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Paycheck Paralysis View the document (pdf) Job security and stability were defining characteristics of the U.S. labor market from the 1950s to the mid-1970s. A large portion of the workforce was unionized, and workplace benefits such as health insurance and pensions were standard. Today, young workers can no longer expect to work at a company with the intention of staying until retirement. Union membership has dropped to just 8.6 percent of the private-sector workforce, and benefits are becoming increasingly rare. Job instability is the new reality. As the economy has transitioned away from a manufacturing base and toward a service economy, the labor market has also changed. Feeling pressure from foreign competition, many companies have slashed manufacturing jobs permanently. Many of the high-paying blue-collar jobs that used to be a central component of our middle class no longer exist, leaving young workers without college degrees in a serious financial pinch. While the earnings for young workers without college credentials have declined considerably in one generation, the earnings for college-educated young workers have simply stayed level over three decades. Faced with a volatile economic mix of high student loan debt coupled with a destabilized job market and skyrocketing costs of living, insecurity is the new reality for college graduates as well. |
