OPINION: Seasonal jobs aren't jolly at $8 an hour

Janus Adams is an author, historian and social commentator.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Manufacturers and retailers have been busily shipping and stocking. To everything there is a season.

Even in boom years, Christmas is the season for high drama - and trauma. The pressure to spare no expense of time, money and smiles in pursuit of the postcard-perfect holiday wreaks havoc on families everywhere.

In a miscalculated formula, our culture equates money - that is, overextending ourselves and our budgets - with a good time.

So now the merchandise is stacked high, as retailers need a year-end boom to make their numbers. It's our patriotic duty to save the economy with record shopping in the midst of record unemployment.

In the news, there's good news: The economy is picking up. There's hope for job-seekers. As reported this week, job- placement firms predict a 20 percent boost in seasonal hiring nationwide, with retailers adding up to 650,000 workers. Some recent ads:

HELP WANTED: Holiday/seasonal associate. Just in time for holiday shopping, you will receive an employee discount of 20 percent starting your first day! Apply online.

HELP WANTED: Cashier. Responsible for efficiently and accurately completing sales and service transactions. Required: willingness to work in a team environment, strong attention to detail, excellent communication skills; prior sales or customer service experience is preferred.

A sampling of retailers confirms availability of the jobs, the perks - and the fine-print of the salaries: $8 per hour on average. That's $160 for a part-timer's 20-hour week.

For those lucky few for whom the part-time holiday job becomes a steppingstone to full-time employment, that's an annual salary of $16,640.

The truth is that if you're out of work, you can't afford these jobs.

To be sure, the sales associate earning $8 an hour part time may double those earnings with commissions by going full time. But even $33,280 doesn't cover the expenses in costly Nassau and Suffolk. According to the Self-Sufficiency Standard for New York State study released over the summer, on Long Island a single parent of two young children needs up to $86,000 annually to cover the basic expenses: housing, food, child care, transportation, health care and taxes.

In the midst of this personal chaos for the un- and underemployed, we have political leaders and some economists cautioning against the deficit and "passing on the bill to our children." But what about the short-term effects of poverty on today's children?

The truth of our national conversation on the economy is this: It's only the people with jobs - in most cases comfortable jobs - who are doing the talking.

Jobless people can't support political action committees or pony up campaign contributions. They don't travel to Washington to attend rallies, whether hosted by Glenn Beck or by Jon Stewart. And they don't get listened to. What we need is a summit of the unemployed. With job-seekers ranging from the GED to the PhD, their front-line reportage could yield serious solutions.

Instead, here we are, looking for Santa. While making a list, and checking it twice, it's time to reorder our priorities.

Who needs a sleighful of foreign-manufactured, trade-imbalanced, personal-deficit-inducing trinkets? The costs of some holiday traditions are too high, even with a 20-percent employee discount.

Better to focus on the things we need - or to give a lump of coal. At least that can help with the heat.