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The fact that people with Masters degrees are waiting tables in Asheville, NC does not mean that the labor market is good for high school graduates. That is a bizarre argument to make.
My point being that a good education doesn't mean your going to get a good job.
Here is the best example of what is going wrong: http://www.bls.gov/web/eci/ecconstnaics.pdf
Start with Table 8 on page 52 and see just how flat wages and salaries have been for the last decade.
Then go to Table 4 on page 3, and you will see that ~50% of the gain in total compensation is not in wages and salary.
Then jump to Table 12 on page 101 and see that the costs of benefits has ballooned despite cuts in retirement benefits.
For an interesting side story, look at page 105 and the difference between private unionized workers and private non-unionized workers.
(Btw, check out aircraft workers on page 104 if you want to see what happens when an industry with already contracting wages converts wholesale from pensions to no retirement benefits.)
And the last story is on page 106, cost of public worker benefits has jumped enormously. Now go to page 96 and you will see that public worker wages and salaries are almost completely flat. My first guess is that the difference is the cost of pensions as public workers retire en masse, but I actually wonder if this is more to do with public sector health insurance plans, especially considering this reflects current workers and the constant increases from 2008 to 2012 when public sector retirement plans (especially contributions to retirement plans) were getting slashed right and left.
Edit: A cursory glance through the metadata for these tables at Employment Cost Trends Home Page shows that there have been some changes in how the value of pensions are calculated starting in 2007. This might have a lot to do with that huge constant jump in the cost of public sector benefits, but I am not sure. The standard error on the value of portability of public sector pensions (which generally only exists in state government and local public health and education) is really high, implying that the value of portability might be changing dramatically over time. Portability can greatly increase the NPV of a pensions, because it means an employee can work decades at a low paying employer than transfer to an average paying employer late in their career and significantly increase their pension. Placing a value on those pension credits before the employee transfers while they are still at a low paying employer is entirely dependent on the portability of those pension credits.
Among economists it seems generally accepted that , while worker compensation is rising, take-home paychecks are stagnant -- and that this is due to the cost of rising healthcare.
Less than 40% of American adults have a college degree..either 2 year or 4 year.
Hence the loud cries.
You would think that would be higher since student loans got nationalized in 2009 and the money flowed.
But sadly not enough continue through college to graduate.
So you have lots of HS educated workers with college debt and no degree.
"So you have lots of HS educated workers with college debt and no degree"
Most Millenials and Xers I know fall into this group.
"So you have lots of HS educated workers with college debt and no degree"
Most Millenials and Xers I know fall in his group.
man, that's sad.
i know some people who have college debt and no degree, but it's maybe 1 out of every 50 people i went to college with.
One guy in particular used to trip acid before class, and actually had a 0.0 GPA his first semester. IIRC he quit school to follow around Widespread Panic.
Yes, the job market is literally on fire and we need to send fire trucks over to the job market to put it out.
Anyway, while the labor market is unquestionably improving, the UE rate is just one number. It does not provide a complete picture of the labor market, as it omits people who've given up looking for work.
For this Chris Rupkey fellow to completely ignore that, I'm guessing that he probably has some kind of bias, in the sense that he wants rates to rise.
Not to worry, job market fires invariably burn themselves out.
Less than 40% of American adults have a college degree..either 2 year or 4 year.
Hence the loud cries.
You would think that would be higher since student loans got nationalized in 2009 and the money flowed.
But sadly not enough continue through college to graduate.
So you have lots of HS educated workers with college debt and no degree.
Dropping out with loans creates a vicious cycle where you stay dropped out. Six months after you drop out (or in some cases, immediately), you have to start paying back your loans. If you cannot pay, your loan will go into default which bars you from receiving financial aid again until you pay off the entire loan.
Now, this is the situation that deferments and forbearance are created for. The problem is that deferment and forbearance take time to get approved and you have to make payments during that time. Miss a payment, and your request for deferment or forbearance is cancelled and default normally follows soon after that. If you are having a graceful exit from school like is common with graduating, you can often get safely to a deferment before default. But if you drop out suddenly, leaving withdrawals and cancelled aid packages in your wake, you are probably going to lose the race to deferment.
End result is that you are pretty much barred from returning to school until you get the entire loan paid off (or can somehow afford to pay for school completely out of pocket without aid).
Yes, the job market is literally on fire and we need to send fire trucks over to the job market to put it out.
Anyway, while the labor market is unquestionably improving, the UE rate is just one number. It does not provide a complete picture of the labor market, as it omits people who've given up looking for work.
For this Chris Rupkey fellow to completely ignore that, I'm guessing that he probably has some kind of bias, in the sense that he wants rates to rise.
Labor participation rate has been falling even during the Bush administration. It's is expected to keep falling regardless of how the economy is doing.
This is the new normal. More people decide not to work - because they don't have to, they are busy with kids, going back to school, etc, etc.
It's quite a stretch to say these group are people "who've given up looking for work" - we simply don't know what their reasons are. I personally know a couple people who decide to retire in their early 40s. Another one is seriously considering quitting his job and travel around the world for a few years. Don't forget that this economic recovery has made many people filthy rich and they can afford to drop out and play for a while.
.
The job market has been "good" for a whopping one month. U6 unemployment FINALLY a fell below 10% only with last months job report.
We now need to hold on to this low U6 rate for several years. Only with that can the labor market fully heal. And many states, like California, Florida, basically most states in the South and Pacific/mountain west have U6 unemployment rates still firmly in recession territory.
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