LOW PAYING JOBS REPLACED BY MEAGER PAYING JOBS!

LOW PAYING JOBS REPLACED BY MEAGER PAYING JOBS!

(FRAZER CHRONICLE)

(All the News That Nobody Else Will Print)

I’ve written about this subject several different times…..and each time I discover something else that I’ve missed. A small nugget of statistical information, a morsel of a story on how someone else in the work-place has been exploited by an unscrupulous employer. In this case, with this story, I am amazed by those people that author statistical information through hours of work on their part as well as those undergrads who have helped in the research.

 

Each time one of these studies reaches the printed media, in this case, an article by Rick Romell in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel using information gleaned by University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee professor Marc Levine in an October 29 edition, I wonder at how they feel about what the research, and write…..it never says…..and as far as I’m concerned, they could offer up an opinion…..in fact I would welcome such a commentary.

 

In the latest report on wages, jobs, employment, and where, as an all encompassing issue, the trend is going, the report, although interesting, shed little light on where (they thought) the trend was heading. Of course, there was reference to the downturn in 2007-2010 with regards to the nation’s economy, as well as the world’s.

 

But for me, that wasn’t good enough, I wanted the nuts and bolts of why wages have foundered since 2009 and 2010 when the financial atmosphere and unemployment begin a slow return to “normalcy”. Of course, I have my own opinion (that won’t surprise you regular readers) and we’ll get into why I think wages have lagged since about 2007.

 

I am a student of history…..not an expert, and as such, I take a slower read on why our history seems to repeat itself. I am not mired in the country’s history, I just think that we, as a people, can learn from it (history), apply some of it to our 21^st century lives…..and move on. As a people we do not need to praise or dwell on our history, or use it for some devious extraction, but to simply use history as a learning tool.

 

UNDERSTANDING THE REASONS FOR LOWER PAY IN THE 21ST CENTURY

Workers have always been in a struggle with their employers and the rate of pay that they were willing to pay. The rate of pay, and workers dissatisfaction is nothing new…..except this time it seems as if consumers goods remain higher than usual. A case in point, the initial cost for breakfast…..a box Cheerio’s is $3, a gallon of milk is $3, a loaf of bread is $3, oleo is $3, and sugar is $1.50 a pound for a total initial cost of $13.50. If you’re making $13.50 at your job…..say goodbye to one hour.

 

If you got an old clunker that serves as transportation going to and from work, and round trip is 10 miles a day, and you work 5 days a week and you get 13 miles per gallon, and gas is $3.50 a gallon, say goodbye to $13.38, or wave goodbye to another hours work.

 

I could go on, but you get the point, by the end of your work week, a person making $13.50 an hour ain’t got much left…..in fact he’s going to be facing more week then paycheck. I’m retired, on a fixed income, and have a tough time making ends meet…..I simply can’t imagine how people with a family are making it in today’s work world.

 

Of course the recession which started in 2007 was nothing compared to the great world-wide depression was engulfed most of the world’s nations. Although the cause’s of that world-wide monitory catastrophe are still debated to this day, several things are crystal clear, (1) there was way too much credit that was extended to people that had absolutely no business being involved with the buy now, and pay later practice of doing business.  (2) There was some super faulty decisions and reactions to escalating unemployment (3% in 1925 to 25% in 1933). Wages of those who still had jobs fell by 42% and the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was cut in half, from $103 to $55 billion, which was partly due to deflation, where prices fell 10% per year. The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act was passed into law in 1930 to provide revenue, to regulate commerce with foreign countries, to encourage industries of the United States, and to protect among other things, the United States worker.

 

Actually what the Smoot-Hawley Act did was to raise U.S. tariffs on more than 20,000 imported goods to record levels. In so doing, the act actually discouraged incoming consumer and industrial goods and was highly counterproductive and contributed to the depth and length of the global depression. In short, and to be totally simple…..which I am, the world tightened their belts and readied themselves for a long period of serious manufacturing, importing, exporting, and the financial strength of the buying public…..around the world.

 

THE GREAT RECESSION

There are similar parallels between the 1929, and the 2007 monetary crises, unemployment, falling wages and again extending credit to people who had little chance to repay what they had purchased…..on credit that was extended to extremely poor credit risks.

 

The terms are different, like housing bubble, high-yield investments, innovative securities, and lowered credit standards. But there was the same basic problems that occurred 78 years earlier…..money got extremely tight, and in fact the federal government ended up bailing out several corporations.

 

As in 1929, today, in 2014, we have a situation where there has been major unemployment (from 4% in 2005 to over 10% by 2009) and the business community of the United States pretty much taking advantage of that situation. It has always been the way the country’s business community has rolled, it’s the great American way…..to take advantage and milk a situation for all that its worth.

 

As a nation, we’ve been there before, somehow we’ll recover…..we always have, business and industry are counting on that recovery…..hell, their already counting the profits that they’ll gather in from the current low wage for more work, and more responsibility on the job, jobs. It is extremely sad, but in my estimation, the truth.

 

Minimum wage, low wage, intolerable jobs and living conditions, their part and parcel of America’s economy in 2014, it always has, and always will be. We individually or collectively are completely incapable of changing the proliferation of low paying jobs that are hitting the job market today. Business has down-sized because of the power of the buying public, or have taken their trade overseas, and import their products back to the U.S. to sell to us at what we feel is great reduced pricing. Ha, ha, instead of paying workers to make a screw-driver here in the U.S. $16 an hour, the pay some Bangladesh .50 cent to do the same job.

 

There will never be equal pay for equal work, or an honest living wage, or a raise in the U.S. minimum  wage that people can live comfortably with until……….?

HAVE A NICE DAY!