Widening Inequality in Skills

Why aren't people responding to the skill premium by increasing their investment in education? One reason is that they are rational and realize that widening inequality is due to other forces:

"the most important factor" in rising inequality "is the rising skill premium, the increased return to education."

That's a fundamental misreading of what's happening.... What we're seeing isn't the rise of a fairly broad class of knowledge workers. Instead, we're seeing the rise of a narrow oligarchy: income and wealth are becoming increasingly concentrated in the hands of a small, privileged elite. I think of Mr. Bernanke's position ... as the 80-20 fallacy. It's the notion that the winners in our increasingly unequal society are a fairly large group ... the 20 percent or so of American workers who have the skills to take advantage of new technology and globalization...

The truth is quite different. Highly educated workers have done better than those with less education, but ... real earnings of college graduates actually fell more than 5 percent between 2000 and 2004. Over the longer stretch from 1975 to 2004 the average earnings of college graduates rose, but by less than 1 percent per year. ...

The notion that it's all about returns to education suggests that nobody is to blame for rising inequality, that it's just a case of supply and demand at work. And it also suggests that the way to mitigate inequality is to improve our educational system — and better education is a value to which just about every politician in America pays at least lip service.

The idea that we have a rising oligarchy is much more disturbing. It suggests that the growth of inequality may have as much to do with power relations as it does with market forces. Unfortunately, that's the real story.

And,

Decomposing the sources of inequality involves calculations that don’t belong in a family newspaper, but basically it seems that only around a third of the rise in inequality over the past generation is associated with a rising premium for education.

There has been considerable debate about this, but even if only a third of the change is due to the education premium, the change has been large and one third is enough to provide a decent incentive for action. Thus, even with the qualifications above in full force, it still seems like we should have observed more response to the rising premium on education than we can find in the data:

The anemic response of skill investment to skill premium growth, by Joseph G. Altonji, Prashant Bharadwaj, and Fabian Lange, Vox EU: Since 1980, the demand for skilled labour has risen faster than the supply of skills, fuelling a steady increase in the earnings premia found for measures of skills such as schooling or cognitive test scores.[1] The rapid rise in the skill premium represents a substantial increase in the economic incentive to acquire skills. For example, Heckman, Lochner, and Todd (2008) show that between 1980 and 2000 the internal rate of return for completing high school rather than dropping out after tenth grade has increased from approximately 40% to 55%. Standard economic theory suggests that such an increase in the skill premium should induce young adults to invest more in their skills and supply more skills to the labour market.

How rapidly and how much young adults respond to this increase in the returns to skills and how this response varies across the population have important implications for the development of the US economy. Young adults’ investment in their skills determines directly how much the US economy will be able to benefit from ongoing technological progress. And, whether earnings inequality within and between groups will decline during the next few decades depends, to a large extent, on how those who traditionally have acquired few labour market skills respond to the increase in the skill premium.

The supply of skill In Altonji, Bharadwaj, and Lange (2008), we examine how the skills of young American adults have changed since 1980. We compare various skill measures of participants in the NLSY-1979 panel survey and participants in the NLSY-1997 panel survey at age 22.[2] We consider the standard skill measures of completed schooling and cognitive test scores, but we also look at factors that influence skill acquisition, such as parental education and growing up in a two-parent family. We also make use of measures of the ease with which young adults transition from schooling into the labour market. Because both surveys follow individuals over time, we can use the wages between 1998 and 2004 of those who were young in 1979 to aggregate the different skills indicators into a single wage based index of skills. Figure 1 shows how the supply of skills of young adults has changed between 1980 and 2004 across the distribution of skills.

fig

The figure shows that overall the 1997 youth cohort is more skilled than the 1979 cohort. For instance, the amount of skill of an individual at the median of the skill distribution has increased by about 6.5 percent.

Is the above increase largely a behavioural response by youth to the widening skill premium? The answer is no. We find that much of the increase in skills observed between the 1979 and 1997 cohorts can be attributed to the fact that members of the more recent cohort have significantly more educated parents than young people in 1979. About two-thirds of the increase in skills documented in figure 1 is due to the increase in parental education. Holding parental education, race and gender, and family structure constant, the supply response to the increase in skill premia between cohorts was small: about 1% on average and about 1.5% at the median. Thus, if parental education, race, gender, and family structure are largely exogenous with respect to the skill premium, then our results indicate that the supply response to the increase in the skill premium during the last few decades has been surprisingly small.

This small increase in the supply of skills conditional on exogenous factors contrasts with the large increase in the skill premium alluded to above. Autor and Katz (1999) report that annual wage growth of skilled labour exceeded wage growth of unskilled labour by about 1.51% in the 1980s and about 0.4% annually between 1990 and 1996. This implies that between 1980 and 1996 the ratio of skilled to unskilled wages increased by about 20%. It seems that very large increases in skill premia are necessary to induce young workers to increase their investments in skills substantially.

Our finding that the supply of skills has increased surprisingly little across the two cohorts is consistent with empirical findings reported by other authors. For instance, Heckman and Lafontaine (2008) find that at the same time that the internal rate of return for high school graduation increased dramatically between 1980 and 2004, the high school graduation rate declined by about four to five percentage points. Similarly, the college graduation rate has risen by only a couple of percentage points over this time period, and in our data we find that cognitive test scores have likewise only increased by small amounts. Overall, the empirical picture that emerges is that the increase in the skill premia was not accompanied by a commensurate supply response. This implies that, all else equal, the large degree of earnings inequality observed today is likely to persist far into the 21st century.

Inequality in skills is widening If today’s earnings differentials across skill types persist during the next decades, then inequality in earnings in the population will only decline if the dispersion of skills itself declines. That is, even if the skill premium paid in the labour market remains constant, the dispersion in earnings could fall if the skills of those toward the bottom of the skill distribution rose by more than the skills of those toward the top of the skill distribution.

Unfortunately, the empirical evidence summarized in Figure 1 shows that the difference in the skills of the 1980 and 2004 youth cohorts is larger at the top of the skill distribution than at the bottom. Again, we find that much of the increase in dispersion of skills is due to the changing distribution of parental education across cohorts rather than a supply response to skill prices. Overall, it appears that in the years ahead the changing distribution of skills in the population will exacerbate rather than counteract the trend towards increasing earnings disparities. For instance, all else equal, our findings indicate that increased dispersion in skills will raise the inequality that today’s young adults experience later in life by an additional five percent.

Why is the supply of skills so inelastic? At this point we can only speculate as to why the response in skills to the increase in skill premia is so small. It is possible that for many young adults the economic incentives for acquiring skills are less important than the non-pecuniary costs of skill investments. For these young adults, a change in the economic incentives to invest into skills might therefore induce only a small supply response. Another plausible explanation is that young adults are liquidity constrained or myopic in their investment decisions for other reasons. If this is the case, they might forego valuable investment opportunities in order to protect their consumption while young. This explanation would, for instance, be consistent with a number of studies (e.g. Kane (1994), Dynarski (2003)) that find that schooling decisions are quite sensitive to direct costs of schooling and tuition subsidies. The importance of liquidity constraints is controversial, however. Cameron and Taber (2004) is one of a number of studies that finds that liquidity constraints are not important for explaining schooling decisions.

Research summarized in Cunha and Heckman (2007) suggests that part of the explanation might be that parental investment during early childhood shapes the potential to acquire additional skills later in life. Parents might not have responded to the increase in labour market returns, perhaps because they were not fully aware of the large increase in the returns to skills or because their children’s labour market success might not be the primary motivating factor in determining the time and resources they devote to their children.

At this point, the question of why the supply response to the increase in the labour market returns to skill has been so small is an open one. In our opinion, it ranks among the most important empirical issues facing labour economists today.

References

Altonji, Joseph G., Prashant Bharadwaj, and Fabian Lange (2008), “Changes in the Characteristics of American Youth: Implications for Adult Outcomes”, NBER Working Paper 13883.
Autor, David H., Lawrence F. Katz, and Melissa S. Kearney (2005), “"Trends in U.S. Wage Inequality: Re-Assessing the Revisionists”, NBER Technical Working Paper 11627.
Cameron, Stephen and Christopher R. Taber, “Borrowing Constraints and the Returns to Schooling,” Journal of Political Economy, Vol 112, February 2004.
Cunha, Flavio and James J. Heckman, “The Technology of Skill Formation”, IZA DP No. 2550.
Dynarski, Susan (2003) “Does Aid Matter? Measuring the Effect of Student Aid on College Attendance and Completion.” American Economic Review Vol. 93, 1 pp. 279-288.
Heckman, James J. and Paul A. LaFontaine (2007), “The American high school graduation rate: trends and levels.” NBER Working Paper 13670.
Heckman, James J., Lance J. Lochner, and Petra E. Todd (2008), “Earnings functions and rates of return.” Journal of Human Capital, vol. 1, 1 pp. 1-31.
Kane, Thomas (1994) “College Entry by Blacks since 1970: The Role of College Costs, Family Background, and the Returns to Education”, Journal of Political Economy Vol. 102, 5 pp . 878-911.
Katz, Lawrence and Kevin Murphy (1992), “Changes in Relative Wages, 1963-1987: Supply and Demand Factors”, Quarterly Journal of Economics 107 (February): 35-78.

Footnotes

1 See Katz and Murphy (1992), Autor and Katz (1999), and Autor, Katz and Kearney (2005).
2 NLSY-1979 tracks individuals who were 14 to 22 years old in 1979. NLSY-97 tracks individuals who were 12 to 16 in 1997.

Comments

[Farrar]

Hmmmm, The response to skill premia is perhaps delayed by one generation, by which time it is too late to matter.

"Research summarized in Cunha and Heckman (2007) suggests that part of the explanation might be that parental investment during early childhood shapes the potential to acquire additional skills later in life. Parents might not have responded to the increase in labour market returns, perhaps because they were not fully aware of the large increase in the returns to skills or because their children’s labour market success might not be the primary motivating factor in determining the time and resources they devote to their children."

[ndd]

Farrar:
Or perhaps because for so long people have been trained that to get a college degree is the key to a successful future, along with the social acceptance that goes with it, that recognizing that the system is flawed takes a eureka moment.
I know of a PhD who is currently a flight attendant! Nowadays when I am approached I frequently start off by recommending that the young person get a skill that can't be outsourced to asia. Sociology and data entry can. Plumbing, HVAC, haircutting, bedside medical and courtroom legal skills can't.

[IdahoSpud]

ndd is correct...

And I might add that the income effect of a college degree is possilby negligible (or negative) if you factor in the opportunity costs.

A classmate of mine has a PhD in opical physics and has a decent job. Earning that degree ensured that he would not be contributing to a 401(k) plan until he completed school. It also ensured that he would be burdened by heavy debt in the early years of his career. This eroded his ability to contribute to his retirement account and to purchase a home for his family.

Additionally, this advanced degree virtually ensures that he will be required to live near a facility that has the need of someone with a PhD in optics. Optical physics labs aren't cheap and they don't have one in Paducah. In short, he also has to live in a very expensive community.

As a counterpoint, I work in heavy industry (power generation specifically) and have had none of these significant oppurtunity cost issues.

There are some drawbacks to higher education that are never mentioned by the educators.

[save_the_rustbelt]

So a 50 year old former manufacturing worker is to do what, get a PhD in economics?

Training for what? Education for what?

How does or a 20-something predict what will happen? How do parents provide guidance?

Real incomes for physicians have been declining - maybe they should have become bond traders, or better yet, lobbyists.

[save_the_rustbelt]

"The idea that we have a rising oligarchy is much more disturbing. It suggests that the growth of inequality may have as much to do with power relations as it does with market forces. Unfortunately, that's the real story."

I would modestly point out that I have been saying tis for a couple of years.

[Real Person from the Real World]

I work in IT and I know of a SharePoint guy with a HighSchool ed worth $100+/hr, and at another time I saw a Linux guy with a little bit of technical training, who had also worked himself into $100+/hr. While many reqs start with college degree, ultimately, that can be a secondary factor. Meanwhile, I have a grad degree, and I work for Walmart wages, and have student loan debt it will take me years to pay. A cousin of mine lied about college a few years back, got a job, did well, then went back and got the degree. A college degree is good, but the right training or job can trump it big time.

It used to be that education was the ticket to good pay, but so many people have some higher ed, even if only a few years. One strategy that works well now, is to get some college, maybe at a local community college, and then get a job and complete the college later.... Or to get into a hot technical degree (and be good at it).

One pitfall, are all these schools new, that advertise "hot" careers, like chef/food prep, and video game designer on TV. Will those actually ever pay as well as they claim?

An educated workforce is desirable, but too often now, the right IVY league college is what gets the best job, and those schools have a lot of competition to get in, not to mention how costly they are.

People take classes in all sorts of business areas, but some are still pretty ignorant.... once the purpose of education was to educate the mind, now it is just a whore for business interests, and even the return on that now-a-days is like gambling.

If we really want an educated citizenship, decoupling education from business training might be a good step, then subsidizing it so it is available to as many as possible. But we have to accept that this is a desirable social goal.

[Francois]

""The idea that we have a rising oligarchy is much more disturbing. It suggests that the growth of inequality may have as much to do with power relations as it does with market forces. Unfortunately, that's the real story."

I would modestly point out that I have been saying tis for a couple of years."

And I would add that the data support your contention in spades. That raises the question of why this observable fact is not more widely acknowledged.

I surmise it runs counter to the deeply entrenched notion that anyone who works hard enough can "make it" in America.

[Gil]

Yeah! What ndd said! I guess asking uni recruiters if getting a degree is a good thing is about as smart as asking used car salesman if you need a used car. I also remember reading somewhere about those who bought the tales from army recruiters of how joining the army would do wonders for their careers only to find that army skills don't necessarily translate to skills in the outside world. I likewise agree with IdahoSpud that a degree may in fact be a negative-sum venture. If the degree doesn't land you a job and an income significantly higher than going straight to work from high school than it has to be a negative-sum venture. I mean, isn't a strange-arse argument some people make "What you think? You have a uni-degree and you expect to get a higher than average income when you get out?"? Well Duh! Isn't that why any one would go to university? That lame notion is equivalent to saying "What?! Just because you're investing in high-risk shares you think you should get a higher than average return?". Actually yes or otherwise no one would bother.

But anyway I believe the reason for the inelastic nature of skills is that you have to have an aptitude for the necessary skills. Sure some people are jack-of-all-trades and can be a qualified plumber, electrician, carpenter, artist, accountant, skydiver, etc., but I think most people are usually at one or two skills. Not to mention some skills are related and other skills aren't. Some skills require people to be good with numbers or good with their hands or being artistic yet few people have all these qualitise just as few people are ambidexturous.

[ken melvin]

The world of the abstract/academe and the real world being separate a planet or two, seldom meet; but Krugman in the first is getting closer. It is indeed about selection ans alst education does is jigger the individual's odds. As to skilled jobs, we had lots of highly skilled jobs that up and left. Getting back to the all important abstract, the separation of 'the economy' and the people is an impossibility. Finally, someone needs to write about the impossibility of living in an ownership society made up of the investment class cause that's what's causing the bubbles and shutting more and more out.

[ken melvin]

The world of the abstract/academe and the real world being separate a planet or two, seldom meet; but Krugman in the first is getting closer. It is indeed about selection ans alst education does is jigger the individual's odds. As to skilled jobs, we had lots of highly skilled jobs that up and left. Getting back to the all important abstract, the separation of 'the economy' and the people is an impossibility. Finally, someone needs to write about the impossibility of living in an ownership society made up of the investment class cause that's what's causing the bubbles and shutting more and more out.

[save_the_rustbelt]

"I surmise it runs counter to the deeply entrenched notion that anyone who works hard enough can "make it" in America."

I think the problem is that most people are focused on making a living and family and don't have time to be public policy wonks as a few of can be.

[Alex Tolley]

Note the use of the term "skills" rather than "education". "Retraining" is about getting a skill, usually very narrow to meet the requirements of employers. This is especially true in IT where you ghave to be able to code in specific languages and be able to use specific tools.

If education was so important, why do newly college grads have such a tough time getting work? Why do people drop their educational levels from their resumes in hard times?

[Jas Jain]

--
Unless one lives in a cave it is obvious that in the game of money and sex the advantage in America goes to those who are skilled in deception, fraud, and manipulation and NOT some technical skill. Therefore, what we need are schools that teach the intricacies of deception, fraud (mostly legalized fraud but some bordering on illegal) and manipulation.

People don't go to Harvard and Yale to learn technical skills but to be better connected into the manipulation game, or propaganda machine. In America, we have the rule of the propaganda machine and economists are mostly serving the propaganda machine.

Jas

[Who's Who]

Let’s be just a little honest and admit that the old adage “it’s who you know, not what you know” goes a long way to determining someone’s income level and job security. College is okay for making one a more well-rounded person, but the key is who you meet and the contacts you keep.

Most people I know who work at low wage jobs find their position because of who they know. They have someone inside the company.

Most people I know making six figures find a job because of who they know. They have someone inside the company.

The problem is that the guy making the low wage doesn’t have the cultural skill set to meet the guy with the six-figure job.

That’s why growing up in the inner-city can make life so difficult. The opportunities for meeting a young entrepreneur or a future VP at a major corporation are much slimmer than the chances that a suburban kid going to a state college might have. Join the right sorority or fraternity and the suburban kid’s chances are even better. And of course, the potential for making rewarding contacts is far greater if you’ve attended an Ivy League school.

Education is most important for meeting the particular cultural requirements of a job. One must speak the right language, dress appropriately and partake of the right activities before you can be considered for particular work. Meeting these cultural requirements opens up opportunities to make the contacts that will shape your future.

Don’t get me wrong, technical training is important, but the real “training” taking place at universities is about cultural behavior and networking.

[Don Quijote]

And I would add that the data support your contention in spades. That raises the question of why this observable fact is not more widely acknowledged.

Would it have something to do with the fact that the Mass media is owned lock stock and barrel by Corporations which are in turn own & controlled by plutocrats and that it would not be in the interest of the plutocrats to advertise the fact that the deck is stacked.

[evagrius]

"The problem is that the guy making the low wage doesn’t have the cultural skill set to meet the guy with the six-figure job.

Don’t get me wrong, technical training is important, but the real “training” taking place at universities is about cultural behavior and networking."

You have it right. The "skills" required are basically knowing who the power players are and how to get into their group.

Being educated is no asset is it doesn't have linked with it the ability to be a "regular guy".

Look at Dubya. He's spent a lifetime overcoming class barriers so that, when he was elected, he was regarded as the kind of guy you'd drink a beer with.

[Gerard MacDonell]

What about just dumb luck? It could be skills or it could be power structures. But it could also just be luck. Americans don't do well contemplating luck. Not really a can do concept.

[Jay]

"The idea that we have a rising oligarchy is much more disturbing. It suggests that the growth of inequality may have as much to do with power relations as it does with market forces. Unfortunately, that's the real story."

Wouldn't this suggest the desire for a president and congressional members who are not from the oligarchy, which rules out most Ivy League graduates?

says...

"Americans don't do well contemplating luck. Not really a can do concept."

They also don't do well contemplating....

http://www.amazon.com/Fooled-Randomness-Hidden-Chance-Markets/dp/1587990717

[swells]

This post reinforces my inclination to believe that elites rig the game in their, and others like them, favor. Duh, what's the point of being the elite you ask if not for that purpose. The problem of priviledge is a tough one. It's human nature to like people that are like oneself and it's human nature to do business with people who make you comfortable and vice versa.

I think there may be a simple answer to the question of skill premia not commanding it's requisite share of skill acquisition.

People think the deck is stacked so why bother.

There needs to be some mechanism for priviledge diminishment and I have no idea what that would be in a free society.

[CasualObserver]

Gerard doing a very nice job of channeling Taleb.

Well done.

[cm]

ndd: But there are only so many hairs to be cut and pipes to be laid (or snaked), too.

[kharris]

Allow me to inject just one small notion into the discussion.

SELF-SELECTION, SELF-SELECTION, SELF-SELECTION, SELF-SELECTION!!!!

Why has the response to the increased premium on skills proven inelastic? Because responding is more expensive for some people than others. There are some people who cannot wait to get away from formal education, others who regret their last day and return when the opportunity arrives. Going to school when you hate doing so imposes a cost. Going when you like doing so may impose costs, but there is a payoff in the act itself, in addition to the potential for payoff later. Those fortunate enough to spend all their time in elite classrooms may have no first-hand experience with those who hate school. They will just have to take my word for it.

We have a wider distribution of higher education than any other culture in history (correct me if I'm wrong). We ought at least to consider that there is some upper limit to the number of people who will sit still for education - whether academic of skills education - when no longer compelled by law and parents to do so. I don't know what the upper limit is, but let's make another assumption. Let's assume we don't reach that limit abruptly, but instead have a higher and higher failure rate on the way to that limit.

This in no way addresses the issue of oligarchy. I think that idea is correct, but given that it is, we still need efficient public policy. If we are approaching a point of rapidly diminishing returns to training - either a natural limit or one specific to our culture - we should keep that in mind when making policy.

[roger]

Why is it assumed that an oligarchy will simply guard its positional gains passively? Actually, if an oligarch does value his or her position at the top of the wealth hierarchy, the logical thing to do would be to put barriers to entry in the system, making social advancement harder. One way of doing that is to devise a system of discouragements for higher education - say, taking those vehicles that should be used to create cheap educational opportunity and making them systematically more expensive, then creating a system of burdensome loans that would weigh down even those who got through the school, and would make it harder for those who falter to get back into the system. In fact, that would be quite perfect, and would respond to a potential menace to the elites - a system of publicly financed higher education institutions. State colleges and universities. Which, of course, were originally set up to allow state citizens to get a cheap higher education. If we imagine our oligarchs operating to maximize their positional advantage, another good strategy would be to colonize those state institutions - say, make them more dependent on heavy hitting donors, and make it part of the package to ensure competition among those schools so that tuitions go up to feed that competition - one, of course, having nothing to do with the original purpose of those schools.

I am always amused by the economists assumption that those who have benefited from the system will not try to game the system in order to monopolize the benefits. No, each player is ideally situated in a level playing field, with no more endownment than any other, and we simply ignore the set of interests that evolve when that level playing field becomes a hierarchy. A cursory glance at our political system will show you how that hierarchy gets things done and maximizes its oligarchic advantage.

[lark]

Where to start?

In California, I teach at a State university. The tuition my students pay is TWENTY TIMES what I paid, twenty years ago. Same institution.

It's easy to say..

Another plausible explanation is that young adults are liquidity constrained or myopic in their investment decisions for other reasons. If this is the case, they might forego valuable investment opportunities in order to protect their consumption while young.

Ah, yes: young people are protecting their "consumption", and that's why they don't want to take on huge debt.

I remember it differently. I was anxious about carrying a debt load and what that might mean. I was right. I'm one of the few in my group who owns a house. Students today are anxious about debt, for good reason.

The deal is, the risk is to the student and the reward is to the employer. Nowadays, you train and go into debt and then your job is sent to India. No one cares, no one helps, you're middle aged and on your own.

The deal is, tuition at state schools soars and soars and soars...

If education were indeed good for the country as a whole, there would be a way to more fairly distribute the burden of obtaining it.

If education doesn't matter anymore, because "our" global elites have trotted off to Chindia, then folks like these "researchers" should shut up already.

[bob]

Going back to school to get my computer science degree was the most expensive mistake i ever made.

Financially speaking i will never recover from it.

[me]

"Why aren't people responding to the skill premium by increasing their investment in education? "

Two reason, both simple. STR said in WHAT. No one ever says what to get this education and retraining in. Not for years now that I have been asking.

Second, you can hire an Indian for about 1/6 of a US worker. So, a BS in the US pays $60K and an Indian will work for $10K. If I increase my education and get a MS, I would expect to make $90K, but now an Indian with an MS will work for $15K. So now instead of being priced out by $50K with a BS I am priced out my $75K with an MS. same with a Ph.D.

So why would I waste time getting more education, and in what?

[cm]

kharris: It's not just self selection, but also peer and other social pressures. Much of the time, "nerds" and "overachievers" have been the target of ridicule and ostracism, and I have observed how people have been attacked by their peers for getting better than "becoming" average grades. By that I mean not the nerds, but "regular" kids who managed to score a good "outlier" grade.

In my school class there was a noticeable stratification into "nerds", those making an effort and were presumably supported/driven by their (largely professional) parents, and those who didn't care much and who were after school hanging out and engaging in various time-pass activities but not studying (the parents largely blue collar). That stratification was to some extent mirrored in what kids would associate with each other (not surprisingly).

That was in East Germany, not the US. During "communism", the school administration would make an effort admonishing the parents of underachievers and organizing after-school programs (with admittedly limited success for achievement but perhaps most of the value being in keeping them "attached"), today those kids will fall by the wayside.

Also consider how people of different age groups, esp. teens/twens, have been portrayed in the movies/media over time, as to what are desirable characteristics and the attributes of success, and what the concept of success is.

Throw in a dose of US anti-intellectualism ("liberals") too.

says...

So let me get this straight. People are purposely sabotaging their own welfare because of the certainty of never entering the 99th percentile income bracket?

Much self-loathing and system hatred, even by liberal standards.

[Holly W.]

I'm echoing some others here, but I always wonder just what these vague terms, "skills" and "education," mean.

Back when I was interviewing for jobs, no-one cared what my "skills" were; they wanted my "credentials," which seemed to be the name of my college major and any graduate work or specific job-related courses I had taken. If I may have "skills" which are not reflected in my "credentials," there is no reason I can see for anyone to believe I have them, or to be interested in what they are. This makes me wonder how many people have perfectly good abilities which are going to waste because they aren't "credentialed" to do anything with them.

So just what skills are these that are in such short supply, anyway?

[cm]

Here in the "Silicon Valley" I can see among acquaintances that it is apparently still possible to get jobs via the resume-posting or resume-submitting route, but it is rather sluggish. Having an "inside connection" at a prospective employer helps tremendously, and often is the enabling factor in learning about an open position to begin with, as many positions are no longer advertised but most recruitment happens through "networking". (We are looking for somebody in XYZ group, do you know somebody who would be a good candidate -- but the XYZ position is often not advertised on the company website or through job boards.)

From whatever insight I have into interviewing processes, it appears that hiring managers and recruiters are more impressed by the persona than by difficult-to-judge technical skills.

So perhaps curricula should include formal training in social "skills", social engineering, and acting classes.

[save_the_rustbelt]

"People are purposely sabotaging their own welfare because of the certainty of never entering the 99th percentile income bracket?"

That is a gross and unfair statement.

There are issues about the "what" and issues about available resources, and as some have noted there is not always a positive return on education.

[Bruce Wilder]

Other commenters are gradually making all the necessary points. One would think that most of these would already be so obvious to a Bernanke or equivalent that this kind of cant would be too embarassing to utter in public. That it isn't, is an indicator of a serious underlying problem -- the thorough-going contempt of a conservative elite for the interests and intelligence of the public, combined, of course, with the incompetence and corruption of said elite. Oh, well.

Just to review some points:

"Skills" is a misleading metaphor, for the role of education in a working world of bureaucratic organization producing communications and control.

The cost of college education has risen dramatically.

Averages are misleading statistics, when the distribution matters. The returns on education are much greater for some people -- particularly people with social networks and social knowledge that enhances their ability to "use" education to enhance income. There are lots of class barriers in place -- a hierarchy of "good" schools, a gauntlet of unpaid internships and enrichment programs, etc. that affect the returns to education.

Capital stock per worker has something to do with marginal productivity, and capital stock is not just education. Shipping the factories to China might have something to do with declining incomes. The financial manipulations, which have made investment in the U.S. unattractive, so that investment has lagged at a time of record corporate profitability, deserves more attention.

[cm]

Holly: Formal credentials, and/or introductions by "networking", are the door opener. But at least in technical professions there are still subject-matter interviews and evaluation processes.

One big problem, and arguably "market failure", is getting the foot in the door, not lack of suitability by skill or otherwise. At least in the professional fields, and where employers are honestly looking for people (that still happens).

Consider my prior comment. Many employers shoot themselves in the foot by not making their positions widely enough known because they don't want to expend the resources in dealing with the candidate flood that is sure to ensue. Once the circles of friends and ex-coworkers are grazed off, networking stops yielding.

[kharris]

cm,

Yep, schooling tends to be insular to its community. You do what your peers do. The community provides and supports what the community thinks of as educaction.

When the big western plains states turn in excellent results form primary and secondary education the first time, there is a great deal to explain. The second and third times are not so surprising. The community has set up circumstances that foster educationarl achievement and see that achievement as the norm.

Larger school systems that are not as closely based on local norms can deliver some ugly surprises. There is no one norm, so you get lots of variation. You pay up to live in the district with the good school, then find out when the principle leaves that the magic is gone. Local folks can raise a ruckus, but they cannot depend on their own standards being the school standards in a larger school system.

[Bruce Webb]

Well there is a little too much blurring between the concepts of 'skill' 'education' and 'credentialling'.

Not everyone can earn a PhD in Chemistry, at some point you are going to have to defend your dissertation based on original research. On the other hand almost anyone can earn an MBA or even a JD, you don't have to create something new or original, instead you just have to master a body of work. Moreover there are very many more venues at more levels offering these effectively trade school degrees. Now certainly these lower level schools are not going to fast track you to a top NYC firm, but you do have a ticket to ride in a way a guy with a MA in Comparative Literature doesn't.

From my perspective the 'skill premium' really boils down to the skills valued by the masters of compensation and not by any objective skill analysis. Moreover various industries have established pay floors and ceilings, nobody is throwing seven figure salaries at the National Teacher of the Year, and nobody is throwing eight figure salaries at even Nobel Prize Winners, these things top out in ways that they don't for lawyers, CEOs and hedge fund managers.

Billionaires choose who gets to be millionaires and millionaires choose who gets to get the high six figure income and the high six figure people get to choose the low six figure people and at each stage the skill set of the lower level mirrors that of the upper. Generally speaking in compensation it is not true that opposites attract.

The magical wheel of economic compensation didn't magically come to rest pointing at MBAs as being typically better compensated than MSs who in turn are better compensated than MAs even given equivalent test scores. It just happens that in this country the people who control the largest piles of cash tend to come out of a finance background and so reward their own.

(Tech is a partial exception, in that there clearly is skill involved, but getting rich in tech is more a matter of timing, being employee no 6 is a successful startup carrying a clear advantage of being employee 6000 in the mature enterprise and this is true no matter how sharp the new kid is.)

says...

Well STR,

Of course there is not a positive return on all education. Would you rather your child be 200k in debt with an anthropology degree or 200k in debt with a degree from Wharton?

Anybody that goes into massive debt for their education without a clear grasp of the probability of a payback is an idiot. Any parent that allows their kid to do it is a bigger idiot.

There are a zillion ways to pay for college and a zillion options.

As far as getting a good job by knowing somebody, well DUH! That has been going on since the beginning of time. Ask your parents, grandparents and anybody else over 40 with a good job how they landed it or how they got their start. If anything it was more prevalent 3 or 4 decades ago than now.

It doesn't matter if you go to college or not. Either way if you go to college, you better have a clear course of action. Likewise, if you don't go to college, you better have a clear course of action and spend the vast majority of your time working in a positive direction. $8 and hour and sitting around playing video games in mommy and daddy's basement with the boys is not a career plan.

The 99th percentile doesn't give a crap about you and if you sit around and wait for the government to bail you out you are going to be waiting until the day they bury you.

[Cynthia]

What's actually behind the widening gap between rich and poor isn't what-you-know, it's who-you-know.

And because this is so, a 1-99 split is truth, while a 20-80 split is mere myth.

So the primary job of the who-you-knowers (the 1%ers) is to perpetuate the myth that by gaining more what-you-knowhow, the what-you-knowers (the 99%ers) will race to the top, but in actuality, they're racing to the bottom!

[cm]

It even goes so far as employers relying exclusively on networking and considering the "public" resume process a device frequented largely by "losers". The following essays are lengthy and not necessarily void of truth, but quite instructive.

"Finding Great Developers" from "Joel on Software"
Same author, on how he classifies candidates

[Holly W.]

Also, Why aren't people responding to the skill premium by increasing their investment in education?

For people who already have a job and a family which depends on their wages, it's not that easy to get more education. You have to spend money you might not have, to get a degree in a field you might not like after all (this has happened to people I know), or which might not be hot any longer by the time you've finished school. Going to school while you're working requires severe dedication, giving up virtually everything else you might have done in your leisure time to attend classes and study. Your family might not appreciate the neglect even if they enjoy the fruits of your education later. "Going back to school" is a huge and complex decision, but I always feel like the people asserting that more education will make always your life better really aren't taking that into account.

[David]

The kicker to the whole, horrid joke of an education system is the utter worthlessness of most of the degrees that are "earned", and the sad fact that a college degree today certifies about the same level of knowledge as a high school diploma did, 2 generations earlier.

[lonesome moderate]

"The idea that we have a rising oligarchy is much more disturbing. It suggests that the growth of inequality may have as much to do with power relations as it does with market forces. Unfortunately, that's the real story."

I would modestly point out that I have been saying tis for a couple of years.

So has Krugman; the quoted article is from February 2006. The news is old, but most news outlets have never been interested.

Lots of good comments, but this kind of broad agreement is also in a way discouraging. I wonder how folks like Icarus and BJ Feng explain this kind of thing.

[CasualObserver]

Only 10% of the Fortune 500 CEO's went to IVY League schools.

[donna]

OK< I've got two boys in community college, we can't get them into California universities because they are too impacted. Eldest son is now applying to out of state schools. Younger son is in an age bracket where there are 4.25 million kids his age, now hitting the universities, next year there will be 4.5 million kids who graduate this summer.

There is barely room for these kids in the universities, and less room once there are teacher cutbacks next year. So, where are these other people supposed to go for additional training and education? And how are they supposed to afford it when the real problem isthey aren't being paid enough in the first place?

The article is quite correct, the inequality has nothing to do with skill level. I bet my kids are just as capable of losing billions in the market as those who have been paid millions to do it.

[Holly W.]

Bruce Webb:

Moreover various industries have established pay floors and ceilings, nobody is throwing seven figure salaries at the National Teacher of the Year, and nobody is throwing eight figure salaries at even Nobel Prize Winners, these things top out in ways that they don't for lawyers, CEOs and hedge fund managers.

Alot of these very well-paid folks are in professions like money management which don't just charge fees, but make their income by taking a percentage of the money under management, year after year. Supposedly the amount of money flowing to these people should reflect their talents as perceived by investors, but I always do wonder a bit how much skill it takes to be essentially skimming money off of funds year after year.

says...

Holly, the money management business is diverse and comprises many different levels of services. Not everybody is a hedge fund manager making 2 and 20.

I promise you, you don't spend a whole career kicking your feet up collecting fees. At most levels it is a highly competitive industry and the shelf life can be rather short. Unlike most career fields, they do keep score on a daily basis.

[CasualObserver]

Holly, the money management business is diverse and comprises many different levels of services. Not everybody is a hedge fund manager making 2 and 20.

I promise you, you don't spend a whole career kicking your feet up collecting fees. At most levels it is a highly competitive industry and the shelf life can be rather short. Unlike most career fields, they do keep score on a daily basis.

[Eric Dewey, Portland OR]

In looking at the question it's important to consider that skills are only valuable to a business enterprise if they contribute to reaching a specific goal, usually to demonstrate that the enterprise is improving its financial performace.

It has become clear over the past several years that one of the skills most coveted by many if not most of the world's leading business enterprises is the ability to make the company's financial reporting look better, even if the facts don't support that premise.

That skill supports those in power, so they are very willing to pay for it, particularly if it comes about in a way that affords plausible deniability.

This has been the zeitgeist of the past several years (decades?) and may turn out to be America's legacy to the world.

What people are sensing seems to be that education in our country these days is most valuable to those who are also willing to compromise the integrity of the deeper values the educator sought to impart.

The stats indicating that people are not pursuing education to improve their skills set might also just be another indicator that they believe that education undermines their core values, and thus cannot be trusted to lead to a better life.

[ampersand]

STR
"The idea that we have a rising oligarchy is much more disturbing. It suggests that the growth of inequality may have as much to do with power relations as it does with market forces. Unfortunately, that's the real story."

I would modestly point out that I have been saying tis for a couple of years.

swell

There needs to be some mechanism for priviledge diminishment and I have no idea what that would be in a free society.

It was there. The estate tax. Till the rethugs killed it.

I am all for wealth accumulation. But dead against inheritance. Stack the deck all you want to, by sending the kids to the right 'schools' so that they can network all they want. If the kids can't come out ahead with that, screw them.

100% estate tax. No charitable contrib deductions, no seat for the kids on the board of non-profits set up by mom&dad via 'chraitable' and 'nonprofit' foundations that short-cut the estate tax. None of that 'control-without-owning' gimmicks. If that is not agreeable take it with you when you depart for Hades.

Use that estate tax to fund education for the masses

[kharris]

Holly's point probably applies more to firms (and thus to upper management) than individuals. In any firm, getting paid regardless of outcome is awfully attractive. Finance has developed lots of ways of doing this, at the retail fund manager level and the investment banker level. Trading isn't like that because the two parties to the transaction occupy similar positions. There is less assymetry. Certainly, being paid for services, rather than results, represents a disadvantage to the client, and an advantage to the investment managers.

Lawyers are mostly paid by the hour, rather than for results. Doctors are paid by the visit and procedure, rather than for results. Contracts for services, whatever other features they have, tend to leave the client in a position of accepting what comes, especially if there is a cost to signing the contract.

[Noni Mausa]

Setting the topic of skills aside, what if the amount of paid work which needs doing, is less than the number of people who need paid work?

I believe this is the case. So the question is not how to train people or who pays for it or what training to provide -- it is a fundamental question of who deserves to live, and at what level of comfort?

Is it enough to be an American citizen who has faithfully studied and worked when possible and eschewed wrongdoing? If John Smith has done all he can, does he still "deserve" bankruptcy and poverty when there is no niche in the corporate machine for him? If, trained and ready to work, his job melts away, do his children deserve to go hungry?

A pure capitalist, business focused model of society would view John Smith as a spare part, or even an obsolete part, of a larger mechanism, and the fate of his children as unconnected to their core mission.

What sort of society is it that treats people this way? I call it a feedlot economy.

Francois asked: That raises the question of why this observable fact is not more widely acknowledged.

I surmise it runs counter to the deeply entrenched notion that anyone who works hard enough can "make it" in America.

I surmise that maintaining the illusion of social mobility, the value of skills and education and hard work, is very important in preventing citizens from seeing their "spare part" status, and asking what sort of society they believe they should have, and working toward that.

Noni

[lonesome moderate]

Setting the topic of skills aside, what if the amount of paid work which needs doing, is less than the number of people who need paid work?

I don't think this will ever happen, at least not as long as the distribution of wealth is anywhere close to even. The supply of manufacturing jobs (i.e. making stuff) is finite, since there is a limit to how much stuff people need/want. The supply of service jobs (i.e. doing stuff for other people) is infinite pretty much be definition. For 99.9% of the population, it is always going to be possible to make your own life more pleasant by having other people do things for you.

[evagrius]

Only 10% of the Fortune 500 CEO's went to IVY League schools.

http://www.lurj.org/article.php/vol3n1/ceo.xml

[save_the_rustbelt]

"It was there. The estate tax. Till the rethugs killed it."

Really rich people do not pay the estate tax.

The estate tax is a welfare plan for life insurance companies (selling liquidity) and for lawyers (selling schemes).

The estate tax causes misallocation of assets (see above) and dysfunctional business planning.

Tax'em while they are alive.

says...

"Only 10% of the Fortune 500 CEO's went to IVY League schools."

What's the percentage of Ivy League students to non-Ivy League students?

[Patricia Shannon]

lonesome moderate says...

Setting the topic of skills aside, what if the amount of paid work which needs doing, is less than the number of people who need paid work?
...
The supply of service jobs (i.e. doing stuff for other people) is infinite pretty much be definition. For 99.9% of the population, it is always going to be possible to make your own life more pleasant by having other people do things for you.

At a living wage?
Considering the high level of comments on this topic, I expect other people will address the several problems with this comment better than I have time for.

says...

Patricia,

What do you consider a living wage?

[Patricia Shannon]

It depends on the cost of housing, food, utilities, transportation, etc. where one lives. A lot more in NY City than Mississippi.

[Jay]

"It depends on the cost of housing, food, utilities, transportation, etc. where one lives. A lot more in NY City than Mississippi."

So a "national minimum wage" to act as any sort of floor for livable wages is a farce sold by politicians (like Ted Kennedy) to win votes and such legislation is only "useful" when decentralized?

[CasualObserver]

Patricia,

That doesn't exactly ask the question posed by "says". I think it is a relevant question. If you are willing to go out on a limb and demand a living wage for every worker than I would like to see how you would explain the flow through to the rest of the economy.

How much do you think a Wal-Mart cashier should make in Albany, NY? How about San Francisco? How about Utah?

You can stomp your feet all you want but it doesn't change reality.

[evagrius]

Casual Observer- Canada is as "wide" as the U.S. with about the same broad spectrum of economic activitie albeit on a smaller scale. Here's the list of provincial, ( they set the wage), minimum wages, ( from Wikipedia).

The following table is a list of hourly minimum wages for adult workers in Canada. The provinces which have their minimum wages in italics allow for lower wages under circumstances which are described under the "Comments" heading.

Jurisdiction Wage (CAD) Since Comments
Alberta 8.40 April 1, 2008 Will be adjusted annually every April.[2]
British Columbia 8.00 November 1, 2001 This wage applies only once a person has worked for more than 500 hours with one or more employers; the "First Job/Entry Level" minimum wage is $6.00/hour.
Manitoba 8.50 April 1, 2008 Increased from $8.00
New Brunswick 7.75 March 31, 2008 Increased from $7.25.
Newfoundland and Labrador 8.00 April 1, 2008 Planned increase to $10.00 by 2010.[3]
Northwest Territories 8.25 December 28, 2003
Nova Scotia 8.10 May 1, 2008 $7.60 for inexperienced workers (less than three months employed in the type of work they are hired to do).[4]
Nunavut 8.50 March 3, 2003
Ontario 8.75 March 31, 2008 Will increase by $0.75 per hour annually to reach $10.25 on March 31, 2010.[5] The minimum wages in effect for those under age 18 working under 28 hours per week is $8.20 and liquor servers $7.60. [6]
Prince Edward Island 7.75 May 1, 2008
Quebec 8.50 May 1, 2008 Workers receiving gratuities receive $7.75 & for those in the clothing industry, the minimum wage rate is $8.75.[7] [8]
Saskatchewan 8.60 May 1, 2008 Increases to $9.25 on May 1, 2009.[9]
Yukon 8.58 April 1, 2008 Yukon is currently the only jurisdiction in Canada to peg annual increases (every April 1st) in its minimum wage to the Consumer Price Index.[10][11]

[Patricia Shannon]

It could be based on cost of living measurements, I guess. How should I know what the cost of living is everywhere if you don't?
If you think it should be left up to the states, take a look at the Medicaid requirements in the Southern states, and see why we compare poorly with some third-world countries. Of course, babies dying wouldn't bother Jay, but it does bother decent people.

[mikx]

From whatever insight I have into interviewing processes, it appears that hiring managers and recruiters are more impressed by the persona than by difficult-to-judge technical skills.

If that would be true, recent immigrants, say Chinese and Indians, would rarely get a job.

At least if hiring manager is an American, not their countryman.

In fact foreigners with modest education and skills often get hired ahead of Americans with the same education and skill level.

They will work for less many and will be more appreciative of their job.

[mikx]

Really rich people do not pay the estate tax.

I don't know about all rich people. but children of Bill Gates and Warren Buffet will pay relatively little in estate taxes.

Bulk of their money went into Charitable foundations that children are/will run.

And whoi can be upset if Foundation provides Lear jet and appartments in Rome and Paris for its hard working director, who is one of Gates kids?

Buffett's children already running their multi-billion foundations.
Gates private profits that were made, mostly, in the USA. Why they are transferred to Foundation, tax free, and spent mostly abroad?

Gates saved at least $10B in taxes by transferring his fortune to his Foundation.
Should I, as a US taxpayer, be happy that Gates, a private citizen, decides to spend money in Asia?

Something is not right here.

[cm]

mikx: I did not mean to suggest the "persona" is the only thing being considered. But it looks like fitting the pay range and a minimal required skill level are enabling factors, and the personal impression is what tips the scale.

And by "persona" I don't mean hitting a particular cultural stereotype, but displaying certain desirable traits and attitudes like passion, responding favorably to requests, "can do" attitude, general smarts and ability to "get" the question, etc.

At the end of the day, in most cases people are hired to get certain work done and not just to fill seats (which happens too), and interview boards judge their expectation of the candidate's ability and willingness to do the work, how easy it will be to work with them, and whether they will be high or low maintenance.

They don't always judge right, but that's roughly what they are looking for. Technical skills and "communication skills" are but a component of it, and despite pretending otherwise to themselves, they are looking rather for a sufficient level, not the maximum.

[Icarus]

Donna...

If your kids can't even get into a State school, don't you think what's wrong is their level of achievement?

I went to a UC school...and the community college transfers weren't too impressive. And, now, I've seen job applicants from california state schools (cal states)...and they don't really qualify for entry level jobs at my firm, as their achievement(s) are usually sub-par.

My assumption is...if you can't get into a Cal State school...perhaps the problem isn't the university system.

[Icarus]

Lets work a bit backward...Where are the elite jobs, in the US going?

What type of people do our top law firms, consulting firms, investment banks, top corporations, hospitals, universities, and great start ups hire? This is the engine for social mobility...get a job at Goldman, and you're set. Get a job at Microsoft, and you'll firmly enter the 'upper middle class'. Get a job at a top law/consulting/banking firm, and you'll likely retire a millionaire.

Of course, everyone isn't qualified for such positions. It takes test scores, a bit of social capital, high grades, and polish, usually.

The key, with measuring a ROI for college, is where did they go.

A degree from the University of Phoenix is not the same as a degree from Duke or UVA. Quality is the key, literally.

Of course, those with social capital will tend to succeed. But, the path to acquiring social capital exists.

[mrrunangun]

The most desirable opportunities for those completing undegrad and not going directly to grad or professional schools are unavailable to those who do not attend the colleges at which firms hiring for those positions recruit. If you attend a club school or a top tech school, Goldman, Solomon, and the other investment banks may hear of you because you can schedule an appointment with their recruiters. If you go to a Jesuit college or a small Christian school, no matter how good you are, they will not hear of you as they will not be sending anyone to interview at your campus. That is just how it is. With the possible exceptions of the University of Chicago and the top techs, the education your child receives is not likely to be much, if any, better than what can be obtained at other schools, but the vetting process at the club schools assures recruiters that the odds of high quality hires is great and so an efficient use of their resources. Not that investment banking requires sophisticated knowledge of history, literature, or even economics as taught in such places. Rapid calculation of probablities in your head is about the only intellectual skill essential to the field as far as I can see. Among my friends'children who are now among the new investment banking plutocracy, all were math, physics, or engineering majors in undergrad at schools of that type. None of them came from banking families or knew anyone in the investment banking world before they were recruited to it.

[Real Person from the Real World]

One more point I want to make, not that anyone will read this, but how can the market be self correcting if we bring in labor from elsewhere to fill jobs? Shouldn't the dearth of jobs raise costs inducing more people (locally) to fill them? Yet corporations interfere by importing legal aliens for some of the best paying US jobs. Meanwhile, the middle class is in decline and blue collar jobs are not as available, so that the traditional (illegal) aliens are now a hot issue. No one cared about the illegal aliens when they were doing well, and the illegals were the low wage workers. Now that the middle class is in decline, blue collar workers are screaming and all they can see to blame are illegals (geographically local) rather than legal imported labor. Legal imported labor is actually vended by lots of legal foreign owned vendors. They like the legal imported labor (visas), who despite being their own compatriots, they can squeeze down and pay/buy low, while selling/vending/billing high to US corporations. Once the legal immigrant gets the magic Green Card, he has a ticket to the very best jobs, since he now has the job experience for them. Job experience the American middle class LOST. Furthermore, employers put up all sorts of barriers to jobs outside of certain skills (e.g., IT) - psych tests, honesty tests, odd questions supposedly designed to weed out, quotas and preferential hiring. The country has lost most manufacturing, so what is left.... service jobs. Some are low pay, where you sit in front of a computer and read what to say (since they would have to pay more if you actually knew something). Some are high pay - telephone sales, telemarketing, debt collection, which causes people to become unavailable by phone despite the new mobility of communications today. In these higher paid sales, and marketing, and sales/marketing support lying is a highly valued skill, so what good are the psych tests?
Employment in the US is a MESS.

[andrew hartman]

i've been away for awhile. it's good to get back to a site
that has so predictable a premise: some rich people did bad
things to us. what if the person who made middle class life
in the u.s. tougher is a chinaman who now eats three good meals a day? do we still want to go back to the 50's?

on education and skills: i spent the last 6 years of my working career teaching in a blue collar, mixed race high
school. the kids graduated with almost no idea of how ignorant and unprepared they were. but they wanted limos
and kristal for the senior prom. i know of no commentator
on the left who addresses the cultural failure of public education. it's always: we need more money.

we will blunder through. the innovation and invention that will gradually lift living standards again will not come from
the working class: they never have.

[Real Person from the Real World]

Icarus comments that applicants from UC state schools are unimpressive. What how do we know all the legal visa people we import are as good as they claim? We had a russian sharepoint guy that was fake, recently, and who checks out the guy who got his experience over in Dubai, or took classes in some university in Mumbai? We had a guy who worked for Microsoft, and he is at Dell now, and his contract will not be extended. There are plenty of glib people who advance fast, but aren't that qualified, and there are plenty of people with the skills and no access to better jobs. Maybe jobs should be less about weeding people out, and more about entry level and training.

[zak822]

Jay and Sent,

Noni said it best:

"I surmise that maintaining the illusion of social mobility, the value of skills and education and hard work, is very important in preventing citizens from seeing their "spare part" status, and asking what sort of society they believe they should have, and working toward that."

I think that addresses the issues you raised.

[mikx]

i spent the last 6 years of my working career teaching in a blue collar, mixed race high
school. the kids graduated with almost no idea of how ignorant and unprepared they were.

You were a teacher there. Part of your job is to inform them about real world.
You and your fellow teachers have failed, at least in this aspect.

Whom are you going to blame now?

[mikx]

In California, I teach at a State university. The tuition my students pay is TWENTY TIMES what I paid, twenty years ago.

Besides inflation the other huge factor in tuition increase is your and your co-workers extremely rich wages and benefits.

You do know that total wage-benefit package for state workers in 2-4 times larger than comparably skilled person in private employement?

[mikx]

Occasionally I teach part-time at CA community college.
Education is not bad, comparable or better than first 2 years at lower-rabked UC campuses like Riverside.

Tuition for a semester runs about $400-$600 plus books.
Tutoring center open 60 hours /week, totally free. Usually more tutors available than students in there.

The only people who cannot survive there and move to UC/State campus are people who cannot do well because of low abilities or bad work ethics.

Let's face it, we pretty much educate all people who are willing and able to be educated.

Doubling or tripling money thrown at post-secondary education will build a lot of luxury gyms (see UCSF new gym) and swimming pools but will accomplish very little else.

[andrew hartman]

mikx:

i prepared good lesson plans every day for the subjects i taught. i tried to impress upon the kids the need to learn
standard english, to show up for work on time, and not to
take intruction on the job as a personal insult. some kids
saw the point, many did not. what i blame is a culture that says nothing is ever your fault. it's all some rich guys f****** you over. the comments on this website are exhibit A,
mostly.

[roger]

Mr. Hartman's tale of students opting for crystal and limos, rather than his peculiar mixture of resentment and servility, all based on his "good lesson plans", i.e. his filling his classroom hour with incoherent rants, is rather heartening - it shows that the kids of America still have a lot of good sense. Instead of sacrificing their own self interest for that of the wealthy (whom no doubt, in his servile soul, Mr. Hartman thinks of as great men and women who have earned their success by the sweat of their Gucci suits, instead of being the usual spongers on the State tit, the usual war profiteers or shillers for a little more welfare from the Federal reserve, engrossing an unjust share of the gains from the productivity that is entirely due to the actions of the working class in this country), these kids intuitively know that Harman's America is a dying and feudal proposition. The country is wealthy beyond anyone's dreams, and it is time for the expression of a little class self interest to chisel down the absurd premium taken by the upper management.

As youth move away from that complex of neuroses which are expressed in the American right wing, we do have a chance to take this country back. Oh, and definitely, f*** the rich.

[Patricia Shannon]

Andrew Harman makes an accurate point about unrealistic attitudes of many young (and not so young) people. Eg., many cooks are insulted if the company tells them how to cook items. They just ignore the instructions and do it they way they want. One problem is the cult of "self-esteem", where out young people are taught to have high self-esteem for simply existing, regardless of their actions. Another problem is that minorities who are sometime truly the target of discrimination, often see any suggestion that they may need to make any changes to be racist, the way Anne often reacts to comments that are not offensive, but that can be twisted to read as such. From comments Anne has made about being Irish, it appears that she is Caucasian, but she has the same type of reactions I'm talking about. There are, of course, people with this kind of thinking in all groups of people. I read once that people who were abused when they were children have a higher incidence of paranoia. Of course, as in any group, some are simply lazy and use accusations of bias as tools to protect themselves.

Another factor is the media. In entertainment marketed to young people, they overwhelmingly show adults as being at best incompetent, in need of being saved by young people.

And of course, there is the problem of parents, which I expect most people alreadt know about, so that if a child gets in trouble at school, the parent gets mad at the school, being sure their child is blameless.

[Patricia Shannon]

To see what the media can do if they choose, consider "The Lion King". I didn't see the movie, but I saw the musical last weekend. There were many children of all races in the audience, and they obviously loved it. The story was about a father's love and protection of his son. We will never know what long-term good this will do, but I'm believe it will have a helpful effect on at least some of them when they grow up.

Another example is the move "Ocie Nash".
see http://www.ociee.com/
This movie showed children being courageous, but also being raised and protected by their parents and elders. The children in the audience sat in silence, utterly enthralled. Unfortunately, it didn't have a big advertising blitz. The day I saw it, it wasn't even listed in the paper or on the marquee, but there where still people in the audience. If someone with money cares about the future of our children and country, I would suggest they send a copy of the video to every household with children.

[Andrew]

re hartman and the primary ed issues:

Rich guys are f-ing us over. That can be true at the same time as your proposition that an attitude exists in which 'nothing is ever your fault'.

It is also true that their are parents who elect school board and demand a good education for their children, then turn around and scream bloody murder when the kids get low grades because they are held to a high standard.

It is also true that many kids have always had unreasonable expectations and made stupid decisions about education. They're kids.

It is also true that there is a strong correlation between a students performance in school and the stresses they experience in their homelife.
Unsurprisingly, poverty is a huge stressor. Which brings us back around to rich guys f-ing us over.

[Warland]

Mr. Hartman,

How then could you tolerate being part of the problem? And were you satisfied with the level of investment you saw in your school? How about your salary?

And why did you stay on six years when you obviously harbor such contempt for the "ignorant" working-class students whose class evidently precludes them from ever providing the "innovation" or "invention" that exclusively "lift living standards" (as opposed to, say, mere productive labor)?

In what way did your experiences so solidify your identification with and sympathy for "the rich?" Are you now at least finally free of the loathsome "blue collar" school and innovating and inventing your way to riches?

Warland

[andrew hartman]

warland:

i grew up in small working class towns. i went to public schools. my father was a high school teacher. the only point
i try to make by posting on this web site is this: the politics of greed is ugly, and so is the politics of envy.

by the way, i liked the kids a lot. that's why i stayed six
years. how is that inconsistent with suggesting to them that
you shouldn't curse out employers and customers?

[andrew hartman]

or perhaps i should say, the politics of greed is destructive, and so is the politics of resentment.