Happy Labor Day everyone, I hope you are all relaxing with family and enjoying the fruits of your labor…
Most years, that would typically mean slurping down some ice cold beer, grilling some big, juicy hamburgers, and just laying back and soaking up the last days of summer. Personally, I’ll be relaxing on the Eastern Shore with my kids and extended family. I am extremely thankful I can afford to party on Labor Day, because I have a full-time, well-paying job…
But when you take a look at the majority of workers in America today, it is anything but party time…
America’s labor force is a shell of what it once was. Between shipping jobs overseas, the shocking number of part-time workers, and the stagnant wage growth of the past decade, workers in America have been stripped to the bone.
Here are 10 of the most shocking stats about labor in America today that make any “recovery” seem like a sick joke…
Bon Voyage, Jobs
Many of the employment pains started well before the great recession. Since 1979 we’ve gone from a high of 19.5 million manufacturing jobs to a mere 11.5 million at the start of the recession in 2009. That’s a shocking amount of job loss. Ever since the U.S. economy has been globalized, we’ve seen a steady stream of jobs going overseas to much cheaper labor markets like China and Mexico.
That’s “free trade” for you…
In fact, there are a number of shocking facts that explain what has happened to workers since we started killing off our manufacturing and shipping jobs overseas:
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The U.S. Department of Commerce data shows that “U.S. multinational corporations, the big brand-name companies that employ a fifth of all American workers… cut their work forces in the U.S. by 2.9 million during the 2000s while increasing employment overseas by 2.4 million.”
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When NAFTA was passed in 1993, it was sold to the public as a job creator. The Peterson Institute for International Economics predicted that 170,000 jobs would be created in the U.S. during the first two years alone. The opposite happened. According to the Economic Policy Institute, NAFTA has contributed to a net loss of one million U.S. jobs by 2004.
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According to Public Citizen, over 845,000 American workers lost their jobs because their factories were moved to Canada and Mexico. These folks have had to go on Trade Adjustment Assistance, which provides up to 117 weeks of cash payments in addition to regular unemployment insurance.
So instead of being gainfully employed by American companies, these displaced workers have their salaries taken care of by taxpayers. It’s a win for big business: they can reap bigger profits from lower wages while the taxpayers are on the hook for $234,126,500 a year in Trade Adjustment Assistance and another $43,227,212 annually for Reemployment Trade Adjustment Assistance (RTAA).
And those lucky enough to find a new full-time job? Two out of every three of them took a pay cut of 20% or more.
But these numbers reflect a total exodus from U.S. manufacturing jobs. It’s the type of U.S. jobs that are still available that prove to be even more terrifying. The lack of decent full-time work is forcing a record number of Americans into “full-time part-time work”, which has its own harrowing consequences.
The Rise of the Part-Time Worker
While “official” government statistics have shown a steady increase in job numbers since 2009, it is the kind of jobs created that is worrisome. Almost 20% of the entire labor force is working part-time. This has been a 30-year trend, which has only accelerated since the recession:
SOURCE: U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS
This is alarming for a couple of reasons. For one, part-time workers rarely get employer benefits, so that burden for health care and other benefits is kicked to the government and passed right on to the taxpayer. Again, this is great for the bottom lines of the companies, but horrible for the actual workers…
That’s why the stock market is hitting all-time highs while the quality of life for the rest of us is going down the tubes.
It’s also great for government employment stats, since they can put part-timers on their fancy reports and count one person working three jobs as THREE workers! For example, in June the jobs report claimed to have added 288,000 jobs — that’s 52 consecutive months of reported job growth. What they didn’t mention in the headlines is that full-time jobs actually dropped by 530,000 from May.
The only reason that the number of total jobs stayed above water was the 800,000 part-time jobs added! Not exactly the rosy job picture they’d like you to believe.
But how about those of us who have stayed fully employed?
Wages Have Flatlined
Now, to be fair, there are a lot of people that still have full-jobs. Hooray for you if you’re one of them. But the scary thing is that even though you are currently being paid for full-time work, the wages you are getting are some of the flattest in history. American workers are simply not being paid like there’s a recovery underway.
Let’s start with how much we’re getting paid in comparison to other “recoveries”:
It doesn’t take an economist or statistician to decipher that chart. The wage growth since 2009 is far more pitiful than what the recoveries that came before saw.
We’re simply not making nearly enough money. I can’t blame “discouraged workers” for not wanting to work for sub-par wages. While companies are posting record stock prices, they are doing so on the back of an underpaid, exploited workforce.
Just have a look for yourself:
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Before the crash in 2007, the average household in the top 5% of earners had 16.5 times as much wealth as the average U.S. household. Now the top 5% has 24 times as much wealth as the average overall household.
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The top 20% of U.S. households watched their income grow by an average of $8,358 a year from the crash until 2012. The lowest 20% of earners? They witnessed a $275 decline per year. And that is data right from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
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The average wage for new jobs is 23% less than the average annual wage of jobs that were lost during the recession.. And while the latest jobs report bragged that the economy gained 209,000 jobs, there was zero wage growth.
According to economist Tyler Cowen of George Mason University, we’re in for another decade or more of this stagnation…
“If you look at the typical American wage, it was as high in the year 2000 as it is today. That’s about 14 years of stagnation,” he said.
“In my view it is quite possible we will be seeing another 14 years of exactly that same pattern.”
Unless you are in the top 5%, that doesn’t bode well for any of us…
4 More Sobering Facts
I apologize if I’ve bummed you out on this beautiful Labor Day. But these are serious issues that cannot be ignored on a day we are celebrating the social and economic achievements of workers. We simply cannot celebrate the fact that:
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One out of four Americans relies on food banks of some kind…
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Only half of all Americans can scrounge up $400 in for emergencies without either borrowing it, or selling off assets — like say, your car, or your house, or even your blood.
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76% of all Americans are living paycheck to paycheck.
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The U.S. has dropped to 19th place in the world in median wealth per adult.
That’s not the America I want to celebrate on Labor Day…
