9 ms·

Job polarisation and the decline of middle-class workers’ wages

37 points by ghosh 13y ago

lutusp 13y ago
I was planning to chastise the poster for not simply copying the original article's title and therefore misspelling "inequality", but then I followed the link and discovered that Reuters spelled it wrong too. What's the world coming to when professional journalists can't spell common words?
- TrainedMonkey 13y ago
  I like to call it morning.
  - ItendToDisagree 13y ago
    Being an editor for Reuters must be tough... Working spell check and all. :D
    - spikels 13y ago
      Reuters fired some their editorial staff just last fall and there have been many similar layoffs in the past. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/04/business/media/reuters-plans-to-lay-off-newsroom-staff.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/04/business/media/reuters-pla...
      - ChuckMcM 13y ago
        Apparently Editor is a 'middle skill' job :-)
      - gaius 13y ago
        Reuters isn't what it used to be, since it got bought out by Thompson. It used to take the long view, now it's like any other corporation, all that matters are the quarterly figures. Why? Well the decline started when they broke with tradition and appointed a CEO who hadn't worked his way up through the ranks...
- smartistone 13y ago
  define professional
ItendToDisagree 13y ago
I'm baffled that Managerial work is lumped into High-Skill jobs... Easily 80% of managers I've met/worked for have been decidedly low skill. Especially when compared with engineers, research scientists, programmers, designers, etc
- Loughla 13y ago
  I like making up statistics, too. 50% of the engineers I've met don't really do enough to earn their salary. How's that one? Good management requires a vast amount of skill, whether that's technical or soft skills. Good managers keep you doing your work, and reduce your distractions without you even noticing. Your statement should read, "Easily 80% of the managers I've met/worked for have been BAD". See the difference?
  - ItendToDisagree 13y ago
    Is it 'making up statistics' when you give an opinion based on your own personal anecdotal evidence and say as much in the sentence? I understand your attempt to be provocative with your comment, but I don't see even what you said as making up a statistic, unless of course it is untrue in your experience and you literally just made it up. Fair enough on the rewording but I'd hardly call management high-skill labor akin to the examples I mentioned.
    - bjelkeman-again 13y ago
      I don't know. Managing takes as much skill as anything I have done in my career, but there is no good way of learning it than on the job IMHO. Not saying all managers are well skilled, but saying it is a low skill job is to me grossly misleading.
      - ItendToDisagree 13y ago
        Fair enough, I could see that. I was mostly thinking of it in terms of learned skills, rather than human relations/leadership/politics skills, which I've always felt are more of a thing that people have, or do not have. I probably shouldn't say its a low-skill or brainless job (in general... though I do often get that feeling from mangers), but I just personally never put it in the class of highly-skilled jobs. Edit: I guess that I've always just placed it as more of a 'ladder climber' type of job than a highly skilled worker type of job. But to be totally fair that is likely due to my experiences. :)
guylhem 13y ago
Additional question : why should we care about income inequality? The post WW2 area had less income inequality because the world economy had been torn apart. We are now just going back to pre WW1 rates - ie basically reaching the point where we were before 2 world wars destroyed so much wealth.
- mkr-hn 13y ago
  WW2 happened because an angry failed artist convinced some people that inequality should be solved by force.
  - MrZongle2 13y ago
    In part, yes. But that angry failed artist came to power by blaming the disastrous economic conditions on a) the victorious powers of WWI for imposing crippling penalties upon Germany, b) the existing government and their predecessors for accepting and adhering to these conditions, and c) certain groups within Germany for "exploiting" the situation.
  - 21echoes 13y ago
    .... in what world did Hitler want to solve income inequality?
  - vor_ 13y ago
    Yes, Hitler was well-known for treating people equally.
- ItendToDisagree 13y ago
  Because income inequality causes all sorts of issues (haves/have nots, concentration of power, etc) Regarding the difference between pre-WWI and Post-WWII income inequality it seems pretty disingenuous to claim (if you were) that the times (then and now) are similar in economic terms, not to mention quality of life. Between the 50s and 80s or so there was still great growth (for Americans at least) but much less income inequality. Some may argue that constituted a 'sweet spot' in terms of balancing growth with income inequality. There is some interesting information at the below link regarding the time period following WWII http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=3629 http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=3629
spikels 13y ago
Ah so "What we know about income inequaliy(sic)" is "routinisation" is to blame. This is yet another sloppy, cut and paste job by Reuters of a single researcher's blog post based on his unpublished working paper. Not worth reading unless you have already read most of the academic research on the subject.
- asgard1024 13y ago
  So what do you recommend we should read?
  - spikels 13y ago
    Assuming you have a basic education in economics and statistics I would dive into the academic research. Just keep in mind that like everyone else, academics have biases of various kinds (e.g. Thomas Piketty is pretty far left) and inequality is a very controversial and political issue. It is best to look to the data and get multiple interpretations. Unfortunately you can't rely on reporters who are even less informed and just as biased. Lastly keep in mind nobody may know the answer to these important questions as the system is very complex and dynamic and the data we have is not very good. Here's a variety of links to get started but you should dig into the references: http://economics-exposed.com/how-arec/ http://economics-exposed.com/how-arec/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_inequality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_inequality http://www.equality-of-opportunity.org/ http://www.equality-of-opportunity.org/ http://ntj.tax.org/wwtax/ntjrec.nsf/009a9a91c225e83d852567ed006212d8/30212f14664082b1852579b5006904e1/$FILE/A01_Larrimore.pdf http://ntj.tax.org/wwtax/ntjrec.nsf/009a9a91c225e83d852567ed...
ChuckMcM 13y ago
I can't really get my head around the fundamental premise in this research, which is that 'skill difficulty' is some sort of baked in thing. Many four year college graduates today have more mathematics than a professor of mathematics had 100 years ago. Did the 'math skill' go from 'high skill' to 'middle skill'? Most of the things I've read is that people have the 'wrong' skills, so if you have the 'correct' skills you are in a minority, sought after and can demand higher wages, if you have the 'wrong' skills you are competing with everyone else for anything available, which runs the gamut from 'no skills' to 'easily acquired quickly' skills. An interesting question for me is how people change their skill sets over time. I am familiar with engineers who 'stopped learning' and when the industry had moved past the technologies they were skilled in, they became unemployed and stayed that way until they developed new skills. And in that vein it would be interesting to know what is the rate of change in demanded skills vs their time to acquire. We take kids out of high school and turn them into software engineers with fours years of engineering curriculum (which could easily be done in 2 years if you skipped all the general Ed classes. 128 units of which 64 are in your major? Seems like a testable hypothesis.) There are jobs where you need a Ph.D (or MD, or JD) so that skill set is takes a bit more than 2 years to acquire (6 - 8 depending). I don't see skills as this thing you get between the ages of 18 and 22 and the forever and ever after you either use them or die. So I can't really agree with the premise that 'middle skill' job loss means anything.
- NTDF9 13y ago
  As much as I am happy that my profession pays well, it is unreasonable to think everyone has the ability to do what we do. Adapting to skills beyond your domain is really hard, especially when you are aging. Here's a scenario. Let's say that US loses it's energy supply (due to any fictional reason you can imagine). Who do you think is going to be in demand? No, no no kids...it's not going to be us programmers. The demand will be for the physically abled. The guys who can lift and ship without breaking too much sweat. Different environment, different demands. We are just plain lucky to be in the workforce today and to have an interest (and aptitude) in tech stuff. For society to function, everyone needs to have a reasonable chance at having the ability to live.
  - 13y ago
smartistone 13y ago
No great stagnation in Bay Area and other innovation capitals of the world. Facebook (FB) keeps making new highs. Now is a great time to be an economist, coder, real estate investor, self-actualizer, speculator, etc. Not so great if you graduated in a non stem major with mountains of debt. Josh Brown debunks this 1929 comparison chart http://www.thereformedbroker.com/2014/02/13/the-chart-that-wouldnt-die http://www.thereformedbroker.com/2014/02/13/the-chart-that-w... Stocks will keep going up along with Bay Area real estate prices (especially Palo Alto and Athlerton. Nerds are the ones making all the money in this new era while being showered with accolades by the media for the innovations they bring to society.
VladRussian2 13y ago
>First, the number of well-paid middle-skill jobs in manufacturing and clerical occupations has decreased substantially since the mid-1980s. in all these articles/analysis replace the middle-skill jobs in manufacturing with the programming/IT jobs - the middle-skill jobs of today - and you'd hardly find any decline

37 points by ghosh 13y ago

I was planning to chastise the poster for not simply copying the original article's title and therefore misspelling "inequality", but then I followed the link and discovered that Reuters spelled it wrong too. What's the world coming to when professional journalists can't spell common words?

TrainedMonkey 13y ago
I like to call it morning.
- ItendToDisagree 13y ago
  Being an editor for Reuters must be tough... Working spell check and all. :D
  - spikels 13y ago
    Reuters fired some their editorial staff just last fall and there have been many similar layoffs in the past. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/04/business/media/reuters-plans-to-lay-off-newsroom-staff.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/04/business/media/reuters-pla...
    - ChuckMcM 13y ago
      Apparently Editor is a 'middle skill' job :-)
    - gaius 13y ago
      Reuters isn't what it used to be, since it got bought out by Thompson. It used to take the long view, now it's like any other corporation, all that matters are the quarterly figures. Why? Well the decline started when they broke with tradition and appointed a CEO who hadn't worked his way up through the ranks...
smartistone 13y ago
define professional

ItendToDisagree 13y ago

I'm baffled that Managerial work is lumped into High-Skill jobs... Easily 80% of managers I've met/worked for have been decidedly low skill. Especially when compared with engineers, research scientists, programmers, designers, etc

Loughla 13y ago
I like making up statistics, too. 50% of the engineers I've met don't really do enough to earn their salary. How's that one? Good management requires a vast amount of skill, whether that's technical or soft skills. Good managers keep you doing your work, and reduce your distractions without you even noticing. Your statement should read, "Easily 80% of the managers I've met/worked for have been BAD". See the difference?
- ItendToDisagree 13y ago
  Is it 'making up statistics' when you give an opinion based on your own personal anecdotal evidence and say as much in the sentence? I understand your attempt to be provocative with your comment, but I don't see even what you said as making up a statistic, unless of course it is untrue in your experience and you literally just made it up. Fair enough on the rewording but I'd hardly call management high-skill labor akin to the examples I mentioned.
  - bjelkeman-again 13y ago
    I don't know. Managing takes as much skill as anything I have done in my career, but there is no good way of learning it than on the job IMHO. Not saying all managers are well skilled, but saying it is a low skill job is to me grossly misleading.
    - ItendToDisagree 13y ago
      Fair enough, I could see that. I was mostly thinking of it in terms of learned skills, rather than human relations/leadership/politics skills, which I've always felt are more of a thing that people have, or do not have. I probably shouldn't say its a low-skill or brainless job (in general... though I do often get that feeling from mangers), but I just personally never put it in the class of highly-skilled jobs. Edit: I guess that I've always just placed it as more of a 'ladder climber' type of job than a highly skilled worker type of job. But to be totally fair that is likely due to my experiences. :)

guylhem 13y ago

Additional question : why should we care about income inequality? The post WW2 area had less income inequality because the world economy had been torn apart. We are now just going back to pre WW1 rates - ie basically reaching the point where we were before 2 world wars destroyed so much wealth.

mkr-hn 13y ago
WW2 happened because an angry failed artist convinced some people that inequality should be solved by force.
- MrZongle2 13y ago
  In part, yes. But that angry failed artist came to power by blaming the disastrous economic conditions on a) the victorious powers of WWI for imposing crippling penalties upon Germany, b) the existing government and their predecessors for accepting and adhering to these conditions, and c) certain groups within Germany for "exploiting" the situation.
- 21echoes 13y ago
  .... in what world did Hitler want to solve income inequality?
- vor_ 13y ago
  Yes, Hitler was well-known for treating people equally.
ItendToDisagree 13y ago
Because income inequality causes all sorts of issues (haves/have nots, concentration of power, etc) Regarding the difference between pre-WWI and Post-WWII income inequality it seems pretty disingenuous to claim (if you were) that the times (then and now) are similar in economic terms, not to mention quality of life. Between the 50s and 80s or so there was still great growth (for Americans at least) but much less income inequality. Some may argue that constituted a 'sweet spot' in terms of balancing growth with income inequality. There is some interesting information at the below link regarding the time period following WWII http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=3629 http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=3629

spikels 13y ago

Ah so "What we know about income inequaliy(sic)" is "routinisation" is to blame. This is yet another sloppy, cut and paste job by Reuters of a single researcher's blog post based on his unpublished working paper. Not worth reading unless you have already read most of the academic research on the subject.

asgard1024 13y ago
So what do you recommend we should read?
- spikels 13y ago
  Assuming you have a basic education in economics and statistics I would dive into the academic research. Just keep in mind that like everyone else, academics have biases of various kinds (e.g. Thomas Piketty is pretty far left) and inequality is a very controversial and political issue. It is best to look to the data and get multiple interpretations. Unfortunately you can't rely on reporters who are even less informed and just as biased. Lastly keep in mind nobody may know the answer to these important questions as the system is very complex and dynamic and the data we have is not very good. Here's a variety of links to get started but you should dig into the references: http://economics-exposed.com/how-arec/ http://economics-exposed.com/how-arec/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_inequality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_inequality http://www.equality-of-opportunity.org/ http://www.equality-of-opportunity.org/ http://ntj.tax.org/wwtax/ntjrec.nsf/009a9a91c225e83d852567ed006212d8/30212f14664082b1852579b5006904e1/$FILE/A01_Larrimore.pdf http://ntj.tax.org/wwtax/ntjrec.nsf/009a9a91c225e83d852567ed...

ChuckMcM 13y ago

I can't really get my head around the fundamental premise in this research, which is that 'skill difficulty' is some sort of baked in thing. Many four year college graduates today have more mathematics than a professor of mathematics had 100 years ago. Did the 'math skill' go from 'high skill' to 'middle skill'? Most of the things I've read is that people have the 'wrong' skills, so if you have the 'correct' skills you are in a minority, sought after and can demand higher wages, if you have the 'wrong' skills you are competing with everyone else for anything available, which runs the gamut from 'no skills' to 'easily acquired quickly' skills. An interesting question for me is how people change their skill sets over time. I am familiar with engineers who 'stopped learning' and when the industry had moved past the technologies they were skilled in, they became unemployed and stayed that way until they developed new skills. And in that vein it would be interesting to know what is the rate of change in demanded skills vs their time to acquire. We take kids out of high school and turn them into software engineers with fours years of engineering curriculum (which could easily be done in 2 years if you skipped all the general Ed classes. 128 units of which 64 are in your major? Seems like a testable hypothesis.) There are jobs where you need a Ph.D (or MD, or JD) so that skill set is takes a bit more than 2 years to acquire (6 - 8 depending). I don't see skills as this thing you get between the ages of 18 and 22 and the forever and ever after you either use them or die. So I can't really agree with the premise that 'middle skill' job loss means anything.

NTDF9 13y ago
As much as I am happy that my profession pays well, it is unreasonable to think everyone has the ability to do what we do. Adapting to skills beyond your domain is really hard, especially when you are aging. Here's a scenario. Let's say that US loses it's energy supply (due to any fictional reason you can imagine). Who do you think is going to be in demand? No, no no kids...it's not going to be us programmers. The demand will be for the physically abled. The guys who can lift and ship without breaking too much sweat. Different environment, different demands. We are just plain lucky to be in the workforce today and to have an interest (and aptitude) in tech stuff. For society to function, everyone needs to have a reasonable chance at having the ability to live.
- 13y ago

smartistone 13y ago

No great stagnation in Bay Area and other innovation capitals of the world. Facebook (FB) keeps making new highs. Now is a great time to be an economist, coder, real estate investor, self-actualizer, speculator, etc. Not so great if you graduated in a non stem major with mountains of debt. Josh Brown debunks this 1929 comparison chart http://www.thereformedbroker.com/2014/02/13/the-chart-that-wouldnt-die http://www.thereformedbroker.com/2014/02/13/the-chart-that-w... Stocks will keep going up along with Bay Area real estate prices (especially Palo Alto and Athlerton. Nerds are the ones making all the money in this new era while being showered with accolades by the media for the innovations they bring to society.

VladRussian2 13y ago

>First, the number of well-paid middle-skill jobs in manufacturing and clerical occupations has decreased substantially since the mid-1980s. in all these articles/analysis replace the middle-skill jobs in manufacturing with the programming/IT jobs - the middle-skill jobs of today - and you'd hardly find any decline