Dream big, or dream small. But in America, the most impossible dream these days is for a middle-class life.
What’s the salary needed to be “middle class” in New York City? Average middle-wage jobs pay between $49,971 and $71,692 a year, according to the Fiscal Policy Institute.
But good luck finding a $65,000-a-year job.
Most of the hiring these days is for lower wage retail positions or, for those who are lucky and qualified, six-figure jobs on Wall Street or in tech.
With its new jobs report Friday, the US Labor Department delivered the seemingly good news that the economy had finally recovered the 8.7 million jobs lost during the Great Recession. The unemployment held steady nationally at 6.3%.
But the job growth fueling the recovery is tilted in one direction — towards low-wage industries that pay minimum wages, or barely above, some with skimpy or no benefits, some part-time.
Jobs in services and other low paid work accounted for 22% of the positions lost during the Great Recession, yet generated 44% of the gains since then, according to an analysis by the National Employment Law Project.
The share of Americans who see themselves as middle class today has never been this low
Today, the group notes, there are almost 2 million fewer middle-class and higher wage jobs than there were before the Great Recession. And that’s happening as the population has grown by nearly 7% since then.
“I am pessimistic,” Michael Stumo, CEO of the Coalition for a Prosperous America, told The Post on Friday.
Stumo puts the blame on Washington, saying it is not appropriately focused on “re-industrializing the US” to create more middle-class jobs. “I think they have no strategy for job quality — and signs are we’re trending further toward a service-based economy, which means more low-quality, poverty-level jobs.”
The share of Americans who see themselves as middle class today has never been this low, plunging to 44% from 53% in 2008, according to a Pew Research Survey this year.
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics reveals many of the sectors that will shed thousands of jobs in the coming decade. For example, head count for computer operators is projected to decline by 17%; word processors and typists by 25%; semiconductor processors by 27%.
Granted, some jobs are relics of yesterday’s economy. But tomorrow’s economy is not producing the equivalent high-paid jobs needed to replace them in a growing population.
In New York City, the growth in low-wage employment — paying minimum wage but no more than $45,000 annually — is startling. The city added 191,000 low-wage jobs from the August 2008 pre-recession peak to April this year, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
In contrast, middle-class jobs came in at only 3,745.
For example, New York construction jobs paying on average $71,692 a year, shed 8,441 jobs; manufacturing jobs, already beleaguered, and paying just over $50,000, lost 18,000 jobs; transportation and warehouse-hosing work, paying about the same, lost 3,514.
“It’s the hauling away of the middle class,” said Gary Burnison, CEO of executive recruiter Korn Ferry. “There were a lot of people that were displaced with this great train wreck five years ago.”
You are left with the very high-end incomes and the low-end service incomes — and nothing in between
As the economy picks up steam, artificially fueled by rounds of federal stimulus of over $4 trillion, one study shows only 26% of the middle-class jobs that had once comprised 37% of the US labor market have returned.
“We need more of the better paid jobs,” said Kathy Wylde, CEO of the pro-business Partnership for New York City. Gotham, with 3.5 million private sector jobs, lost about 105,000 middle-class jobs in the past decade, the nonprofit notes.
Technological innovation and worldwide labor mobility that tempts companies to outsource jobs to lower cost, tax-favorable countries — on top of an unsustainable debt-ridden US economy — is blamed by some for the erosion of America’s middle-class jobs.
“We are in an increasingly competitive environment,” Wylde said. “Cities around the country and the world are aggressively going after jobs historically concentrated in New York City.”
Stumo of the Coalition for a Prosperous America calls for policies that double the share of the US economy made up of manufacturing jobs, which have seen some of the biggest losses.
“Otherwise,” warned Stumo, “you are left with the very high-end incomes and the low-end service incomes — and nothing in between.”