Undereducated workforce is not to blame for soaring economic inequality

[finehoe]

460,000 people with college degrees are working in minimum wage jobs

By Kathleen Geier

One common refrain we hear from a lot of conservatives, and some centrists, too, is that the reason many Americans aren't getting ahead in this economy is that they're "unskilled" and undereducated. If only they went to college — that would do the trick! Sending more people to college has been recommended as the main policy fix for inequality by everyone from the National Review's Marcus Winters to center/left economists like Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz.

While making college more affordable is a great idea, there are good reasons to be extremely skeptical about the notion that an undereducated workforce is to blame for soaring economic inequality. Evidence that is supportive of that skepticism can be found in the Bureau of Labor Statistics report released last month, Characteristics of Minimum Wage Workers, 2013.

According to the report, there are 260,000 worker's with bachelor's degrees and 200,000 workers with associate's degrees who are making the minimum wage. As a reminder, the federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, and the minimum wage for tipped workers is a shockingly low $2.13 an hour. In some cities and states, the minimum wage is higher, but the BLS report defines only those making $7.25 an hour or less as "minimum wage workers."

Some other fun facts about the minimum wage: the U.S. has the third lowest minimum wage of any OECD country, the value of the minimum wage has declined dramatically since its peak in 1968, and about half of the increase in inequality in the bottom half of the income distribution is due to the decline in the minimum wage.

Something has gone terribly wrong here.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2014_04/460000_people_with_college_deg049787.php#

[Josh]

This report lacks a lot of context since it doesn't include the type of degree these people have. I skimmed the actual report and it mentioned their field of work, but not the field of their degree.

The minimum wage in this country is a joke though.

[SunKing]

The issue I believe the writer is trying to address is a lack of well paying jobs for college graduates?  Don't know what the minimum wage has to do with it but anyway its really supply and demand.  More college graduates than jobs to fill.

The college degree is overrated today.  Why? Because it has been devalued by making it more affordable and achievable through lower quality, unaccredited, for profit degree mills that are subsidized by the federal student loan program.  Not all degrees are equal in a competitive market-hence an "undereducated" workforce. 

At some point in this country, we need to get back to the notion that skilled trades are a noble profession and encourage a trained workforce.  There are plenty of jobs available today in skilled trades.  Electricians for example can look for steady growth over the next 10 years.  http://www.bls.gov/ooh/construction-and-extraction/electricians.htm

[urbanlibertarian]

Maybe some of those college grads should have considered other fields.

From bright.com:

http://www.bright.com/static/v3/img/labs/content/The_Most_Sought_After_Job_Categories_and_Skills_for_2014.pdf

As of late December 2013, here are 10 of the most sought-after job categories that employers are looking to hire (grouped by Bureau of
Labor Statistics Standard Occupational Classification, or SOC):

• Laborers and Freight, Stock, and Material Movers, Hand
• Accountants and Auditors
• Software Developers, Systems Software
• Occupational Therapists
• General and Operations Managers
• Computer Systems Analysts
• Pharmacy Technicians
• First-line Supervisors of Retail Sales Workers
• Cashiers
• Registered Nurses

[IrvAdams]

High tech job numbers have increased dramatically over the last twenty years or so. It's a great area if your skill sets and training are suited. It's also a product of which this country is still the driving producer.

[mtraininjax]

High tech job numbers have increased dramatically over the last twenty years or so. It's a great area if your skill sets and training are suited. It's also a product of which this country is still the driving producer.

High Tech jobs are only in demand when there is tremendous INNOVATION. You have to take a GOOD idea and make it GREAT. The recession has hurt INNOVATION, we are seeing a slow comeback, but people only innovate when they have comfort around them, a roof over their head and comfort for the family. We still have a long way to go in this recovery. What is the latest and greatest product from Apple? Is it something you have to have, or can you wait a year? Did Jobs die and kill off Innovation in the greatest innovative company we have ever known?

[IrvAdams]

High tech job numbers have increased dramatically over the last twenty years or so. It's a great area if your skill sets and training are suited. It's also a product of which this country is still the driving producer.

High Tech jobs are only in demand when there is tremendous INNOVATION. You have to take a GOOD idea and make it GREAT. The recession has hurt INNOVATION, we are seeing a slow comeback, but people only innovate when they have comfort around them, a roof over their head and comfort for the family. We still have a long way to go in this recovery. What is the latest and greatest product from Apple? Is it something you have to have, or can you wait a year? Did Jobs die and kill off Innovation in the greatest innovative company we have ever known?

Indeed. All creature comforts come first in any society. If someone is hungry or has issues with shelter then innovation and invention is not in their scope. And of course, some people are meant for pursuits other than high tech.

Apple corporation still innovates, but I think Mr. Jobs was a force they will never duplicate.

[spuwho]

High Tech jobs are only in demand when there is tremendous INNOVATION. You have to take a GOOD idea and make it GREAT. The recession has hurt INNOVATION, we are seeing a slow comeback, but people only innovate when they have comfort around them, a roof over their head and comfort for the family. We still have a long way to go in this recovery. What is the latest and greatest product from Apple? Is it something you have to have, or can you wait a year? Did Jobs die and kill off Innovation in the greatest innovative company we have ever known?

High tech jobs have always been in demand, even during the last recession.

I disagree that innovation stops during economic downturns.

I also disagree that Apple is the greatest innovative company we have ever known. They may have been one of the innovative ones recently, but I could name a lot of firms in the past 100 years that were much more innovative than Apple, either by patent counts or by number of significant products.

Some of the largest growth in high tech innovation recently is in health care. Recent employment trends bear this out as the use of new medical devices and the expanded use of EMR has driven large investments and employment in the area.

The recent developments in computing power and mobility are now being applied in other spaces where applications were unthinkable just 10-15 years ago.

Recessions create status quo, innovative people despise status quo, they risk a lot at times to create products.

[spuwho]

Per Bloomberg:

Think the Long-Term Unemployed Have Lost Their Edge? Wrong

Executives from more than 300 companies, including some of America's largest employers, have promised the White House they they'll do more to help the long-term unemployed.

"Folks who've been unemployed the longest often have the toughest time getting back to work," President Obama noted. "It's a cruel Catch-22: The longer you're unemployed, the more unemployable you may seem."

The numbers are sobering: Some 3.9 million Americans, or about 2.5 percent of the active workforce, had been unemployed for 27 or more weeks at the end of last year—and 2.6 million of them for at least a year, according to a White House briefing paper published in January.

The numbers haven't budged much since then. At the end of February, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of long-term unemployed workers still stood at 3.8 million—a tragedy by any standard.

While there are political and public relations components in virtually everything involving the interaction of Washington and corporate America, the companies involved in the new hiring initiative—which include Bank of America (BAC), Boeing (BA), EBay (EBAY), Ford (F), Marriott (MAR), McDonald's (MCD) and Wal-Mart (WMT), will not only be doing right by these workers; they'll be doing themselves a favor.

By giving the long-term unemployed a fair shot at job openings, they're recognizing that many of these individuals are seasoned and successful workplace or military veterans. Companies that hire them will be expanding their talent pools.

What's more, many of these people desperately want to work and will bring a strong work ethic to any new position. This is an important plus.

So the hiring initiative launched in January is not a simple act of kindness; it's a wise business decision.

The conventional wisdom (more of a conventional falsehood) holds that somebody who's been unemployed for six to eight months or more has lost his or her edge due to the rapid pace of technological change. Frankly, that's a lot of bunk. In most industries, technology may be changing, but it's not changing that much, that fast.
Story: March Jobs Report: Not Too Hot, Not Too Cold

Besides, as the White House has pointed out, research shows that long-term unemployed workers have more education, on average, than short-term unemployed workers. Translation: If they need to be brought up to speed, it's not a hopeless task; they have the smarts to learn.

When training is needed, a program in Chicago could serve as a model. Known as Skills for Chicagoland's Future, the "train to hire" program matches unemployed job seekers with employers who have jobs to fill.

But it goes beyond that. Employers also provide prospective employees with training in the exact job skills they will need to be successful in their new positions. Look here for a recent case study, where a single company, Seaton, has filled 250 such positions, with the average new worker unemployed for 18 months.