[NV Greens] Fwd: The Young and the Jobless

[Paul Etxeberri]

>
>
>The Young and the Jobless
>
>By Bob Herbert
>The New York Times
>May 12, 2005
>
>
>There were high fives at the White House last week when
>the latest monthly employment report showed that
>274,000 jobs had been created in April, substantially
>more than experts had predicted.
>
>The employment bar has been set so low for the Bush
>administration that even a modest gain is cause for
>celebration. But we shouldn't be blinded by the flash
>of last Saturday's headlines. American workers,
>especially younger workers, remain stuck in a gloomy
>employment landscape.
>
>For example, a recent report from the Center for Labor
>Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston
>tells us that the employment rate for the nation's
>teenagers in the first 11 months of 2004 - just 36.3
>percent - was the lowest it has ever been since the
>federal government began tracking teenage employment in
>1948.
>
>Those 20 to 24 years old are also faring poorly. In
>2000, 72.2 percent were employed during a typical
>month. By last year that percentage had dropped to 67.9
>percent.
>
>Even the recent modest surge in jobs has essentially
>bypassed young American workers. Gains among recently
>arrived immigrants seem to have accounted for the
>entire net increase in jobs from 2000 through 2004.
>
>Over all, only workers 55 and up have done reasonably
>well over the past few years. "Younger workers," said
>Andrew Sum, the center's director, "have just been
>crushed."
>
>Whatever the politicians and the business-booster types
>may be saying, the simple truth is that there are not
>nearly enough jobs available for the many millions of
>out-of-work or underworked men and women who need them.
>The wages of those who are employed are not even
>keeping up with inflation.
>
>Workers have been so cowed by an environment in which
>they are so obviously dispensable that they have been
>afraid to ask for the raises they deserve, or for their
>share of the money derived from the remarkable
>increases in worker productivity over the past few
>years. And from one coast to the other, workers have
>swallowed draconian cuts in benefits with scarcely a
>whimper.
>
>Some segments of the population have been all but
>completely frozen out. In Chicago, only one of every 10
>black teenagers found employment in 2004. In Illinois,
>fewer than one in every three teenage high school
>dropouts are working.
>
>Last month's increase of 274,000 jobs was barely enough
>to keep up with the increase in the nation's working-
>age population.
>
>"The economy is growing and real output is up," said
>Mr. Sum, who is also a professor at Northeastern. "But
>the distribution of income, in terms of how much is
>going to workers - well, the answer is very little has
>gone to the typical worker."
>
>The squeeze on the younger generation of workers is so
>tight that in many cases the young men and women of
>today are faring less well than their parents'
>generation did at a similar age. Professor Sum has been
>comparing the standard of living of contemporary
>families with that of comparable families three decades
>ago.
>
>"Two-thirds of this generation are not living up to
>their parents' standard of living," he said.
>
>College graduates today are doing better in real
>economic terms than college graduates in the 1970's.
>But everyone else is doing less well. "If you look at
>families headed by someone without a college degree,"
>said Professor Sum, "their income last year in real
>terms was below that of a comparable family in 1973.
>For dropouts it's like 25 percent below where it was.
>And for high school grads, about 15 to 20 percent
>below."
>
>It shouldn't be surprising that the standard of living
>of large segments of the population is sinking when
>employers have all the clout, including the powerful
>and unwavering support of the federal government.
>Workers can't even get a modest increase in the
>national minimum wage.
>
>Globalization was supposed to be great for everyone.
>Nafta was supposed to be a boon. Increased productivity
>was supposed to be the ultimate tool - the sine qua non
>- for raising the standard of living for all.
>
>Instead, wealth and power in the United States has
>become ever more dangerously concentrated, leaving an
>entire generation of essentially powerless workers
>largely at the mercy of employers.
>
>A remark by Louis Brandeis comes to mind: "We can have
>democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth
>concentrated in the hands of a few. But we can't have
>both."
>
>E-mail: bobherb at nytimes.com
>
>http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/12/opinion/12herbert.htm
>l?hp
>
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-- 
Paul Etxeberri

"Forests precede civilizations and deserts follow"   ---Chateaubriand