The hidden costs of being unemployed

One of the disadvantages of being poor is that everything costs more. Because you can't put up a month's security deposit on an apartment, you're forced to pay out the nose for a a low-end motel that actually costs a lot more per month than a decent one-bedroom apartment (This book documents this unfortunate reality first hand).  Since the poor live paycheck to paycheck, they can't maintain minimum balances in their checking account and can't take advantage of the traditional banking system. Instead they're forced to "bank" with payday lenders who charge exorbitant interest rates for short-term loans, and even face large fees for the simple act of cashing their paycheck.

As discussed previously, I am by no means poor -- thanks in part to a previous career, supportive upper-middle class parents who helped me get through college, and a soon-to-be spouse who's taking care of pesky things like rent. However, I've made the lovely discovery that being unemployed offers some of the same hidden costs as poverty. Take for example my recent attendance at an academic conference.

In political science, as well as many other disciplines, attending national conferences is an integral part of being a successful academic. You can get your work noticed, get feedback on your scholarship, start to build up your CV and network with other academics. And most importantly for some one without a job, you can get job interviews, which can be your opportunity to stand out from the 50 to 150 other highly qualified applicants who want the same jobs you do.

But you have to get to the conference first. And attending the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association costs a considerable amount of money. First, you have to be an APSA member, which costs an annual fee. Then you have to register for the conference, which costs more. I needed to find a flight from Houston to Chicago and stay in the city for four nights to accomodate several interviews and a scholarly presentation. If you shop around, you can find quite reasonable hotel and flight rates, but I still paid roughly $600 for travel and hotel expenses to spend four days at the conference. Then you still need money for food and travel. You can minimize these costs by taking public transit (a $5 train ride from the airport and $2 bus ride to to hotel beats a $50 cab fare any day), but over four days it still adds up.

Here's the thing: most professors get many of these expenses reimbursed by their employers. As a part of their compensation package, they usually get an annual research grant that can be used for memberships in scholarly organizations and attendance at conferences. In political science, this often ranges from several hundred dollars at small liberal arts colleges to several thousand dollars at large research schools. Graduate students can often (though not always) tap funds to attend conferences as well, either through their professors or through their institutions. At my old school, grad students could attend one conference a year and get up to a $700 grant to cover it -- this little benefit got me about $1500 over three years (and three lines on my CV). Of course, privilege plays a role here too -- richer grad schools generally provide more funding for their grad students to attend conferences, as well as providing better pay and benefits.

Because I'm unemployed however, now I do research on my own dime. Somewhat perversely then, it costs me much more out of pocket to attend a conference than it costs my better-off-financially colleagues who could actually afford it.

I'm not complaining about APSA's management here. The organization tries to mitigate inequality through several mechanisms. First, they have a progressive membership fee structure -- members with higher incomes pay more, and unemployed members pay much less. They also have travel grants to help less well-off members come to the conference -- the $150 they awarded me essentially defrayed the costs of registration and my travel within Chicago.

But like affordable housing units and Head Start slots, there isn't enough aid to go around to all the deserving recipients, let alone fully defray their costs.

Again, please don't take this to mean that I'm putting myself on the same level as a person who needs a payday loan at 50 percent interest to make rent for the month (Remember that context is everything). But it is rather depressing to get a first-hand taste of how the structures that reinforce privilege play out in all sectors of the economy.