A Minor Musing About Jobs And Salaries

Derek Thompson points to a Bureau of Labor Statistics chart showing employment in the largest occupations in the U.S.

Perhaps, I'm reading too much into it, but looking at these jobs and these numbers, two things stick out. First, too many people are stuck in the service economy.

Second, the chart illustrates why the alleged economic recovery has not trickled down.  The largest occupations also tend to be poor paying occupations.

According to the BLS, The mean average wage for retail sales is $25,310 annually. Cashiers earn $20,370; food service and preparation workers earn $18,720. Office clerks earn $29, 270. Waiters and waitresses earn $20, 710. Too many people are doing a lot of work for not enough money.

Job Creator Idolatry

Nick Hanauer, an American venture capitalist, puts the lie to many Romney/Ryan/Rand talking points. The best line of many great lines: "It's a small jump from job creator to the Creator"

HT: This David Frum post

 

Dueling Job Charts And Old Rhetoric

I've seen this chart on both national and local blogs.

It seemed wrong especially in regards to the George W. Bush numbers. This National Journal post helped provide perspective. Jim Tankersley writes:

In January 2001, Bill Clinton’s final month in office, 132.4 million Americans were employed. Eleven years and six months later, that number has grown … all the way to 133 million. A whopping 600,000 more Americans have jobs today than at the dawn of the 21st Century.

In the meantime, more than 11 million workers have entered the labor force. The number of Americans of working age has grown by 35 million. This is what a Lost Decade looks like in the job market — what a small recession and a massive financial crisis, interrupted by historically meager job growth, has wrought on America’s workers.

If Bush II created 4.4 million jobs, why are there only 600,000 more jobs than there were in 2001? Further, Derek Thompson has another, albeit less colorful, chart that contradicts the first,.

Tankersley sums up why the charts don't point to the same conclusions and points to reasons that this election will solve nothing in one fell swoop.

Notice what’s missing? Any real discussion of why the last 12 years have been such a disaster for the U.S. job market. George W. Bush boasted the worst job-creation record of any president since the federal government started tracking monthly stats — and that was before the Great Recession wiped out all his jobs gains. The recovery under Obama has included far slower growth, in GDP and jobs, than what followed the Great Depression, the only really comparable economic period in American history to this one.

The recession can be laid at George W. Bush's feet, so if he created 4 million jobs, he also lost them. The much more important point is that no one is discussing why the past twelve years have produced so few jobs, and no one is proposing new solutions to create jobs.  Instead, both candidates rely on more of the same. Read Tankersley's whole post for concrete examples.

I'm not voting for Romney or Obama, but I realize that supporters of or opponents of each candidate may view this elections as a matter of existential urgency. These partisans on both sides need to stop with number games and charts that hide the truth.  Both sides also need to stop romanticizing past solutions from either FDR or Reagan. Neither President is returning tanned, rested, and ready. Instead, these partisans should demand that their candidate provide new solutions.

Philosophy Without A License: Jobs And Money Edition

Yesterday, Politico reported:

Speaker John Boehner doesn't mince words.

Let's call bulls--- bulls---," he told House Republicans in a closed meeting this morning.  "This election is about jobs, jobs, jobs."

Whenever I hear a politician throw the BS flag, I'm reminded of the Harry G. Frankfurt classic On Bullshit.  The web version that became the book is available here.  Frankfurter opens his classic essay with a useful reminder:

One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted. Most people are rather confident of their ability to recognize bullshit and to avoid being taken in by it. So the phenomenon has not aroused much deliberate concern, or attracted much sustained inquiry. In consequence, we have no clear understanding of what bullshit is, why there is so much of it, or what functions it serves.

Pointing out that BS is ubiquitous and ill-defined is fun, but Ed Kilgore prompts me to up my philosophical game a bit.  Kilgore writes, "So the election is “about” jobs, but not that green stuff that people do jobs to get—you know, money."  In short, people work, not just to work, but to get money to buy food, clothing, shelter, education, and entertainment.  In short Kilgore reminds readers of Aristotle's observation: "Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good . . . ."

In other words people go to work because the work gets them something not because the work is their ultimate goal.  Charles Hughes Smith adds practical perspective about the most obvious goal, money:

If you go to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Inflation Calculator and plug in $1.60 (the minimum wage in 1969 when I started working summers in high school) and select the year 1969, you find that in 2012 dollars the minimum wage should be $10 per hour if it were to match the rate considered "reasonable" 43 years ago, when the nation was significantly less wealthy and much less productive.

If the election is supposed to be about jobs, but jobs no longer fulfill the function they did 50 years ago, maybe it's time to recognize the political BS for what it is, and change the focus of the election to creating a society where jobs are a means to a better life not an end unto themselves.

Quotation Of The Day: Jobs And Regulations Edition

From this Bruce Bartlett blog post.,

In my opinion, regulatory uncertainty is a canard invented by Republicans that allows them to use current economic problems to pursue an agenda supported by the business community year in and year out. In other words, it is a simple case of political opportunism, not a serious effort to deal with high unemployment.

Before detractors run off and scream about some liberal elitist not understanding the real world, they should remember that "Bruce Bartlett held senior policy roles in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations and served on the staffs of Representatives Jack Kemp and Ron Paul."  Somehow, that resume doesn't scream leftist.









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New York Has Fashion Designers; South Dakota Has . . .

bill collectors?

This post over at An Inland Voyage pointed me to Demo Memo.  A quick scan of posts uncovered this nugget.

State with the highest concentration of...

Pest control workers: Florida
Fashion designers: New York
Mental health counselors: Pennsylvania
Meeting planners: District of Columbia
Optometrists: Hawaii
Crossing guards: New Jersey
Bill collectors: South Dakota
Bartenders: Montana

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment Statistics