The Crittenden Women’s Union released their new MassFESS budgets/calculations. This is very readable economic analysis.
http://www.liveworkthrive.org/…
This includes the Hot Jobs report where they list jobs which pay people enough to support a family with an AA degree or less.
The number of these “Hot Jobs” has dropped from 26 to 11 since 2007.
This is a concerning trend, as an economic justice issue, for the health of our communities, and our economy.
Millionaires and large corporations are not the job creators – it the purchasing power of the workers/consumers that drives the economy.
The majority of the 2007 Hot Jobs that didn’t meet the criteria in 2010 fell off the list because of low vacancy rates, most likely due to the recession. However, a few jobs no longer met the wage requirements and, in some cases, are now saddled with both low vacancy rates and wages that no longer meet family-sustaining criteria.
As job opportunities for middle-skilled workers are diminishing, health care, child care, and housing expenses and the overall cost of living have been rising.4 Seventy-three percent of low-income families in Massachusetts, for example, expend more than one-third of their income on housing, which is more than every other state in the country except New Jersey.5 Hot Jobs 2010 lists 11 high-demand occupations in today’s market that provide family-sustaining wages and require two years (or less) of post-secondary education.
This is 15 fewer jobs than just three years ago. Even as the number of these occupational paths dwindles, rising unemployment and stagnant wages mean increasing numbers of individuals are mired in poverty and in need of realistic pathways to economic independence.
Sometimes, I wonder if, in terms of business, we do anything in the United States anymore.
<
p>This is a national and not a state issue, primarily.
<
p>In China and India, you have GENIUSES working for as low as $0.25 per hour.
<
p>And there are only 2 reasons for not believing that they are talented, zoological racism and cultural chauvinism of some sort.
<
p>The industrial base of this nation was built on PROTECTIONISM. High tarriffs kept cheaper imported industrial products out, while making it cheaper to make it here at home.
<
p>This nation industrialized, and later on, through organized labor, working people got a fairer share of the profits of industry for themselves.
<
p>But, first, the workers needed an (industrial) pie to have a larger slice of.
<
p>In recent decades, politicians have been reducing the tarriffs. And the jobs keep going to third world nations because they have UNBEATABLE cheap labor.
<
p>There ought to be tarriffs designed so that it is CHEAPER for companies to hire Americans and make it here.
<
p>A lot of those jobs would be in manufacturing, and would be filled by high school graduates.
<
p>I know that this is Blue Mass Group (Democratic Party) but I must salute GOP President Abraham Lincoln, who described himself as a “Henry Clay Tarriff Whig”.
Maybe we also would not have to worry about poisonous melamine being substituted for protein, or lead in toys, or accelerators that go crazy.
<
p>What if we chose “made in the USA” and quality over cheap?
<
p>You know that would work as well as tariffs and it would not hurt us in even the short run to have seven shirts rather than 15, say, if the seven were made of American fiber, American fabric, by workers in America.
<
p>Every choice has costs; choosing cheaper every time is as much the driver of killing manufacturing here as is lack of tariffs. Mind, I don’t have anything against tariffs except that if the USA does tariffs, so will others and unless our stuff is really better, not sure tariffs would help but
would totally shift the way our economy works in a number of ways that would, arguably, lead to more manufacturing and construction jobs in the USA.
In the market, I believe that the power of cheapness is IRRESISTABLE.
<
p>Enough people are short of money enough all the time to have to buy what is cheapest because they do not have money to do anything else. Others could afford something else, but will go for the cheapest anyway because they only care about themselves.
<
p>In addition, at this point, many things are simply not made in America anymore by anyone.
<
p>In court cases from New York State, CEO’s have been found to have a fiduciary duty to increase shareholder value and nothing else.
<
p>I believe in buying American wherever possible. It is a good thing.
<
p>I have purchased sweatshirts form, I believe it is called “no sweat apparel”, which is unionized and made in Massachusetts. I am proud to have done it and support what they are doing.
<
p>But, overall, you need new policies to change the market in labor and goods to change these things on a large scale.
which are 3-4 times higher than other industrialized countries is on the shoulders of employers in the US and makes it impossible to compete.
<
p>Cerberus Capital Management walked away from a Chrysler deal because the cost of pension and health-care benefits made it impossible to compete with Japanese and German manufacturers. and have led to huge losses in the past two years.
<
p>These costs “are crippling our big manufacturing companies.” Lee Iacocca argued and yet the US seems incapable of adopting solutions that have served our competitors well, because we don’t want to be like them…you know with a growing economic base, positive trade and ….JOBS.
Today’s Herald includes an interesting editorial about the abuse of overtime at the DCR. Apparently instead of hiring additional employees, they prefer to pay overtime in excess of $100k per employee. No idea if this is an isolated case, but surely there is an unemployed engineer somewhere that could use a job. I certainly hope that Ms. Ross is taking notes or better yet just continue reading the Herald.
<
p>
<
p>http://bostonherald.com/news/o…