Too many folks let the world pass them in this country. I rip on conservatives because I believe the issue is demand not supply. However, I also believe in personal responsibility and a lot of folks just didn't take the initiative to improve. There a lot of ways to get new skills that don't require a traditional 4 year degree.
unemployment benefits claims the lowest in 50 years The number of Americans filing applications for unemployment benefits fell to more than a 49-1/2-year low last week, pointing to sustained strength in the economy. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped 5,000 to a seasonally adjusted 192,000 for the week ended April 13, the lowest level since September 1969, the Labor Department said on Thursday. Data for the prior week was revised to show 1,000 more applications received than previously reported. Claims have now declined for five straight weeks. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast claims would rise to 205,000 in the latest week. The Labor Department said no states were estimated last week. Claims tend to be volatile around this time of the year because of the different timings of the Easter holiday and spring breaks. The four-week moving average of initial claims, considered a better measure of labor market trends as it irons out week-to-week volatility, fell 6,000 to 201,250 last week, the lowest reading since November 1969. The claims data covered the survey week for the nonfarm payrolls portion of April’s employment report. The four-week average of claims decreased by 19,250 between the March and April survey weeks. This suggests solid employment growth after payrolls increased by 196,000 jobs in March. Though the trend in hiring has slowed, job gains remain above the roughly 100,000 needed per month to keep up with growth in the working-age population. The unemployment rate is at 3.8 percent, near the 3.7 percent Federal Reserve officials project it will be by the end of the year. A report from the Fed on Wednesday showed “modest-to-moderate growth” in employment in a majority of the U.S. central bank’s districts in April. The Fed’s “Beige Book” report of anecdotal information on business activity collected from contacts nationwide showed notable worker shortages “most commonly in manufacturing and construction.” Thursday’s claims report showed the number of people receiving benefits after an initial week of aid declined 63,000 to 1.65 million for the week ended April 6. The four-week moving average of the so-called continuing claims dropped 22,750 to 1.71 million. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/18/weekly-jobless-claims.html
there's been evidence of wages starting to creep up, this is from six months ago though https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/31/wag...3point1percent-highest-level-in-a-decade.html
Given the loose fed policy, a big tax cut (but it was for the rich mostly), and very low unemployment, you'd expect that to be inflationary and unsustainable...very surprised the markets aren't nervous.
When was the last time there was wage pressure. Minimum wage hasnt changed in ten years. Americans work but we are less productive. Our workers have no advantage We live in a global economy. All workers are competing across the globe. This is a bigger issue than America
Actually American workers are the most productive in the world and productivity increases are what fuel our growth. Only a small fraction of manufacturing jobs are going overseas (the myth of a global economy costing american jobs is a myth as proven by the employment rate currently). Corporations are making record earning - earning never seen in the history of humanity - more cash sits in their coffers than ever before, executive pay has skyrockets - yet you are saying workers haven't had the trickle down effect because of the global economy? Makes no sense whatsoever.
“They do the jobs we don’t want to do”...because they are making 6-10 times their minimum wage. Where are the regressive illiberals at?
the only thing you know about economics is that u don't understand it. u need to heed the advise of the father of the Republican party, Lincoln, Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt.
America is ranked number six https://collectivehub.com/2018/02/15-of-the-worlds-most-productive-countries/ But the real issue is the slow rate of growth. We are in a very slow productivity growth period. https://www.bls.gov/lpc/prodybar.htm
American wages still grow faster than most European countries https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/wage-growth
We also have the longest work week and fewest benefits, which is going to naturally lower productivity.
There are a lot of factors but America's rank really isnt my main point As the world gets smaller Americans have to compete with everyone. If our wages are much higher than other countries the company will just move to those countries Its already been happening for the last 30 years
Americans work a shitton more than Euros while enjoying lesser work benefits and coverage. Our culture makes it so that we don't even feel comfortable taking long vacations. Definitely a side tangent but we totally impose and enforce a work culture upon ourselves without any actual guarantee of a greater payoff. I guess for some people, it's to pay off their debt...
My main argument to people upset about immigration is that if you stop Mexicans from coming here to work, GM will juat move the plant to Mexico. They already did. Immigration from south of the border has driven down our wages but there really isnt much to be done. Either they come here or the factory goes there. Wages are prices like any other price. They are dictated by supply and demand. Workers coming here or factories going there either way just increases the supply of workers therefore driving down the price (wages) of workers
Labor is global. It wasn't just Mexico that drove down wages, but the developing world with their abundant supply of labor.
Immigration has always been an excuse for wage suppression since employers threw up signs saying "Irish Need Not Apply". Pop growth has been stagnant if you throw out immigration and even with it, our employment rates indicate we could handle more (preferably skilled workers). For blue collar workers, a union or similar collective bargaining measures is the best answer for increasing their wages.
This is a narrative pushed by the far right that simply isn't true. If our wages are 4 times as much as other countries, but our worker is 6 times as productive - do you think a company is going to move operations overseas? Cheaper is not always better.
The "far right" ? That has been the argument of the left for longer than I've been alive, and well through my life, the "far right" you speak of is a useless label for the US split, as the "far right" is a socially ultra conservative brand of economic socialism (socialist collectivization is the root basis of their entire world view, without it nothing else can follow), and that root being economically left leaning is why they barely exist in the US framework (tens of thousands in a country of hundreds of millions). Of course, they love to conflate the uneducated working class (due to their propensity to not be refined in their speech, chance of emotional or just muddled concepts, very easy to take out of context and demonise, and with no real right of reply, does this sound like any other groups?) with some vast far right in order to avoid addressing any of their issues. Is that mean or median? If those numbers ran along a normalized distribution for median, it would put at risk about 15% of the labor force (mean would be higher) and since living costs have a lot less variance, those caught out are quite a considerable volume of people.... But then they don't even do that, different industries have very different outputs, it's a complete misapplication of the statistic, the average productivity of a worker in this context is more misleading than useful, a macroeconomic statistic applied to a finance problem.. For manufacturing they're never going to get close to that sort of disparity except in maybe some very specialised products (and even then the main limitations are incumbency and logistics, not productivity), so yeah, without some form of protectionist measures, they're going to be perpetually at risk with the direction being a one way trend. The calculation is gdp/labor hours, it's not really what one thinks of as "productivity", but that people do think that serves a purpose, gdp has never been a useful measurement to non capital, and no one thinks they'll be moving finance industries or the like to cheaper countries.
