When I read Alan Barber’s piece at Common Dreams, Share of Bad Jobs Has Risen Since 1979, what popped into my head, just because of the shared words, was the 1969 release by Creedence Clearwater Revival, “Bad Moon Rising.” Ten years after that release, according to Barber’s article, “bad jobs” began rising. And in the decades since, that rise has continued.
Almost one-fourth of U.S. workers are in a bad job, according to a new report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). Despite substantial increases in the education, age, and quantity and quality of technology over the last three decades, the share of workers with a ‘bad job’ has risen since 1979, the CEPR researchers concluded. …
The main driver of the rise in bad jobs, the report argues, was the systematic decline in workers’ bargaining power since the end of the 1970s.
A recent article by Ian Welsh, Some basics on the economy, provides some scary context.
1) the majority of new jobs are bad.
2) the economy has still not recovered all lost jobs, either in absolute #s or as a percentage of the population
3) so there are fewer jobs, and what new jobs have been created are worse. They pay worse.
4) The upper middle class job market has recovered, which is why those folks are no longer panicking and are telling you that the economy isn’t so bad as all that.
5) the failure to force the rich to take their losses and to break up the banks means that the same people who caused the 2007/8 financial crisis still control the economy and the government. …
11) the wealth of the rich and major corporations has recovered and in many countries exceeded its prior highs …
13) For people earning less than about 80K, the economy never really recovered.
14) If you’re out of work more than 2 months your odds of getting another job drop through the floor. If you do get one, odds are it will pay much less than your previous job. …
17) Wages are being systematically broken in the developed world …
19) Stirling Newberry says, and I agree, that none of this is stable, but it will last as long as the majority of the baby boom, the silents and a good chunk of the Xers still think they can hang on to their little piece of the pie, and screw everyone else. It will most likely break down in 2020/24, which is when the demographics turn. …
20) The economic numbers you hear don’t mean squat. Headline inflation does not matter, ask yourself instead ‘what are my fixed expenses?’ …
21) The money the Fed floods into the financial markets (quantitative easing, among others) is mostly NOT getting to ordinary people … .
For other equally as unsurprising but still scary and depressing information, check out:
From Real World Economics Review, For average hours worked per person annually in employment the USA ranks 22nd out of 30, and also from RWER, For ratio of female to male income the USA ranks 12th out of 30.
See also, at Common Dreams, Gar Smith’s Politics and Plutocrats: A Parade of Inequality.
Earth’s richest 1,000 individuals now control as much wealth as the poorest 2.5 billion people on the planet. This super elite uses its vast wealth to control the media, influence politicians, and bend laws to their favor. In the US, the wealthy dominate our government: 47 percent of US representatives are millionaires, as are 67 percent of US senators. The Center for Responsive Politics reports Congressional wealth has increased 11 percent between 2009 and 2011.
So, as this and related information trickles down to more and more people, what should we expect? As more and more people find themselves in “bad jobs,” and their experience tells them there is no real hope that will change, what will they do?
Maybe something like this (from Bad Moon Rising):
I see the bad moon arising.
I see trouble on the way.
I see earthquakes and lightnin’.
I see bad times today.
The United States has more low wage jobs than any other industrialized nation with the exception of South Korea. This has been true for sometime, even during the so called good years of the Clinton Administration. In addition to all the usual suspects, there is another element that is not talked about that much: automation. Slowly but surely, automation is beginning to do what all the naysayer’s said it would not; eliminate thousands of jobs at every level. A resturant in China is using robots in the kitchen to do prep work; supermarkets are slowly phasing in automated checkout, the parking attendant at the lot I use disappeared and now I use a machine to pay. Even as the auto companies hire back workers they are investing in automation to replace those very same workers. If you look at a picture of an assembly line in the paper you would be hard pressed to find the humans among the robots. Even in the high tech world, software is increasingly replacing lower level jobs that were once thought to be secure. What will people do? Kurt Vonnegut wrote a book called ” Player Piano, ” in which all the engineers lived on one side of the river and the grunts ( people without jobs ) lived on the other. Hope I’m gone by then.
I have a feeling, fangio, that a big part of what will happen will be a great deal of denial. Of course, that’s been happening for a long time, but even more and bigger denial is going to be required to avoid recognizing the little group of naked emperors.
I hope I’m gone too but if this continues there will be revolution. Hungry people do some wild things.
I just finished writing about the same thing. I see a lot of people obsessing about relatively meaningless numbers, but not stepping back and seeing the big picture. That CEPR report looks to be saying much the same – there’s a lot more to worry about with the economic situation than just unemployment numbers, as bad as those are.
I don’t know if we’re headed for a revolution or not (riffing on Jane Austen’s comment), but I think it’s going to take one, or the iminent threat of one, to change this course.
Should add that I think Ian Welsh’s point 8 is a particularly interesting one:
start quote:
the developed world is in depression, it never left depression. During depressions there are recoveries (such as they are) and recessions, but the overall economy is in depression.
end quote
We’re still in a depression, and at the rate we’re going, we’ll be in it until at least 2020, and probably a lot longer. Nothing either major party’s presidential candidate is proposing will fix that.
It’s the same theme I wrote about on Labor Day. That most jobs are low wage jobs.
What does anyone expect when Dems are backing away from unions & put no weight behind EFCA? (Broken record, I know.)
Nothing but what’s happened, I’m afraid, right down to slower economic growth and diminished prospects for the future.
At this point, I’m relieved to see more and more people talking about this whole huge, broad subject. It’s not a new conversation, but it’s does seem to be gaining in number of participants. September 17 will be the one year anniversary of the public beginning of the Occupy movement. That wasn’t the first time, of course, that such conversations occurred, but it made them more visible and “hearable” to a lot of people. Whatever else has happened in the last year, that conversation, broadly, hasn’t stopped. That’s a good thing.