Posted on 05/14/2016 5:35:13 AM PDT by Kaslin
Even though the official unemployment rate fell below 5%, most of us who live in the real world know better: there are still an estimated 30 million Americans who have either given up looking for work or are underemployed. According to the latest Pew Research, the American middle class has shrunk for the first time in decades and is no longer the economic majority. In the mean time, the number of low-income Americans is rising. Who should we blame for this economic reality? Many point their fingers at immigrants. Maybe you have heard this saying, “When you point one finger, there are three fingers pointing back at you.” We as a nation need to honestly examine inner factors that hold American workers back: education, culture, and welfare.
First, our education system fails to produce a sufficiently educated workforce. Today the U.S. spends on average $12,000 per pupil per year in K-12, one of the highest amounts in the world. Yet U.S. students score only “average,” according to the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) report. According to a Cato Institute study, between 1970 and 2010, the total cost of a K-12 education on a per-pupil basis increased 188% after adjusting for inflation. Reading scores on the national NEAP test have increased less than 1% between 1970 and 2012. Math scores on the same exam increased 2%.
Our higher education system doesn’t fare any better. A Federal Reserve Bank of New York analysis shows that since 2001, underemployment among recent college graduates has increased. About 45% of recent college graduates are “underemployed,” holding jobs that typically do not require a bachelor’s degree. Part of this can be attributed to the economic recession in 2008, but the long-term trend shows a mismatch between what students learn in school and the skills and knowledge businesses need. Colleges and universities need to better prepare our young people by closely linking future employment opportunities with their current fields of study. In addition, we need to have more vocational schools that can teach young people employable skills. Not everyone needs to go to college. An experienced welding technician can easy command $70,000 or higher, more than many college graduates.
We all know that a good education makes a huge difference to someone’s future happiness and prosperity. Anyone who is serious about helping American workers ought to support effective education reform to provide young people with more choices and real knowledge.
The second factor holding America back is our culture. We as a nation have experienced a cultural shift to one that doesn’t appreciate physical work. Low-paying, labor-intensive jobs such as picking fruit, slaughtering chickens, and housekeeping are not desirable to even many of the poorest Americans. In the summer of 2015, The Wall Street Journal reported a persistent farm labor shortage due to the decline of illegal immigrants. Despite farmers raising some wages more than 20% and the youth unemployment rate being 12.2% in July 2015—few Americans flock to farms. At $11.20 an hour, back-breaking work is not attractive to even the least-skilled American workers. Consequently, “a years-long decline in farmhands is reducing annual fruit and vegetable production by 9.5%, or $3.1 billion, in the U.S.”
Mike Rowe, host of the popular TV show Dirty Jobs, criticized this cultural phenomenon of looking down on physical or labor-intensive work. He said, “Dirt used to be a badge of honor. Dirt used to look like work. But we’ve scrubbed the dirt off the face of work, and consequently we’ve created this suspicion of anything that’s too dirty.” By doing so, according to Rowe, “we waged a war on work,” and the American working-age population suffers the most. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve driven by the Denver Rescue Mission and seen able-bodied young men congregating in front of the building in the middle of the day with nothing to do. It’s a heart-breaking scene. Research shows that only 3% of Americans who work full time, year round, are in poverty. So no weapon is more powerful to fight the war on poverty than work—any kind of work. As a nation, we need to re-emphasize the honor and dignity of work.
The third factor that holds American workers back is our welfare system. Our generous welfare benefits are disincentives to work. A study by the Cato Institute shows that “in nine states—Hawaii, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, Rhode Island, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maryland—as well as Washington, D.C., annual benefits were worth more than $35,000 a year.” Keep in mind that these welfare benefits are not taxed. So the study shows that $35,000 worth of annual benefits for a welfare recipient is equivalent to earning $60,590 in pretax income. This study concludes that,
"In fact, welfare currently pays more than a minimum-wage job in 34 states and the District of Columbia. In Hawaii, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington, D.C., welfare pays more than a $20-an-hour job, and in five additional states it yields more than a $15-per-hour job."
Since the 2008 economic recession, the U.S. government has made it even easier for Americans to sign up for welfare benefits. For example, eligibility rules for getting food stamps were relaxed and work requirements were waived. University of Chicago economist Casey Mulligan concluded in his research that “the American stimulus reduced average incentives to be employed.” In 2013, there were 48 million Americans on food stamps, representing a 16-million increase since 2008.
Our generous welfare system and its accessibility not only have incentivized workers not to work, but also have created an unofficial minimum wage. Why? Because when anti-immigration advocates demand American businesses hire American workers only, especially for entry-level positions, they’re essentially imposing a drastic minimum wage hike—to at least $20 an hour—for American businesses, because welfare recipients have no incentive to take any job that pays less than their welfare benefits.
Had American businesses been forced to raise minimum wage to $20 an hour, the cost of doing business would have skyrocketed, which in turn would have forced businesses to choose between passing the higher cost on to consumers (which businesses have limited power to do) and reducing hiring. Most conservatives as well as many economists know that a minimum wage hike of this magnitude would end up hurting the employment of the most vulnerable American workers. It’s Economics 101: when you raise the price of something (labor), demand for it will decrease (fewer people will be hired). When one can’t find a job, a mandatory wage increase is meaningless. Some firms might have been forced out of business if they couldn’t find a financially viable way to survive the higher cost.
Education, culture, and welfare are not the only three factors holding American workers back. Other factors—including ruinous regulations, such as the occupational licensing requirements—harm employment opportunities of American workers too. These factors have nothing to do with immigration, but they contribute to our nation’s low labor participation rate and the bleak employment picture in America. No matter who is in the White House, to help American workers, we as a nation need to focus on addressing issues such as education reform, culture change, welfare reform, and getting rid of ruinous anti-work regulations.
1) Many people are not money motivated. For example, many evangelicals do the work that they feel God has called them to do. The prosperity gospel movement has risen specifically to address this culture that believes the Bible says love of money is the root of evil. Look here on FR where money loving evangelicals like Rev Creflo Dollar are ridiculed and called unchristian because the preach, and lead by example, the aspiration to prosperity.
2) Many people, even when they TRY to be money motivated, don’t know how to do it. They lack the skills and basic cultural knowledge. There are many people who attend Trump U and Rich-Dad-Poor-Dad seminars and just don’t grasp the concept.
3) Many of us working in jobs that require a college degree do not have a degree. There is no difference performance or profitability to the company between those with and without a degree. The requirement of a college degree is used like any other alleged requirement as a way for the employer to reject someone they don’t like without stating the real reason for the rejection. (Some employers don’t like an applicant’s attitude, body odor, ugly face, race, religion, etc.) Many employers make hiring decisions based on reasons that have zero to do with the profitability of the company.
Interesting timing for certain.
A man we've been waiting for for an entire generation suddenly shows up promising to work like hell to restore many of the things we've been heartsick about, and now, on the cusp of it actually happening, you decided to bail out.
You've had more than 30 years to bail, why now, less than a year from starting a new path and you're gone, why now?
Westerners get first class treatment in the third world. Well known fact.
1. In any financial transaction, buyers will seek the lowest price possible for the type and quality of a product or service they are buying. At the same time, sellers will look for the highest price possible.
2. An employment arrangement involves a "buyer" (the employer) and a "seller" (a worker).
3. One of the simple realities of an economy is that a worker will usually demand far more for his/her services than he/she would ever pay another worker for the same services.
Point #3 underlies almost every policy decision that is made by a government, and every business decision that is made by a private employer, in an advanced country like ours where labor costs are extremely high. As a result, things like automation and foreign trade give us the ability to offset the higher cost of paying American workers by reducing our reliance on them.
Why don't you sue the author of the op-ed or the editor.
*rme*
A lengthy but enjoyable comment.... was like sitting at the dinner table listening to my father who I think now resides in Heaven. He had an intimate knowledge of the banking industry and many opinions on the Fed.
Interesting articles when you Google .. Presidents who opposed the Federal Reserve or before that, The Central Bank or before that the Bank of the US.
Trump seems to hint at challengng the Fed but it usually doesn’t end well for those who do.
Lately I’ve wished I could ask my dad what he would see as an alternative to the Fed.
So if you will I’ll ask you and also if you’ve followed Trump and Roger Stones comments on the subject and if anyone can really affect change in ths area ?
Also if the Fed used to be more effective protecting the US and Western Europe, with the rise of other economies what lies ahead?
Government is the root of all evil.
His/Her Parents.
It's not whether there is both a mother and father in the home, although that is a contributing factor. It comes down to: Do the parents consider education to be important?
If the parents do not consider education to be a priority for their child, the child will not take school seriously either. The child will fail or just barely get by, and repeat the same cycle with their children.
The importance of education is a cultural attitude. It's mostly linked to socioeconomic status, and that's why you will find that students at certain schools perform better (as a group), than others in the same district. School districts knowingly draw lines to pack higher socioeconomic groups into the same schools, because the parents demand it.
Are you skeptical? The data makes it pretty clear, if you aren't politically correct in your analysis.
In the US, race is a reasonable approximation of socioeconomic class. It's not completely accurate, because there are exceptions. Being a member of a particular race doesn't predestine you to a particular outcome, but as a group, students of the same race have similar rates of success in school.
There have been many studies of test scores of students across various states in the US. Some states are ranked high, while other states rank low. But, if you can get the detailed data and you look closely at it, you'll notice an interesting phenomena: there are very similar results across the 4 major racial groups in every state. Most of the variance between states can be "equalized" by simply accounting for the racial composition of students in the schools.
The ranking won't be much surprise:
Again, I'll reiterate: this doesn't mean that any of these racial groups are smarter than the other. In this context, race is simply a proxy for socioeconomic class. And the lower socioeconomic classes have a dismissive attitude about the importance of education.
Unfortunately, it's self-perpetuating. If a student doesn't take education seriously, he/she won't succeed in school. After growing up and having children, he/she will pass that same attitude on to the next generation.
To stretch my questions further do you think the Feds power has been diluted with the rise of other world eonomies and are their current policies an outcome of this?
We don't HAVE to import them.
We have plenty of engineers and technical wizards. But, they are being undercut by H1B visa holders and off-shoring.
Simplistic view -
Too many excuses for “You are not responsible for the choices you’ve made.”
I don't think so.
Here is the latest data that I could find about unemployment in new college graduates.
Which college majors translate best to the job market?
Here's a snapshot of the table at this link. You will see that unemployment in the technical fields is pretty reasonable. These graduates are getting jobs. If there were more of them they would get jobs as well.
The lesson here is that to get a job you need a skill that the marketplace is looking for. Right now health, science, engineering, computer science and high tech in general dominate the employment statistics. And this is not new.
I'm not referring to college graduates. I'm referring to experienced professionals with proven skills. Some of them were required to train their own replacements.
Human resources post jobs requiring 5 years experience in a technology that is only 3 years old. Then, they push interviewees right out of school, because they are cheaper.
Right now health, science, engineering, computer science and high tech in general dominate the employment statistics.
I think you should look at the chart you posted, again.
A 4.5% unemployment rate (the bottom 3 entries on your screen) is nothing to boast about. It's the median among all of the college majors that are listed.
End welfare.
It is easiest to buy votes with other people’s money than make simple political changes that would improve the economy.
I notice I no longer hear very much or read much about “all the great freedoms” we enjoy in America. Ten years ago if I posted something to the effect that this is NOT a free country there were plenty on FR who were eager to set me straight. Not so now. Of course my attitude is that we have never been truly free but we were a lot less oppressed a few decades ago. I think there are only a precious few who could handle true freedom.
With current trends in grammar you may soon have to stop reading anything. It’s a hell of a comeuppance when college graduates don’t know that an apostrophe in a plural is wrong.
“Today our politicians and academia are obsessed with four year liberal arts education in subjects providing no skills for earning a living.”
They may be obsessed but what seems most conspicuously lacking is true liberal arts education. Recent college graduates could not pass my tenth grade final in English, History, Literature, Civics, Geography etc.
“They may be obsessed but what seems most conspicuously lacking is true liberal arts education.”
I agree. I chose a classical 4 year degree studying the great philosophers, the classics of literature, and the history of western civilization. Plus classical free market economics (Adam Smith, Milton Friedman). I learned to think critically and to form opinions based on my own research.
I doubt it is possible for a student to receive the quality of education I received at my alma mater today. Based on what I read, most of what passes for learning there is the regurgitation of politically correct propaganda.
It wasn’t in the wrong place—there shouldn’t be an apostrophe anywhere in that title! I wish illiterates wouldn’t write articles for publication...
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