Last week CNN triumphantly reported that the job market has recovered to its 2008 peak. Here’s the headline:
Not so fast, though.
Sociologist Philip Cohen observes that the real news is hidden in the fourth paragraph. There the author of the piece acknowledges that the job data are numbers, not proportions. The numbers have bounced back but, because of the addition of almost 12 million people to the U.S. population, the percent of Americans who have jobs or are in school remains lower than it was in 2008.
From CNN:
Given population growth over the last four years, the economy still needs more jobs to truly return to a healthy place. How many more? A whopping 7 million, calculates Heidi Shierholz, an economist with the Economic Policy Institute.
Using the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Cohen offers us a clearer look at where we’re at:
Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.
Comments 20
Bill R — July 10, 2014
It is imperative that we fix the immigration problem, continue to focus on education and develop STEM skills in our economy. There will be fewer and fewer jobs for the relatively uneducated over time and if we want to continue to prosper we have no choice.
southernsara — July 10, 2014
Another big problem is that full-time jobs have plummeted. The uptick is only in part-time jobs.
Sadie — July 11, 2014
does the total amount of the population include people who are disabled and exempt from employment, such as seniors and minor children?
ViktorNN — July 12, 2014
It would be interesting to see this data broken down to see what percentage of these "recovered" jobs are going to legal and illegal immigrants.
If it's a significant percentage then the plight of US workers hit by the recession and struggling to get back on their feet is even worse than suggested here by Wade.
A moratorium on legal immigration and strict enforcement of labor laws prohibiting use of illegal labor is one of the least invasive and most effective ways that government could put millions of US workers back to work (especially youth and minorities), and drive wages and benefits up for lower middle class and middle class workers.
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M_Young — July 21, 2014
It really is strange that an article on population growth didn't mention immigration. Immigrants and their children are responsible for virtually all US population growth now. As we've been running about 900,000 to 1,000,000 **legal** immigrants a year, since 2008 just legal immigration accounts for at least a third of population growth.
Another factor is that we are paying for a significant upswing in Hispanic immigrant fertility that occurred about 20 years ago, when the 1986 amnesty started taking effect. The journal articles on that upswing are out there. Now all those babies are 20 somethings that need jobs, but unfortunately tend to be (on average) way below the non-hispanic white norm in terms of education and skills.
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