The Economic Future Looks Dark as the Faux Economic Recovery is Primarily Low-Paying Jobs

[Better Believe It]

The Economic Future Looks Dark as the Faux Economic Recovery is Primarily Low-Paying Jobs
The current "recovery" is actually deepening our deficit of good jobs.
By Annette Bernhardt
November 1, 2011

Just as the country struggles to confront a seemingly insurmountable jobs deficit, America’s chronic low-wage problem is reasserting itself with a vengeance. Here are three ways to understand just how severe the problem is.

First, the current recovery is actually deepening our deficit of good jobs. During the Great Recession, the jobs we lost were concentrated in mid-wage occupations like paralegals, health technicians, administrative assistants and bus drivers, making $15 to $20 an hour. But so far in this weak recovery, employment growth has largely come from low-wage occupations like retail workers, office and stock clerks, restaurant staff and child care aids – most making $8 to $10 an hour. There has been only minimal growth in mid-wage occupations, and net losses in those that pay higher.

Second, the paychecks of workers in low-wage occupations are shrinking. While real wages for the average American worker have been essentially flat (adjusted for inflation) since the start of the recession, wages for Americans in low-wage occupations have actually declined by 2.3 percent. That’s a troubling pattern for jobs that are also growing the fastest.

Finally, job quality was already a problem in the U.S. labor market even before the Great Recession began. From 2001 through 2008, low-wage and high-wage occupations grew significantly more than mid-wage occupations. In fact, mid-wage occupations constituted only 6 percent of net job gains during this period, continuing the increase in economic inequality in America that dates all the way back to the late 1970s.

Read the full article at:

http://www.alternet.org/economy/152929/the_economic_future_looks_dark_as_the_faux_economic_recovery_is_primarily_low-paying_jobs_/?page=entire

[mmonk]

1. But its good for bidness!

No more big guvmint. Both parties agree big guvmint is the problem. More cuts to drown it in the bathtub are on the way! Centrism forever!(centrism is a made up word for political consumption).