Earlier this year, the Center on Education and the Workforce at Georgetown University found that 8.4 million (more than 70%) of the 11.6 million jobs that had been created at that point in the U.S. since the Great Recession went to people who had earned at least a bachelor’s degree. High school graduates got only 80,000 of those jobs, a mere 0.7%. “The recovery has been virtually nonexistent for less-educated workers,” the authors wrote.
I recommend this opinion piece from Market Watch attempting to explain the educated-related disparities in the 2016 elections. The op-ed proposes that it is education more than political perspective that is responsible for the intense divide we are now experiencing.
The opinion offered by columnist Howard Gold as strongly argued based on data (my reaction to the notion that everyone has opinions).
Exit polls conducted by the Pew Research Group showed that “Trump’s margin among whites without a college degree [was] the largest among any candidate in exit polls since 1980.
The article also makes the case that this is a world-wide phenomenon. I keep flashing on something Toffler said in “The Third Wave” (a book that is now at least one wave behind). Basically – the early stages of change are not only disruptive, but are marked by a yearning for an earlier time when things were imagined to be better but were not.
I cannot see economies reversing themselves. Technology has enabled globalization and production efficiencies that mean many occupations simply no longer involve the large numbers of workers that were once required. We want inexpensive quality goods and competition will provide these resources. Consider the demise of the family farm and the small town grocery store. You no longer hear politicians addressing the declines in these areas. Now, it is the manufacturing job. I keep thinking those who argue a business mentality be brought to politics would understand how this works.
In the 21st century, education determines people’s economic status and shapes their worldviews. There are plenty of exceptions to these “rules,” but in general the more education you have, the more opportunities you get, and the more income you make, the more likely you are to live in cities and have more liberal, cosmopolitan views.
We all probably have different opinions as to where things should be going. I see little future in consumerism and the production of more stuff. We are at the point that we benefit little and damage the environment by such goals. The world needs fewer workers unless there is something meaningful for workers to do. I see no way to accomplish this without lowering the retirement age and reducing income inequality. Without this combination we end up in a spiral of under-employed people generating stuff we don’t need in inefficient ways.