Yes, We Need Jobs. But What Kind?

[stockholmer]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/06/opinion/yes-we-need-jobs-but-what-kind.html?_r=1&ref=opinion


ON Thursday, President Obama will deliver a major speech on America’s employment crisis. But too often, what is lost in the call for job creation is a clear idea of what jobs we want to create.

I recently led a research team to the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, where Gov. Rick Perry, a contender for the Republican presidential nomination, has advertised his track record of creating jobs. From January 2000 to January 2010, employment in the Valley grew by a remarkable 42 percent, compared with our nation’s anemic 1 percent job growth.

But the median wage for adults in the Valley between 2005 and 2008 was a stunningly low $8.14 an hour (in 2008 dollars). One in four employed adults earned less than $6.19 an hour. The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas reported that the per capita income in the two metropolitan statistical areas spanning the Valley ranked lowest and second lowest in the nation.

These workers aren’t alone. Last year, one in five American adults worked in jobs that paid poverty-level wages. Worker displacement contributes to the problem. People who are laid off from previously stable employment, if they are lucky enough to find work, take a median wage hit of over 20 percent, which can persist for decades................. snip

[Denninmi]

1. Well, since they can't repeal the 13th Amendment

This is the closest they can come.

[matt819]

2. Would you like fries with that?

Or, at least according to one translation site:

你想与薯条吗？

[Owlet]

3. I don't get it.

"One in four employed adults earned less than $6.19 an hour". The Federal minimum wage - and that of Texas - is $7.25. How can these folks be paid less?

Setting that aside for the time being, the study seems to be focused solely (and crassly, one might add) on the financial component of work, neglecting altogether the satisfaction and self-fulfillment no doubt experienced by thousand of these workers, delighting in a burger well-flipped.

[stockholmer]

4. I would assume that the $6.19/hour figure is paid to immigrants who are illegally in Texas

As for the delight in a burger well-flipped, I cannot comment, as I have never had to work at a fast-food job in my life. The people I do know here in Sweden who toil in McDonald's earn at least 100 to 120 SEK/hour (16 to 19 US dollars), which takes some of the sting out. They also get roughly 35-40 days paid vacation and public holidays off per year, just like the rest of us.

[Romulox]

5. Many agriculture workers are not covered by the protections of the Fair Labor Standards Act

http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs12.pdf

[RaleighNCDUer]

6. You might read more slowly -

But the median wage for adults in the Valley between 2005 and 2008 was a stunningly low $8.14 an hour (in 2008 dollars). One in four employed adults earned less than $6.19 an hour.

Obviously, it is talking about 2008 - at which time the federal min wage was still $5.75 (I think) - IIRC it was raised in two tiers after the 2008 election, up to $7.25, after 18 mos.