There’s been a lot of press lately about how young college
grads are struggling. And they are -
especially younger grads who have seen their real earnings drop 15% over the
last decade.
But that’s missing a big part of the story. You see, when college grads struggle, that trickles
down to all levels of educational attainment.
While the economy has officially been in “recovery” for
almost three years, we are still about six million jobs short of when the
recession began in 2007. But just
because we’re short on jobs doesn’t mean the number of available workers decreased
alongside it. In fact, the opposite is
true – with natural population growth, the number of available workers across
all levels of educational attainment continued to rise, for workers aged 25 and
older.
Now we all know someone with a college degree generally
makes a more desirable job candidate than a non-degree holder – after all,
that’s the selling point of going to college (and taking on $1 trillion in
student debt). So in the competition for
the 2.2 million jobs that have been created since the recession officially ended,
guess who loses? Answer: Those without education beyond high school.
Certainly “winning” here is loosely defined: college grads nowadays
are taking any job they can get even if it doesn’t pay well or use their degree,
hence the downward pressure on their wages.
But non-college workers really get hammered; many drop out of the labor
force entirely as they are squeezed out of the competition for the few available
jobs. In fact, government stats show
that while the college graduate (and higher) labor force increased by 2.5
million since the recovery began, and the some college labor force increased by
0.7 million, the labor force of high school graduates shrank by 1.8 million. And of course non-college grads make up the
bulk of those who are unemployed.
The great squeeze on non-college workers is not completely
new. The labor participation rates of
the youngest workers without advanced education (aged 16-19 especially) have
been plummeting for some time. But the
recession exacerbated this trend, and it has only worsened in the recovery. And the root of the problem goes deep: the
economy has failed college grads and the effect ripples all the way through,
down to the youngest and least educated workers.
In our current low-innovation, consumption- driven economy,
there simply aren’t enough middle skill jobs being created to absorb the
increasing number of college grads. And where
robust innovation is happening, notably in the communications sector, too few college
grads have the mathematical and technical skills needed.
Also at: http://progressivepolicy.org/the-great-squeeze