SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
A couple of years ago it was reported that in 2012 more than half of all American wage earners made less than $30,000 per year. The Social Security Administration's new earnings report for 2014 is out and there's still much gnashing of teeth about the dying middle class. With earnings numbers that haven't changed much in 2 years, estimates running as high as 100 million working age Americans without a job, and no one tracking the population of H-1B visa holders, where are the jobs really?
The July 9, 2015, issue of The New York Review of Books carried a very thoughtful piece by Andrew Hacker. In "The Frenzy About High-Tech Talent," Hacker discusses a number of books and reports that address whether or not there really is a need for more tech talent, the justification for the H-1B visa program, and issues in the American educational system.
[...] Throughout his piece Hacker is basically questioning two things:
1. Is there really an unfilled need for STEM graduates, or are we actually graduating too many so that many end up unemployed or employed in different areas?
2. Are there flaws in the American education system, both at the K-12 level and in college, that lead us to be very dependent on foreign STEM graduates?
[...] The texts Hacker is reviewing, and his own information, seem to dwell predominately on overall job projections for the STEM fields. Nowhere does there appear a breakout of the job forecast for computing related job categories. With the increased ubiquity of computing across all industries and employment sectors, it seems unlikely that we will see the "deskilling" trend that may be occurring in engineering (whereby engineers create equipment that means they and others like them no longer have job opportunities). We know that there are many jobs in the "tech sector" but there are also a lot of computing jobs in banking, finance, manufacturing, agriculture, healthcare, etc. We can get an accurate picture of future job openings only if we can make a good determination of the computing jobs that exist outside of the "tech sector."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 27 2015, @02:22PM
What everyone is describing is called the total employment rate. Wikipedia has a much better summary than I can come up with. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employment-to-population_ratio [wikipedia.org] We are about 67% right now.
In the so called 'golden era' where people were making the most money the rate was in the 50-60s. But the reality was most people did not have a job. There may be good or bad reasons for that. People can speculate all they like which was better or worse. Most were not there. My parents have a different story about what it was like. My dad I think had no less than 15 different jobs. Until he lucked into a 'high paying' one.
The seeds of the current down turn were sown in the mid 90s and early 70s. Both with the removal on restrictions of derivatives, the employee medical mandates, the increase on foreign earned income taxes, and the real biggie was the home loan subsidies programs. Those created a perfect storm of 'easy cash'. With a fad of 'the internet'. People look back at 1999 as if it were some good thing. It was *all* flash. There were no real assets behind it. Which is why the double crash of 2001 and 2008.
The early 2000s and late 90s are an anomaly. They were a fabrication of easy cash thru loans. The current admin is trying to recreate 'easy loans' with low interest rates. I have sold many of my dividend paying stocks for pilling on huge debt to pay dividends. These companies are going to be in the massive pain when rates go up again. 2008 was a freezing up of loaning so you saw the whole system implode on itself.
This page has a nice summary on how our money system works and how money is created and destroyed. http://positivemoney.org/how-money-works/how-banks-create-money/ [positivemoney.org] The fed only creates a small fraction of the money. But they set the rate at which all the other banks follow. I literally as a banker can turn 10 bucks into 100 bucks (reloan rate). Then charge you to do it (interest rate).
Why am I on about loans? How do you think all these VCs were paying for those sweet gigs? You think they were risking their own cash?
(Score: 2) by fritsd on Tuesday October 27 2015, @04:19PM
The 1950s were a LOT more sexist than now, I don't know how it was in the USA, but in the Netherlands, women were very strongly encouraged to stop working, or outright fired from their jobs, as soon as they got married. They were supposed to be house-wives from then on.
The implication is, that all the normal people in the Netherlands, we're not talking about high earners here, were able to support an entire family (families were also larger then, let's say 3-4 kids) on *a single income*.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 28 2015, @06:17PM
[...] that all the normal people in the Netherlands, we're not talking about high earners here, were able to support an entire family (families were also larger then, let's say 3-4 kids) on *a single income*.
They were. It was possible then and it should be possible now.
a LOT more sexist
Are you sure you're from the Netherlands? You sound like you're straight outta San Fransisco.