Most “Occupy Wall Street” Protesters HAVE Jobs

Unemployment Much Lower Among Occupy Protesters Than Tea Party

One of the mindless attacks on Occupy protesters is that they are lazy and should “go get a job”.

In fact, most Occupy protesters have jobs.

For example, Scott Olsen – the Marine veteran peacefully protesting in Oakland who was shot in the head with a projectile by riot police – had a very good day job, but was so dedicated that he went to the protests after work:

Scott Olsen, 24, joined the protests as he worked his day job as a network engineer and left his apartment each night to sleep alongside protesters in San Francisco and Oakland, Calif., Keith Shannon said.

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Olsen, who is originally from Wisconsin, served two tours of duty in Iraq, makes a good living at a San Francisco software company and had a hillside apartment that overlooks San Francisco Bay.

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Each night, he would go out to the tent camps that have sprung up over the past month in cities as the movement spread to protest economic inequality and what they see as corporate greed.

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People at OPSWAT, the company where Olsen works, were devastated after learning of his injuries. They described him as a humble, quiet guy who worked hard over long hours.

“He’s been a big piece of what we do here and our growth strategy, so obviously it’s pretty devastating for us that he’s in the shape he’s in,” said Jeff Garon, the company’s director of marketing.

Olsen was awarded seven medals while serving in the U.S. Marine Corps, which he left as a lance corporal in November 2009 after serving for four years.

He went on two tours in Iraq, one in 2006-2007 and another in 2008, where he worked as a datanetwork specialist. He was awarded seven medals, including the Navy-Marine Corps Achievement Medal, according to the Marine Corps.

Indeed, the Wall Street Journal found:

The vast majority of demonstrators are actually employed, and the proportion of protesters unemployed (15%) is within single digits of the national unemployment rate (9.1%).

Professor Hector R. Cordero-Guzman and business analyst Harrison Schultz from the Baruch College School of Public Affair puts the unemployment rate of the Occupy protesters at 13.1%.  In other words, approximately 85% employment rate.

In contrast, a 2010 New York Times CBS News poll found that only 56% of members of the Tea party were employed (question 105).

(This is not a criticism of the Tea Party, with which the Occupy protests have much more common cause than the mainstream media would have us believe.  According to the New York Times/CBS poll, 32% of the Tea Party members surveyed are retired.  So one of the primary reasons that a higher percentage of Occupy protesters have jobs than Tea Partiers is that the former tend to be younger, and so still of working age.)

Get a Job? Bad Policy Regarding Unemployment Is One of the Main Problems Protesters Are Mad About!

The “get a job” slur is, in fact, highly ironic.

Specifically, a large part of what the protesters are objecting to is high unemployment rates.

There are lots of jobs for the 1%, but few for the poor.

The politicos and lobbyists are doing great – D.C. has the highest income in the country – and yet Main Street is suffering.

Idiotic government policies and ruthless behavior by the big banks have led to Depression-level unemployment.

No wonder the protesters are angry.