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One in Three Young Workers Lives at Home With Their Parents |
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The AFL-CIO and our community affiliate Working America released a major study, “Young Workers: A Lost Decade,” in recent days that shows the extent to which the economic situation for young workers has deteriorated in the past 10 years.
One of the most striking findings comes as no surprise to millions of baby boomer parents: Young workers are so financially strapped they have to come back home and live with mom and dad. In fact, one in three workers under age 35 currently live at home with their parents.
The combination of college loan debt, stagnant or low wages and a lack of jobs and health care is making the American Dream of making it on your own a thing of the past for many young workers.
One in three young workers are living at home because they can’t afford to live on their own. What do you think about this? What should be done to fix the nation’s economy?
Post your comments and let’s have a dialogue.
7 Comments
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Sure they are, most American workers want this. Low wages, little or no benefits. Look at what they drive, or buy in a store. Go past a lot of high paid union construction sites or goverment job parking lots, what you see? A high percent of non union and/or non american cars. No one forces us workers to go this route yet we do. I remember being out of the military in 82 on a min wage job. Yet I always supported our union jobs. But yet so many of the guys with the high pay union jobs went the way of most. Happy to buy what is cheaper for ME. Well the MEs out there are getting what they deserve, the type of jobs they supported for years. So stop bitching and live as the workers of China do.
There is very little hope for young Americans with jobs being sent overseas and imported labor. American workers should come first. This is why we need unions to protect Americans from the government and big business.
80% of $12.50 = 66% of $15.00 = the same $10 federal minimum wage
If LBJ was able to boost his minimum wage to 80% of his era’s relatively generous (as in fair?) $12.50/hr median wage: to $10/hr (old figures adjusted) — why can’t Obama refuel his time’s minimum wage to at least 66% of his era’s relatively tight-wad $15.00/hr median wage (advanced only 20% as average income grew 100%): to the same $10/hr?
Why not do it in one jump as Eisenhower’s (1956), LBJ’s (1968) and Nixon’s (1974) did? Seems plenty of headroom beneath plenty more headroom.
John F. Kennedy reportedly said (I believe I read it in “The Making of a President 1968″): “Who cares if the minimum wage is $1.00 or $1.25?” Yet Kennedy pushed $1.25/hr minimum for 1963 through Congress, expanding its real buying power almost 15% over Eisenhower’s $8/hr minimum (in parallel with per person economic growth): to $8.75/hr.
Does today’s more unequal sharing of labor earnings fairly reflect a lesser need for unskilled labor in a higher tech economy (should barbers get relatively — or absolutely — less)?
Let’s guess that 90 percentile income level roughly equates to the 90 percentile IQ level (willingness to work and opportunity do count as much). The earnings of 90 percentile earners, all the way up to about the 97 percentile earners (and IQs?) have not grown more or less than overall economic growth over the past 4 decades. Who else might possess such extraordinary new productive powers?
Even the low end of top one percentile incomes (and IQs?) have not grown that much out of proportion (ask your doctor). If you ask Paul Krugman it is the ballooning incomes of the top 1/10th of one percentile and especially the top 1/100 of one percentile earners which have absorbed most of the 15% of income share lost by the bottom 90 percentile since 1973: ball players, news anchors, CEOs — many earning 25 times what the same job skills paid 36 years ago (when “stagwagion” began its apparently too-slow-to-be-noticed creep).
If it would be economically comfortable in our labor market to return the minimum wage to a relatively weaker (in this century) $10/hr, then, it should be as equally doable for re-organized American labor (under sector-wide contracts — only modern way — versions in every modern OECD nation except US and Japan) to push the median wage all the way back to the overall share of 40 years ago: to as much as $25/hr.
The minimum wage could then bring up the rear at at least 50% of the resurrected median wage: $12.50/hr: end of the Crips and the Bloods — who will thank us — who wants to get shot and/or jailed to make $10/hr selling crack: the end of the most poverty in a modern economy that is twice as productive per person as it was in LBJ’s time (he is looking down impatiently).
Denis Drew
http://www.ontodayspage.blogspot.com
First, let’s put the blame for this catastrophe on the former occupant of the White House. Absolutley unconscionable what he did to the economy. It’s a criminal offense what he did to the economy and he did it only to make a point to show that the Repub. Party is different than the Dems.
What should be done? To make sure this never ever happens again. If a Repub. ever gets elected again as President, God forbid, he should be monitered as soon as he takes office.
A special economic panel should be implemented to stop and prosecute any president who knowingly screws up the economy as soon as it happens before it gets out of hand like this one did. I would like to hear some thoughts on this. Thanks.
Timothy
You would think that the people who run the economy would realize that there’s money to made out of well-paid workers, as in the 1950s and 60s, but they won’t get money out of us folks scrapping along the bottom of the barrel - we don’t have any. It would benefit everyone if workers were paid a real living wage.
Blame could be put on CEOs, stockholders (including union members whose pensions are invested in the market), all the presidents going back to Reagan, the Republicans, and the Democrats, who haven’t fought very hard for minimum wage bills when they’ve had majorities in the House. However, when it comes down to it, we’re to blame. We’re a bunch of gutless whiners who refuse to take the actions required to get what we need from the economy.
The first thing that needs to be done is pass the Employee Free Choice Act at any cost. The second thing needed is old fashioned labor leaders as smart as they are tough. Then they need to get rid of the dead wood and begin to organize. When is the last time you saw or heard of ANY union trying to organize anyone?
The starting union pay rates are generally way too low and too much former work is being farmed out non-union. Raising the minimum wage is not the solution. The average cost of a home in the mid-west is about $200,000.00. When you factor in taxes, utilities and maintenance etc., today’s wages are way off base.
I’m often reminded of the Christmas classic, “It’s a Wonderful Life” with Jimmy Stewart. He’s battling the scrooge of the town, Potter and Jimmy Stewart asks, “Is it too much to ask to own a home of your own?” Well, welcome to Potterville!
Almost all of the truck lines are now non-union. The ground work at the airline ramp and ticket counters is being lost. The majority of warehouse work is now non-union. The Employee Free Choice Act is the first step to repair this badly broken economy.
Of course the kids are still at home. They’re lucky their parents still have jobs or they’d all be out on the street.
It’s a lost cause unless we restore some actual rules to protect workers, AND stop using taxpayer dollars to cover the costs of corporations moving our jobs out of the country. Any company that shuts down jobs here and moves them to a foreign country should be prohibited from selling their products in the US for a period of at least 5 years.