I have a simple question. It does not matter if you are a Trump supporter, a Clinton supporter, or a supporter of any of the others running.
I keep hearing about JOBS, about good paying jobs, about training and free college to get these jobs, jobs that will make all the difference.
Our unemployment rate is under 5%. That means 95% of us who want a job, have a job. The problem is that the wages for many of these jobs suck.
But just for the hell of it, let’s assume this magic unicorn candidate of your choosing is able to spin this straw into gold and get everyone who now has a jobs with piss poor wages a NEW job with good wages.
Who is going to do all the old jobs with that wages that sucked? Remember, America runs on Dunkin and Dunkin runs on jobs that pay less than $10 an hour.
Do we somehow find a sub-class of citizens to take over all this piss poor wage jobs?
Or do we all get sweet jobs with good pay and we close the doughnut shops?
Hello? Anyone, Bueller?
Cliff Notes: The problem is not jobs, it’s wages.
and I think we all agree or most of us here agree that the middle class hasn’t full benefited or have seen the benefits of our economic turnaround. There are wage freezes for those who are employed meaning that you make less each year due to inflation and those who are underemployed.
One article that I did want to create a post is via 538. It did show an upswing in middle class wage and employment growth. That’s not what I wanted to post about, what I want to post is finding concrete data on the topic, it always seemed evasive. I think the post did a god job in identifying metrics, looking at hourly wage growth, labor force participation rate, and so on. So a good month is fine, we need to string together a few good months then a few good years.
But I think this is a good start in trending actual data.
a few days ago, can’t recall where she was, but she said that we need to raise the standard of living for all of us, not just the college educated but for those who have a high school education. If she pushes this now and after her election (and effectively brings back the New Deal that her husband crippled), I’ll be one of her biggest supporters.
These were both great ads, especially the second one.
…except that a couple of active BMGers are finally paying attention!:)
Those ads are very effective and as long as she keeps it up on the stump, I see it only helping her. K.I.S.S works for politics as well as writing (keep it simple stupid!).
She has lots of good things on her campaign website but it bothered me that she did not emphasize them, instead, she kept pointing to the “I will be the first woman president”….and empty rhetoric. She needs to push a “share the wealth” campaign.
The problem is not the jobs and wages, but the expectations about employment.
The single dumbest thing that Bill Clinton ever said was that Every child in America should go to college.
Nonsense.
First, retail and restaurant jobs don’t necessarily suck, John. They can be fun and fulfilling (and before you ask, yes, I have done both. I even had to wear a costume at a waitron at one point). They SUCK when you have college loan debts to pay that cannibalize your chances of your own apartment, and eventually home and family. They SUCK when you have been taught that working with your hands, not having a white collar job in the new and exciting Whatever Sector means that you are underemployed and underclass.
I grew up working class, not even middle class. I am just about middle class now, and my adult children are business owners and retail managers, middle middle class. But none of us have 4 year degrees either – but we do own homes.
The Academic-Industrial Complex has spent decades instilling shame in honest work. Having made the 4 year degree the new High School Diploma, they now concentrate on making advanced degrees the new Bachelor’s degree. It is an unsustainable Ponzi scheme.
The only jobs government can create are government jobs. We need to teach kids that NOT all their dreams can come true because just MAYBE they aren’t as talented or brilliant as they’d like to believe – so maybe they should learn to appreciate honest work, and stop tying their self-image to their employment – because that is only one part of who you are or what you do.
The jobs don’t suck, the wages do. Wages on all levels (with the exception of wages from Wall Street and banking) have been on the downturn for years. As I have said before, when I was 18, I graduated from high school with a less than stellar GPA but I was able to get a job working shift work at Xerox in an entry level job that paid (adjusted for inflation) $45K year. After one year, I quit and went to college but still worked part time. I’ve been a laborer my entire life. I’ve worked in dairy farms, retail, restaurants, sales, clerical, truck driver, and on and on. Personally, I never identified myself with my job. (and nobody should) My job was just what I did to make money.
Can anyone tell me why the four year degree is the new high school diploma? Today’s jobs are no harder than those 40 years ago. If anything, they are easier. Computers do all the work. I’ll tell you why the four year degree is the new high school diploma, it’s to falsely legitimize the wide and widening wealth gap. It’s to say that the wealthy are smarter.
Government can support the emergence of better paying jobs through labor laws, tax codes, and trade agreements. In the past, including the administration of Bill Clinton, all these laws and codes were in favor of the wealthy (the rentier class) and against the laborers.
I hope Hillary has an epiphany and works to undue the damage done by her husband and previous Democrats.
…I think is basic supply and demand. Some people want to get an advantage, so they get a college education. Employers then hire people with degrees, so now everyone wants a degree. If everyone does in fact get a degree then it loses its cache. Now those who want to stand out need to go to grad school and the cycle continues. I don’t think making sure that everyone who wants to pursue a college education has the opportunity, both academically and financially, and making sure that those who do not go that route can live decently should be considered mutually exclusive.
What you describe is an artificial demand, or one that is manipulated. Employers hire people with a college degree when that degree is not used in the job. You could say that the person with the degree showed the “drive” to do better, but I would say it got a lot to do with economics. The person with the degree from the “good school” had the $$ . It’s all part of our growing wealth disparity.
The vintage of my HS education makes it the equivalent of at least a modern associates degree if not a BA. You see those snarky TV segments where young people are asked routine knowledge questions and are unable to answer because they were never taught. The implosion of curriculum standards in ‘secondary’ education has made an ‘advanced’ degree almost a requirement for a productive worker.
How many here on BMG have decried the lack of civics as leading to Trump?
I expect to be called a tin foil hat wearer here, but the extortionate Academic-Industrial Complex is as real and unsupervised as its military counterpart was 50 years ago, but produces even fewer useable side products for society. Except for maybe the $75 textbooks?
It’s not the Academic-Industrial Complex. It’s far simpler. Follow the money. In the period 1940-1970, the American capitalistic engine roared and the profits were shared between the workers and the owners of the factories/businesses. Since the early 70’s, that sharing stopped. Why? Well, there are a few reasons. Government stopped supporting labor and labor unions. The fall of the USSR meant that socialism was dead and not to be feared creeping into the US work force. The middle class as we remember it was more of an anomaly, a fluke, a rare case of shared prosperity that did not exist prior to 1940 and has been eroding since 1970. Who had the money prior to 1940 and who is getting the bulk of it now? The same class of people. The rentier class. The wealthy. The owners of the factories and businesses.
The coming collapse of the middle class is not because the American worker is lazy, or immoral, uneducated, or unlucky. It’s because the rentier class, the .1% (not the 1%) has returned to where it was prior to 1940, the robber barons.
But for the “Academic-industrial Complex’ (whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean…) your kvetching would reach an audience of one, maybe two, people. But you’ve posted on this blog and any English reading person on the entire planet with an internet connection can see it and respond to it.
50 years ago, the total number of electronic computers in the world was in the range of ‘a handful.’ Now, I literally have one in hand, another in my pocket, three on my desk at work and several more at home. I own more computing power today than that available to the entire world 50 years ago. Shit, the entire field of ‘programming’ wasn’t even a field at all 50 years ago. Even people who do not program computers have to deal with advanced concepts like spreadsheets and databases and have insight and technical training they didn’t get, and didn’t need, 50 years ago.
If you think we have haven’t quite made the best, or even appropriate, use of all this computing power I might agree with you, while pointing out that the creation of it counts for something. I would, also, add the caveat that you can’t make use of all this computing power without a solid understand of mathematics, engineering and other advanced topics.
And if we go back 50 more years… what would we say about something so taken for granted today (you’re reading this right now, aren’t you…?) as the literacy rate?
Larger college textbooks are over $200.
Publishers include media cards to unlock required online content, so even your used book needs a new $40 add-on to be used in a class.
The actual production cost of a $200 textbook is in the vicinity of $5.
There are plenty of open source textbooks available (what IS new in Econ, Chem or Calculus 101?) but almost no colleges use them. You could profitably sell an open source textbook for about $20.
All part of the equation to transfer money from parents and students into AIC.
Who is/are the individuals behind this? You got names?
Many of the things you say are true.
Your last line, and even the term “Academic Industrial Complex”, is a distortion. There is little or no similarity between the “Military Industrial Complex”, first cited by Dwight Eisenhower, and the “Academic Industrial Complex”.
The point I fear this discussion misses is that the current crisis (and it IS a crisis) is driven by the fundamental economics of how universities operate. Costs for parents and students are skyrocketing because ALL of the other income streams for academia are already maxed out.
For decades, the economic driver of a university has been RESEARCH. Academics — as in teaching students — has been a distinctly lower priority. Graduate schools provide low-cost labor to researchers in the form of graduate students and post-docs who work long hours in labs in exchange for a pittance. Undergraduate students are viewed as the lowest-level sausage produced by the diploma factory.
To be competitive, a university has to have top-quality researchers. That means top-quality facilities, and it means competitive compensation. The money for all that comes from somewhere.
The cost side of this system has been climbing for decades. What has changed is the income side:
1. Private research spending has essentially disappeared
2. Public research funding is flat or declining
Universities have three places to make up the growing budget gap:
1. Student, especially undergraduate, costs
2. Athletic programs
3. Alumni giving
It is a serious, serious problem. Serious enough that I think it deserves serious debate, rather than slogans and off-the-cuff bromides.
Here are some differences between the “AIC” and the “MIC”:
– Compensation in the AIC is peanuts compared to the MIC
– Federal funding of the AIC is MUCH less than for the MIC
– The “product” of the AIC is viewed as less important than the MIC
I think textbook prices are skyrocketing because textbooks are one of the few places left where a publisher has an audience that is already seeing price increases everywhere else and where the audience has no other alternative. Textbook publishers are riding the college-cost “gravy train”.
I’m not sure what the answers are. I think we need to have a national discussion about the role of undergraduate and graduate school in our society. I think there is a role for “vocational” schools focused on specific professions, such as cooking schools like Johnson and Wales, photography schools, schools for graphic and web design, and so on.
As in all things, it seems to be that BALANCE is the key.
I worked for a large factory(2500+), multiple layers of management. When I started you went on the shop floor, learned jobs/machines. If you were capable you learned as many as you could and foreman were pulled up the ladder because any foreman could run any machine in his dept. In the late 80’s corporate decided foreman needed a bachelor degree to begin their ascent.
Not finding enough degrees from people on the floor, the foreman positions would be filled with “outsiders”,and often created resentment. It was amusing to watch production grind to a halt when the “new” foreman would be presented with a problem (sometimes intentional). One foreman had a degree, Phys Ed major Springfield College. (I started on the floor, went to night school, didn’t go far up the ladder but saw things from both sides)
The corporate decision may have had a justified reason, and I’m sure production managers, regional managers, etc expected they would be better informed if they had a “degreed” person to talk to when they did their tours, but from the bottom up it looked foolish to put that arbitrary threshold in place.
…what public K-12 schools do and simply lend and take back text books from year to year? I wasn’t aware of the online enhancements MG refers to though I guess I’m not surprised. I guess I also went to college just long enough ago that it wasn’t a thing, but then few of my required books were what we might think of as textbooks. (As an aside, I’m amused by reactions I sometimes get in elementary school when I ask kids to take out their “texts” by which I of course mean hardcover lesson books, but to that generation the word means messages sent and received by phone!)
It seems in this and many other areas of both cost and quality, the public university systems should be taking the lead to lower the former and raise the latter. If the private universities are forced to compete with that they will follow suit. Ideally the US Congress might one day finally fulfill George Washington”s dream of a national public university.
I’m sorry, but this is just nonsense.
For example, this: “The only jobs government can create are government jobs” — complete nonsense. Just because it’s at the heart of Reagan-style GOP dogma does not make even remotely true.
Virtually our entire hi-tech industry exists because “government” invested heavily in then-new technologies like integrated circuits. The explosive growth of computers, communications, the internet — ALL of that — is the result of intentional government action.
When government expands unemployment compensation during a recovery, the recipients IMMEDIATELY spend that money in their communities on things like food, rent, and day-to-day necessities. They might even spend a bit on entertainment. Those unemployment dollars are multiplied, and one of the first things that happens in those communities is that businesses HIRE PEOPLE.
Are you seriously claiming that government’s creation of the interstate highway system didn’t create jobs?
Your assertion is simply preposterous.
It’s great that you and your family have apparently been able prosper without four-year degrees. You are very much the exception. In fact, the economic future for a young man or woman without a four-year college degree is DRAMATICALLY worse than his or her counterpart with a degree. The fact that Joe Blow won a jackpot pulling the handle at slots, or won a few thousand playing the lottery, does not make either action a viable financial strategy. People who gamble LOSE MONEY. People who play the lottery LOSE MONEY. People who choose not to attend college similarly lose money.
If you want to teach your children that they “aren’t as talented or brilliant as they’d like to believe”, I guess that’s your choice — it’s certainly NOT how I raised my five children. That, to me, is a devastating criticism coming from a parent. I can only imagine the hurt that your children suffered if they grew up hearing things like that from you. I certainly hope that you are perhaps exaggerating for effect here.
The young people I know work just as hard as anybody in my generation, and they do so for a great deal LESS money — in no small part because of exactly the GOP dogma you smear around in this comment.
…if the sequester were lifted allowing Uncle Sam to create more of its own jobs. Many National Parks are woefully short-staffed, for example.
Also, while many kids may be as talented as they think they are, the point we need to be honest about is that it might not matter anyway. I’ve certainly learned that the hard way. Unfortunately the myth of the American Dream that you can grow up to be anything you want to be and work hard to become has proven elusive for many.
America Is Even Less Socially Mobile Than Most Economists Thought
U.S. lags behind peer countries in mobility.
You’re both around the same age and grew up in an era when public schools were geared towards producing citizens not careers, when colleges were meant to continue that track, and when anyone who worked with their hands could feed the average family if they didn’t have the inclination or aptitude to be a white collar professional. Those jobs are dwindling.
The degree was sold as a ticket to secure careers that don’t exist anymore. My liberal arts degree from a fancy school, high level internships, meant nothing when I was applying to corporate jobs. Its a way for them to put the non degree applicants in the reject table and the Chicago brand ensures you get interviewed, and that’s about it. Otherwise, the skill sets I’ve picked up have been on the job training that anyone could do, with or without my education.
The Cambridge consensus was to get not just to any school but an elite school or feel worthless. I’d have had a huge inferiority complex coming out of a community college or even UMASS as a 22 year old, as a 27 year old I recognize the value those institutions truly offer. Porcupine is saying we shouldn’t look down on occupations that pay well that don’t require a degree to achieve.
My wife will get her RN from a local community college and have an entry level salary almost double what I’m making now. The kid with the U Chicago degree is renting from his grade school friend who dropped out of Bay State College and joined the military instead. He’s earning we’ll over six figure as a fire fighter and we are the same age. His guard salary is going towards Omega watches and a ring for his girl. My brother is out earning me and never completed his degree. Another buddy from high school who took night courses at Lesley just opened his own business in Harvard Square (Lizzy’s Ice Cream-ask for Phil and tell him Jimmy sent ya!). So there are many paths to the middle class that don’t require college, and more important, college isn’t a golden ticket to it anymore either. I think those out truths our youth should learn and appreciate.
Here are some key phrases that I think you and I are saying. I think they lead to a different place from porcupine’s comment:
1. Those jobs [that don’t require a degree] are dwindling
2. [A degree] ensures you get interviewed, and that’s about it
Both are absolutely true, especially the first. It isn’t “looking down” on anybody to acknowledge the simple facts: the odds are against those without a college degree.
While we can all offer anecdotal success stories, the economic reality is that as difficult as prospects are for those graduating from college today are, they are even MORE difficult for those NOT graduating.
In my view, there is only one conclusion: if someone is able to get a four year degree, he or she should do so.
I fear we see yet another example of a logical fallacy creeping into this discussion. There is a difference between a necessary requirement and a guarantee of success. Whatever was true or promised in the past, the reality today is that a college degree is a NECESSARY REQUIREMENT for most jobs (see item 2, above). As you and so many others have learned, it is not a guarantee. Proficiency with my instrument is a necessary requirement for being a professional musician. Since only a tiny fraction of excellent musicians are actually able to support themselves with their music, it is clearly not a guarantee.
The real problem here is NOT attitudes towards those without degrees. The real problem is THE ECONOMY.
We have, by design, eliminated the high-wage/low-skill jobs that sustained much of middle America in the 1950s and 1960s. Those jobs are gone, and are not going to return.
We therefore need a radical new paradigm for how we distribute the wealth created by the handful of men and women (mostly men) at the top of today’s wealth distribution. I think we need to stay focused on THAT root cause.
In fact, there are NOT “many paths to the middle class that don’t require college”, and I think we do our children a disservice by pretending otherwise.
“We have, by design, eliminated the high-wage/low-skill jobs that sustained much of middle America in the 1950s and 1960s.”
Who is “we”? If you guessed “The .1%”, go to the head of the class.
And I would edit that to “fair wage”/low skill.
Finally, you wrote” We therefore need a radical new paradigm for how we distribute the wealth created by the handful of men and women (mostly men) at the top of today’s wealth distribution. I think we need to stay focused on THAT root cause.”
That requires that Americans dare challenge the validity of “free markets” and “capitalism”……and the media will not allow that.
I’m sorry, but the “we” that removed these jobs is far more than the one or point-one percent. America, as a whole, has been investing in “increased productivity” for generations — factory automation, computing, information systems, etc.
An example of a simple but profound change that NOBODY has paid attention to (except computer scientists) is what happens when systems are able to themselves create new and more-optimized systems (“machine learning”). We see this in industrial automation all the time now — cascades of self-optimizing generations of robots that far outstrip the ability of humans to find and implement these optimizations.
This is not going to be reversed. The wealth created by these systems is owned by those who own the intellectual property. Workers, in the traditional sense, are not required.
What we have not yet done is recognize the long-term impact of these changes on our society. This is not going to be solved by Republican, Democrat, or any other party dogma.
I enthusiastically agree with your last sentence. THAT really is the crux of the matter. We have known for at least a century that the “free market” produces extreme wealth concentration. We have known for at least a decade, in very precise mathematical terms, how that happens.
What we have not done, because it does not fit into any of our convenient political narratives, is DEAL with this. It doesn’t help that we have, by accident or design, produced an American electorate that is largely unable or unwilling to even understand the straightforward math and logic of all this.
Anybody who has read the second link, with understanding, will realize our “free market” dogma is ABSOLUTE NONSENSE. It just doesn’t work. Period.
These jobs are going to disappear at a faster pace than I think society is ready for. Kiosks are replacing counter help (it will happen faster if $15:00 an hour starts), go to Foxwoods you can see it now. Bartenders will be robots (on cruises now). Internet commerce is growing, meaning fewer mall cops, stock clerks, mall janitors, food court people.
Makes me wonder about what progressives plan. College free for all. What if people don’t want to go. Guaranteed income? Does it start at 18? Will people use the 10 yr student plan, attend school, get their income, party? Some people do that now, if they can get their parents to pay.
If you finish school and then are between jobs do you get the same base living wage as someone who didn’t go? Is your living base wage geographical? A Boston living base wage will go twice as far if you live outside 495.
You are saying that capitalism is failing to meet its expectations and we ought to make changes.