Economic Failure: 58 Percent Of The Jobs Being Created Are Low Paying Jobs (employment, wages)

[KRAMERCAT]

And neither Obama nor Romney will do anything to change it.

"Are you good at flipping burgers , waiting tables or stocking shelves? Are you proficient with a cash register? Do you enjoy doing mindless work for very low pay? If you answered yes to any of those questions, then you are probably going to fit in very well in the new U.S. economy.

According to a report that has just been released by the National Employment Law Project, 58 percent of the jobs that have been created since the end of the recession have been low paying jobs. So exactly what is a low paying job? Well, the National Employment Law Project defines it as a job with an hourly wage between $7.69 and $13.83.

But of course you can't pay a mortgage or support a family on $13.83 an hour. Even if you got full-time hours the entire year, you would make less than $28,000 on an annual basis. The federal poverty level for a family of five is $27,010.

So needless to say, most of these new jobs are not paying enough to support a middle class lifestyle. This represents an economic failure on a fundamental level. Our economy is producing very few good jobs that enable people to be able to raise families and live the American Dream.

The ranks of "the working poor" are exploding and the number of Americans that are dependent on the government is sitting at an all-time record. Sadly, if current trends continue things are going to get a lot worse."

Economic Failure: 58 Percent Of The Jobs Being Created Are Low Paying Jobs

[plwhit]

Do we have to go over this AGAIN?

//www.city-data.com/forum/polit...low-wages.html

[mwruckman]

I am going to pose a question. Do you have any idea what it costs to create a job for a highly paid engineer, technologist or scientist ? Let say the man or women is going to make $ 75,000. You want to hazard a guess?

I have an unfair advantage in that I once submitted R&D proposals to the US Energy Department. Depending on who was running Washington these documents were called Field Work Proposals (FWPs) or Field Task Proposals (FTPs). 20 years ago the answer was to multiply the salary by a factor of 1.5 to account for benefits (Health, Life and disability insurance, retirement, vacation etc.) then add to the salary, next do this calculation again for overhead expenses (everything needed to keep a modern lab and its institution alive . Just these three items will cost nearly $300,000 in total . Then the hard part, this person is not going to be sitting around. The project costs could be anywhere from a few hundred thousands to a few million dollars.

I hope you can see why we don't create so many high paying jobs if you can help it!