The Jobless Recovery
by NSER Editorial Board on January 13, 2009
Since the middle 1970s — that is for more than a full generation now — the U.S. economy has been on a downward trajectory with respect to the things that matter for most people: decent jobs, access to high quality and affordable education and health care, and some reasonable level of security in terms of employment, income, and retirement. This downward trajectory became emphatically clear during the Presidency of Ronald Reagan from 1981-88, and continued through the Republican administration of George Bush -1 and the Democratic administration of Bill Clinton. Conditions have only worsened from 2001-04, with George Bush 2 as President and the Republican Party controlling both houses of Congress.
Historical forces beyond the control of any given politician or political party have certainly been important in contributing to this trend. The primary one has been the rapid pace of global economic integration. This has increasingly placed U.S. working people in competition for jobs with workers in other countries. To invoke Karl Marx’s famous term, globalization has meant a vast expansion in the so-called “reserve army of labor.” U.S. workers now compete increasingly in this global job pool with people in poor countries, who are willing to work at pay scales far below what constitutes anything close to a minimally decent “living wage” within the U.S. Of course, from the narrow standpoint of business, this pressure on U.S. workers to lower their wage demands is most frequently construed as a positive development.
But even given the contemporary realities of globalization, there is still nothing inevitable about the U.S. economy’s negative trajectory.
Pollin, Robert. 2004. “Deepening Divides in the U.S. Economy, 2004: Jobless Recovery and the Return of Fiscal Deficits.” New School Economic Review 1(1): 22-30
