Where will you work in the Free for All

Rosy job reports annoy me. Some of America’s best neo-realistic fiction derives from a one month up tick in jobs. The media looks for any excuse to tell us this month will be the first step in a crescendo of more jobs, but more jobs will not reverse current job trends, nor solve America’s job problems. Journalists and reporters ought to recognize one of America’s long term job trends because newspaper publishers are one of a group of service industries that have 20 years of a declining count and percentage of America’s jobs. Other service industries...

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The Revolt of the Rank and File

Excerpted from the periodical The Nation, Vol. 109, October 25, 1919 The most extraordinary phenomenon of the present time, the most incalculable in its after effects, the most menacing in its threat of immediate consequences, and the most alluring in its possibilities of ultimate good, is the unprecedented revolt of the rank and file. ...The common man, forgetting the old sanctions, and losing faith in the old leadership, has experienced a new access of self-confidence, or at least a new recklessness, a readiness to take chances on his own account....

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Candidate Cain and the Economics of Restaurants

The media continues to press presidential candidate Cain with a few tough questions, but it is time to ask him about minimum wages for restaurant staff. Given his record as past president of the American Restaurant Association he knows about sub minimum wage for tipped employees. The Federal minimum wage went up to $7.25 an hour on July 24th 2009 but not for tipped employees whose minimum wage remains at $2.13 an hour. When the Fair Labor Standards Act was passed in 1938 restaurant workers, among others, were excluded from the minimum wage. In...

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America’s Jobs in a Recession

The ups and downs of jobs usually lag behind the ups and downs of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) that define the start and finish of recessions. Based on changes in GDP the latest recession ran from the end of 2007 until June 2009 but establishment employment reached a high in January 2008 and declined until February 2010. The full decline in establishment jobs was just under 8.8 million from the January 2008 high to the February 2010 low. (1)Jobs increased by over a million in the last 10 months of 2010 and continue to rise, albeit slowly. The gains...

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Job Training and Public Policy

Free traders, privatizers and devoted deregulators everywhere know job losses in manufacturing make up bad news, which is why they forecast new investment and expansion into sectors with higher productivity and more jobs for the future. They talk vaguely of new high tech jobs, always careful to mention computers and computer technology. They warn these new jobs take college degrees and so they advise, “Get some training.” Holding out training and education as the path to better jobs shifts the responsibility for failure, or a menial job with low...

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Wisconsin Jobs and Governor Walker

Governor Walker needs new jobs more than most governors given the controversies over deficit reduction and public employees. The governor’s plan to create private sector jobs sounds like lots to expect from deficit reduction and business tax cuts, but the Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes enough about jobs to assess his chances for success.Wisconsin reached a monthly average high of 2,884,400 establishment jobs in 2007, but it had 2,833,800 jobs in 2000. In 2010 the monthly average of statewide employment was down to 2,725,900, an average that...

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Texas Jobs

In the Time magazine April 4, 2011 issue on page 20 you will find a story “Where the Jobs Are.” There is a U.S. map with a red line pointed to the state of Texas. The caption reads Texas added 211,800 jobs in 2010.I checked the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Employment Survey file for statewide Texas jobs and found the numbers to compute the increase. As Time reported Texas establishment jobs were up 211.8 thousand for the 12 months ending December 2010.(1)Citing the 12 month increase when jobs are going up generates a larger number than comparing...

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Ohio Jobs and Governor Kasich

Ohio Governor Kasich has picked a tough policy challenge for himself, but far more with jobs than politics. Ohio ranks second for statewide jobs losses over the last decade. Only Michigan did worse. Ohio establishment jobs are down a monthly average of 603 thousand in 2010 compared to 2000. The Governor's plan to turn jobs around looks doubtful. In the mean time the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes plenty about Ohio jobs to assess his chance for success. Note (1) All of Ohio’s 603 thousand job losses came from the private sector. Ohio...

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There is Power in a Union

There is Power in a Union: The Epic Story of Labor in America, Philip Dray, (NY: Double Day, 2010), 674 pages, $35.00There is Power in a Union has the narrative history of America’s labor movement from its early beginnings in Lowell, Massachusetts in the 1820’s until 2010. It is a survey, but at 674 pages it is a thorough survey with room for details.At Lowell, young women from the surrounding farms manned the looms in the textile mills for $2.25 to $4.00 a week. Many lived in boarding houses as the mills expanded and Lowell grew to 18,000 people...

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Boehner vs. Bush on Jobs

Back on August 11, 2005 the Associated Press ran a story reporting President Bush’s comments on a transportation-spending bill. “President Bush calls the massive $286.4 billion transportation spending bill he signed into law Wednesday a job creator.” The article goes on to describe the bill that pays for 6,000 favored projects in the districts of nearly every member of Congress. Even though the legislation is $30 billion more than the President recommended he is quoted as “proud to sign it.” Where is George Bush when we need him? Instead we look...

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Obama’s Failure on Jobs

President-elect Obama set a goal to create 2.5 million jobs in the first two years of his administration, which he revised upward to 3 million in the early months after taking office. When he made his pledge in December 2008 the seasonally adjusted monthly average for jobs was already down 3.6 million from December 2007. By December 2010 jobs were down another 4.1 million to 130.2 million. (1)The loss of 7.7 million jobs underestimates America’s job needs because the adult civilian population keeps growing. At current population growth America...

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A Presidency in Peril

Robert Kuttner, A Presidency in Peril: The Inside Story of Obama’s Promise, Wall Streets’s Power, and the Struggle to Control our Economic Future, (White River Junction, VT, Chelsea Green Publishing, 2010), 274 pages, $25.00In his second book on the Obama presidency, Robert Kuttner contrasts what President Obama promised in his campaign with what he is delivering as president. He promised a progressive program of change from his predecessor: George Bush. By 2010, the Obama promises started looking like more of the same.The book opens with a short...

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Michigan Jobs

A Comprehensive Review and Analysis of Michigan Jobs (2,175 words)The dismal state of the Michigan job market continues to be a topic of news and politics. Michigan jobs trended upward through the 1990’s reaching a monthly average high of 4.68 million establishment jobs in 2000, which turned out to be the beginning of a continuous decline. Note (1) By 2009 monthly average jobs were down to 3.88 million, a drop of 70 thousand jobs from 1990 to 2009, and a drop of 800.1 thousand jobs from 2000 and 2009. Michigan is the only state with a decline...

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Overtime Rules

The Fair Labor Standards Act includes overtime rules that define overtime pay at wages not less than one and half times regular pay rates after 40 hours of work in a workweek. Any use of overtime means more work for some that could go for more jobs to others. Requiring higher overtime pay for employers gives financial incentive to avoid the added expense of overtime and hire more employees at regular pay, which helps spread available work to more people. The incentives will be more effective if overtime rules apply to all employment. Instead the...

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