Two American Families

TWO AMERICAN FAMILIES: 1991-2024 July 23, 2024

TERRY NEUMANN:

Tony and I have known each other since we were probably about 2 years old. His mother and my mother went to school together at Pulaski High School. And our grandparents, when our parents were younger, they played cards. So they were pretty good friends.

TERRY NEUMANN:

I don’t know, we just started seeing each other, spending a lot of time at each other’s houses, and he just asked me out. So I said, OK. We were crazy about each other. We had to spend a lot of time together, and I could just picture myself spending the rest of my life with him.

TERRY NEUMANN:

Our expectations were, I thought, you find the man that you like and get married and have a family and get a house. Little white picket fence, all those little fairy tale-type things. Some of it came true, but some of it, as far as the bumpy roads, I didn’t expect either. I knew they weren’t going to be all peaches and cream, but you don’t think of all the bad things when you’re younger.

1991

BILL MOYERS:

Once upon a time, Terry Neumann and her husband, Tony, dreamed of a good, simple life.

TERRY NEUMANN:

When we got married, we had started a family right away. He was working factory and I stayed home. And he made pretty good money when we were first married, for a young couple with one little one on the way.

Grab a couple and crack them in the pan.

I don’t know. We had a good time with one child, so we had another one, and there was Adam. And then I got pregnant with Karissa in ’86, and he had lost his job. Then he got hired at Briggs, and we thought, OK, this is a very stable job. We can start saving. And we bought the house.

BILL MOYERS:

Buying a home was a big step for a young couple. But Tony had a good job with the engine maker Briggs & Stratton, then the largest employer in the region.

FEMALE VOICE:

Years ago, if you wanted a small engine, you got a Briggs & Stratton.

BILL MOYERS:

For decades, Briggs and dozens of other stalwart Wisconsin manufacturers had helped make Milwaukee just about the American dream’s hometown. Celebrated in sitcoms—

LAVERNE & SHIRLEY THEME SONG:

Give us any chance, we’ll take it.

BILL MOYERS:

—and sentimentalized in beer commercials.

MILLER BEER TV COMMERCIAL:

So when Miller time rolls around tonight, we raise a glass to you, Milwaukee. You’ve earned it.

BILL MOYERS:

When we met the Neumanns in the early ’90s, American manufacturers had already begun chasing cheap labor to nonunion states and Mexico. Of over 40,000 good-paying jobs lost from Milwaukee in the preceding decade, about 4,000 were from Briggs & Stratton. One of them was Tony Neumann’s.

TONY NEUMANN:

It sort of goes like this. Here and here.

TERRY NEUMANN:

He gets into Briggs, and we think, Oh, this is a good company. We can buy a house. Now we have the house, we have more bills.

TONY NEUMANN:

We got to drill a hole. How big of a hole do you want?

ADAM NEUMANN:

Not that big.

TERRY NEUMANN:

But it’s either rent for the rest of your life or own, and we prefer to own. I mean—

BILL MOYERS:

That’s supposed to be the American dream.

TERRY NEUMANN:

That’s supposed to be the American dream.

BILL MOYERS:

A house, a good job.

TERRY NEUMANN:

Where is it? Where is it?

BILL MOYERS:

Tony had been making up to $18 an hour plus benefits. Now, the jobs available to a laid-off union worker commonly paid a fraction of that.

TONY NEUMANN:

I’ve applied over at grocery stores, hardware stores, there’s—

TERRY NEUMANN:

McDonald’s.

TONY NEUMANN:

—Hardy’s—

TERRY NEUMANN:

Kohl’s.

TONY NEUMANN:

—SuperAmerica, Pizza Hut, Walmart, Sam’s. Most of them will not pay $6 an hour. They’re all less than $6 an hour. Little do they know I need to live also.

Thank you. Have a nice day.

TERRY NEUMANN:

And one of these. And then you need a business card to call Mommy up.

BILL MOYERS:

While her husband looked for work, Terry tried to bring in some extra money. She bought skin care products and then tried reselling them to her neighbors, door to door.

TERRY NEUMANN:

Look in the mirror and feel your face and say, “Well, it’s softer,” the complexion, the color. Yeah. And that’s basically why I wanted to share this with you.

BILL MOYERS:

But she lost money on the deal, and their troubles just got worse.

TONY NEUMANN:

You going to call him back?

TERRY NEUMANN:

Am I going to call him back? Yeah, I’m going to have to call him back.

TONY NEUMANN:

Well, you talked to him before.

BILL MOYERS:

How much is your mortgage a month?

TERRY NEUMANN:

I believe it’s like eight—

TONY NEUMANN:

$819.

TERRY NEUMANN:

Yeah, $820, or something like that.

BILL MOYERS:

Have you been able to make all the payments?

TERRY NEUMANN:

No, and we’re behind. And today the mortgage company called me again.

BILL MOYERS:

Again?

TERRY NEUMANN:

Yes.

BILL MOYERS:

What did they say?

TERRY NEUMANN:

I didn’t answer them right now because I wanted to talk to Tony, who wasn’t home, so I wanted to talk to him.

BILL MOYERS:

You must dread it when the phone rings.

TERRY NEUMANN:

I do. I cringe.

TONY NEUMANN:

It was the same guy who I talked to before.

TERRY NEUMANN:

Really.

[on phone] I did send a $1,000 check in, probably a few weeks back, but the check was sent back to me with a letter stating “we will not accept a partial payment.” I don’t really think of that as a partial payment. I think of that as a basic payment and a good gesture on trying to get caught up. Right now we’re going through a hard time. My husband’s out of work. He went to school and he’s looking for a job. And I’m basically just trying to buy a little time so we can get on our feet again, so we can get caught up. I would think that this is just going to be a temporary thing, not a permanent thing. And I really don’t want to lose my house. Or are you just trying to tell me that you have to foreclose on the house if I don’t have that full amount? You would recommend it.

TONY NEUMANN:

Is he putting this on paper? I want to know, is he putting this on paper? Dear?

WOMAN AT FOOD PANTRY:

Holding on there OK? You get the peanut butter and the honey.

TERRY NEUMANN:

I don’t like having to go and ask and say, “I have no food in the house,” or something, “Can you help me out?” Where when you would go and work and get a paycheck and come home and support yourself—

TONY NEUMANN:

Then you would be giving this food to other people.

TERRY NEUMANN:

Right. Well, now, shoe’s on the other foot. Makes me feel very uncomfortable. I’d rather be on the giving side than the receiving.

WOMAN AT FOOD PANTRY:

They have peanut butter, flour, some pork here. I understand that if you put it over noodles or rice and maybe add a little onion, that it’s quite palatable.

TONY NEUMANN:

Oh, what happened to his ear? What, he wants to go back in his house? He doesn’t like all you kids,

ADAM NEUMANN:

He don’t have no house. Come here.

TONY NEUMANN:

Can you reach that high? Or you want me to do it?

ADAM NEUMANN:

I want to hold him all the way over there.

TONY NEUMANN:

1. You can hold him all the way over here.

ADAM NEUMANN:

Come on. Come here.

TERRY NEUMANN:

They’ve made comments, too, like, “Mom, let’s sell the bookshelf.” They’ve got little baseball cards. “Mom, I’ll sell these.” And that hurts, because they’re willing to sell their baseball cards to help their parents out.

TONY NEUMANN:

I’ve been getting very angry lately. I’ve been losing my temper quite a bit. I’ve tried doing things. I work in the garage on woodworking things when I get angry, and that helps once in a while. I just—I’m having a hard time dealing with this.

TERRY NEUMANN:

What are you doing today?

BILL MOYERS:

How do you deal with this pressure? The anger, the—

TERRY NEUMANN:

I can’t. It’s very difficult.

TONY NEUMANN:

Yeah, our marriage is really on the rocks. This is a really difficult time. This is a real difficult time. I’ve been thinking about divorce now for a while.

BILL MOYERS:

Why?

TONY NEUMANN:

I can’t deal with the situation. I’m just having a real hard time dealing with it.

BILL MOYERS:

You feel guilty?

TONY NEUMANN:

Yeah, I do. I feel I should be supporting my family.

BILL MOYERS:

You think he really wants a divorce? Or is this just an escape?

TERRY NEUMANN:

I think it’s an escape, and I just think he figures it’s an easy way out. But really, the problems are still going to be there because he’s still going to have to support us. And I feel it’s going to be worse.

I just feel it’s just—just a tough time. And if we can just get through this, then we’ll be back to the life that we had before.

FATHER MIKE STRACHOTA:

Good morning, everybody. We gather on this Sunday morning in faith to praise our triune God, in the name of the Father and of the Son—

BILL MOYERS:

As Tony and Terry prayed for better times, across town in Milwaukee’s central city, a second hardworking family found their faith being tested. Like Tony Neumann, Claude Stanley had also been laid off. He lost his assembly line job with big manufacturer A.O. Smith.

CLAUDE STANLEY:

When I got laid off, they wanted me to go onto welfare, down to welfare, but I could not stand in that line. I just said, “That’s not me. This is not me.” They wanted to give me food stamps. I said, “This ain’t me.” I don’t want no food stamps. I said I got my strength, my heath. I will find me a job. And I found me a job.

BILL MOYERS:

He found a job waterproofing basements for less than $7 an hour—not even half of what he had been making.

CLAUDE STANLEY:

You got to look at it on the real side. I cannot live like I was making $20 an hour, OK? That money is not there. So you might as well get it in your mind it’s not there no more. So, OK, bring yourself down.

BILL MOYERS:

Claude and his wife, Jackie, were raising five kids: their daughter Nicole, about to enter college when we met her; the oldest son, Keith; the twins Klaudale and Claude Jr.; and the youngest, Omega.

KEITH STANLEY:

I think the hardest time is when you have to worry about coming home—like I say, always coming home, and then there’s a bill on the door saying the water is cut off. Or there’s—the guy just called saying he’s going to cut off the phone. Or the electricity’s off and you have to wait for a couple of days until Mom and Dad can get enough money to put it back on.

BILL MOYERS:

Their neighborhood, Sherman Park, was mostly African American and had once thrived on factory jobs that paid enough to support a family. Now, those jobs were disappearing and people here were trying to figure out what to do next. People like Jackie Stanley, who had lost her job at Briggs.

JACKIE STANLEY:

When I was on the motor line at Briggs, I began to study my real estate.

Can I shake your hand?

I went 10 times for my real estate license. The 10th time I passed. And I promised that as soon as Briggs did close the door that I was going to go on and do real estate. And that’s exactly what I did.

[on phone] Hi, Joe. Yeah, this is Jacqueline Stanley from Homestead.

It’s just like anything else. It’s really unsure.

[on phone] OK, I just got into this, it says “ASAP.”

You only get excited when you’re sitting at the closing and have the check in your hand. You never get overexuberant. And I’m learning that every day.

NICOLE STANLEY:

Mom’s real estate is tough on her. I’ve seen her try to wheel and deal deals. They seem so good, and at the last minute they fall apart.

JACKIE STANLEY:

[on phone] The listing is for September. It’s already October.

NICOLE STANLEY:

And that falling apart is our mortgage. That falling apart is the car notes. And that’s scary.

BILL MOYERS:

As good jobs left town, the number of African Americans in poverty increased from about 25% in the 1970s to over 40% in the early ’90s. The Stanleys vowed it wouldn’t happen to them, but as property values fell in the central city, so did real estate commissions. And when Jackie tried to sell in other neighborhoods, she met resistance.

JACKIE STANLEY:

It was on the market for a year and didn’t sell.

BILL BERLAND:

It’s because they didn’t have somebody as good as you.

JACKIE STANLEY:

[laughs] OK.

BILL BERLAND:

People of color really have a much more difficult time in our business making a living than white people. It may be a situation where she may call for a showing and not get the courtesy of a callback. Maybe her client that she takes into a mortgage lender has a much more difficult time, even if their credit is good, getting a mortgage.

JACKIE STANLEY:

[on phone] All right. Fax it to me.

I can’t sell suburbs. I can’t sell the most affluent areas here. And that hurts. But they’ll call me for central city.

KEITH STANLEY:

You talk to your friends. They always say, “Well, I’m going to be doing this this summer. Well, how about you?” And you’re like, “Well, I’m doing working.” That’s all you can say right now is I’m working.

They’re always asking, “Why do you work? Why don’t you go out and have fun like the rest of the kids do?” And you say you can’t. You just can’t do it. You have to go out there and help your mom and dad.

BILL MOYERS:

To help out, Keith Stanley and the twins, Claude Jr. and Klaudale, started a business. They called it the Three Sons Lawn Care Service.

MALE INTERVIEWER:

How much money would you like to make when you grow up?

CLAUDE STANLEY JR.:

Probably about a hundred million, something like that. Three hundred million, something like that.

MALE INTERVIEWER:

Do you think you will?

CLAUDE STANLEY JR.:

Yeah.

KLAUDALE STANLEY:

I see my mom on the phone talking to the bill collectors, asking them when they would take—the mortgage company, when they were about to take our house, she was pleading with the mortgage company. She asked the bill collectors to keep the light and sometimes the gas on. That makes me want to do more. A lot more.

BILL MOYERS:

The country was deep in recession in 1991. The president predicted it wouldn’t last.

PRESIDENT GEORGE H.W. BUSH:

We will get this recession behind us and return to growth soon. We will get on our way to a new record of expansion and achieve the competitive strength that will carry us into the next American century.

BILL MOYERS:

But the problem was bigger than recession. By 1991, Milwaukee’s new economy depended on nonunion manufacturing and service jobs, the vast majority of them offering lower pay and fewer benefits. That was still the case when we returned to the city two years later.

1993

BILL MOYERS:

But by the beginning of 1993, there were expectations that things were about to turn around.

PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON:

I, William Jefferson Clinton, do solemnly swear and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. So help me God.

CHIEF JUSTICE WILLIAM REHNQUIST:

Congratulations.

KLAUDALE STANLEY:

From the way he ran his campaign, it was more like he wasn’t going to send more jobs or factories out of the country and bring more in. And I guess that in the next four years, maybe we might have openings and maybe you might not have to film as many people, and you’re—more people have jobs and things probably work out.

MALE INAUGURATION SPEAKER:

Ladies and gentlemen, the president of the United States of America, William Jefferson Clinton.

KLAUDALE STANLEY:

This president I think I can trust and relate to somehow.

KEITH STANLEY:

Four more years. Four more years, buddy. You need to grow up a little bit.

BILL CLINTON:

Today we celebrate the mystery of American renewal.

KEITH STANLEY:

Yeah, I’ve been there with Reagan, Bush and now Clinton. I’m not saying I don’t trust presidents. It’s that you say a lot of stuff to get on top. Even if I was running for something, I’d say—I’d be like, “Everybody get free candy,” and everything, you know? So you say a lot of stuff to get on top.

BILL CLINTON:

We inherit an economy that is still the world’s strongest, but is weakened by business failures, stagnant wages—

TERRY NEUMANN:

I think if they work on jobs first, a lot of people would probably be more energized. Give people something to wake up to every morning. A purpose.

TONY NEUMANN:

A purpose and a lot more self-respect.

TERRY NEUMANN:

Right. And I think that will change a lot of people’s attitudes.

TONY NEUMANN:

Changed mine.

TERRY NEUMANN:

Yeah.

FATHER MIKE STRACHOTA:

I invited the Neumanns around the Lord’s table because a year ago they may not have had as much to be thankful for, right? You didn’t have a steady job then, did you?

TONY NEUMANN:

That’s a fact.

FATHER MIKE STRACHOTA:

That’s a fact. What is the fact today?

TONY NEUMANN:

I have more than enough work.

FATHER MIKE STRACHOTA:

More than enough work. God is with us.

BILL MOYERS:

Tony Neumann had found a job making engine parts in a small factory. Like many in the new light manufacturing sector, the job was nonunion. It paid $8.25 an hour with no benefits.

KARISSA NEUMANN:

More coffee for Daddy.

TONY NEUMANN:

I’m still scared because of being laid off so many times. Some people do call me money-hungry because I eat up the overtime, but I’ve seen how a couple months without income can do to you. I won’t feel safe enough until I have like $20,000 in the bank.

BILL MOYERS:

Tony was working the night shift. Still months behind on the mortgage, he was working an exhausting amount of overtime to try and catch up.

TONY NEUMANN:

The kids are off to school at 8 o’clock in the morning so I can see them from 7 o’clock when they get up until 8 o’clock when they leave. And then I don’t get home until 12 o’clock at night, and they’re already in bed sleeping.

It does bother me not to be able to see the kids as much as I used to. It does bother me a lot. But at this point in time right now, having money coming in consistently is more important than spending time with my children all the time like I used to.

Can you make sure Daniel reads that book on the chemistry set real good?

BILL MOYERS:

Terry and Tony’s marriage survived, but there were still pressures.

TONY NEUMANN:

See you tonight.

TERRY NEUMANN:

Goodbye.

Come on, let’s pray.

We are missing somebody. We’re missing Tony. So a lot of times we’re here by ourselves and it gets kind of lonely, because we have to do things just with the four of us. And sometimes I feel like a single parent.

[praying together] The Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen. Bless us, oh, Lord, and these thy gifts which we are about to receive from thy bounty through Christ, our Lord, amen. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, amen.

This is the ham that Dad got from work, at Christmastime.

BILL MOYERS:

Terry still found herself having to choose between making money and staying home with the kids. The choice for now was to bring in some extra income. Selling beauty products had wound up costing her money, so she took part-time work caring for an elderly woman. She left the kids with a relative.

In 1993, Claude Sr. was still waterproofing basements.

CLAUDE STANLEY:

I do my best. If I’m going to come out here and do a job, I’m going to make sure it’s done right. I don’t care who works with me, we’re going to do it right, if I have to be here half the night to get it done.

BILL MOYERS:

He was now earning about $7 an hour, 50 cents more than in ’91.

CLAUDE STANLEY:

Now I’m putting the long hours in. You’re getting money, but it’s not that much. But you’re getting longer hours. But you get home, you’re tired. We tired, you know? And you say, “What the use?”

JACKIE STANLEY:

Why keep struggling?

CLAUDE STANLEY:

Why keep going? But you got to say, “I’m going to make it. I’m going to make it.” But that door’s got open up somewhere. It’s got to open up somewhere.

BILL MOYERS:

In 1993, the three sons were still in business. Keith Stanley, now 16, and the 14-year-old twins, Klaudale and Claude Jr.

KEITH STANLEY:

We do a lot of offhand jobs. Odd jobs like doing this and painting rooms and putting up carpet, taking out the furniture and stuff like that. Most of the money goes to the bank, and if it doesn’t, either we’re helping our sister out in college or we’re helping out buying our own shoes, buying our equipment. So it doesn’t just get spent on whatever you want.

BILL MOYERS:

Keith had set a goal to become the first boy on either side of the family to graduate high school and go on to college.

CLAUDE STANLEY:

I try to instill in them is you’re going to need to get education. You got to go to college. Without a college education, you won’t make it.

TERRY NEUMANN:

Daniel.

KARISSA NEUMANN:

Daniel!

TERRY NEUMANN:

Daniel, look for your homework. And your backpack.

KARISSA NEUMANN:

And shut the door!

TERRY NEUMANN:

With me working and Tony working, we had different shifts and we weren’t all together all the time at the same time.

TONY NEUMANN:

Karissa, where is it?

TERRY NEUMANN:

How can he lose a backpack?

Daniel started getting very quiet and kept to himself a lot, and his attitude just changed a little bit. He got really distant.

TONY NEUMANN:

Hey, look at this.

TERRY NEUMANN:

Homework not finished. Why?

And then Daniel started having problems with his grades in school.

There’s three pages here.

TONY NEUMANN:

I’m not signing none of this.

TERRY NEUMANN:

Let me see that.

GUIDANCE COUNSELOR:

Some kids almost blame themselves for what’s going on in a family. And that they have to realize this is a situation that’s a tough situation for the whole family. Everybody’s doing the best they can. You love him, you’re there for him and you’ll always be there for him.

TEACHER:

Danny Newman?

BILL MOYERS:

Deciding the children needed her full time at home, Terry gave up the job.

JACKIE STANLEY:

I think he made about 35, 40 at Smith.

CLAUDE STANLEY:

At Smith, yeah.

JACKIE STANLEY:

And I made 35 and 40.

CLAUDE STANLEY:

At Briggs.

JACKIE STANLEY:

And that’s—so we’re about half of that. If we didn’t—made what we made at Briggs and Smith, right now, kids at least have some kind of college funds built up.

CLAUDE STANLEY:

But we look on each other for our strength. Some days, she have bad days. Some days, I have bad days. But like, when—if I’m not producing, she’s producing. When I can’t—I do, she do, I do. We try to find a way to make ends meet. You got some families probably say, how do we make it? How do we make it?

JACKIE STANLEY:

We don’t even know sometimes. [laughter]

CLAUDE STANLEY:

How do you make it?

JACKIE STANLEY:

We just keep holding on. We rummage. I love to rummage.

Hi.

WOMAN AT RUMMAGE STORE:

How are you?

JACKIE STANLEY:

Fine.

I come here because I work with a lot of people every day. They come in the offices, from their cologne to the shoes, they look gorgeous. And I can’t afford what they wear. My accessories that I wear, they are like $5, $10 to $20 earrings. I pay 99 cents.

OMEGA STANLEY:

This is something you would wear, probably.

JACKIE STANLEY:

Something I would wear? No, I think Elvis Presley would wear it. [laughter] No, I wouldn’t wear that.

WOMAN AT RUMMAGE STORE:

Fifty-five.

JACKIE STANLEY:

OK, I’ll get hers and put mine on layaway.

Nobody wants to be around somebody that doesn’t have their selves together, even if you have to, as one broker wrote to me and said, fake it till you make it. And that’s what we do in the Stanley household. We wear exactly what the people on Lake Drive wear.

I’ll tell you what we’ll do. I’ll tell you what, I’ll give this one, because that’s the very same house.

Our family would be what you would say is what the average Americans are going through. And with my kind of work that I do, which is real estate, I get paid on commission. It goes up and down, and it’s rough.

Don’t go in the back hallway. The dog’s there.

BILL MOYERS:

Jackie was just one of the agents working on this sale and had to split the commission with the others. She also had to pay a percentage of her share to her employer, Homestead Realty, reducing her own take.

JACKIE STANLEY:

Out of this one, by the time they’re done, it will be about $1,000. If we’re going to do the taxes, too, then you also have to remember they take the 28% out of the $1,000 that you make. So it’s—you’re down again.

There’s something that I always say, and I know you may not understand this, but it’s “If so a man thinketh, so is he.” If I think poverty all the time, I’ll act that way. I can’t afford to talk negative and then allow my children to see me that way down or depressed.

BILL MOYERS:

Even as Jackie persevered, it seemed her neighborhood was coming apart at the seams.

JACKIE STANLEY:

Even on this street, one block west of my house, just about every door here has a steel door. There was “kill you” written on the back of my fence—”if you don’t join the gangs,” to my oldest son, Keith.

All I could tell him is keep trying. Every day I have to encourage myself, and I have to encourage them. Many times Keith has said to me, “What’s the use, Mom?” He did a 3.5. What does it matter? And I said, “You got to keep going.” Someone called us the other day. The snow was heavy and we were out shoveling snow and someone stood at the window and said, “Look at your family, it’s perfect.” And they called us the Beaver family. I know they meant to say Cleaver, but—and I said—”We see you together all the time. It looks good.” But it “looks” good. But no matter how it looks on the outside, I’m concerned.

TERRY NEUMANN:

Daniel, Daniel, let me see. Let me see, please. Oh, come on. Come on. I’ve been waiting for this.

DANIEL NEUMANN:

I got Ds in all things.

TERRY NEUMANN:

You have what?

BILL MOYERS:

Having given up on her job, Terry was home with the kids, encouraging them and helping with homework.

TERRY NEUMANN:

As, Cs, Cs. Well, you went up in math. You had a U, you went to a C.

I wasn’t sure if it was the right decision, but I thought it’s either that or my kids are just going to be having a worse problem.

“Wow! I am proud of your efforts, Dan. I knew you could do it. Keep up the good work.” Good job, Dan.

TONY NEUMANN:

Did Julie mention what kind of plants she wanted. Tomatoes?

TERRY NEUMANN:

Yeah, she wanted tomatoes.

TONY NEUMANN:

A lot of the stuff that you grow, you can eat and just helps save money a little bit. I learned this from my mom and dad and grandma and all of these people who grew up during the Depression and figured, it makes it seem like you don’t have it that bad.

BILL MOYERS:

Tony continued working lots of overtime. Then he got sick and lost 10 days’ pay.

TERRY NEUMANN:

He caught pneumonia and he collapsed.

TONY NEUMANN:

Yeah, they put me on an IV for about an hour and a half or so.

TERRY NEUMANN:

And you get the bill and it’s like 300 and something dollars. And I said, “Just for a taxi service to the hospital?” I’m like, come on. And Tony’s like, “Oh, God, there’s another bill.”

BILL MOYERS:

Tony’s new medical expenses hit them hard. They were still paying off the debts from when he was unemployed.

TERRY NEUMANN:

Just with the mortgage we got, well, three months behind, and it will take us two years to get—to pay that back because they tack on the interest and penalty charges and whatever else. So that three months takes two years. That’s a long time. So whatever extra money we have, we send it, only because we want to make sure that in the next year we have it paid off so they don’t take the house.

ACCOUNTANT:

OK, let’s get these numbers down, see what we’ve got here. Looks like you’ve got a medical deduction there.

BILL MOYERS:

In April 1993, the Neumanns were proud that Tony was reporting income for the first time in two years.

ACCOUNTANT:

Uh-oh. You don’t have enough taxes paid up. You owe $900.

TERRY NEUMANN:

$900? Where am I going to get $900?

1995

BILL MOYERS:

Two years later, in 1995, getting a job wasn’t the problem anymore in Milwaukee. There was even a shortage of skilled labor.

MALE NEWSREADER:

Employers in some parts of the state say they can’t find enough qualified workers. And Gov. Thompson announced what he calls Operation Hire to address those shortages.

BILL MOYERS:

The problem still was that jobs often didn’t pay enough.

In the spring of ‘95, Tony Neumann finally moved on to the day shift. Now he and Terry were able to spend more time with the kids.

TERRY NEUMANN:

They’re doing great. They’re healthy. They’re doing well in school. And they’re getting big. They’re growing. They’re just huge. They’re growing out of shoes and pants and clothes. [laughs]

BILL MOYERS:

Tony was now making around $13 an hour, still less than he had made at Briggs & Stratton. The Neumanns had managed to catch up on their mortgage, but they had no savings and still lived paycheck to paycheck.

TONY NEUMANN:

Why would I be waiting?

TERRY NEUMANN:

Morning. Morning, Barb.

BILL MOYERS:

Terry’s latest part-time job was at a school cafeteria. Paying $6.91 an hour, it let her get home before the kids.

TERRY NEUMANN:

I only work three hours, so I don’t get any benefits right now. I might get extra time if somebody’s sick. Any extra time that I can get, I grab, because it helps.

BILL MOYERS:

In a typical day, Terry took home less than $20 after taxes.

TERRY NEUMANN:

Oh, I have to go by my dad’s house. He went on vacation for three weeks, and I have to go check out the house.

BILL MOYERS:

In the Stanley household in 1995, oldest son Keith reached a milestone, becoming the first man on either side of his family to graduate high school.

KEITH STANLEY:

Aw, Mommy.

JACKIE STANLEY:

[cries] I’ve been talking for years. I can’t talk now. You’re the first one.

GRADUATION ANNOUNCER:

Keith Kenyatta Stanley.

JACKIE STANLEY:

That’s my boy. That’s my son. Jackie Stanley’s son.

KEITH STANLEY:

I’m kind of nervous and kind of excited, but I’m ready to go on and move on now, because it’s like been a long four years at high school. I’m hoping that after I graduate, I really stay in college. Because I know a lot of times people, they go out there expecting high hopes and the world let them down. I want to really go out there and make some noise in the world. That’s what I want to do.

TERRY NEUMANN:

This is where I’m going today, Karissa. Pickup and deliveries. “Must have CDL. Competitive wages and excellent benefits.” And that’s what we need, benefits. “Apply in person.”

I studied and took a test at the motor vehicle department and got a CDL license. And CDL license stands for commercial driver’s license. I’m hoping to get into a pretty good company that’s going to offer me like eight hours a day and give me some decent benefits, like medical, dental and eye exam.

BILL MOYERS:

Knowing he wouldn’t make the living he needed at his present job, Tony had been retraining again.

TONY NEUMANN:

What are you doing outside?

ADAM NEUMANN:

I was waiting for you.

TONY NEUMANN:

I’m always learning. You always have to learn. If you—when you stop learning, then you’ve got a problem.

The Honors Program. “Congratulations on your outstanding performance on The Asset.”

BILL MOYERS:

Tony got near-perfect scores, this time in thermoplastic molding. Now he was up for a new job.

TONY NEUMANN:

I went and got an interview, and I’m waiting to hear sometime by the end of the month if I have the job or not.

BILL MOYERS:

And that doesn’t make you happy?

TERRY NEUMANN:

It makes me happy because it’s really what he wanted. I told him he had to make the decision. And if that’s—if he felt that that’s what he wanted, to go ahead and do it.

BILL MOYERS:

But?

TONY NEUMANN:

It’s a cut in pay right off.

TERRY NEUMANN:

It’s a cut in pay. They do have good benefits.

BILL MOYERS:

How much do you lose if you take it?

TERRY NEUMANN:

Three bucks?

TONY NEUMANN:

Oh, probably about two and a half, $3 an hour. But the thing is, four years down the road, I’ll be making more money than I would ever dream of making here.

TERRY NEUMANN:

But is it going to be there when he gets out? You know what I mean?

TONY NEUMANN:

They’re going to train you on the job for four years, and all that is going to cost them a lot of money, to put you through school and train you. And why would they do all of that and want to kick you out?

TERRY NEUMANN:

I know. I don’t want to burst your bubble.

TONY NEUMANN:

TERRY NEUMANN:

But what happens if they can’t compete with a neighbor?

BILL MOYERS:

As you say, it’s happened twice to Tony.

TERRY NEUMANN:

Right. A company can just—I mean, I’ve seen it. It can just pick up and move.

BILL MOYERS:

Hey, Jackie, good to see you. Thank you. Good to see you. This is new.

JACKIE STANLEY:

Yeah.

BILL MOYERS:

What’s going on?

JACKIE STANLEY:

The neighborhood’s changing, and we right now feel that we should sell the house. Every year it’s getting worse. Gangs are moving in. I have $2,800 worth of steel up to my house,

BILL MOYERS:

Yeah, I saw the steel doors, the “protected by”—this alarm system. “Beware of the dogs.”

JACKIE STANLEY:

We have it all. And I was going to make up a sign “Ignore the dog, ignore the alarm and you’re going to make the 6:00 news.” I’m—I’ve had it. I have had it.

KEITH STANLEY:

Hey, what’s up, everybody. This is Keith. I’m inside my dorm room just trying to let you know how everything is doing.

BILL MOYERS:

In September of 1995, Keith started at Alabama State University,

KEITH STANLEY:

I’m taking each step at a time. It’s kind of harder than I thought, but I can do it.

BILL MOYERS:

How do you afford to keep Keith in college?

JACKIE STANLEY:

I negotiated two transactions and closed them the day before he left. And you’re talking about a prayer.

BILL MOYERS:

Jackie’s commissions paid for only part of the first semester.

What does it take you, a year down there for him?

JACKIE STANLEY:

It’s $7,000 a year.

BILL MOYERS:

Is he going to be able to make it this year?

JACKIE STANLEY:

I just received a letter that I have to pay $1,300 now or Keith will have to be put out in 48 hours. But again, God came through again. Keith had applied for a lot of charge cards before he left.

[on phone] Keith, hi. How are you doing? All right, listen, we came up with something. Oh, that’s so sweet. I can tell you’ve been down South a long time, you’re saying, “Yes, ma’am.” Your Discover card came in, and we were concerned about this letter that came from your school. So here’s what we’re going to do. I called the Discover card people, and I told them we wanted a cash advance.

BILL MOYERS:

Most people, when they pray, expect God to give them a miracle. What you got was $1,000 credit with 18% interest rate.

JACKIE STANLEY:

But it’ll tide me over until I can get the miracle.

[on phone] So then this semester’s taken care of. You hear me? All right. I love you.

It’s called “rob Peter to pay Paul.” And I’m robbing Peter so much that Peter’s just standing there.

TERRY NEUMANN:

I have a new job. I’m a driver and a guard and a messenger. My hourly pay right now is $7.50 to start. It has very good insurance benefits, which my husband doesn’t have. He gets more money and less benefits, and I’ve got less money and better benefits. So hopefully, between the two of us—

TONY NEUMANN:

—it kind of works out.

TERRY NEUMANN:

Yeah. I get a lot of looks from a lot of truck drivers, and a lot of double takes that, “Wow, look at that.” Yeah. I love it. I think it’s great.

BILL MOYERS:

Working?

TERRY NEUMANN:

Working, yeah. And having the power behind the big truck. I like it.

BILL MOYERS:

The power behind the big truck?

TERRY NEUMANN:

Yeah. I get a lot more looks than sitting in the kitchen cooking muffins. [laughter]

Well, good morning. [laughs]

BILL MOYERS:

I remember you telling us a couple of years ago how important it was that as a mother, you were home with the kids. Daniel was having a few difficulties then, approaching teenage years. You just felt it was best if you could be here.

TERRY NEUMANN:

I still feel that way. But under the circumstances, we’re put into a situation we don’t have a choice.

DANIEL NEUMANN:

You got any homework?

KARISSA NEUMANN:

Yeah, I got a lot. I got this little worksheet. I got a couple other things, I think.

BILL MOYERS:

The Neumanns now made enough from their combined income to meet their expenses, but the kids were coming home to an empty house.

TERRY NEUMANN:

I hope they’ve learned something from this, how hard it is and how difficult it is and how everybody needs to make sacrifices, including them. This is how it is and this is what we have to do in order to get through this and make it.

BILL MOYERS:

Over the next few years, as their parents worked harder and harder, the Neumann kids were growing up.

KARISSA NEUMANN:

I love clothes. I’m a clothes fanatic. Adidas, Tommy Gear, Nike. Which I have none of. I have Adidas.

BILL MOYERS:

Terry was making a little more money at the armored car company.

TERRY NEUMANN:

I got a raise. I did get a raise. A few of us complained and—40 cents. Forty cents more. But it’s better than what it was.

BILL MOYERS:

Tony continued working and trying to find a better job.

TONY NEUMANN:

I don’t have any complaints about the job that I have now. Except for the pay. And the benefits. And can’t seem to go no further.

BILL MOYERS:

The Stanleys were barely getting by. Claude remained at his job waterproofing basements. Jackie continued selling real estate in the central city. They couldn’t sell their own home for enough money to afford a more stable neighborhood, so they decided to stay put.

MALE NEWSREADER:

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up more than 98 and a half points.

BILL MOYERS:

Meanwhile, the economy was really booming. The stock market kept rising, to over 6,000 by 1997, 8,000 by ’98. Inflation was lower than it had been in 30 years, and jobs were plentiful. But for working families, it was still a struggle to make ends meet. Even a full-time job didn’t guarantee full benefits. Not having enough health insurance could turn into a nightmare.

And that’s what happened in 1997, when Claude Stanley got sick. A serious lung infection required an extended stay in the hospital and kept him out of work for two months. When we next saw him, it was 1998. He told us the family faced uncovered medical bills approaching some $30,000.

CLAUDE STANLEY:

It will be rough. It’ll hit us financially, but all we can do is just depend on—you know, we depend on the Lord to make a way for us, but we ain’t going to stop living. We got to keep moving, keep going.

KLAUDALE STANLEY:

Welcome to Burger King. Can I take your order, sir?

BILL MOYERS:

The growing family debt meant that paying for college for their younger children was out of the question. Omega was still in high school, but the twins had graduated. Claude Jr. was working odd jobs, including doing some modeling. His twin, Klaudale, took a different route. He joined the Navy.

KLAUDALE STANLEY:

I, Klaudale Lamar Stanley.

FEMALE NAVAL OFFICER:

Do solemnly swear.

KLAUDALE STANLEY:

Do solemnly swear.

FEMALE NAVAL OFFICER:

That I will support and defend.

KLAUDALE STANLEY:

That I will support and defend—

BILL MOYERS:

He went through basic training in Illinois—

NAVAL PETTY OFFICER:

Pivot to the right, recruit. I said to the far right side, recruit. Can you ever hear? Do you have a problem hearing, recruit?

KLAUDALE STANLEY:

No, petty officer.

NAVAL PETTY OFFICER:

Apparently you do! Now get to the far right side of the passageway!

NAVAL OFFICER:

Get that backed up the way it was when you first came aboard.

KLAUDALE STANLEY:

Aye-aye, sir.

NAVAL RECRUITS [chanting in unison]:

Six more days, and we’ll be through!

BILL MOYERS:

—and would soon be stationed in Washington, D.C., at the Pentagon.

KLAUDALE STANLEY:

Navy Washington Operator 30. How may I assist you?

BILL MOYERS:

Tony had found a new job as a machinist.

TONY NEUMANN:

There are a lot of jobs available in the paper for skilled people. Right now I’m running a boring bar, a 4-inch boring bar. I’m making pretty good money there—a lot better than I have in a long time. This is really comparable to what I was making at Briggs.

BILL MOYERS:

The day shift paid $14 an hour, but he could make 15 working overnight from midnight to 8 in the morning. He decided it was worth it.

TONY NEUMANN:

It takes a little getting used to. It seems like you only get somewhere between four and six hours of real sleep and you have to be able to live off of that.

KARISSA NEUMANN:

Sometimes I like him to help me on homework. But since he’s on third shift, he can’t really help me a whole lot because he’s normally sleeping. And when we wake him up, he gets really irritable. He’s kind of crabby.

TONY NEUMANN:

I already told you, food is going to be off limits in your room if I see this.

KARISSA NEUMANN:

The only time I get to see him is towards the time I’m going to bed.

TONY NEUMANN:

Actually, I would prefer to have a real life on first shift. I would really like to sit down and have a nice dinner with the family every day. I would really enjoy that. Terry and I are never really together for any period of time. We’re not really getting along like we used to. We don’t sleep together anymore. It’s really—it stinks.

BILL MOYERS:

Daniel and his brother were working part time at their church, where the pastor, Father Mike Strachota, had gotten to know them well.

FATHER MIKE STRACHOTA:

Dan would be the quiet one who’s always thinking and has the insights. He has a rough edge to himself that he oftentimes portrays, but deep down, who he is, is not only good, but it’s struggling to overcome other forces.

TONY NEUMANN:

If we don’t have the money, we don’t have the money.

FATHER MIKE STRACHOTA:

Jesus said to his disciples, you are the salt of the earth.

This has always been a working-class parish. We have no wealthy people as a part of the parish. And so it’s been the struggle to maintain not only one job, but two jobs, or both parents working has become the common experience. It’s just like there’s so many other things that are occupying their time. The parents don’t have time for being with the children. And that’s why sometimes we begin to think that even their violent behavior or disruptive behavior is often their cry, “We want attention. Somebody look at us.” Now we talk about grade school children and what they are facing when it comes to drugs, to smoking, to the violence that fills the neighborhood.

TERRY NEUMANN:

I go to work. I expect it. I put my weapon on, my vest, and I go out there and I’m watching. But when I’m done punching the clock out and I go home, that’s my safe haven. I want to go home, get some loose clothes on and lounge or do what I need to do. Now I have to go home and have to do exactly what I have to do at work.

I’m taking Adam over to his friend’s house because some kids have been causing some problems and threatening their lives. So I don’t want them walking alone because the minute they get them alone, they got a group of kids driving around in vehicles that are stalking them, that have threatened to kill them, beat them up, hurt them bad.

The sergeant said if you see anything, dial 911.

BILL MOYERS:

The threat to the Neumann boys began after another teenager harassed Adam’s girlfriend at a party.

Then, one evening, while Terry was on the phone to Father Mike, a rock came crashing through her picture window.

TERRY NEUMANN:

I told Father Mike, I said, “Call 911. I don’t know what’s going on. There’s—somebody’s trying to break through my house, or somebody broke my window.”

FATHER MIKE STRACHOTA:

I said, “I’ll call 911” and rushed over to the house. And at that point, Dan, who was home, was angry.

TERRY NEUMANN:

Dan wanted to go outside and find out what was going on and beat somebody up. And I said, absolutely not.

FATHER MIKE STRACHOTA:

So Terry is there trying to calm him down, get him down into the basement, because they were circling. And then they started pounding on the door. I have never been more terrorized in all my life as I was when I was downstairs, and Dan telling mewhere to hide. “Stay away from the windows. They have guns.” Guns had been seen. It was an incredible, frightening experience.

BILL MOYERS:

The police finally arrived and arrested the leader of the assault. But Daniel and Adam would now have trouble feeling safe, even in their own home.

FATHER MIKE STRACHOTA:

Their sense was “We better protect ourselves. We got to have weapons.” And I remember saying to them, “Guns are not the answer. Jesus calls us to turn the other cheek, pray for our enemies.” And Adam’s response haunted me. He said, “But Father Mike, this is the real world.”

BILL MOYERS:

With their conflicting work schedules, the Neumanns managed a rare weekend together in the fall of ‘98 at Tony’s parents’ home in northern Wisconsin.

TONY NEUMANN:

It’s nice, relaxing, and get away from a lot of the stress. Enjoy time out with the kids. This is about the only time that I get to be with the kids.

Hey, Adam, slow down. You’re getting too far ahead.

Adam decided to take it upon himself to go to a Catholic school this year. It’s harder than the schools he was going to. He’s putting forth a good effort. And effort, to me, means a lot more than the grades anyhow. It does cost, but it’s for his future, which means more than money.

You got one. How close were you?

ADAM NEUMANN:

He was in a tree. He was way in a tree.

BILL MOYERS:

Tony’s parents retired here. His mother, Mary Lou, spent her career at the very company that laid her son off, Briggs & Stratton.

MARY LOU NEUMANN:

I think they’re all envious of me now because I’m sitting here not—I’m retired at an early age along with my husband, enjoying life. I feel sorry for these kids. I don’t know how they’re going to get ahead to do any savings.

1999

JACKIE STANLEY:

It’s a good economy, but it’s just here in our house. Like I was discussing with a girlfriend of mine that just left here to start her retirement with several $90,000 worth of CDs. And I was telling them we didn’t save like that and we’re not ready for retirement.

BILL MOYERS:

Sales in the central city produced only meager commissions. But Jackie still didn’t feel welcome as an African American trying to sell in more affluent, mostly white neighborhoods.

JACKIE STANLEY:

I’m the same color I was when you came before. No matter what I wear, no matter how I look, it’s still the same. This is 1999, and it’s still doing it. As a realtor, I know. That’s sad.

BILL MOYERS:

In the fall of 1999, Keith Stanley began his last year at Alabama State. He had some aid and worked two jobs: as a resident assistant in his dorm and the organist at his church. But when we visited, we found him on the verge of being kicked out for nonpayment.

KEITH STANLEY:

So what I do usually is I just have to go inside the credit card and pay for it through credit cards. And that’s the only way I can do it. And if that’s what it takes to stay in school, that’s what I’m going to do to stay in school. My current balance for this credit card is $2,574.68. The interest on this is, I believe it’s 23, close to 24%.

[reading credit card ad] “No fee. First year. Apply now.” They’re everywhere.

BILL MOYERS:

Back home in Milwaukee, Keith’s parents had decided to strike out on their own to become entrepreneurs. Borrowing against their home, they bought a central city office building where Jackie could start her own real estate firm and Claude could set up shop as a home inspector.

CLAUDE STANLEY:

[preaching] We’re talking about those, amen, that is so quick to get rich and quick to prospering, quick to go somewhere.

BILL MOYERS:

They would use it on Sundays as a church; Claude had become an ordained pastor. Their faith remained as strong as their future seemed uncertain.

CLAUDE STANLEY:

[preaching] God is good. He’s good. He’s good. He’s good. He’s good.

I got an article from USA Today where it said every person that’s going to retire is going to need at least a million dollars. [laughs]

BILL MOYERS:

Seeing the growing tensions in the family, Father Mike recommended the Neumanns and their children enter counseling.

KARISSA NEUMANN:

I don’t like going to counseling because I don’t want to tell him my problems. It’s like he’s, “Hello, what are your problems?” [laughs] He doesn’t—He never laughs. It’s so funny.

TERRY NEUMANN:

Well, he’s serious. He wants to get to the root of the problem.

KARISSA NEUMANN:

And Dad even said that we weren’t going to go to any more. And then you guys scheduled another one. And I told the boys that we weren’t going to have any more, and they got all happy. Because the boys don’t like coming to these things, either.

TERRY NEUMANN:

Goodbye. Behave. Be in by curfew. OK. I’m going to work now.

BILL MOYERS:

Terry left the armored car job for one that paid more—$15 an hour instead of nine. But her schedule was utterly unpredictable. Sometimes she worked from 4 in the morning to noon and might have to come back the same evening and work the overnight. She was always on call to report to work on just two hours’ notice.

TERRY NEUMANN:

By the time I get home, I’m like zonked out. I get tired.

BILL MOYERS:

Despite all the hard work, these two American families had barely survived one of the most prosperous decades in our history.

2000

PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON:

We began the new century with over 20 million new jobs, the fastest economic growth in more than 30 years, the lowest unemployment rates in 30 years. . . . We have built a new economy.

2012

BILL MOYERS:

It was 12 years before we came back to Milwaukee. We found a city still struggling, with over a quarter of its people living in poverty. Some people had done very well. Parts of the city had been splendidly rebuilt, and over the previous decade, more promises had been made.

2007

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH:

A future of hope and opportunity begins with a growing economy. And that is what we have. . . . Unemployment is low. Inflation is low. Wages are rising. This economy is on the move.

BILL MOYERS:

But the promises had come with a price. Two costly wars, a soaring deficit and the housing market boom and bust.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

The Obama administration says it will spend billions to keep struggling homeowners in their homes.

BILL MOYERS:

American families had been hit by the greatest economic downturn since the Great Depression.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

We were raised to believe that each generation can and will do better than the last. But is that really true?

BILL MOYERS:

We wanted to know what had happened to the two American families we knew. We found Jackie Stanley outside her church.

How are you?

JACKIE STANLEY:

The graduate!

BILL MOYERS:

I can’t believe it.

Along with a grown-up Keith, now 35.

KEITH STANLEY:

I would never would have made it through college. Never would have made it through college without Moms.

BILL MOYERS:

But Jackie quickly confided that when we called her to see about filming again, she almost said no.

JACKIE STANLEY:

I was telling Kathy I thought it was a failure. I literally thought I was a failure because I didn’t do it. We went backwards.

BILL MOYERS:

She said that after suffering some health problems, she had quit doing real estate altogether. That her dream of having her own office had come to nothing. That she hadn’t done enough to make it happen.

CLAUDE STANLEY:

[preaching] Sometime we’re going to go through some things, praise God, and God ain’t going to bring it out like you think it ought to come out, the way you want it to come out.

BILL MOYERS:

Turns out Claude’s entrepreneurial efforts hadn’t worked out, either.

CLAUDE STANLEY:

[preaching] You might be on your job sometime. You hear about a layoff that’s going to happen. You might go home and pray all week, saying, “Lord, don’t let that happen to this place. I want to keep my job.” And guess what? Guess what? You get laid off anyhow and the place closed down. Guess what?

You got to praise God anyhow.

BILL MOYERS:

Now the couple was surviving on a job Claude had taken with the city of Milwaukee.

CLAUDE STANLEY:

During the summertime I do forestry. I do work with the boulevards. All the boulevards you see out here with the flowers, we keep the flowers intact, the grass being cut.

BILL MOYERS:

And the winter?

CLAUDE STANLEY:

Right now I’m in sanitation, OK. Collecting garbage.

BILL MOYERS:

That’s hard work.

CLAUDE STANLEY:

Yes, it is, Bill.

BILL MOYERS:

And you’re how old now?

CLAUDE STANLEY:

I’m almost 60 years old.

BILL MOYERS:

How long do you think you can keep that up?

CLAUDE STANLEY:

Not too long. [laughs] Not too long.

BILL MOYERS:

Claude was a member of a public union, making about $26,000 a year, plus some benefits.

CLAUDE STANLEY:

And you’re talking about doing other things in between. I had to work at the airport for two years.

BILL MOYERS:

Doing what?

CLAUDE STANLEY:

I was—worked on the runway, directing the planes that come in. Flagging them down, stop, take their luggage to the tunnel. Lifting baggage. It was all kind of stuff at the airport I was doing.

BILL MOYERS:

Was that a minimum wage job?

CLAUDE STANLEY:

Definitely was minimum wage. When I worked out there they cut our salary, I mean, down to nothing.

JACKIE STANLEY:

He carried dead bodies, too. He worked at the hospital.

CLAUDE STANLEY:

I was a security guard at Columbus Hospital. And at nighttime, if it was like third shift, anybody passed away or died, we had to carry—put them on the elevator and carry them down to the refrigerator.

BILL MOYERS:

The third shift is from when to when?

JACKIE STANLEY:

Graveyard. [laughs]

CLAUDE STANLEY:

From 11 to 12 o’clock at night to 7 in the morning.

BILL MOYERS:

Once upon a time when people got your age—and you’re much younger than I am, you’re almost 60—they started thinking seriously about retiring. But you’re not.

CLAUDE STANLEY:

I can’t do that.

JACKIE STANLEY:

One day he told me, he had come in from work and it was kind of cold, and he said, “By the time I get up, I’m just thawing out. My bones haven’t finished getting warm. I can’t keep doing this.”

TERRY NEUMANN:

Hey, Dyl. Are you in a good mood today? Dylan?

BILL MOYERS:

When we next met Terry Neumann, we found she had lost her warehouse job some five years before. So in 2008, she had retrained to become a nurse’s assistant and home health care aide. Now 49 years old, she was working part time in a suburb just west of Milwaukee—

TERRY NEUMANN:

Ready? One, two, three. There you are.

BILL MOYERS:

—taking care of a 16-year-old, Dylan Solper.

TERRY NEUMANN:

Oh, I’ve been probably doing this for, probably 19 months I’ve been here. What, you think that’s funny? What’s so funny, Dyl? He thinks he’s funny sometimes. I don’t want those stinky feet. I don’t want those stinky feet.

The job paid, when I first started, $8 an hour, and now I’m getting $9 an hour. I’m at 24 hours a week.

Here is my paycheck. This is a two-week paycheck. So year to date—what are we talking here, November? That’s what I made: $9646.89. That’s poverty.

BILL MOYERS:

For Terry Neumann, survival had been difficult since the last time we saw her, and not just because of her paycheck.

What happened to you and your husband?

TERRY NEUMANN:

I think we just grew apart and went separate ways. And the love wasn’t there anymore.

BILL MOYERS:

Tony Neumann told us he had lost his factory job and had been doing construction and handyman work in and out of Milwaukee.

He declined to talk on camera.

KATHY SOLPER, Dylan’s mother:

Dylan, we’re getting into our chair. Back up. Good job.

BILL MOYERS:

Terry was working for a for-profit agency receiving money from Medicaid for Dylan’s care. Positions like hers are often part time or temporary.

TERRY NEUMANN:

Are you ready?

So they don’t have to pay for the benefits, vacation time, sick time or health.

Drink? Drink?

BILL MOYERS:

You kept the house at the time of the divorce. You were able to keep the house.

TERRY NEUMANN:

Yes.

BILL MOYERS:

You were determined to hold on to that house.

TERRY NEUMANN:

Oh, yeah.

BILL MOYERS:

Terry had survived the wave of home foreclosures that hit some 16,000 Milwaukee property owners between 2008 and 2010. But by 2011, divorced and working part time, she simply couldn’t afford to make her home payments anymore.

KATHY SOLPER:

She was real quiet, and I could tell that she was down. And I finally came to her and I said, “What’s going on? You seem like you’re really down, like you’re really tired, like you’re exhausted, like you just have a really heavy—something’s heavy on your mind.” I said, “Is everything OK with your family?”

I think she felt embarrassed, which she shouldn’t have. I think that she didn’t feel like she wanted to talk about it. But as the summer went on, it was a horrible time for Terry.

TERRY NEUMANN:

[reading letter] “Dear occupant. You are hereby notified that possession is demanded by JPMorganChase Bank, which now owns your property.”

They wanted $120,000 for the buyout of it. And I’m like, where am I supposed to find that? So it goes into foreclosure and you can sell it for, what, $30,000? Are you serious? You can’t lower my payments or my interest rate so I can stay in my house?

BILL MOYERS:

With nowhere else to go, Terry moved in first with a relative, then with a friend. At the time Terry lost her home, both her grown sons, Daniel and Adam, were living with her.

ADAM NEUMANN:

I want to hold him all the way over there.

TONY NEUMANN:

OK, you can hold him all the way over there.

BOY SCOUT LEADER:

Adam Neumann has passed uniform inspection.

BILL MOYERS:

We found Adam Neumann, Terry’s middle son, working for a lawn care company.

ADAM NEUMANN:

I’ve been doing it for about a year now, and I like this job. It’s nice. I like being outside. Keeps me in shape. I get paid like nine bucks an hour, usually 40 hours a week. Right now there’s no benefits or insurance, so that’s the downfall of the job.

That’s Piggy.

BILL MOYERS:

Adam, we learned, had dropped out of school in the 10th grade after fathering a daughter who now lived with her mother.

ADAM NEUMANN:

I wish I would have stayed in school and found something that I was good at, for a stable job, in that sense. But after I had my kid at a young age I had to work, and I couldn’t work and go to school at the same time.

BOY SCOUT LEADER:

And Daniel has earned the handyman activity pin.

BILL MOYERS:

Adam’s brother Daniel, Terry’s oldest, was now 29, an auto mechanic.

DANIEL NEUMANN:

I’ve seen it done before, too, where you fill up the syringe with brake fluid and force it back through.

BILL MOYERS:

Like so many Milwaukeeans of the past few decades, including his father. Daniel was looking to upgrade his skills to help him get work. So he went back to school for retraining at one of the region’s many technical colleges—

MALE TEACHER:

How are we doing here, young man?

DANIEL NEUMANN:

All right.

BILL MOYERS:

—studying automotive technology.

Daniel had three kids of his own to help support. They live with their mothers.

DANIEL NEUMANN:

The world is just going all downhill right now. All the stuff going on here in Milwaukee, and all these shootings and all that. I mean, they just had another shooting out there, even in a nice neighborhood over there in Brookfield. I have my concealed carry. I carry everywhere I go. You really don’t have to want to use it, but you have to have something to protect yourself and your family and friends around you.

BILL MOYERS:

How about Karissa? How’s she doing? And she’s how old now?

TERRY NEUMANN:

Twenty-six.

And one of these. And then you need a business card to call Mommy up.

KARISSA NEUMANN:

When I was younger, I just knew we didn’t have money. And money is how the world goes round. A lot of people have clothes every school year. They have a new pair of shoes, or several pairs of shoes. And I wanted to be able to say, “I have money in the bank.”

BILL MOYERS:

We found Karissa working for a hospital in the large Aurora chain, one of the biggest employers in the region, in one of the biggest economic growth sectors, health care. She had an associate’s degree and also recently took courses to get certified as a professional insurance coder.

KARISSA NEUMANN:

I do the physician billing, so all the physician services, I do those.

BILL MOYERS:

She earned about $15 an hour plus benefits. She supported herself and her husband, Anthony LeFebvre.

Because they didn’t earn enough to have a home of their own, they live with Anthony’s relatives.

KARISSA NEUMANN:

Drive around any neighborhood. See how many people are living in the houses to try to help support each other. There’s a lot of vacant houses. A lot of people lost their houses, my mom being one of them.

BILL MOYERS:

We asked Terry to take us back to her old house.

TERRY NEUMANN:

So this is it.

BILL MOYERS:

The people living there invited us in.

KHOU HANG:

We recently just got this place, in early September. And so we just got it fixed up. It’s still—we still need a lot of repairs.

BILL MOYERS:

Khou Hang and Lu Lao bought Terry’s house in a foreclosure sale for about $38,000.

TERRY NEUMANN:

Can I take a look around?

KHOU HANG:

Go right ahead.

LU LAO:

Yeah, go ahead.

TERRY NEUMANN:

This was my room. And this was my spare room. And this is where my grandkids would sleep when they’d come to visit me.

BILL MOYERS:

Jackie Stanley, serious about her community role as the pastor’s wife, tried to remain upbeat.

JACKIE STANLEY:

Everything free, my dear.

BILL MOYERS:

On this day, there was a charitable giveaway at their church.

JACKIE STANLEY:

If anybody has a queen-size bed, I have a down comforter. We got furniture coming in just a bit.

It just went crazy. We can’t even finish getting rid of everything because every time get rid of a table or two, another table comes in.

BILL MOYERS:

We went along to one of her volunteer projects, a drug and alcohol recovery group. The woman who had once told us you have to fake it till you make it was still spreading that gospel.

JACKIE STANLEY:

And I’ma show you the 45-degree angle walk. And women, I want you to hear this. Do not walk with your butt. When you want to be successful, when you step out—and don’t do those timid walks. That means, it’s like, whichever way the wind—No! “I have somewhere to go. My name is J. Renee.” You see that?

BILL MOYERS:

But the private Jackie was less self-assured.

Do you feel like a failure today?

JACKIE STANLEY:

Yes.

CLAUDE STANLEY:

No. She’s not a failure.

JACKIE STANLEY:

He’ll always say that.

CLAUDE STANLEY:

You’re not a failure. In this day and age, you raise five kids, that’s success. Get jobs and make their own decisions.

JACKIE STANLEY:

But even the Bible says “leave heirs.” You got to—you must leave something.

BILL MOYERS:

Do you think your children feel that you’re a failure?

JACKIE STANLEY:

I think they love me enough not to tell me if they did feel it.

BILL MOYERS:

At Milwaukee City Hall, Keith Stanley earned about $45,000 a year as an assistant to the Common Council president, Alderman Willie Hines. Hines’ district was in Milwaukee’s central city, near where Keith grew up.

KEITH STANLEY:

Neil, how’s that thing going? How’s that thing going with you?

[on phone] If you can, give me a call. This is Keith Stanley with Alderman Willie Hines’ office.

We do get the calls about jobs. They’re looking for a job. “I need a job.” Sometimes that’s difficult to have that conversation because I, myself, I’m in no position to offer a job, and my boss, that’s just—We’re policy makers. My heart goes out to them because I know I can share that same story with them. I can understand their pain. Now, they may not want to hear that. A lot of times, you know, “Oh, you’re working at the city and you don’t understand.” And I—lots of them I wish I could stop and say, “No, I definitely understand. I definitely understand dealing with struggle when your parents just don’t have enough.”

My parents spent a lot of time and energy in us, in making us who we are. There are people that look like me, that live where I live and who are now dealing with situations and struggles that I never have seen. I’ve never seen the inside of a jail. I can’t tell you what a gun looks like. I don’t know what drugs or even alcohol looks like. And I have to give all that credit to my dad along with my mom. And they put the fear of God in us. You have to work hard. You have to look people in the eye.

JACKIE STANLEY:

He’s beyond our expectation. But Keith has told me a lot of times, “Mom, I don’t want to be like you and Dad.”

BILL MOYERS:

Meaning?

JACKIE STANLEY:

Bill, when it’s time to eat, they want to eat. They don’t want to do like Dad and I and start making excuses why you’re not hungry.

We’re going to keep filling the racks. Go by color, not by size. Go by color.

KEITH STANLEY:

I’m inspired by my parents. But that’s also made me make a lot of tough decisions where I say, “I’m not going to make those decisions because I don’t want that to affect my life.”

BILL MOYERS:

One of the decisions Keith made is to hold off on getting married and having kids.

KEITH STANLEY:

I want to make sure I can control my destiny, and that’s including not having children at a certain age. I would love to say I want to bring in a child in the world, but until I have myself together, I’m confident and believe that I have myself together. And people say there’s no perfect time to have a kid. I know that. But there’s been too many struggles I saw. And for me it’s like, can I make that sacrifice? And if I do, I—man, maybe, maybe one kid. Maybe a dog right now. That’s why I got Spike. So that’s it.

CLAUDE STANLEY:

Sometime you’re going to go through some things to get where you’re trying to go. Do all that you can, but still praise God.

BILL MOYERS:

How much has your faith been an anchor for you during this difficult—

CLAUDE STANLEY:

Oh, it’s a big anchor. That’s what gets me up in the morning, Bill. That’s what keeps me going. I believe that something going to happen.

CONGREGATION:

[singing call-and-response] Can’t nobody do me like Jesus.

BILL MOYERS:

But you’ve had so many setbacks. Since I first met you—

CLAUDE STANLEY:

That’s true.

BILL MOYERS:

—you were fighting hard after you lost those good-paying jobs.

CLAUDE STANLEY:

That’s right.

BILL MOYERS:

And you’ve been fighting ever since. And yet you still—

CLAUDE STANLEY:

Still, Bill. Still praise the Lord. I still believe that there’s something for us.

JACKIE STANLEY:

And I would interject, saying, “What else?” We have no other choice.

CONGREGATION:

[singing call-and-response] Can’t nobody do me like Jesus.

BILL MOYERS:

What you’ve lost—People say to me, “How does she keep going? Where does she get that spirit? How does she do it?”

TERRY NEUMANN:

My grandfather always said you never let the devil win. Never let the devil win. I’m still determined. I’m not going to give up.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:

We believe that America’s prosperity must rest upon the broad shoulders of a rising middle class. . . . When the wages of honest labor liberate families from the brink of hardship.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP:

America will start winning again. . . . We will bring back our jobs. . . . We will bring back our wealth. And we will bring back our dreams.

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN:

We can right wrongs. We can put people to work in good jobs . . . and rebuild the middle class and make health care secure for all.

2024

BILL MOYERS:

A dozen years and three presidential terms later we returned to Milwaukee. Tax cuts had made the wealthy richer, here and across the country.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

The stock market has been blasting through record after record.

BILL MOYERS:

And Wall Street was living it up.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

The S&P 500 recently crossed a new threshold, the 5,000 mark, for the first time ever.

BILL MOYERS:

By 2024, wages had been rising faster than they had in decades.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Income adjusted for inflation has been rising above the cost of living.

BILL MOYERS:

But that proved little comfort to those who had lost—and never regained—their sense of economic security.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

—but they see prices in the grocery store, at the gas tank—

BILL MOYERS:

Terry Neumann was once again working in a warehouse.

TERRY NEUMANN:

I was making nine-something taking care of Dylan. I had to move on because I needed more money to sustain me. My current job, I load and unload trailers and wrap pallets and get product to the other department. With all of my physical jobs, my joints, my knees, shoulders, the foot that I fractured—the weather changes and it aches. I hurt every day, but I keep pushing through. But there are days where it’s like, oh, God. [laughs]

I work from 4 p.m. to 12 midnight. I make $19.10 an hour, and then because I work a night shift, you get extra $3 more an hour. If our wages get raised, then everything else goes up. Gas goes up, groceries goes up. There is no wiggle room for anything.

CLAUDE STANLEY:

And she takes a lot of other stuff, supplements and stuff. So, vitamins. I take those, too, so she just—

JACKIE STANLEY:

This is the one with the ladies dancing on the commercial, for God’s sake.

BILL MOYERS:

Since we last saw Jackie, she had developed some new health problems.

JACKIE STANLEY:

I was getting fluid on me and didn’t understand where was this weight coming from. And then that’s when they told me that the diabetes was full blown.

And I take that one twice.

And then later on, congestive heart failure. I’ll tell you, no lie, when I was in the hospital and they rushed me in—I knew I would cry. When they rushed me in, this guy had rolled into the bed with me when I went to sleep. I didn’t even know who he was. I should have died. But I’m coming back. You guys, I’m telling you, you have no idea. I’m talking to—I literally walk through here at night talking to God.

You feel like going by 5801?

BILL MOYERS:

Claude Stanley retired from his sanitation job with a small pension in late 2023. Now he helps Jackie, who is back in the real estate game. They plan to supplement their retirement income with commissions.

JACKIE STANLEY:

We’ll both be 70 this year. He is 71, and I’ll be 70.

There you go.

MALE HOMEBUYER:

All right.

JACKIE STANLEY:

I’ll wait out here. Yeah, yeah. I can’t breathe.

CLAUDE STANLEY:

Right now, giving her insulin and whatever, that’s just part of our life now. We just got to do it until she gets better. And she’s going to get better. Even when I was working in different jobs and stuff, if lost it, it’s another one. I can get another one. This is not where I’m going to be. I’m going to keep going. When I looked at my wife’s situation, I said, “We can work with that. We can work with that.”

JACKIE STANLEY:

I’m not giving up.

TONY NEUMANN:

What would I tell my younger self? Should have probably saved a little bit more money more often. I did buy a trailer. It needed a lot of work. It’s convenient because it’s real close to the expressway.

BILL MOYERS:

Tony Neumann is now 62.

TONY NEUMANN:

I worked at a lot of factories. Briggs & Stratton. And then there was machining that I did at another company. Tool and die maker at another company. Maintenance worker at another company. A machinist at another company. The smaller ones seem to take care of your employees better. The bigger ones, you’re just a number, and you come and go just as they please. You just got to roll with the punches. You got to do what you got to do when you can. That’s all you can do. Nowadays it’s painting, drywall, plumbing, electric, tile. Roofing. Little bit of concrete, maybe. Almost anything. I’m a handyman. [laughs] It’s what I do. And I’m good at it. [laughs] My job cannot be outsourced overseas because you can’t do this remotely. You actually have to be at a certain particular place in order to do this. I know I will always have a job.

JACKIE STANLEY:

If you expect to hear Claude say he—”I saved a million,” he didn’t save a million. We couldn’t do it all, if you’re going to have five kids. But look at those five kids now. I’m beyond proud. Aren’t you proud?

CLAUDE STANLEY:

Yeah. I’m a little proud, yeah.

JACKIE STANLEY:

There was a word back in the ’60s or ’70s. We called it “braggadocious.” I’m braggadocious. Klaudale. Klaudale is United States Navy, retired. He has a son and a daughter. He’s IT, and he’s moving and shaking. Claude has stayed near home. He stays near Mom and Dad at all times. Nicole went to Virginia. She got married in Virginia. She went to Missouri, got her master’s.

BILL MOYERS:

These days Nicole lives in Augusta, Georgia, with her husband and 14-year-old son. She has an older son in the Navy.

NICOLE STANLEY:

I desired to complete college because I saw the struggle of my mother. I have my undergrad in IT infrastructure, and I have my master’s in cybersecurity. I also have four IT certifications: Network Plus, Security Plus, ITIL Foundations and Cybersecurity. I love it, but economically speaking, I have $90,000 in student loans. That was my only option, was the loans.

JACKIE STANLEY:

Then there’s Omega. And I got to say that with my Omega. Omega’s a go-getter.

BILL MOYERS:

Omega became a single mother at 21, and life got harder as her bills got larger. Now, she believes, she’s landed on her feet.

OMEGA’S DAUGHTER:

[on phone] OK, I love you, too.

OMEGA STANLEY:

Be safe.

OMEGA’S DAUGHTER:

[on phone] I will. You, too, Momma.

OMEGA STANLEY:

All right, love you.

I’m a certified nursing assistant. I work for the state. I take care from age 29 all the way up to 80, with autism, dementia, other mental and physical disabilities. I think I was about 10 years old when it started. I just didn’t realize that my parents went through that.

JACKIE STANLEY:

It’s called “rob Peter to pay Paul.” And I’m robbing Peter so much that Peter’s just standing there.

OMEGA STANLEY:

And back then I was trying to realize, OK, are we really robbing someone to pay somebody else? I had to grow and understand what that meant.

FEMALE TV HOST:

Joining us this morning we have Keith Stanley—

JACKIE STANLEY:

Then there’s Keith.

FEMALE TV HOST:

—executive director of Near West Side Partners.

KEITH STANLEY:

The Near West Side is one of the most historic parts of the city of Milwaukee in my humble opinion, Grace.

BILL MOYERS:

From 2014 to 2022, Keith worked as an executive for nonprofit organizations in Milwaukee.

KEITH STANLEY:

It’s your time, it’s your mind, it’s your energy, it’s your resources.

JACKIE STANLEY:

He’s gone to North Carolina. He’s doing what he did here.

KEITH STANLEY:

Hey, this is Keith Stanley with University City Partners. It is live, it is happening right now. We are celebrating Charlotte Kids Fest.

I got a call from a headhunter about an opportunity here in Charlotte. And I figured that this is a way for me to grow and to learn.

BILL MOYERS:

Now he leads University City Partners, a Charlotte community development group.

KEITH STANLEY:

—and we want to make sure that Charlotte is a place where our kids are being nurtured.

When I describe what I do, there’s a term I use: the common good. And it’s a little bit of everything. It’s safety and security. It’s economic development. It’s connectivity and public transportation. How do we work together to make a difference?

JACKIE STANLEY:

He’s doing what the president of the United States did, Obama, is he’s re-creating the communities.

He’s also married, ladies. [laughs]

NATANJA HUNTER STANLEY:

I’m originally from Boston, and I am an IT manager and work in professional and managed services. I watched the last installment of this documentary. I was really struck by the vulnerability of the families and what I think it must have taken to put yourself out there that way.

JACKIE STANLEY:

I was telling Kathy I thought I was a failure.

NATANJA HUNTER STANLEY:

I recognize as a person of color that oftentimes we tend to be more private and keep things inside. And the vulnerability that they showed over that time frame was just striking to me. And so I reached out to Keith and it was just like, “Hey, thank you for doing this. I really enjoyed it. Thank your family for doing it.” And that was 2013?

KEITH STANLEY:

2013.

NATANJA HUNTER STANLEY:

2018, I had moved from Boston to Dallas, and then he was coming down to Dallas for a visit. I wasn’t sure why. I thought he was coming for work or church or something like that, and he came down and we hung out and that was pretty much it.

TERRY NEUMANN:

Oh, this thing is digging in my back. OK, I think I got it.

GPS VOICE:

Turn right, then turn left.

TERRY NEUMANN:

My British guy. I love his accent.

GPS VOICE:

Turn left onto East Moreland Boulevard.

TERRY NEUMANN:

Boulevard.

I’m driving to go see Father Mike.

FATHER MIKE STRACHOTA:

More than enough work. God is with us.

TERRY NEUMANN:

Because he’s had some health issues and he’s retiring. I’ll be 61 in July. So I have like six years to go before I can retire. So with the cost of everything that’s going up, are we going to be able to afford retirement and live comfortably?

FATHER MIKE STRACHOTA:

The challenge as you get older is beginning to feel your worth. Why did I do—work all these years, and this is all that I get? But it isn’t the end of the road. It’s the beginning of something new. And when we go back to our trust in God, I have found and I’ve been amazed, God has done things that I could never have imagined. But it’s in very subtle ways. So our strength will inspire others and sustain us.

TERRY NEUMANN:

So how do you like it here?

FATHER MIKE STRACHOTA:

Very much so. They feed me well, good people and I’m one of the youngest, so. How is life with the family?

TERRY NEUMANN:

It’s going good.

FATHER MIKE STRACHOTA:

It’s going well?

TERRY NEUMANN:

Going good. Adam’s working, working. His hours are like 7 till like 5, 6 in the morning. He’s working at Amazon. He’s making good money.

Karissa. Sometimes she’s like her mother.

BILL MOYERS:

Karissa recently received a promotion at her hospital job. During the pandemic, she began working full time in the two-room apartment she shares with her husband.

KARISSA NEUMANN:

My office was in our living room. And it was quite difficult, when two people are trying to share a space and you can only have me in the room, and he’s not allowed in there because I deal with patient medical records. When they offered the position, I said, “I need to talk to our landlord to see if he would be willing to rent me a second apartment that I could use as an office.” Previously I was saving. We had a little bit of extra money to go out and and do a few activities. And now we won’t be able to do that because of the additional expense of the office. When we go to the store, we pick up fruits and vegetables, and it’s—

ANTHONY:

Expensive:

KARISSA NEUMANN:

So we’ve decided to start a raised garden.

This part with the seeds reminds me of when the basement was just full of lots of seeds and plants. That was 30 years ago. And when I talked to my dad about gardening, he’s like, “I can drop off some pallets and you can work on building some planters.” And I said, “I would love to do that.”

TONY NEUMANN:

I know my daughter used to love coming out and helping me do the woodworking, and she learned quite a bit. She seems to enjoy it a lot.

I finished cutting these other ones up a little bit and then I’m going to cut—

KARISSA NEUMANN:

That one, OK.

TONY NEUMANN:

—that one that’s leaning down that way.

KARISSA NEUMANN:

I did get permission from the landlord to trim up some of the trees to allow more light in. We do want our own place. I don’t want to be here long enough to see an apple tree grow and bear fruit.

TERRY NEUMANN:

Dan. Well, he’s my oldest. I had him when I was 18. He’s got a good work ethic. He works hard.

He called me the other day and said that he found some property up north. He’s like, “I’m just done with the city, Mom.” A month ago, he says he went to the car wash and there was like 15 bullets just pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, right across the street.

BILL MOYERS:

Gun violence has long been a scourge in Milwaukee. It’s often ranked among the country’s most dangerous cities.

DANIEL NEUMANN:

Milwaukee’s getting more rough and rough as the days go. Got a car wash. The middle of intersection, a shoot out at 11 o’clock in the morning, right in the middle of the intersection. And it was time to go.

I’ll see you later. I got to hit this highway here.

TERRY NEUMANN:

Yep. Take care of Kate.

People are getting angry. They’re getting frustrated. They’re getting violent because they don’t see no way out. There are so many people that are struggling the same way with the cost of everything, and not getting enough on your paycheck to cover your monthly expenses. It’s like we haven’t come very far.

KEITH STANLEY:

I always have my parents at the top of mind, and I’m always thinking about how they’re doing and making sure they’re OK. But I know that there are some health considerations. My dad has done it all as much as possible as I could see. And I know that that takes a toll. So I know he’s not as fast as he used to be, but still getting around. I mean, just like, “I’m going to cut the grass.” I’m like, “Dad, really?” [laughs] He’s doing it, too.

OMEGA STANLEY:

I never thought that retirement for my dad was going to come, because he’s a worker. My dad works.

KEITH STANLEY:

I think for Mom and Dad, as they think about retiring and what that means, I would love for them to be out traveling, even possibly a different neighborhood.

OMEGA STANLEY:

I worry every day. I worry every day with them over there. There’s more violence. It’s not safe.

JACKIE STANLEY:

He always walks me down.

NICOLE STANLEY:

They cannot afford to leave that area. Everything is expensive. Real estate has rocketed. And what does that do to a senior citizen couple? It devastates them, because they could be in a dangerous area and have to be subjected to it because they have no other option.

KISHA MATTHEWS, Tax accountant:

Just for my understanding, there’s a monthly pension that’s coming, right. And then both of you have your Social Security.

JACKIE STANLEY:

Yes.

KISHA MATTHEWS:

We should be working on what the budget looks like in your day to day and what your needs are.

I know you were talking about still doing some working, but because of your health, because of the market—

JACKIE STANLEY:

I was just saying that that’s a problem for me, because yesterday, I had five houses I had to go into, but I could only make it to two because of my heart. I couldn’t go up the steps.

CLAUDE STANLEY:

As we get older, we slow down. Ain’t no sense in fooling ourselves.

KISHA MATTHEWS:

I just don’t want to see—

JACKIE STANLEY:

That’s the only thing. I planned for growing old, but I didn’t plan for getting sick.

CLAUDE STANLEY:

Right? Nobody plans for that, though.

KISHA MATTHEWS:

And you’re very independent. Let’s just be honest. You’re very prideful. You have always taken care of yourself.

JACKIE STANLEY:

Listen, have a GED, so tell me something: what does that mean? I’m prideful? [laughter]

KISHA MATTHEWS:

Because you don’t want to ask for help, and you don’t ask for help. No one’s given you anything. I’m not saying that we don’t work to leave children things, but you’ve made sure that your children are able to be self-sufficient. So you need to think about what it looks like for you. Because time is not promised, but what time we have, I really want to see you guys be able to do the work you want. You still want to do ministry? Most of that’s come out of your pocket, though. And we talked about that. That’s come out of pastor’s check. That’s come out of you putting funds to the side. And then again, sitting down talking about what your expenses are, because right now you’re paying taxes and you’re paying utilities and you have to think about insurance, as well, because you don’t have life insurance.

JACKIE STANLEY:

And I don’t want to lean on my kids for nothing, unless it’s “what color you wearing to the funeral” type thing. I’m serious. I don’t want to bother them. They have a life. There I go.

CLAUDE STANLEY:

But you know what? You raise your kids, and for them to be independent.

JACKIE STANLEY:

I know, Dad, but I looked up and I’m gray-haired, and I—[cries] and I’m tired and I don’t know how to rest. I don’t know how to rest.

OMEGA STANLEY:

Where I want to see them right now is somewhere in a beach. They never really been on a vacation, a real vacation. Swimsuits, the beach, the—you know, and I want them to live.

KISHA MATTHEWS:

When’s the last time you actually had a vacation? You—

JACKIE STANLEY:

When Keith went to college. That was the weekend in 1995.

OMEGA STANLEY:

They paved the way. Their name is stamped all over Milwaukee. They’re very known as good people. Big hearts.

KISHA MATTHEWS:

It’s wonderful that we’re buying foods in bulk and taking it to neighborhoods. It’s wonderful that we’re out ministering to people. But when our health isn’t there and when our finances are not there, we can only do so much. That’s not being selfish, it’s being realistic.

JACKIE STANLEY:

Yeah, but we were in motion. It’s not a badge of honor to be sick in our community. It’s just—you know, you’re weak. And I’m Jackie Stanley. I refuse— [cries]

KEITH STANLEY:

I would say the key word that I think is not spoken enough of is sacrifice in this country. We can point to a lot of indicators of how great the economy is. Our productivity over the past 40, 50 years in this country has skyrocketed. But there’s a sacrifice to that: the sacrifice of not being home to see your kids go to school. The sacrifice of always putting work before everything else. I still believe in hard work. But I will say that I think we are fooling ourselves if we believe that it’s only hard work. So as much as I believe what my father and my grandfather taught me about rolling your sleeves up and getting the job done, I know it’s not just hard work that you need to succeed. Many times it’s about luck. It’s about who you know. It’s about your ZIP code. And I think sometimes that’s conflated within our society, that if you work really hard that you will be successful. I think there’s a lot more to that equation.

BILL MOYERS:

For now, these two American families expect they will have to keep working as long as they can—even in an economy that long ago stopped working for them.

TONY NEUMANN:

The inside walls are pretty much all done up to about here. I’m waiting on a door. It should be in almost any time, and then I can finish the rest of it.

I used to expect a lot more of myself when I was younger. But as I got older, it’s kind of like certain things mean more than others. Money used to be a big thing. Now there’s so many more things that are really more important than money. You just got to live within your means.

Personally, I am not going to retire. I am going to slow down a whole lot. Who knows? Maybe in the future, I’ll get a big bus and put all my tools on there and just travel around the country. Kind of like them guys on “This Old House.” [laughs]

BILL MOYERS:

On weekends, Terry Neumann entertains the grandkids when she can. There are five in all—plus a great-grandchild.

TERRY NEUMANN:

Everybody probably thinks this: Yeah, you got married young. And maybe I should have went to school and did something. But after I had my kids, I became a mom. I’m still a mom to this day. I don’t regret anything I did. I wouldn’t change my kids for anything, because they’re my world.

JACKIE STANLEY:

There was times I put $12 in my account, savings. There was time I put $40 in there.

CLAUDE STANLEY:

I feel good. I’m not a millionaire or whatever, but I’ma feel good.

JACKIE STANLEY:

If I have to, I’ll stay. It’s fine. He’s here. We’ve been together, be 50 years.

CLAUDE STANLEY:

Forty-five. Forty-five.

JACKIE STANLEY:

We’ve been married 45—

CLAUDE STANLEY:

Yeah. Been—yeah.

JACKIE STANLEY:

—and together 50 years.

CLAUDE STANLEY:

It’s been a while. [laughs]

JACKIE STANLEY:

A little while.

CLAUDE STANLEY:

[laughter] Been a while.

TWO AMERICAN FAMILIES July 9, 2013

BILL MOYERS, Correspondent: Hello, and welcome to this special edition of FRONTLINE. I’m Bill Moyers.

We want to tell you the story of two American families whose lives embody what’s happened to the hopes and dreams of millions of Americans over the past 20 years.

It’s a story that begins in Milwaukee back in 1991, when we first met the Stanleys and the Neumanns, families my mother, rest her soul, would have called “the salt of the earth.”

TERRY NEUMANN: I want my kids to—

TONY NEUMANN: Grow up to be good kids.

TERRY NEUMANN: Yeah,. I want good children.

JACKIE STANLEY: I can tell you’ve been down South a long time. You’re saying “Yes Ma’am.”

BILL MOYERS: [voice-over] Hard workers, caring parents, faithful church-goers trying to secure a foothold in the middle class. But as we came back to visit them over the years, we watched their children grow and their fortunes change.

CLAUDE STANLEY: Now I’m putting the long hours in. You know, you’re getting money, but it’s not that much. And you say, “What’s the use?”

BILL MOYERS: We saw their work lives upended by the powerful economic and political forces that were altering the American landscape.

TERRY NEUMANN: Here’s my paycheck— $9,646.89. That’s poverty.

BILL MOYERS: As America ushered in a new Gilded Age, in Milwaukee, as in the rest of the country, working people found themselves left behind, barely staying even, at best.

So now, 22 years in the making, the intimate and revealing story of two American families.

TERRY NEUMANN: Tony and I have known each other since we were probably about 2 years old. His mother and my mother went to school together at Pulaski High School. And our grandparents, when our parents were younger, you know, they played cards. So they were pretty good friends.

I don’t know, we just started seeing each other, you know, spending a lot of time at each other’s houses. And he just asked me out, so I said OK. We were crazy about each other. We had to spend a lot of time together, you know, and I could just picture myself spending the rest of my life with him.

And our expectations were— I thought, you know, you find the man that you like and get married and have a family and get a house, a little white picket fence, you know, all those little fairy tale type things.

Some of it came true. But some of it, as far as the bumpy roads, I didn’t expect, either. You know, I knew they weren’t going to be all peaches and cream, but you don’t think of all the bad things when you’re younger.

Milwaukee 1991

BILL MOYERS: [voice-over] Once upon a time, Terry Neumann and her husband, Tony, dreamed of a good, simple life.

TERRY NEUMANN: When we got married, we had started a family right away. He was working factory and I stayed home. And he made pretty good money when we were first married, you know, for a young couple with one little one on the way.

Grab a couple and crack ‘em in the pan.

I don’t know, we had a good time with one child, so we had another one and there was Adam. You know, and then I got pregnant with Karissa in ‘86. And he had lost his job. Then he got hired at Briggs, and we thought, OK, this is a very stable job. You know, we can start saving, and we bought the house.

Twitter #frontline

BILL MOYERS: Buying a home was a big step for a young couple. But Tony had a good job with the engine maker Briggs and Stratton, then the largest employer in the region.

TELEVISION COMMERCIAL: Years ago, if you wanted a small engine, you got a Briggs and Stratton.

BILL MOYERS: For decades, Briggs and dozens of other stalwart Wisconsin manufacturers had helped make Milwaukee just about the American dream’s home town, celebrated in sitcoms and sentimentalized in beer commercials.

TELEVISION COMMERCIAL: So when Miller time rolls around tonight, we raise a glass to you, Milwaukee. You’ve earned it.

BILL MOYERS: When we met the Neumanns in the early ‘90s, American manufacturers had already begun chasing cheap labor to non-union states and Mexico. Of over 40,000 good-paying jobs lost from Milwaukee in the preceding decade, about 4,000 were from Briggs and Stratton.

One of them was Tony Neumann’s.

TONY NEUMANN: It sort of goes like this. Here and here—

TERRY NEUMANN: He gets into Briggs, and we think, “Oh, this is a good company. We can buy a house.” Now we have the house, we have more bills.

TONY NEUMANN: We got to drill a hole. How big a hole do you want?

ADAM NEUMANN: Not that big.

TERRY NEUMANN: But it’s either rent for the rest of your life or own. And we prefer to own. I mean—

BILL MOYERS: [on camera] That’s supposed to be the American dream.

TERRY NEUMANN: That’s supposed to be the American dream. Where is it?

BILL MOYERS: A house a good job—

TERRY NEUMANN: Where is it?

BILL MOYERS: [voice-over] Tony had been making up to $18 an hour plus benefits. Now the jobs available to a laid-off union worker commonly paid a fraction of that.

TONY NEUMANN: I’ve applied over at grocery stores, hardware stores. There’s—

TERRY NEUMANN: McDonald’s.

TONY NEUMANN: —Hardee’s—

TERRY NEUMANN: —Kohl’s—

TONY NEUMANN: —Super America, Pizza Hut, Walmart, Sam’s. Most of them will not pay $6 an hour. They’re all less than $6 an hour. Little do they know that I need to live also.

TERRY NEUMANN: And one of these. And then you need a business card to call Mommy up—

BILL MOYERS: While her husband looked for work, Terry tried to bring in some extra money. She bought skin care products and then tried reselling them to her neighbors, door to door.

TERRY NEUMANN: Look in the mirror and feel your face and say, “Well, you know, it’s softer”—

NEIGHBOR: It’s softer, yeah.

TERRY NEUMANN: —the complexion, the color. Yeah. And that’s basically why I wanted to share this with you.

BILL MOYERS: But she lost money on the deal, and their troubles just got worse.

TONY NEUMANN: Are you going to call him back?

TERRY NEUMANN: Am I going to call him back? Yeah, I’m going to have to call him back.

TONY NEUMANN: Well, you talked to him before.

BILL MOYERS: [on camera] How much is your mortgage a month?

TERRY NEUMANN: I believe it’s, like—

TONY NEUMANN: It’s $819.

TERRY NEUMANN: Yeah, $820, or something like that.

BILL MOYERS: And have you been able to make all the payments?

TERRY NEUMANN: No, and we’re behind. And today the mortgage company called me again.

BILL MOYERS: Again?

TERRY NEUMANN: Yes.

BILL MOYERS: What did they say?

TERRY NEUMANN: I didn’t answer them right now because I wanted to talk to Tony, and he wasn’t home. So I wanted to talk to him.

BILL MOYERS: You must dread it when the phone rings.

TERRY NEUMANN: I do. I cringe.

BILL MOYERS: [voice-over] Long before the term “foreclosure crisis” was on America’s lips, laid-off working people were learning what it meant.

TERRY NEUMANN: [on the phone] I did send a $1,000 check in probably a few weeks back, but the check was sent back to me with a letter stating, “We will not accept a partial payment.” I don’t really think of that as a partial payment. I think of that as a basic payment and a good gesture on trying to get caught up.

Right now, we’re going through a hard time. My husband’s out of work. He went to school and he’s looking for a job. And I’m basically just trying to buy a little time so we can get on our feet again, you know, so we can get caught up. I would think that this is just going to be a temporary thing, not a permanent thing, and I really don’t want to lose my house.

Or are you just trying to tell me that they have to foreclose on the house if I don’t have that full amount? You would recommend it?

TONY NEUMANN: Is he putting this on paper? I want to know. Is he putting this on paper? Dear?

TERRY NEUMANN: It really bothers us that we have to depend on other people. Just want to get up and do what I have to do, just go in the car and go grocery shopping and have a normal life again.

FOOD PANTRY WORKER: You get the peanut butter and the honey—

TERRY NEUMANN: I don’t like having to go and ask and say, “I have no food in the house,” or something. “Can you help me out,” where when you would go and work and get a paycheck and come home and support yourself—

TONY NEUMANN: And you would be giving this food to other people.

TERRY NEUMANN: Right. Well, now the shoe’s on the other foot. Makes me feel very uncomfortable. I’d rather be on the giving side than the receiving.

FOOD PANTRY WORKER: They have peanut butter, flour, some pork here. I understand that if you put it over noodles or rice and maybe add a little onion that it’s quite palatable.

TONY NEUMANN: [holding baby bird] Oh, what happened to his ear? He wants to go back in his house? He doesn’t like all you kids.

ADAM NEUMANN: He don’t have no house.

TONY NEUMANN: Can you reach that high, or you want me to do it?

ADAM NEUMANN: I want to hold him all the way over there.

TONY NEUMANN: OK, you can hold him all the way over there.

TERRY NEUMANN: They’ve made comments to, like, “Mom, let’s sell the bookshelf.” They’ve got little baseball cards, “Mom, I’ll sell these.” And that hurts because they’re willing to sell their baseball cards to help their parents out.

TONY NEUMANN: I’ve been getting very angry lately. I’ve been losing my temper quite a bit. I’ve tried doing things. I work in the garage on woodworking things when I get angry, and that helps once in a while. I just— I’m having a hard time dealing with this.

TERRY NEUMANN: What are you doing today?

BILL MOYERS: [on camera] How do you deal with this pressure, the anger and the—

TERRY NEUMANN: I can’t. It’s very difficult.

TONY NEUMANN: Yeah, our marriage is really on the rocks. This is really a difficult time. This is a real difficult time. I’ve been thinking about divorce now for a while.

BILL MOYERS: Why?

TONY NEUMANN: I can’t deal with the situation. I’m just having a real hard time dealing with it.

BILL MOYERS: You feel guilty?

TONY NEUMANN: Yeah, I do. I feel I should be supporting my family.

BILL MOYERS: You think he really wants a divorce, or is this just an escape?

TERRY NEUMANN: I think it’s an escape and I just think he figures it’s an easy way out. But really, the problems are still going to be there because he’s still going to have to support us, and I feel it’s going to be worse. I just feel it’s just— just a tough time, and if we can just get through this, you know, then— then we’ll be back to the life that we had before.

PRIEST: Good morning, everybody. We gather on this Sunday morning in faith to praise our triune God, in the name of the Father and of the Son and—

BILL MOYERS: [voice-over] As Tony and Terry prayed for better times, across town, in Milwaukee’s Central City, a second hard-working family found their faith being tested. Like Tony Neumann, Claude Stanley had also been laid off. He lost his assembly line job with big manufacturer A.O. Smith.

CLAUDE STANLEY: When I got laid off, they wanted me to go on welfare, but not— I could not stand in that line. I just said, “Not me.” This is not me. They want to give me food—- I say, “This is ain’t me.” I don’t want no food stamps. I say I got my strength, my health. I will find me a job. And I found me a job.

BILL MOYERS: He found a job waterproofing basements for less than $7 an hour, not even half of what he had been making.

CLAUDE STANLEY: You got to look at it on the real side. I cannot live like I was making $20 an hour. OK, that money is not there. So you might as well get it in your mind it’s not there no more. So OK, bring yourself down.

BILL MOYERS: Claude and his wife, Jackie, were raising five kids— their daughter, Nicole, about to enter college when we met her, the oldest son, Keith, the twins, Klaudale and Claude, Jr., and the youngest, Omega.

KEITH STANLEY: I think the hardest time is when you have to worry about coming home, like— like I say, always coming home, and then there’s a bill on the door saying the water’s cut off. Or there’s a— the guy just called saying he’s going to cut off the phone. Or the electricity’s off. And you have to wait for a couple of days until Mom and Dad can get enough money to put it back on.

BILL MOYERS: Their neighborhood, Sherman Park, was mostly African-American and had once thrived on factory jobs that paid enough to support a family. Now those jobs were disappearing, and people here were trying to figure out what to do next, people like Jackie Stanley, who had lost her job at Briggs.

JACKIE STANLEY: While I was on the motor line at Briggs, I began to study my real estate. I went 10 times for my real estate license. The 10th time, I passed. And I promised that as soon as Briggs did close the door that I was going to go on and do real estate. And that’s exactly what I did.

[on the phone] Hi, Joe. Yeah, this is Jacqueline Stanley from Homestead.

It’s just like anything else. It’s really unsure.

[on the phone]_ OK, I just got in and it says “ASAP.

You only get excited when you’re sitting at the closing and have the check in your hand. You never get over-exuberant. And I’m learning that every day.

NICOLE STANLEY: Mom’s real estate is tough on her. I’ve seen her try to wheel and deal deals. They seem so good, and at the last minute, they fall apart.

JACKIE STANLEY: [on the phone]_ The listing is for September. It’s already October.

NICOLE STANLEY: And that falling apart is our mortgage. That falling apart is the car note. And to someone else, it might not seem important, that they decide not to buy the house. But for us, it’s a matter of— not life and death, but it’s a matter of light and gas. And that’s scary.

BILL MOYERS: As good jobs left town, the number of African-Americans in poverty increased from about 25 percent in the 1970s to over 40 percent in the early ‘90s.

The Stanleys vowed it wouldn’t happen to them. But as property values fell in the Central City, so did real estate commissions. And when Jackie tried to sell in other neighborhoods, she met resistance.

JACKIE STANLEY: It was on the market for a year and didn’t sell.

BILL BERLAND: It’s because they didn’t have somebody as good as you.

JACKIE STANLEY: [laughs] OK.

BILL BERLAND: People of color really have a much more difficult time in our business making a living than white people. It may be a situation where she may call for a showing and not get the courtesy of a call back. Maybe her client that she takes in to a mortgage lender has a much more difficult time, even if their is good, getting a mortgage.

JACKIE STANLEY: [on the phone] All right, fax it to me.

I can’t sell suburbs. I can’t sell the most affluent areas here. And that hurts. But they’ll call me for Central City.

KEITH STANLEY: You talk to your friends, they always say, “Well, I’m going to be doing this this summer. Well, how about you?” And you’re like, “Well, I’m doing— working.” That’s all you just say right now is “I’m working.

And they always ask me “Why are you working? Why don’t you go out there and have fun like the rest of the kids do?” You can’t. You just can’t do it. You have to go out there and help your mom and dad.

BILL MOYERS: To help out, Keith Stanley and the twins, Claude, Jr., and Klaudale, started a business. They called it the Three Sons Lawn Care Service.

INTERVIEWER: How much money would you like to make when you grow up?

CLAUDE STANLEY, Jr.: Probably about a hundred million, something like that. Three hundred million, something like that.

INTERVIEWER: Do you think you will?

CLAUDE STANLEY, Jr.: Yeah.

KLAUDALE STANLEY: I seen my mom on the phone talking to the bill collectors, asking them, when they would take— the mortgage company, when they were about to take our house. She was pleading with the mortgage company. She asks the bill collectors to keep the light and sometimes the gas on. And that makes me want to do more, a lot more.

BILL MOYERS: The country was deep in recession in 1991. The president predicted it wouldn’t last.

Pres. GEORGE H. W. BUSH: We will get this recession behind us and return to growth soon. [applause] We will get on our way to a new record of expansion and achieve the competitive strength that will carry us into the next American century.

BILL MOYERS: But the problem was bigger than recession. By 1991, Milwaukee’s new economy depended on non-union manufacturing and service jobs, the vast majority of them offering lower pay and fewer benefits.

That was still the case when we returned to the city two years later. But by the beginning of 1993, there were expectations that things were about to turn around.

1993

Pres. BILL CLINTON: I, William Jefferson Clinton, do solemnly swear—

—and will to the best of my ability preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, so help me God.

KLAUDALE STANLEY: From the way he ran his campaign, it was more like he would concentrate on America than Mexico, Europe, Africa, Asia. He wasn’t going to send more jobs or factories out of the country, and bring more in. And I guess that in the next four years, maybe we might have openings and maybe you might not have to film as many people in your— more people have jobs, and things will probably work out.

ANNOUNCER: Ladies and gentlemen, the president of the United States, William Jefferson Clinton!

KLAUDALE STANLEY: This president I think I can trust and relate to somehow.

KEITH STANLEY: Four more years. Four more years, buddy. You need to grow up a little bit.

Pres. BILL CLINTON: Today we celebrate the mystery of American renewal!

KEITH STANLEY: I been there with Reagan, Bush and now Clinton. I’m not saying I don’t trust presidents. It’s that you say a lot of stuff to get on top. Even if I was running for something, I’d say— I’d be like, I’m— “Everybody get free candy and everything,” you know? So you say a lot of stuff to get on top.

Pres. BILL CLINTON: We inherit an economy that is still the world’s strongest, but is weakened by business failures, stagnant wages—

TERRY NEUMANN: I think if they work on jobs first, a lot of people would probably be more energized, you know? Give people something to wake up to every morning, you know, a purpose!

TONY NEUMANN: A purpose and a lot more self-respect.

TERRY NEUMANN: Right. And I think that will change a lot of people’s attitudes.

TONY NEUMANN: Changed mine.

TERRY NEUMANN: Yeah.

PRIEST: I invited the Neumanns around the Lord’s table because a year ago, they may not have had as much to be thankful for, right? You didn’t have a steady job then, did you?

TONY NEUMANN: That’s a fact.

PRIEST: That’s a fact. What is the fact today?

TONY NEUMANN: I have more than enough work.

PRIEST: More than enough work!

BILL MOYERS: Tony Neumann had found a job making engine parts in a small factory. Like many in the new light manufacturing sector, the job was non-union. It paid $8.25 an hour, with no benefits. It got the Neumanns back on their feet, but it wouldn’t balance their books.

TERRY NEUMANN: Just with the mortgage, we got, well, three months behind. And it will take us two years to get to pay that back because they tack on the interest and penalty charges and whatever else, so that three months takes two years. That’s a long time.

So whatever extra money we have, we send it because we want to make sure that in the next year, we have it paid off so they don’t take the house.

BILL MOYERS: To make ends meet, they needed more money.

DANIEL NEUMANN: Guess what? I’m on the honor roll!

TERRY NEUMANN: That’s great!

BILL MOYERS: And Terry, like so many of her generation, realized she would have to go to work despite needing to be home for the kids. She began taking a series of low-wage part-time day jobs.

TERRY NEUMANN: [behind lunch counter] Anyone for peas?

BILL MOYERS: Meanwhile, her husband Tony worked the night shift full-time.

TERRY NEUMANN: Tonight is Boy Scouts. They have a pack meeting once a month where all of the dens get all together and they come.

SCOUT LEADER: Adam Neumann has passed uniform inspection.

TERRY NEUMANN: They have their awards being passed out on that night, so this is kind of like a big night.

SCOUT LEADER: Daniel Neumann, please come up with your mom or dad or both.

TERRY NEUMANN: That’s one thing Tony misses because he used to be very involved in Scouts. So he had to give that up.

TERRY NEUMANN: Good job, Daniel!

TERRY NEUMANN: Daniel!

KARISSA NEUMANN: Daniel!

TERRY NEUMANN: Daniel! Look for your homework!

KARISSA NEUMANN: Get in here!

TERRY NEUMANN: And your backpack!

KARISSA NEUMANN: And shut the door!

TERRY NEUMANN: With me working and Tony working, we had different shifts and we weren’t all together all the time at the same time.

TONY NEUMANN: Karissa, where is it?

TERRY NEUMANN: How can he lose a backpack?

KARISSA NEUMANN: In the room.

TERRY NEUMANN: Daniel started getting very quiet, and he kept to himself a lot. And his attitude just changed a little bit. You know, he got really distant.

[with guidance counselor] Daniel, he’s still having problems with his homework.

GUIDANCE COUNSELOR: I’m sure that Daniel is dealing with the stress of your relationship with Tony, and you know, the whole work issue. You’re working. Some kids almost blame themselves for what’s going on in a family, you know, and that— they have to realize this is a situation that’s a tough situation for the whole family. Everybody’s doing the best they can. You love him. You’re there for him and you’ll always be there for him.

TERRY NEUMANN: Right.

GUIDANCE COUNSELOR: A lot of our children here at school are getting themselves up in the morning, coming home to an empty house at night. Ideally, we would have a parent there to get a kid off and someone there to receive them when they come home at night. But that’s, you know, in the fairyland world, I guess. And you know, we do want we have to do to survive.

TEACHER: Danny Neumann?

DANIEL NEUMANN: Period at the end.

TEACHER: Period at the end.

BILL MOYERS: Even as working people like the Neumanns were just hanging on, the new economy was on the upswing. The stock market was on the rise, and for investors, the good times were roaring back.

CLAUDE STANLEY: [preaching] Thank you. Hallelujah! Yes, Lord, we thank you this morning. Lord, we thank you how you provide for us, how you make ways out of no way. Lord, we thank you this morning!

BILL MOYERS: Claude Stanley served his church as a lay minister on Sundays.

CLAUDE STANLEY: We thank you, Lord, for your goodness. And thank you, Lord, for your kindness, Lord!

BILL MOYERS: The rest of the week, he was on his hands and knees. By 1993, Claude had been promoted to foreman of the waterproofing crew, which paid him less than a dollar more an hour.

CLAUDE STANLEY: Factory job, you’re making $14 an hour. This job, you’re cutting that in half. You’re only making— you make about $7. Yeah, you might get some bonuses here and there, but— incentives, but ain’t that great.

JACKIE STANLEY: I think he made about 35, 40 at Smith.

CLAUDE STANLEY: At Smith, yeah.

JACKIE STANLEY: And I made 35 and 40.

CLAUDE STANLEY: At Briggs.

JACKIE STANLEY: And that’s— so we’re about half of that. If we did— made what we made at Briggs and Smith right now, we would be really well off. House would be paid for, car paid for. Kids at least would have some kind of college funds built up.

CLAUDE STANLEY: But we look on each other for our strength. You know, some days, she got bad days. Some days, I have bad days. But like, when— if I’m not producing, she’s producing. You know, when I can’t— you know, I do, she do, I do. We try to find a way to make ends meet. You got some families probably say, how do we make it? You know, how do we make it, you know?

JACKIE STANLEY: We don’t even know! [laughter]

CLAUDE STANLEY: How do you make it, you know?

JACKIE STANLEY: We just keep holding on. You know, we shop. We shop. I found out that there are grocery stores here that have food half-price on Mondays. We rummage.

[in second-hand store] Oh, my goodness, some Guess jeans. Omega! These are $70 in the store. Look at that!

I come here because I work with a lot of people every day, they come in the offices from the cologne to the shoes, they look gorgeous. And I can’t afford what they wear.

For $24, this one I want. This is for work.

My accessories that I wear, they’re, like, $5, $10 to $20 earrings, I pay 99 cents.

OMEGA STANLEY: This is something you would wear, probably.

JACKIE STANLEY: Something I would wear? No. I think Elvis Presley would wear it. [laughs] No, I wouldn’t wear that.

Nobody wants to be around somebody that doesn’t have theirselves together. Even if you have to, as one broker wrote to me and said, “Fake it until you make it.” And that’s what we do in the Stanley household. We wear exactly what the people on Lake Drive wear.

JACKIE STANLEY: [showing house] That’s the very same house. Are you planning on keeping the hedges on there?

BILL MOYERS: For Jackie, the home sales came frequently enough. It was the pay that was the problem.

JACKIE STANLEY: With my kind of work that I do, which is real estate, I get paid on commission. It goes up and down. And it’s rough.

BILL MOYERS: Jackie was just one of the agents handling this sale and had to split the commission.

JACKIE STANLEY: [to client] Don’t go in the back hallway. The dog’s there.

BILL MOYERS: After also paying a percentage of her share to her employer, she figured to clear about $1,000.

JACKIE STANLEY: If we’re going to do the taxes, too, then you also have to remember they take the 28 percent out of the $1,000 that you make. So it’s— you’re down again.

BILL MOYERS: She reckoned that if she opened her own office, she could keep a larger share of the commissions.

JACKIE STANLEY: I’ve set goals at what I want to do. And I plan on going all the way with it because I’ve got to come out of the hole somewhere. That’s it.

And there’s something that I always say, “So a man thinketh, so is he.” If I think poverty all the time, I’ll act that way. I can’t afford to talk negative and then allow my children to see me that way, down or depressed.

BILL MOYERS: As she persevered in 1993, her neighborhood seemed to be coming apart at the seams.

JACKIE STANLEY: Even on this street, one block west of my house, just about every door here has the steel doors. There was “Kill you” written on the back of my fence— “if you don’t join the gangs”— to my oldest son, Keith.

BILL MOYERS: Just blocks from her house, Jackie’s uncle was murdered by an intruder.

JACKIE STANLEY: All I can tell them is keep trying. Every day, I have to encourage myself and I have to encourage them. Many times, Keith has said to me, “What’s the use, Mom?” He did a 3.5. What does it matter? And I said, “You’ve got to keep going.”

The other day, we was— the snow was heavy and we were out shoveling snow. And someone stood at the window and said, “Look at your family. It’s perfect.” And they called us the Beaver family. I know they meant to say Cleaver. But— and I said— they said, “We see you together all the time.” It looks good. But it looks good.

1995

BILL MOYERS: Two years later, in 1995, getting a job wasn’t the problem anymore in Milwaukee. There was even a shortage of skilled labor.

NEWSCASTER: Employers in some parts of the state say they can’t find enough qualified workers, and Governor Thompson announced what he calls Operation Hire to address those shortages.

BILL MOYERS: The problem still was that jobs often didn’t pay enough. Like millions of others, the Neumann family now had to have a second full-time income to make it. And Terry Neumann was pulling one in, and proud to be doing so.

TERRY NEUMANN: I have a new job. I’m a driver and a guard and a messenger. My hourly pay right now is $7.50 to start. It has very good insurance benefits, which my husband doesn’t have. He gets more money and less benefits. And I’ve got less money and better benefits. So hopefully, between the two of us—

TONY NEUMANN: It kind of works out.

TERRY NEUMANN: Yeah. I get a lot of looks from a lot of truck drivers, a lot of double takes that, “Wow, look at that.” Yeah. I love it. I think it’s great, you know?

BILL MOYERS, Correspondent: [on camera] Working?

TERRY NEUMANN: Working, yeah. And having the power behind the big truck, you know? I like it.

BILL MOYERS: The power behind the big truck?

TERRY NEUMANN: Yeah. I get a lot more looks than sitting in the kitchen, cooking muffins. [laughter]

BILL MOYERS: I remember your telling us a couple of years ago how important it was that as a mother, you were home with the kids. And you know, Daniel was having a few difficulties then—

TERRY NEUMANN: Right.

BILL MOYERS: —approaching teenage years.

TERRY NEUMANN: Right.

BILL MOYERS: You just felt it was best—

TERRY NEUMANN: Right.

BILL MOYERS: —if you could be here.

TERRY NEUMANN: I still feel that way, but under the circumstances— we’re put into a situation we don’t have a choice.

[www.pbs.org: Watch on line]

ADAM NEUMANN: You got any homework?

KARISSA NEUMANN: Yeah, I got a lot. I got this little worksheet. I got a couple other things, I think.

BILL MOYERS: [voice-over] The Neumanns now made enough from their combined income to meet their expenses. But the kids were coming home to an empty house.

KARISSA NEUMANN: She probably thinks about us and stuff, how we’re doing at home, gets a little worried if we’re OK and if we made it home.

BILL MOYERS: [on camera] What about the neighborhood? You’re not the only family around, I guess, where both husband and wife are working?

TERRY NEUMANN: No.

BILL MOYERS: Where kids are coming home by themselves?

TONY NEUMANN: There’s a lot of kids around here that are like that. There’s quite a bit of commotion as far as the kids that are around here doing pretty much what they want.

TERRY NEUMANN: Because they’re not supervised.

TONY NEUMANN: Yeah, they’re never supervised.

TERRY NEUMANN: The parents aren’t here to supervise them, and that’s the reason why you have so much teenage shenanigans or—

TONY NEUMANN: Yeah, violence.

TERRY NEUMANN: That’s what I’m worried about. I want my kids to—

TONY NEUMANN: Grow up to be good kids.

TERRY NEUMANN: Yeah. I want good children.

BILL MOYERS: So you’re betting on the fact that the kids will come through without you being here.

TERRY NEUMANN: I’ve tried to bring them up right and to teach them right from wrong. And I’m just hoping that they will carry these values through all of this. I hope they’ve learned something from this, how hard it is and how difficult it is and how everybody needs to make sacrifices, including them. This is how it is, and this is what we have to do in order to get through this and make it.

[www.pbs.org: Share your thoughts]

BILL MOYERS: [voice-over] In the Stanley household in 1995, oldest son Keith reached a milestone, becoming the first man on either side of his family to graduate high school.

KEITH STANLEY: Oh, Mommy!

JACKIE STANLEY: [weeping] I’ve been talking for years, and I can’t talk now! You’re the first one.

GRADUATION ANNOUNCER: Keith Kenyatta Stanley.

JACKIE STANLEY: Yay! That’s my boy!

BILL MOYERS: He was heading into an uncertain economy, but Keith was determined to make it. That meant college. And in the fall, he enrolled at Alabama State University.

[on camera] How do you afford to keep Keith in college?

JACKIE STANLEY: I negotiated two transactions and closed them the day before he left. And you’re talking about a prayer!

BILL MOYERS: [voice-over] Jackie’s commissions only paid for part of the tuition. They would have to find the balance somehow.

[on camera] What does it take you a year down there for him?

JACKIE STANLEY: It’s $7,000 a year.

[on the phone] Keith? Hi. How’re you doing?

BILL MOYERS: Is he going to be able to make it this year?

JACKIE STANLEY: I just received a letter that I have to pay $1,300 now, or Keith will have to be put out in 48 hours.

[on the phone] We were concerned about this letter that came from your school.

But again, God came through, again! Keith had applied for a lot of charge cards before he left.

We came up with something. Oh, that’s so sweet. I can tell you’ve been down South a long time. You’re saying “Yes, ma’am.” Your Discover card came in. I called the Discover card people, and I told them we wanted a cash advance.

BILL MOYERS: Most people, when they pray, expect God to give them a miracle. You— what you got was a $1,000 credit with 18 percent interest rate.

JACKIE STANLEY: But it’ll tide me over until I can get the miracle.

So then this semester is taken care of. You hear me? All right. I love you.

It’s called rob Peter to pay Paul. And I’m robbing Peter so much that Peter is just standing there.

Send it to the bank.

BILL MOYERS: [voice-over] The Stanleys were like millions of others trying to survive the good times of the ‘90s. Living on credit became a way of life. Over that decade, credit card debt for the average American family increased by 53 percent. For low-income families, it was 184 percent.

And the paychecks weren’t getting any bigger. Claude Stanley was making about the same in ‘95 as he had been two years earlier. As a supervisor, he did have modest health benefits. Those he supervised, they weren’t so lucky.

[on camera] What do these guys do for health care?

CLAUDE STANLEY: There’s no benefits. That’s the main thing, no benefits.

BILL MOYERS: [voice-over] When crisis hit, Claude’s benefits proved insufficient. A serious lung infection required an extended stay in the hospital and kept him out of work for two months.

1998

When we next saw him, it was 1998. He told us the family faced uncovered medical bills approaching some $30,000, $30,000 they didn’t have.

CLAUDE STANLEY: It will be rough, you know? It’ll hit us financially. But all we do is just— you know, we depend on the Lord to make a way for us, but we ain’t going to stop living, you know? We’ve got to keep moving, keep going.

KLAUDALE STANLEY: Welcome to Burger King. Can I take your order, sir?

BILL MOYERS: The growing family debt meant that paying for college for their younger children was out of the question. Omega was still in high school, but the twins had graduated. Claude, Jr., was working odd jobs, including doing some modeling. His twin, Klaudale, took a different route. He joined the Navy.

KLAUDALE STANLEY: I, Klaudale Lamar Stanley, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend—

BILL MOYERS: He went through basic training in Illinois—

KLAUDALE STANLEY: [chanting with other recruits] Six more days, and we’ll be through!

BILL MOYERS: —and would soon be stationed in Washington, D.C., at the Pentagon.

KLAUDALE STANLEY: [on the phone] Navy Washington operator 30. How may I assist you?

BILL MOYERS: Older brother Keith, meanwhile, was now a senior at Alabama State and on his own financially. He had some aid and worked two jobs, as a resident assistant in his dorm and the organist at his church. But when we visited in 1999, we found him on the verge of being kicked out for nonpayment.

1999

KEITH STANLEY: So what I do usually is, I just have to go inside the credit card and pay for it through credit cards, you know? And that’s the only way I can do it, you know? That’s— and if that’s what it takes to stay in school, that’s what I’m going to do to stay in school. My current balance for this credit card is $2,574.68. The interest on this is— I believe it’s 23, close to 24 percent.

[looking at credit card advertisement] “No fee first year. Apply now.” They’re everywhere.

BILL MOYERS: Back home in Milwaukee, Keith’s parents had decided to strike out on their own, to become entrepreneurs. Borrowing against their home, they bought a Central City office building where Jackie could start her own real estate firm and Claude could set up shop as a home inspector.

CLAUDE STANLEY: [preaching] We’re talking about those, amen, that is so quick to get rich and quick to prosper and quick to go somewhere—

BILL MOYERS: They would use it on Sundays as a church. Claude had become an ordained pastor. Their faith remained as strong as their future seemed uncertain.

CLAUDE STANLEY: God is good, he’s good, he’s good, he’s good!

I got an article from USA Today where they said every person that’s going to retire is going to need at least a million dollars. [laughs]

BILL MOYERS: Across town, the Neumanns were trying to cope with the toll on family life exacted by their different hours and demands at work, especially since Tony was still mostly working the night shift.

TONY NEUMANN: It takes a little getting used to. It seems like you only get somewhere between four and six hours of real sleep, and you have to be able to live off of that.

KARISSA NEUMANN: Sometimes I like him to help me on homework, but since he’s on third shift, he can’t really help me a whole lot because he’s normally sleeping. And when we wake him up, he gets really irritable and kind of crabby.

TONY NEUMANN: I already told you, food is going to be off limits in your room if I see this!

KARISSA NEUMANN: The only time I get to see him is towards the time I’m going to bed. And that’s it. That’s when I have to ask him all my quick questions on if I can do stuff or I need him to sign papers for school. And then I normally go to bed right after that.

TONY NEUMANN: Actually, I would prefer to have a real life on first shift. I would really like to sit down and have a nice dinner with the family every day. I would really enjoy that.

Terry and I are never really together for any period of time. We’re not really getting along like we used to. We don’t sleep together anymore. It’s really— it stinks.

BILL MOYERS: The Neumanns began to see a family therapist.

KARISSA NEUMANN: I don’t like going to counseling because I don’t want to tell him my problems. It’s like he’s, “Hello, what are your problems?” [laughs] He never laughs! It’s so funny.

TERRY NEUMANN: Well, he’s serious. He wants to get to the root of the problem.

KARISSA NEUMANN: And Dad even said that we weren’t going to go to anymore. And then you guys scheduled another one. And I told the boys that we weren’t going to have any more, and they got all happy because the boys don’t like coming to these things, either.

BILL MOYERS: At decade’s end, Daniel, now 17, and Adam, 15, were in high school but having trouble focussing on their studies.

Terry left the armored car job for one that paid more, $15 an hour instead of $9. But her schedule was utterly unpredictable. Sometimes she worked from 4:00 in the morning to noon, and might have to come back the same evening and work the overnight. She was always on call to report to work on just two hours’ notice.

TERRY NEUMANN: By the time I get home, I’m, like, zonked out. I get tired.

BILL MOYERS: Terry and Tony finally made more combined than he had made working at Briggs a decade earlier. But despite all the hard work, these two American families had barely survived one of the most prosperous decades in our history.

State of the Union 2000

Pres. BILL CLINTON: We began the new century with over 20 million new jobs, the fastest economic growth in more than 30 years, the lowest unemployment rates in 30 years. We have built a new economy!

2012

BILL MOYERS: It was 12 years before we came back to Milwaukee. We found a city still struggling, with over a quarter of its people living in poverty. Some people had done very well. Parts of the city had been splendidly rebuilt. And over the previous decade, more promises had been made.

Pres. GEORGE W. BUSH: A future of hope and opportunity begins with a growing economy, and that is what we have. Unemployment is low. Inflation is low. Wages are rising. This economy is on the move.

BILL MOYERS: But the promises had come with a price— two costly wars, a soaring deficit, and a housing market boom and bust.

NEWSCASTER: [February 23, 2009] The Obama administration says it will spend billions to keep struggling home owners in their homes.

BILL MOYERS: American families had been hit by the greatest economic downturn since the Great Depression.

NEWSCASTER: [May 29, 2012] We’re raised to believe that each generation can and will do better than the last. But is that really true?

BILL MOYERS: We wanted to know what had happened to the two American families we knew. We found Jackie Stanley outside her church, along with a grown-up Keith, now 35.

KEITH STANLEY: I never would have made it to college, never would have made it to college without Mom.

BILL MOYERS: But Jackie quickly confided that when we called her to see about filming again, she almost said no.

JACKIE STANLEY: I was telling Kathy I thought I was a failure. I really thought I was a failure because I didn’t do it. We went backwards.

BILL MOYERS: She said that after suffering some health problems, she had quit doing real estate altogether, that her dream of having her own office had come to nothing, that she hadn’t done enough to make it happen.

JACKIE STANLEY: And I don’t know. I really was ashamed.

CLAUDE STANLEY: [preaching] Sometimes we’re going to go through some things, praise God, and God ain’t going to bring it out like you think it ought to come out, the way you want it to come out.

BILL MOYERS: Turns out Claude’s entrepreneurial efforts hadn’t worked out, either.

CLAUDE STANLEY: You might be on your job sometime and you hear about a layoff going to happen. And you might go home and pray all week, saying, “Lord, don’t let that happen to this place. I want to keep my job.” And guess what? Guess what? You get laid off anyhow and the place close down. Guess what? You got to praise God anyhow! Glory to God. Hallelujah! Thank you, Jesus. God is good.

BILL MOYERS: Now the couple was surviving on a job Claude had taken with the city of Milwaukee.

[on camera] How did you find the work with the city?

CLAUDE STANLEY: I was looking through the newspaper, and it said something about forestry department.

BILL MOYERS: Forestry?

CLAUDE STANLEY: During the summertime, I do forestry. I do work on the boulevards. All the boulevards you see out here, with the flowers, keep the flowers intact, the grass being cut.

BILL MOYERS: And the winter?

CLAUDE STANLEY: Right now, I’m in sanitation, OK, collecting garbage.

BILL MOYERS: That’s hard work.

CLAUDE STANLEY: Yes, it is, Bill. Yeah, it ain’t easy.

KEITH STANLEY: I think one of the biggest things I can say for my dad is just his work ethic. And I remember he helped me install a tile floor in my kitchen. I was tired by the end of the first day. My dad is on the ground, putting the tile in and showing me how to put the cement on the tile. And I was, like, “Man, this guy, he has all this strength.”

BILL MOYERS: And you’re how old now?

CLAUDE STANLEY: I’m almost 60 years old.

BILL MOYERS: How long do you think you can keep that up?

CLAUDE STANLEY: Not too long. [laughs] Not too long.

BILL MOYERS: [voice-over] Claude is a member of a public union. He makes about $26,000 a year, plus some benefits. It’s one of a series of jobs he has had since we last saw him waterproofing basements and inspecting homes.

CLAUDE STANLEY: And you talking about doing other things in between, I had to work at the airport for two years.

BILL MOYERS: [on camera] Doing what?

CLAUDE STANLEY: I was working on the runway, directing the planes to come in, flag them down, stop, take the luggage to the tunnel, lifting baggage. And it was all kind of stuff at the airport I was doing.

BILL MOYERS: Was that a minimum wage job?

CLAUDE STANLEY: Definitely was minimum wage. When I worked out there, they cut our salary, I mean, down to nothing.

JACKIE STANLEY: He carried dead bodies, too. He worked at the hospital.

CLAUDE STANLEY: I was a security guard at Columbus Hospital. And at nighttime, if— it was like third shift, anybody passed away or died, we had to carry— put them on the elevator and carry them down to the refrigerator.

BILL MOYERS: The third shift is from when to when?

JACKIE STANLEY: Graveyard. [laughs]

CLAUDE STANLEY: From 11:00— from 12:00 o’clock at night to 7:00 in the morning.

BILL MOYERS: Once upon a time, when people got your age— and you’re much younger than I am, you’re almost 60— they started thinking seriously about retiring. But you’re not.

CLAUDE STANLEY: I can’t do that because the reason is, Bill, you can’t stay on a job long enough to retire. [laughs] You know, every job I have, I work seven years, OK, the place close down. You work somewhere else for another five years, they lay you off, they shut down. All the years I’ve been working, Bill, I could have retired right now.

BILL MOYERS: If you had—

CLAUDE STANLEY: Stayed at one job.

[www.pbs.org: More from the Stanleys & the Neumanns]

KEITH STANLEY: He will not be able to see the retirement, you know, that he was probably— would hope for when he was working at A.O. Smith. That’s just not a reality. My heart goes out to that generation that was promised something from America, by America, that they would have a better life, and that’s not the case anymore.

CLAUDE STANLEY: [to Jackie] I need to fill out my time sheet. I can do that.

JACKIE STANLEY: When I look at him early in the morning, he’s still doing it. He’s got that pretty young smile on his face and acting like nothing’s wrong. And every now and then, you’ll catch him exercising and humping his back and rubbing it .

One day, he told me— oh, God, here goes the tears. I’m not going to do this. I’m not going to cry. Here’s what he said. He had come in from work, and it was kind of cold. And he said, “By the time I get up, I’m just thawing out. My bones haven’t finished getting warm. I can’t keep doing this.”

TERRY NEUMANN: Hey, Dyl, are you in a good mood today? Dylan! He’s not in a very good mood. I think his bus drive was too long. And he’s getting antsy and he has to go potty.

BILL MOYERS: When we next met Terry Neumann, we found she had lost her warehouse job some five years before. She had searched unsuccessfully for a new warehouse or manufacturing position, but couldn’t find one.

So in 2008, she had retrained to become a nurse’s assistant and home health care aid. Now 49 years old, she was working part-time in a suburb just west of Milwaukee, taking care of a 16-year-old, Dylan Solper.

TERRY NEUMANN: Oh, I’ve been probably doing this for probably 19 months I’ve been here. What? You think that’s funny? What’s so funny, Dyl? He thinks he’s funny sometimes. He’ll put his feet up on me, and I’ll say, “I don’t want those stinky feet. I don’t want those stinky feet. I don’t want those stinky feet!”

The job paid, when I first started, $8 an hour, and now I’m getting $9 an hour. I’m at 24 hours a week.

Where’s Dylan? Where’s Dylan?

BILL MOYERS: [on camera] How do you survive on $9 an hour?

TERRY NEUMANN: You can’t. If you want a house and if you want that American dream, it’s impossible.

Here’s my paycheck. This is a two-week paycheck. So year to date— what are we talking here, November? That’s what I made, $9,646.89. That’s poverty.

BILL MOYERS: [voice-over] For Terry Neumann, survival has been difficult since the last time we saw her, and not just because of her paycheck. These days, she’s also going it alone.

[on camera] What happened to you and your husband?

TERRY NEUMANN: I think we just grew apart and went separate ways. And the love wasn’t there anymore. The trust wasn’t there anymore. It was just gone and dead. It was like a death.

BILL MOYERS: [voice-over] Tony Neumann told us he had lost his factory job and had been doing construction and handyman work in and out of Milwaukee. He declined to talk on camera.

Terry, meanwhile, said she never gave up searching for a full-time job.

TERRY NEUMANN: I need more hours. That’s what I need. And I’m working on that.

KATHY SOLPER, Dylan’s mother: Dylan, we’re getting into our chair. Back up. Good job!

BILL MOYERS: Terry was working for a for-profit agency receiving money from Medicaid for Dylan’s care. Positions like hers are often part-time or temporary.

TERRY NEUMANN: [to Dylan] Are you ready? Huh? Are you ready?

BILL MOYERS: [on camera] You’re part-time?

TERRY NEUMANN: Yes. So they don’t have to pay for the benefits, vacation time, sick time, or health.

KATHY SOLPER: The amount of money that these caregivers make, it’s just sad. It’s sad. I don’t know how they— I don’t know how they live on it. And the only thing I can tell them is they’re angels.

BILL MOYERS: You kept the house at the time of the divorce. You were able to keep the house.

TERRY NEUMANN: Yes.

BILL MOYERS: You were determined to hold onto that house. That was your home.

TERRY NEUMANN: Oh, yeah. But I didn’t feel safe after a while.

BILL MOYERS: I remember when we were there, you were concerned about the growing rowdiness and violence in the neighborhood.

TERRY NEUMANN: It just got worse. I was waking up, let’s see, 2:00 o’clock in the morning with gunfire rounds going through the neighbor’s house.

BILL MOYERS: But you had nowhere else to go.

TERRY NEUMANN: Right.

[www.pbs.org: Milwaukee through the years]

BILL MOYERS: [voice-over] Terry had survived the wave of home foreclosures that hit some 16,000 Milwaukee property owners between 2008 and 2010. But by 2011, divorced and working part-time, she simply couldn’t afford to make her home payments anymore.

KATHY SOLPER: She was real quiet, and you know, I could tell that she was down. And I finally came to her and I said, “What’s going on? You know, you seem like you’re really down, like you’re really tired, like you’re exhausted, like you just have a really heavy— something’s heavy on your mind.” I said, “Is everything OK with your family?”

I think she felt embarrassed, which she shouldn’t have. I think that she didn’t feel like she wanted to talk about it. But as the summer went on, it was a horrible time for Terry.

TERRY NEUMANN: [reading] “Dear occupant. Please take notice, judgment foreclosure entered March 15, 2011, in the amount of $96,619.12. You are hereby notified that possession is demanded by J.P. Morgan Chase Bank, which now owns your property.”

BILL MOYERS: [on camera] How long did you stay in the house?

TERRY NEUMANN: I lived there for 24 years. They wanted $120,000 for the buyout of it. And I’m, like, “Where am I supposed to find that?” You know, so it goes into foreclosure, and you can sell it for, what, $30,000? I was, “Are you serious? You can’t lower my payments or my interest rates so I can stay in my house, but you’ll foreclose on it and then sell it for $30,000 or $40,000, whatever it was?”

BILL MOYERS: [voice-over] With nowhere else to go, Terry moved in first with a relative, then with a friend.

TERRY NEUMANN: And I felt like a sense of failure because I’ve always been able to get back up on my feet. I’ve always found a way or the money to fix it. And I just couldn’t fix it anymore.

BILL MOYERS: At the time Terry lost her home, both her grown sons, Daniel and Adam, were living with her.

[on camera] Do you think they’re going to get their feet on the ground one day economically and be more secure than you and Tony were?

TERRY NEUMANN: I have my doubts.

SCOUT LEADER: Adam Neumann has passed uniform inspection.

BILL MOYERS: [voice-over] Adam Neumann, Terry’s middle son, is now 28. We found him working for a lawn care company.

ADAM NEUMANN: I’ve been doing it for about a year now, and I like this job. It’s nice. I like being outside. Keeps me in shape. I get paid, like, 9 bucks an hour. It’s usually 40 hours a week. Right now, there’s no benefits or insurance. So that’s the downfall of the job.

BILL MOYERS: Adam, we learned, had dropped out of school in the 10th grade after fathering a daughter, who now lives with her mother.

ADAM NEUMANN: I wish I would have, you know, stayed in school and, you know, found something that I was good at, you know, for a stable job in that sense. But after I had my kid at a young age, I had to work and I couldn’t work and go to school at the same time.

BILL MOYERS: He lives just south of Milwaukee, in an apartment complex where he met his current girlfriend. They are expecting a child.

[on camera] This is your second child.

ADAM NEUMANN: Second.

BILL MOYERS: How old is the first one now?

ADAM NEUMANN: Eleven. And I live paycheck to paycheck, child support, rent, electric, food. But they still call me middle class, but I don’t— I don’t see that.

BILL MOYERS: Adam’s brother, Daniel, Terry’s oldest, is now 29. He’s an auto mechanic, currently unemployed.

DANIEL NEUMANN: [in class] I’ve seen it done before, too, where you fill up the syringe with the brake fluid—

BILL MOYERS: Like so many Milwaukeeans of the past few decades, including his father, Daniel was looking to upgrade his skills to help him get work. So he went back to school for retraining at one of the region’s many technical colleges, studying automotive technology.

TERRY NEUMANN: Daniel!

KARISSA NEUMANN: Daniel!

TERRY NEUMANN: Daniel! Look for your homework!

KARISSA NEUMANN: Get in here!

BILL MOYERS: We asked Daniel about the past, about the difficulties in his family that he had witnessed growing up.

DANIEL NEUMANN: I really wasn’t paying too much attention to it. I was busy with school and being a kid. None of that stuff really mattered to me, you know, because I didn’t know. But now that I’m older and all this, it makes sense. Now I’m going through the same thing.

BILL MOYERS: Daniel has three kids of his own to help support. They live with their mothers. He gets by with unemployment and state food assistance. He’s had no home since his mother lost the house and now lives with a friend. He says he will start his own auto repair shop when he gets out of school. And he knows how he’d like to run it.

DANIEL NEUMANN: What I see is, you know, you keep your employees happy, your company will grow. You know, if you keep treating your employees like crap, and you know, just keep taking from them just because you want to get richer and richer and pay them less, that’s not the way to go because, I mean, the economy is so bad right now, a lot of people don’t have money and stuff.

And the world is just going all downhill right now. All this stuff going on here in Milwaukee and all these shootings and all that— I mean, they just had another shooting out there, even in a nice neighborhood over there in Brookfield. I have my concealed carry I carry everywhere I go. You really don’t have to want to use it, but if you have to, you have something to protect yourself and your family and friends around you.

BILL MOYERS: [on camera] With this kind of economy that we have now— low-wage, no-benefit jobs— do you think that Dan and Adam have a shot at having— you know, raising a family, having a home?

TERRY NEUMANN: I don’t see them getting a home because they’re making— they’re just— they’re struggling from paycheck to paycheck. You know, I had the home before the job loss, but for them to try to save to get a home now, I don’t foresee that, plus raising kids.

BILL MOYERS: How about Karissa? How’s she doing? And she’s how old now?

TERRY NEUMANN: Twenty-six.

Then one of these. And then you need a business card to call Mommy up.

KARISSA NEUMANN: When I was younger, I just knew we didn’t have money, and money is how the world goes round.

DANIEL NEUMANN: You can’t buy anything yet! We don’t have enough money!

KARISSA NEUMANN: A lot of people have clothes every school year. They have a new pair of shoes or several pairs of shoes. And I decided when I was younger that I wanted to be able to say I have money in the bank.

BILL MOYERS: We found Karissa working for a hospital in the large Aurora chain. It’s one of the biggest employers in the region in one of the biggest economic growth sectors, health care. She has an associate’s degree and also recently took courses to get certified as a professional insurance coder.

KARISSA NEUMANN: I do the physician billing. So all the physician services, I do those.

BILL MOYERS: She earns about $15 an hour plus benefits. She supports herself and her husband, Anthony LeFebvre. He has an associate’s degree, but like so many others, is currently unemployed. He’s trying to start his own computer consulting business. Because they don’t earn enough to have a home of their own, they live with Anthony’s relatives.

ANTHONY LeFEBVRE: There’s a lot of people in the same boat as we are. My uncle down in Florida, he was in the real estate, selling million-dollar condos. I don’t think he’s doing too well.

KARISSA NEUMANN: No. I mean, he even lost the house he was living in. Drive around any neighborhood and see how many people are living in the houses to try to help support each other. There’s a lot of vacant houses. You know, a lot of people lost their houses, you know, my mom being one of them.

BILL MOYERS: We asked Terry to take us back to her old house.

TERRY NEUMANN: So this is it.

BILL MOYERS: The people living there invited us in.

KHOU HANG: We recently just got this place and— in early September, and so we just got it fixed up. It still— we still need a lot of repairs.

BILL MOYERS: Khou Hang and Lu Lao bought Terry’s house in a foreclosure sale for about $38,000.

TERRY NEUMANN: Can I take a look around?

LU LAO: Go right ahead.

TERRY NEUMANN: This was my room. And this was my spare room. And this is where my grandkids would sleep when they’d come to visit me. And then this was the other room that my granddaughter would stay in when she would come visit me.

BILL MOYERS: Jackie Stanley, serious about her community role as the pastor’s wife, tries to remain upbeat.

JACKIE STANLEY: Everything’s free, my dear!

BILL MOYERS: On this day, there was a charitable giveaway at their church.

JACKIE STANLEY: If anybody has a queen-size bed, I have a down comforter. We got furniture coming in just a bit.

We just went crazy. We can’t even finish getting rid of everything because every time get rid of a table or two, another table comes in.

Don’t be standing around looking. You better grab. Take this stuff!

BILL MOYERS: We went along to one of her volunteer projects, a drug and alcohol recovery group. The woman who had once told us you have to “fake it until you make it” was still spreading that gospel.

JACKIE STANLEY: And I’m going to show you the 45-degree angle walk. And women, I want you to hear this. Do not walk with your butt! When you want to be successful, when you step out— and don’t do those timid walks. That means— you know, it’s, like, whichever way the wind — No! I have somewhere to go. My name is J. Renee. You see that?

BILL MOYERS: We also went to school with her. She’s taking classes to get back into the real estate game.

JACKIE STANLEY: And I know I’m good. I can walk out here and I guarantee an Eskimo would buy some ice, even if I brought it out of my refrigerator. They’re going to buy it.

BILL MOYERS: But the private Jackie was less self-assured.

[on camera] Do you feel like a failure today?

JACKIE STANLEY: Yes.

BILL MOYERS: Claude, do you think she’s a failure?

CLAUDE STANLEY: No. She’s not a failure.

JACKIE STANLEY: He’ll always say that.

CLAUDE STANLEY: You’re not a failure. You know, in this day and age, you raise five kids, that’s success — get jobs and make their own decisions.

JACKIE STANLEY: But even the Bible says leave heirs. You got to— you must leave something. You know—

BILL MOYERS: Do you think your children feel that you’re a failure?

JACKIE STANLEY: I don’t think my children— I think they love me enough not to tell me if they did feel it.

BILL MOYERS: [voice-over] The Stanley kids are all grown up now. The oldest, Nicole, is in Virginia, working for a county clerk’s office. The youngest daughter, Omega, a single mother of a 10-year old, recently lost her job at a Milwaukee call center and is looking for another.

INTERVIEWER: How much money would you like to make when you grow up?

CLAUDE STANLEY, Jr.: Probably about a hundred million, something like that.

BILL MOYERS: One of the twins, Claude, is also looking for work.

KLAUDALE STANLEY: That makes me want to do more, a lot more.

BILL MOYERS: The other, Klaudale, left the Navy in 2011 and came back to Milwaukee to look for a job. But he found that opportunities were better elsewhere. He got a job with a private contractor in Afghanistan.

[on camera] What does it say to you that he can make more money employed by a military contractor in Afghanistan than he can make here at home in Milwaukee?

CLAUDE STANLEY: It says something.

JACKIE STANLEY: It’s sad.

CLAUDE STANLEY: Yeah. You’ve got to run out of this country to go somewhere to make some more money. That’s— that’s crazy. And we’re supposed to be the richest country? That ain’t— that ain’t— that don’t sound too good, Bill.

BILL MOYERS: [voice-over] We went to Milwaukee’s city hall to find the family’s one college graduate. Keith Stanley earns about $45,000 a year as an assistant to the Common Council president, Alderman Willie Hines.

WILLIE HINES, Milwaukee Alderman: He’s been on staff now about a year-and-a-half or two or so. And he’s highly respected. He’s a man of integrity.

BILL MOYERS: Hines’s district is in Milwaukee’s Central City, near where Keith grew up.

KEITH STANLEY: Neil, how’s that thing going? How’s it been going with you?

BILL MOYERS: Despite government and private efforts to bring jobs back here, Milwaukee’s jobless rate among African-American men hovers at around 50 percent.

KEITH STANLEY: [on the phone] Anyway, if you can, give me a call. This is Keith Stanley with Alderman Willie Hines’s office.

We do get the calls about jobs. They’re looking for a job. “I need a job.” Sometimes it’s difficult to have that conversation with them because I myself, I’m in no position to offer a job. And my boss— we— that’s just— we’re policy makers. My heart goes out to them because I know I can share that same story with them. I can understand their pain.

Now, they may not want to hear that. A lot of times, you know, “Oh, you’re working at the City and you don’t understand.” I get lots of those, and I can stop and say, “No, I definitely understand.” You know, I definitely understand dealing with struggle when, you know, your parents just don’t have enough.

My parents spent a lot of time and energy in us and making us who we are. You know, there are people that look like me, that live where I live, and who are now dealing with situations and struggles that I have never have seen. I’ve never seen the inside of a jail. I can’t tell you what a gun looks like. I don’t know what drugs or even alcohol looks like. And I have to give all that credit to my dad along with my mom. And they put the fear of God in us. You know, you have to work hard. You have to look people in the eye.

BILL MOYERS: [on camera] Tell me about Keith.

JACKIE STANLEY: He’s gone far. He’s beyond our expectations. But Keith has told me a lot of times, “Mom, I don’t want to be like you and Dad.

BILL MOYERS: Meaning?

JACKIE STANLEY: Bill, when it’s time to eat, they want to eat. They don’t want to do like Dad and I and start, you know, saying— making excuses why you’re not hungry.

We’re going to keep filling the racks. Go by color, not by size.

KEITH STANLEY: I’m inspired by my parents, but that’s also made me make a lot of tough decisions where I say, “I’m not going to make those decisions because I don’t want that to affect my life.”

CLAUDE STANLEY: Look for the blue or look for the brown.

BILL MOYERS: One of the decisions Keith has made is to hold off on getting married and having kids.

KEITH STANLEY: I want to make sure I can control my destiny, and that’s including not having children at a certain age. I would love to say I want to bring in a child in the world, but until I have myself together, I’m confident and believe that I have myself together— and people say there’s no perfect time to have a kid. I know that, but there’s been too many struggles I saw.

And for me, it’s like, “Can I make that sacrifice?” And if I do, I— man, they— maybe— maybe one kid. Maybe a dog right now. That’s why I got Spike, so that’s it!

BILL MOYERS: Knowing what growing up without money is like, Keith takes extra jobs to make sure he’s never in the same fix. He’s a landlord, collecting rents on this building he bought just up the street from his parents’ storefront church. He also works nights and weekends as a videographer—

KEITH STANLEY: You can kind of restate the question in the answer—

BILL MOYERS: —shooting and editing public and private events. And he does have a young person to care for.

KEITH STANLEY: This big guy is my nephew, Kevin Joy.

BILL MOYERS: Kevin is the son of Keith’s older sister, Nicole. She sent Kevin from Virginia to Milwaukee with the hope of giving him a strong male role model.

KEITH STANLEY: He’s got a client. He’s been cutting the grass, watering the grass. It’s kind of amazing to see. We’ve got a whole ‘nother generation from just 20 years ago, when I was doing this and we had a business and we were cutting grass. So it’s kind of passing on those values, that same work ethic, making sure that he can get to work on time. He can take authority and he can— time management, that type of thing. “K.J., now, you know that’s— you know, you could be done with that by now.”

INTERVIEWER: But you do want to be a dad some day?

KEITH STANLEY: I think so. I think so. I think Kevin has given me a little light. Well, Kevin can— we’re not going to water. Yeah, we’re going to try to cut the grass. Don’t water it. Yeah, try to pull it. Get the lawn— I can help you out. Put a lawn mower out.

So Kevin has given me a little light to say maybe I can pour what little wisdom, what little nuggets I have. There’s not much there, but what I do have can put onto the next generation and say, “Listen, this is what it takes to survive.”

BILL MOYERS: [on camera] So Kevin, now it’s your turn, right? You’re how old?

KEVIN JOY, Keith’s Nephew: I’m 16.

BILL MOYERS: And what are your ambitions? What do you want to do with yourself?

KEVIN JOY: There’s nothing else I want to do but go to college.

BILL MOYERS: And what have you learned about your grandparents?

KEVIN JOY: Man, they’re just resilient. I mean, they’re the people that you look at, and you can— you can keep hitting them, knocking them down, breaking them to pieces, ripping them apart, burn ‘em, but they’ll still— they’ll still be there. They’re kind of indestructible.

CLAUDE STANLEY: [preaching] Sometimes, you’re going to go through some things to get where you’re trying to go. Do all that you can, but still praise God.

BILL MOYERS: How much has your faith been an anchor for you during this difficult time?

CLAUDE STANLEY: Oh, that’s a big anchor. That’s what gets me up in the morning, Bill. That’s what keeps me going. I believe that something’s going to happen.

BILL MOYERS: But you’ve had so many setbacks since I first met you.

CLAUDE STANLEY: That’s true.

BILL MOYERS: You were fighting hard after you lost those good-paying jobs.

CLAUDE STANLEY: That’s right.

BILL MOYERS: And you’ve been fighting ever since, and yet you still—

CLAUDE STANLEY: Still, Bill, still— praise the Lord, I still believe there’s something for us.

JACKIE STANLEY: And I would interject at saying, what else? We have no other choice.

BILL MOYERS: [voice-over] In early 2013, yet another American president set lofty goals for restoring the middle class.

Pres. BARACK OBAMA: We believe that America’s prosperity must rest upon the broad shoulders of a rising middle class. When the wages of honest labor liberate families from the brink of hardship, our purpose endures, a nation that rewards the effort and determination of every single American!

BILL MOYERS: [on camera] What you’ve lost— your home, your husband, a livable, decent income— people say to me, “How does she keep going? Where does she get that spirit? How does she do it?”

TERRY NEUMANN: My grandfather always said when I was 14, you never let the devil win. Never let the devil win. I’m still determined. You know, I’m not going to give up.

BILL MOYERS: You think you’ll ever be financially secure?

TERRY NEUMANN: The way the economy is going, no, I don’t think anybody is going to be financially secure, truthfully.

BILL MOYERS: And you’re not even—

TERRY NEUMANN: And we’ll just work until we collapse and keel over and die.

BILL MOYERS: [voice-over] There’s a postscript to Terry Neumann’s story. She finally found herself a new full-time job, at a nursing home. She works the overnight shift, 11:00 PM until 7:00 in the morning. She earns $11.50 an hour plus benefits.

It’s not enough, she says, to ever think about buying another house of her own. Her hope now is someday to buy herself a spot in a trailer park.

TWO AMERICAN FAMILIES: 1991-2024 July 23, 2024

PRODUCED & DIRECTED BY Tom Casciato Kathleen Hughes

WRITTEN BY Kathleen Hughes

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TWO AMERICAN FAMILIES July 9, 2013

WRITTEN BY Kathleen Hughes and Bill Moyers

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