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As an important new report underscores, if that is the only path we rely on, our economy will come up way short and so will the great majority of Americans who are striving to live the American Dream – with and without a good education.
In Where Have All the Good Jobs Gone?, Center for Economic and Policy Research economists John Schmitt and Janelle Jones make a simple and powerful point: over the past three decades, the workforce in the United States has gotten a lot more educated and productive, but fewer of us have a good job. The standard that Schmitt and Jones set for a good job is pretty basic: earning the median wage for men of $37,000 a year and having some sort of health insurance and retirement fund at work. Of course, that isn’t a lot of money, and with most workers forced to pick up a bigger share of shrinking health benefits and pensions giving way to 401Ks, not a lofty benefit plan. Which is what makes the results of the study so striking. Even though the typical American worker is twice as likely to have a college degree than 30 years ago, the share of the workforce that has a good job declined, from 27.4 percent to 24.6 percent. The kicker here is that the decline occurred at every education level, although it was worse for those with a scanty education. But even workers with a four-year college degree or better were less likely to have a minimally decent job.
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