Posted on 05/26/2007 4:19:44 PM PDT by ConservativeStatement
American men in their 30s today are worse off financially than their fathers' generation, a reversal from just a decade ago, when sons generally were better off than their fathers, a new study finds.
The study, the first in a series on economic mobility undertaken by several prominent think tanks, also says the typical American family's income has lagged far behind productivity growth since 2000, a departure from most of the post-World War II period.
The findings suggest "the up escalator that has historically ensured that each generation would do better than the last may not be working very well," says the study, which was scheduled for release Friday.
The study was written principally by John Morton of the Pew Charitable Trusts, which is leading the series, called the Economic Mobility Project, and Isabel Sawhill of the Brookings Institution. Others participating are the Heritage Foundation, American Enterprise Institute and the Urban Institute.
(Excerpt) Read more at stltoday.com ...
I read the whole article, and it never distinguished background factors. For example, 30ish “men” who were brought up by a single teen-aged mother, and schooled in inner cities should not be in a class with suburbanites. Any statistics that don’t separate the two are meaningless.
“I’ve watched ‘em sit around all day and talk about “survivor” and “american idol” as though such things...matter.”
I work with one. It blows me away. On the one hand, he talks about this cr@p on TV non-stop, then laments the fact that he’ll NEVER be able to retire because life is just “so unfair!”
If American Idol is on when he’s in his 70’s, he’ll make a GREAT Wal-Mart Greeter; he’ll always have something to talk about when he greets the customers! *SMIRK*
The construction trades are particularly hard hit by illegal aliens who move in and are eagerly hired by contractors for wages which deeply undercut the honest American worker.
It's not that Americans won't do these jobs. It's just that they can't or won't do them for slave wages and no benefits competing against guys living 30 to a house, sending their wages home to Mexico, getting paid under the table, and scamming the welfare and health systems.
This Immigration Bill will legitimize these criminals for good.
Not as many thirty year olds are married and established as there were in their father’s day. Nothing like a wife and kids to turn a slacker in an earner.
They are also not figuring in the increase in purchasing power that technology has brought us. That 30 something loser has a flat screen tv, notebook computer, ipod and god knows what else.
My 38 year old husband is an electrician. doing it for 20 years and the state keeps making the exams for licensing harder and harder each year. They make the regulations more and more difficult. changing yearly and unless your college educated or don’t have a life outside of work so that you can spend all your time memorizing a text book that constantly changes, you can’t get ahead.
The state wide regulation on industry has spawned Statezilla and the CONTINUING EDUCATION payola. The States is turning into India Baasheesh...the payments you have to make to do what you need to do.
A legal form of corruption.
There’s other factors they missed. Women’s participation in the workforce was 46% in 1975, but 59% in 2005. That additional 16.6 million workers also drives down men’s wages.
My highly paid bosses want a computer program - let them do it themselves. Ha!
My eldest daughter is doing much better than I did at her age. At 21 I was making $13k. She is making over $40k. She actually had disposable income. I didn’t until I was in my 30’s.
Agreed. It seems like an amateurish analysis, to me.
Wasn't that the period after the "Clinton bubble" burst, when hundreds of thousands of people lost jobs? To compare twenty-five year swaths with a 5-year period, most of which was a recession, is sloppy statistics.
I think the main purpose of the Immigration Bill is to do away with the middle class. The leftists and RINOS imagine a utopia where 5% of the people are super-rich members of the ruling class and 95% of the people are serfs dependent on government and who have no way to work out of poverty. It used to be that a poor person could do some basic things and at least have a good chance of joining the middle class. The powers that be want to do away with the buffer that the middle class represents.
This makes sense to me.
This is about people who do not go to college. Illegals have driven down the wages of skilled labor.
Reading all posts with interest.
I would also agree with the premise of the article, but I think exposes some deeper problem the American male faces.
This article is about the American male, not all Americans wage earners.
I do think the entry of vast number of women in the workplace as full time employees has impacted the ability of men to devout all of their energy and resources to getting ahead in their endeavors.
Also, our economy has changed in many ways moving toward service industry where it is much more difficult to make a ROI on your talent skills and abilities
They are also in debt up to their eyeballs.
Add to that the fact that many Californians have lost thier jobs to illegal aliens, especially in the construction industry and service industries.
The rich are getting richer, the poor are getting the freebies, and the middle class is being screwed again.
AMEN to that, brother (I speak from personal experience).
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