Wednesday, September 21, 2011

A Good Graph

It's good because it points out the hooey that is the norm in economic reporting these days. The Ruling Conventional Wisdom thwacks the unemployed (as if being unemployed isn't enough of a hit) by claiming that they don't have the skills necessary to get jobs in the New New Economy. They're too old, too uneducated etc. But that's not true. If that were true, wages would be rising in the occupational groups where skilled workers were hard to find. But wages are falling among almost all groups. And wages are falling more among some better educated groups than among high school graduates. What this non-economist thinks is that wages for all but the highest educated workers are flattening--falling to levels close to that of high school graduates--and will remain there for some considerable time.

1 comment:

John Schmitt said...

It is remarkable how high up the pay scale economic insecurity has risen.