureau, “Table 21.  Number of Poor and Poverty Rate, by State: 1980 to 2011,” http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/data/historical/people.html)

 

However, this actually underestimates the number of Hoosiers, as well as US residents in poverty, as the Census Bureau’s poverty threshold stands at only $11,945 per year for single persons under 65 and $11,011 for those 65 an older; while that for a family of four stands at only $23,681. (US Census Bureau, “Poverty Thresholds for 2012 by Size of Family and Number of Related Children Under 18 Years,” http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/data/threshld/index.html)  But based on calculations of the increase in the Consumer Price Index since 2001, when Indiana’s Economic Development Commission stated a “livable wage” standard of $10/hour for full-time work, that “livable wage” (also called a Living Wage) would equal $12.99/hour as of December 2012 and $13.03/hour as of January 2013.  Since the Living Wage is economically defined as at least 130% of the poverty wage, that would make the upper threshold of poverty $9.99/hour for a single person in December 2012, and $10.02/hour in January 2013.  Indeed, statisticians at the Bureau of Labor Statistics have argued in research papers prepared for the Bureau that the actual poverty thresholds should be 1½ times what they are now to accurately reflect costs of living, which would make the poverty threshold for a single person nearly $18,000 a year, and that of a family of four over $35,500 a year.  As it stands now, the federal income limit for food stamp eligibility for a single person is only $1,211 a month, (communication from DFR, FSSA) or $14,532 per year, the equivalent of a full-time hourly wage of $6.99/hour—less than the minimum wage.  But few who are really informed would call a year-round minimum wage adequate to lift one out of poverty!

 

However sobering these measures of actual Living Wage and poverty incomes are, and which themselves call for extending benefits to combat poverty, both the federal government and, above all, the State of Indiana, are going in the opposite direction, which can only worsen an already bad situation.  Newly-elected Indiana Governor Mike Pence, a Republican Tea Party stalwart (first among the Republican House leadership to join Michele Bachmann’s Tea Party caucus) (This, and more, was elaborated on in George Fish, “The Tea Party and the 2012 Indiana elections,” Examiner.com, October 22, 2012, which is also posted on "Politically Incorrect Leftist.") has proposed a biennial budget for Fiscal Years 2014-15 of $29 billion that, while increasing Medicaid spending by $200 million each year, also eliminates dental care, financing for hearing aids, and podiatry services; it also does not provide funds for increasing Medicaid coverage to 133% of the federal poverty level for entitlements, as called for by the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare.  Instead, Governor Pence is calling for a cut in the state’s personal income tax of $790 million, reducing the tax rate from a 3.4% flat rate to 3.06% rate, a measure that has garnered even Republican opposition.  (Sunshine Review, http://sunshinereview.org/index.php/Indiana_state_budget) But Pence’s tax plan is in line with general Republican strategy to cut social entitlements, and thus shred the already-fragile social safety net.  And despite a stated commitment to job creation, this Republican budget under Daniels allotted less than 1% of its funds to economic development, even less than it allotted to conservation and environmental protection.  (Pie graph provided by the office of State Sen. Jean Breaux)

 

As it was, the Fiscal Year 2012-13 budget signed into law by Governor Daniels spent 23% of its revenues on welfare and Medicaid, (Breaux, op.cit.) with some of the lowest levels of benefits in the country.  TANF cash assistance benefits, for example, were only a maximum of $288 a month for a family of three in 2005, (National Center for Children in Poverty, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, http://www.nccp.org/tools/table.php?states=IN&submit=Create+Table&ids%5B%5D=12-288&db=pol&data=text) and are not available to many unemployed families—the breadwinner(s) receive too much in unemployment compensation to qualify!  Income limit for full Medicaid coverage is a paltry $710 per month, (communication from DFR, FSSA) and receiving more than that means paying a spend-down before Medicaid will pay for any medical expenses.  In my particular case, with a Social Security income of $822/month (the national average is $1,400/month) and occasional work through temp services, my “total countable income” of $990.24/month means I have a spend-down of $280/year.  Further, as I am now working full-time in a warehouse job that pays $9/hour, I will be losing my eligibility for food stamps and Medicaid entirely, although my work income for the nine-and-a-half months of work expected for 2013 will only amount to $14,800 for the year.  However, not only can I expect my medical expenses to substantially increase, I can also expect to pay an additional $300/month for groceries.  All on a job with only a $360/week gross income and net of approximately $298!

 

But I’m now one of the “lucky ones” among my fellow “overqualified” older Hoosier college grads in that I have a full-time steady job, my first in 12 years.  Several of my friends have only seasonal work, and then often don’t even work a full-time week.  One such friend only qualifies for $64/week in unemployment compensation when she’s not working.

 

Indiana is about average for the nation economically.  Its cost of living is near the national average, and while wages are low, so are also housing and other costs.  Its unemployment rate is generally just a little above the national average.  But loss of manufacturing jobs has cost the Hoosier state immensely, so that Indiana had only a 2007-2011 per capita income of $24,497 and a 2007-2011 median household income of $48,393, compared to the national per capita income of $27,915 and median household income of $52,762. US Census, http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/18000.html) Indeed, Indiana’s per capita and median household incomes have been falling steadily compared to their national counterparts for the past ten years.  (Indiana Business Research Center, Kelly School of Business, Indiana University, STATS, http://www.stats.indiana.edu/dms4/new_dpage.asap?profile_id=339&output_mode=1; Indiana Institute for Working Families, “Status of Working Families in Indiana, 2011,” p. 24, http://www.incap.org/statusworkingfamilies.html)

 

 Educationally, Indiana is far worse off:  only 22.7% of its residents aged 25 or over had a bachelor’s degree or higher, compared to the national rate of 28.2%.  (US Census, http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/18000.html) In 2010, Indiana had only an 84.5% high school graduation rate.  (Indiana Youth Institute, http://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/bystate/stateprofile.aspx?state=IN&loc=16)

And even though the Fiscal Year 2012-2013 budget allotted 53% of its spending to K-12 education and 12% to higher education (a significant drop in higher education spending from previous years), its primary and secondary schools are still mediocre and  among college graduates, 60%  leave the state each year due to lack of job opportunities.  In 2011, 43.1% of Indiana’s residents with a bachelor’s degree or higher suffered long-term unemployment, while 7.4% were underemployed, and16.2% only worked part-time. (Indiana Institute for Working Families, op.cit., p. 20, p. 14) “We're stuck,” said Philip Powell, Associate Professor of Business at Indiana University-Bloomington, to the Indianapolis Star in 2009.  “We're stuck because we don't have the knowledge base we need in the labor force. A lot of that is because of our really mediocre primary and secondary educational system." (Quoted in George Fish and Dave Fey, “Mediocrity—a Hoosier affliction,” Bloomington Alternative, July 12, 2009, http://bloomingtonalternative.com/articles/2009/07/12/10039)

 

Such is the State of Indiana, March 2013—inadequate social services, shredded social safety net, too-high unemployment, an inept FSSA administering human services, poor education, a Brain Drain, and politics dominated by Tea Party Republicans.  Only thing “good” to report is that it’s about the national average. But that was in 2013; since then, Indiana has sunk below the national average in crucial socio-economic indices, poverty has increased, and though employment has improved, the employment growth has been in the low-wage sector.  Indiana is now ranked 9th among the states in which the middle class is disappearing, http://247wallst.com/special-report/2015/01/22/states-where-the-middle-class-is-dying/3/.