America's Middle Class is Lost in Space

[tschu]

A great 6-part series on what has become of the American middle class and why America has been moving backwards for decades:

 

Part 1 - America's middle class is lost in space

Part 2 - The devalued American worker

Part 3 - The college trap that keeps people poor

Part 4 - A black hole for our best and brightest

Part 5 - The great startup slowdown

Part 6 - Fixing the broken talent flow.

 

Very insightful stuff.

[It'sNotAFakeID]

A great 6-part series on what has become of the American middle class and why America has been moving backwards for decades:

 

Part 1 - America's middle class is lost in space

Part 2 - The devalued American worker

Part 3 - The college trap that keeps people poor

Part 4 - A black hole for our best and brightest

Part 5 - The great startup slowdown

Part 6 - Fixing the broken talent flow.

 

Very insightful stuff.

 

I feel like this is going to make me depressed. But I want to watch it because I'm sure it is full of great stuff.

[tschu]

Or more accurately, read it. It's a series of articles!

[It'sNotAFakeID]

Or more accurately, read it. It's a series of articles!

 

READIN'?!?!? READIN' IS FOR SOCIALISTS

[tschu]

[Creighton Duke]

It appears as though most of the media and academics still don't get it and are still forcing distinctions between "middle class" collectively and "white collar middle class". Reading through the articles, I have sympathy and a degree of empathy for my peers who were promised the same lifestyles that our parents had if we made sure to do just a few things, mainly, earn a college degree. However, the economy has changed and college is not only more expensive than ever, but prospects are worse with outsourcing, amongst other initiatives, and the growth of non-STEM degrees being awarded.

 

My main problem with these kinds of articles, though, is the fact that the there are essentially three archetypes that are ever presented:

 

1. the elite

2. the struggling, college-educated liberal arts major with student loans and shift work at Starbucks

3. low education, unskilled labor

 

While I recognize that manufacturing is on the decline in many areas, the factory jobs that have been lost have generally been held by those in group 3. Why is the blue collar middle class never acknowledged? Tech school, trade school, etc. professions? Continued demand for these jobs, short AND cheap degree and/or credentialing programs. Solid middle-class salaries....yet the continued brainwashing the a traditional, 4-year (ha!) degree program is the way to go.

 

Jobs are there, salaries are there. Any man (and even women, to an extent) who is complaining about his job prospects, outlook, etc. do yourself a favor; buy a bus ticket to Williston. Knock on doors for a month while living in your car. You'll soon be making more money than most of your friends back at Starbucks. Credential yourself and you'll make more than most of the guys you went to college with.

 

...but for some reason, this lifestyle and career path just doesn't fit with what we're "supposed" to do...

[tschu]

And employers take advantage of exactly that fact, and exacerbate it even. My own company requires a 4-year degree for jobs that in no way shape or form need anywhere near that education, and only pay a small hourly wage. The lack of blue-collar jobs and middle-class mid-skill jobs means that you have more people fighting over the higher-skill jobs, pushing wages down, and many more fighting over the lower-skill jobs, pushing those wages down even worse.

 

The result is people indebted to get educations that don't pay off, people working more hours than ever before and a workforce that continues to get more and more productive yet wages have gone nowhere. The end result is quality of life is worse for a majority of the country and an economy that tanks when the resulting indebtedness catches up to people.

 

There are no easy answers either.

[Creighton Duke]

And employers take advantage of exactly that fact, and exacerbate it even. My own company requires a 4-year degree for jobs that in no way shape or form need anywhere near that education, and only pay a small hourly wage. The lack of blue-collar jobs and middle-class mid-skill jobs means that you have more people fighting over the higher-skill jobs, pushing wages down, and many more fighting over the lower-skill jobs, pushing those wages down even worse.

 

The result is people indebted to get educations that don't pay off, people working more hours than ever before and a workforce that continues to get more and more productive yet wages have gone nowhere. The end result is quality of life is worse for a majority of the country and an economy that tanks when the resulting indebtedness catches up to people.

 

There are no easy answers either.

I agree with your overall conclusions and general sentiment, however, I disagree with the first bolded portion and question the second.

 

As I said before, the blue-collar jobs are there. However, we have a significant amount of the population that has been duped into the traditional college route and/or we have an entire generation of men who refuses to put down the computer and pick up a hammer (I will admit, that I fall into this category, however I am more successful in my employment endeavors than the vast majority of my peers).

 

In terms of more productivity, what is your measure for this? I do agree that there may be more nominal productivity, but does it hold up in a real sense? In addition, what is being produced these days? I place more stock in groundbreaking advances that will improve the well-being of society to a much higher degree than what is being passed off as such today i.e. phones that turn people into mindless drones, etc.

[tschu]

 

 

 

 

So,

 

More people in each household are working, each of those people are working more hours, the productivity and GDP continues to rise, yet the household income remains stagnant, even decreasing, adjusting for inflation of course. People are working more and more and more for no gain.

[presidentjlh]

In the end, all is meaningless as we are all subject to the Great Equalizer.

[Creighton Duke]

According to your included graphs, productivity is measured in, what? Hours worked? If that's the case, all that we've accomplished is becoming more inefficient (and we are getting paid roughly the same as we were before as a reward for our inefficiency).

[carlfense]

Labor productivity is the ratio of the output of goods and services to the labor hours devoted to the production of that output.

http://www.bls.gov/lpc/faqs.htm

[Creighton Duke]

^^^^

thanks for the clarification, carl, but like many BLS statistics, I don't think that these tell the whole story, especially when you start factoring "services" into the mix.

 

Regardless, I still feel as though the ignorance to credentialed blue-collared jobs in favor of the college trap is still the main concern here.

[carlfense]

Regardless, I still feel as though the ignorance to credentialed blue-collared jobs in favor of the college trap is still the main concern here.

I agree that this is an issue . . . but I know of many employers in the area that are requiring 4 year degrees for positions that simply do not require it. I'm talking about the equivalent of fork lift driver positions.

 

I've tried thinking of why they would list that as a requirement besides the fact that they can and the only thing that I can come up with is that the potential employee might be more likely to be tied to his/her job because of his/her debt load.

[strigori]

 

Regardless, I still feel as though the ignorance to credentialed blue-collared jobs in favor of the college trap is still the main concern here.

I agree that this is an issue . . . but I know of many employers in the area that are requiring 4 year degrees for positions that simply do not require it. I'm talking about the equivalent of fork lift driver positions.

 

I've tried thinking of why they would list that as a requirement besides the fact that they can and the only thing that I can come up with is that the potential employee might be more likely to be tied to his/her job because of his/her debt load.

 

I will give you a specific example. Keebler, the cracker and cookie company, will only hire people to full time sales rep jobs who have a 4 year degree. I must have missed the place where colleges offered degrees in ordering and filling crackers in grocery stores. And for being the owned property of the company who will require you more or less be available 24/7/365 for taking phone calls at the very least, you will make about $40K or so.

 

The logic actually tends to be that by making a degree a qualification, they can dramatically limit the pool or workers, (so the person doing the hiring, who depending on the company is either lazy as hell, or overworked to the bone, there does not tend to be a middle ground) letting the person doing the hiring have fewer applications to sift through, making that person's job easier.