Posted on 08/08/2014 9:11:14 AM PDT by Pelham
On the surface, California's job market is booming.
The state has now recovered all the jobs lost during the recession, and done so at a faster pace than all but five states.
The growth, though, belies a troubling imbalance. The fastest job creation has come in low-wage sectors, in which pay has declined. At the high end of the salary scale, a different dynamic has taken hold: rising pay and improving employment after rounds of consolidation.
Most distressing, middle-wage workers are losing out on both counts.
"People talk about it like an hourglass," said Tracey Grose, vice president of the Bay Area Council Economic Institute. "There are fewer opportunities for people in the middle."
Economists generally consider mid-wage jobs to pay between $15 and $30 an hour in California — encompassing a third of workers in the state. Those at the top end of that range, which amounts to about $60,000 a year, earn more than 72% of Californians.
Middle-wage stagnation can damage consumer spending, dent career mobility, stall home buying and exacerbate a poverty rate that's already the highest in the country, economists warn. Those concerns are amplified in a state notorious for a high cost of living.
As more mid-tier jobs disappear, economists fear middle-class workers will be increasingly sucked into the ranks of the working poor. And they could crowd out those already working low-wage jobs, or drive their salaries down further.
"The long-term problem isn't unemployment; it's poverty," said Stephen Levy, director of the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy in Palo Alto. "It's not jobs; it's wages."
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
The Deranged Democrats went out of their way to attack the middle class in California because that middle class was predominantly white.
Now they have the world they want: a fabulously wealthy elite, and a peon class that does squat labor for the elite.
Just like Mexico.
This should have had a MAJOR barf alert on it.
Where is my BS shovel ??
Surprising article from the LA Times. Notice they don’t attribute it to Obama and his policies.
“The growth, though, belies a troubling imbalance.”
Article ignores the fact that CA’s population has grown significantly, due to immigration and low-income group fertility. Merely recovering to the number of “jobs” that existed 6 or 7 years means very little, without even considering declining job quality. Does the LA Times mention California’s per capita GDP in constant dollars, now versus then?
Did they blame Jorge Boosh?
"They can't afford to pay me what I'm worth; they can't even match the pay at my last job," she said. "It makes me sad. I always thought that, in 10 years, I was going to be awesome. Now here I am, just trying to survive."
I wonder if Valerie is able to connect the dots between her losing a good job and ending up in a string of dead end jobs and the Obama/Dem policies of the last 5 years of more taxes, more regulation, more entitlements, more mandates.
The destruction of the middle class is part of the deliberate, orchestrated destruction of the economy.
There are many more people on public assistance, a few more at low skill, low wage, low productivity jobs.
The high productivity jobs which create wealth and which are done by the middle class are being systematically destroyed.
The number of young people living in their parents home and unemployed or underemployed has rapidly expanded.
The middle class jobs that remain are increasingly government jobs which do not produce wealth but which must be supported by the productive class.
The hardest working, most innovative, most productive, most self-reliant people in the history of the world are being reduced to unproductive nonworkers being supported by others.
The middle class was targeted for destruction by this President
“Article ignores the fact that CA’s population has grown significantly, due to immigration and low-income group fertility.”
That’s the elephant in the room that neither Party will talk about.
SoCal in particular was once a land of aerospace engineering and the industries that supported it. The population was mostly American and usually educated.
That began to change in the years after Reagan left office. In 1994 Californians passed Prop 187 to try to stop the waves of illegals pouring in, but were fought in that effort by Democrats and the GOPe.
The result is the population that SoCal now has. Coming to the rest of the country real soon I suspect.
For liberals, isn't it better to be O-some than awesome?
“The middle class was targeted for destruction by this President”
That’s true but the Democrats who have been ruling California may be even worse. They have been driving middle class businesses out of this state for decades.
I remember in 2008 during the campaign that derided the idea of “middle-classism”. That was their word for the American Dream I guess. Told people to stop working towards more money and instead get a job at a non-profit and help the community.
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