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That's not about wages, but labor force participation. What changed around 1979 was that workers who were freed up due to automation, were employed in lower pai

That's not about wages, but labor force participation. What changed around 1979 was that workers who were freed up due to automation, were employed in lower paid service roles that's why wages stopped following productivity. But they weren't left unemployed - through 1970s unemployment was quite high by today's standards, we are living in times of longest ever sustained low unemployment.

Animats 1y ago
We're in sustained under-employment. About half of people in the US who have college degrees are working in jobs that don't need a degree. 70% of Uber drivers started driving after they lost a job. Unemployment of new college graduates has increased recently. This hit graduates of the computer boot camps a year or two ago, and this year it hit Berkeley CS graduates. Most people eventually find some kind of job. The alternative is being homeless.
- anovikov 1y ago
  That's only because everyone and their dog now get a useless degree... People should be discouraged from education that's above their ability, no one needs so many graduates. 25-55 employment vs population is now highest on record barring a few years in ~1997-2000 during the dotcom boom and even that by only a tiny bit. Also, remember that employment is now suppressed by many people going FIRE, which was a rare exception 25 years ago. Many of my friends left the world of work for good years ago, all their late 30s or early 40s.
- euroderf 1y ago
  I'm always reading that pensioners, college students, teenagers, and others would like to work part-time but do not find the work, so that counts as underemployment too eh. I think a combination of a higher minimum wage and a shorter standard work week - introduced simultaneously in discrete steps over three or four years, say - would transform lives on a massive scale. But unfortunately everything in America seems to be at best ossified, and at worst headed into the dumper.

Animats 1y ago

We're in sustained under-employment. About half of people in the US who have college degrees are working in jobs that don't need a degree. 70% of Uber drivers started driving after they lost a job. Unemployment of new college graduates has increased recently. This hit graduates of the computer boot camps a year or two ago, and this year it hit Berkeley CS graduates. Most people eventually find some kind of job. The alternative is being homeless.

anovikov 1y ago
That's only because everyone and their dog now get a useless degree... People should be discouraged from education that's above their ability, no one needs so many graduates. 25-55 employment vs population is now highest on record barring a few years in ~1997-2000 during the dotcom boom and even that by only a tiny bit. Also, remember that employment is now suppressed by many people going FIRE, which was a rare exception 25 years ago. Many of my friends left the world of work for good years ago, all their late 30s or early 40s.
euroderf 1y ago
I'm always reading that pensioners, college students, teenagers, and others would like to work part-time but do not find the work, so that counts as underemployment too eh. I think a combination of a higher minimum wage and a shorter standard work week - introduced simultaneously in discrete steps over three or four years, say - would transform lives on a massive scale. But unfortunately everything in America seems to be at best ossified, and at worst headed into the dumper.