Note: this is a cross-post from The Realignment Project. Follow us on Facebook!
Introduction:
It's somewhat out of vogue to talk about the quality of jobs and the shape of the labor market at a time when unemployment is so high and the obvious issue is the number of jobs being created. This wasn't the case prior to the recession, although rather specious reasons were given to justify the rapidly increasing inequality of wages as the outcome of superior education or productivity. What can't be denied is that even before the recession, we were sliding into a highly unequal labor market in which many low-paid, insecure workers (50% of American workers made less than $26,000 or 230% of poverty in 2010) serve a small number of ever-richer elites.
This trend has only continued since the recession, and it's a problem that has to be solved if we are to either fully recover or protect ourselves from the next recession.