tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7895164153505105997.post7189857198898648753..comments2024-01-17T00:45:37.075-08:00Comments on Bud Meyers: On Labor, Trade, Skills, College, Taxes and UnemploymentBud Meyershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02065020063363023395noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7895164153505105997.post-16184479452594625312015-03-29T15:00:50.668-07:002015-03-29T15:00:50.668-07:00UPDATES --- March 29, 2015
Robert Reich: Why Coll...UPDATES --- March 29, 2015<br /><br />Robert Reich: Why College Isn’t for Everyone (Sunday, March 22, 2015)<br /><br />http://robertreich.org/post/114356426465<br /><br />"Not every young person is suited to four years of college. They may be bright and ambitious, but they won’t get much out of it. They’d rather be doing something else, like making money or painting murals.<br /><br />They feel compelled to go to college because they’ve been told over and over that a college degree is necessary. Yet if they start college and then drop out, they feel like total failures.<br /><br />Even if they get the degree, they’re stuck with a huge bill — and may be paying down their student debt for years. And all too often the jobs they land after graduating don’t pay enough to make the degree worthwhile. Last year, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, 46 percent of recent college graduates were in jobs that don’t even require a college degree. <br /><br />The biggest frauds are for-profit colleges that are raking in money even as their students drop out in droves, and whose diplomas are barely worth the ink-jets they’re printed on.<br /><br />[After making all his relevent points, he concludes] It’s time to give up the idea that every young person has to go to college, and start offering high-school seniors an alternative route into the middle class.<br /><br />When a Summer Job Could Pay the Tuition <br />http://conversableeconomist.blogspot.com/2015/03/when-summer-job-could-pay-tuition.html<br />Bud Meyershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02065020063363023395noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7895164153505105997.post-69604281984011311252014-11-25T06:30:54.719-08:002014-11-25T06:30:54.719-08:00Robert Reich (November 2014)
"People with c...Robert Reich (November 2014) <br /><br />"People with college degrees continue to earn far more than people without them. And that college “premium” keeps rising. Last year, Americans with four-year college degrees earned on average 98 percent more per hour than people without college degrees. In the early 1980s, graduates earned 64 percent more [but] a college degree no longer guarantees a good job. The main reason it pays better than the job of someone without a degree is the latter’s wages are dropping. In fact, it’s likely that new college graduates will spend some years in jobs for which they’re overqualified. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, 46 percent of recent college graduates are now working in jobs that don’t require college degrees. Employers still choose college grads over non-college grads on the assumption that more education is better than less. As a result, non-grads are being pushed into ever more menial work, if they can get work at all. For years we’ve been told globalization and technological advances increase the demand for well-educated workers. This was correct until around 2000. But since then two things have reversed the trend. First, millions of people in developing nations are now far better educated, and the Internet has given them an easy way to sell their skills in advanced economies like the United States. Hence, more and more complex work is being outsourced to them. Second, advanced software is taking over many tasks that had been done by well-educated professionals. As a result, the demand for well-educated workers in the United States seems to have peaked around 2000 and fallen since. But the supply of well-educated workers has continued to grow. The New York Times calls them "Generation Limbo" --- well-educated young adults “whose careers are stuck in neutral, coping with dead-end jobs and listless prospects.” A record number are living at home. Given all this, a college degree is worth the cost because it at least enables a young person to tread water. Without the degree, young people can easily drown." (MY NOTE: I guess that at this rate, one day they'll need a PhD to mops floors.)<br /><br />http://robertreich.org/post/103472733520<br /><br />Timothy Taylor (November 2014) <br /><br />"The age group with by far the biggest rise in those saying they don't want a job since 2000 is the 16-24 age group ... We are in the midst of a social change in which 16-24 year-olds are less likely to want jobs. Some of this is related to more students going on to higher education, as well as to a pattern where fewer high school and college student are looking for work. I do worry about this trend. For many folks of my generation, some evenings and summers spent in low-paid service jobs was part of our acculturation to the world of work. As I've noted in the past, I would also favor a more active program of apprenticeships to help young people become connected to the world of work.<br /><br />http://conversableeconomist.blogspot.com/2014/11/underutilized-labor-in-us-economy.html<br />Bud Meyershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02065020063363023395noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7895164153505105997.post-78783448579791370492014-11-17T20:17:45.301-08:002014-11-17T20:17:45.301-08:00November 17, 2014 -- Measuring Labor Market Slack:...November 17, 2014 -- Measuring Labor Market Slack: Are the Long-Term Unemployed Different? "The long-term unemployed group has the largest share of prime-age workers." <br /><br />http://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2014/11/measuring-labor-market-slack-are-the-long-term-unemployed-different.html<br /><br />(My comment pending) As of October 2014 from the BLS: 6.1 million not counted as "unemployed" and "not in the labor force" and "want a job". http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t16.htm<br /><br />New York Times: Inequality, Unbelievably, Gets Worse -- "Before the impact of tax and spending policies is taken into account, income inequality in the United States is no worse than in most developed countries ... However, once the effect of government programs is included in the calculations, the United States emerges on top of the inequality heap."<br /><br />http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/17/opinion/inequality-unbelievably-gets-worse.html<br /><br />God Bless America -- We are exceptional --- We are #1Bud Meyershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02065020063363023395noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7895164153505105997.post-29117657550573870032014-11-15T13:54:36.565-08:002014-11-15T13:54:36.565-08:00The Quantity of Labor Demanded is Not Always Equal...The Quantity of Labor Demanded is Not Always Equal to the Quantity Supplied (From reader's comments at Mark Thoma's blog)<br /><br />"It takes almost no labor to extract oil, and the resulting foreign exchange windfall makes local production of anything but personal services almost impossible, aka Dutch Disease. So, what to do with the windfall? Keep it in the hands of a powerful few? Or redistribute it to people who cannot find work? In many places, like Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, the government redistributes some of the windfall to maintain domestic peace, something that Wall Street, banksters, and their hired economists find appalling."<br /><br />"Full employment isnt a natural or even a desired output of the market. It is potentially a condition of the market if the people have the ability to have influence on it via the democratic process."<br /><br />http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2014/11/the-quantity-of-labor-demanded-is-not-always-equal-to-the-quantity-supplied.html<br />Bud Meyershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02065020063363023395noreply@blogger.com