Submitted by: Donald Hank
Good article in this weekend’s DMN on the shrinking middle income jobs, which comprised some 50% of the job losses but only about 2% of the new ones created. A big part has been technology and the internet which has reduced the need for travel agents, grocery store clerks, and even manufacturing workers. Add in what you’ve outlined below, as well as outsourcing, and employment/job growth is dead in the water. Maybe the Confederate submarine HL Hundley is a better analogy – sounds like they were a victim of their own success in blowing up the Union blockade ship in 1864 (apparently the torpedo didn’t release from the Spar at the front of it)…..
Half of the 7.5 million U.S. jobs lost during the Great Recession were in industries that pay middle-class wages, ranging from $38,000 to $68,000. But only 2 percent of the 3.5 million jobs gained since the recession ended in June 2009 are in midpay industries. Nearly 70 percent are in low-pay industries, 29 percent in industries that pay well.
But 42 months after the Great Recession ended, the U.S. has gained only 3.5 million, or 47 percent, of the 7.5 million jobs that were lost. This has truly been a jobless recovery, and the lack of midpay jobs is almost entirely to blame.
Fifty percent of the U.S. jobs lost were in midpay industries, but Moody’s Analytics, a research firm, says just 2 percent of the 3.5 million jobs gained are in that category. After the four previous recessions, at least 30 percent of jobs created — and as many as 46 percent — were in midpay industries.