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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: 2) by Non Sequor on Tuesday October 27 2015, @03:10PM
Calling it 100,000,000 unemployed is retarded. For one, I'm fairly sure taking 100% minus the labor force participation rate gives you a figure that already includes the official unemployment rate. Adding the official unemployment rate to a non participation rate is double dipping.
Second, in consumer expenditure survey data, in any age range, more people who aren't actively working give their reasons for not working as "staying at home", "in school", "disability or other health issues", and "retired" than give an answer of "unemployed". These categories are always larger than unemployment. I am not aware that they are particularly unusual at this time given that most of the drop in the participation rate can be explained by the baby boomer bulge in the population distribution hitting ages that have historically had lower workforce participation.
This isn't to say that everyone who has found themselves in the role of "stay at home mom/dad", "disability", or "retired" has done so by active choice in lieu of employment. However, that's always been the case. There's always some flow between these categories and the workforce due to the tension between people pursuing more income or settling into a non-income generating life pattern.
Write your congressman. Tell him he sucks.