If anybody wants a comprehensive look at the(ir) economy by region, by industry, by state, by income segment…here’s an amazingly comprehensive look at our nation’s progress (or stagnancy or downtrend, depending upon sector) since just before the Great Recession that hit like a ton of bricks in 2008.
It’s far from all bad – or good. it points to something i’ve been touting for years…that high body-count manufacturing jobs that paid high “middle-class” wages are pretty much a thing of the past. We can make great stuff here – and do now – but with higher tech and lower warm body count. So…when we talk of population growth, we also talk about higher “safety net” social services and supports because there will be fewer jobs to absorb the old assembly line populations that once made up the backbone of our middle-class entry level employment profile.
But this is really an important look at reality, and what’s to become of our dependence upon humans to do a machine’s job. That is, to my way of thinking, the beginning of an economic formula that precedes a population decline. The numbers will tell the story and households will feel the impact.
This will give fuel to those who wish to cut taxes and those who think that “the dole” has to be cut and cut and cut. Very difficult period coming along this pike, folks. A reality of human over burden and machine efficiency facts. Where will the bouncing ball finally settle? On sensible population self-regulation or on continued population growth without the jobs and income and future to support it?
Hmmm.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/06/14/business/this-side-of-the-recession.html?ref=economy
oldpal1 
Hey Brother, great points. As a native of Western Pennsylvanian, the economy when I was growing up was steel mills, coals mines, and family farms. All of these industries that provided reasonable middle class wages and supported families with strong work ethic and integrity are now extinct for all practical purposes. Unfortunately, many of the people who depended on these industries for generations do not have the skills sets to take advantage of some of the occupations that have evolved from our new service economy. So, they are on public assistance or are underemployed and experiencing financial difficulties and even poverty.
What disturbs me is that we have elected to support these people with public assistance funds rather than supporting or subsidizing the industries that could utilize their valuable skills and healthy work ethic. We’ve elected to let manufacturing jobs be outsourced to other countries at the expense of some of our most historically valued citizens. Why not support these industries with the dollars that we are spending on public assistance and why not invest monies to train these people for available jobs in the new economy?
When working, these people provide a double benefit for the country: first the government spends less on public assistance and second the taxes that they pay from wage earnings increase government revenues that might even allow us to cut or eliminate the federal and state deficits.
I could go on and on about the benefits of subsidizing and supporting manufacturing but unless our greedy politicians think that it’s going to help them personally, there’s probably not chance that they’ll even consider it. Let’s study this situation in-depth and make some intelligent decisions on how to deal with unemployment and our lack of manufacturing capability.
Personally, I’d like to be able to buy a dining room made in North Carolina or a car made with steel manufactured in an Ohio River community.
Just me talking.
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Brother, you said it!
Good news is, recently I’ve learned that Ethan Allen makes almost their inventory here in the USA. There’s another company, Pompanoosuc Mills that makes fine, really fine furniture in the USA. So there is the possibility of supporting USA-based manufacturing of consumer products if we know where and what they are.
But your point is so well-taken; why not support the industries we let slide away rather than losing all the many millions of those manufacturing jobs and the jobs those jobs created – and the tax dollars that the treasury derived from all those good citizens? Why not?
Well, we can ask Walmart for one. They’ve done more to provide cheap product for people who are now on Federal and State subsidies, not to mention low income, part-time jobs, or simply out of work folks who need to live. But Walmart helped to PUT those folks out of jobs by all the things we know they did – and do – to import products from China and elsewhere, but not the USA.
But they’re just one of thousands of companies that allowed “market forces” to force our workforce on to the subsistence rolls.
So, Wall Street and WalMart, two of the walls that make barriers to entry for decent jobs in America. Seems counter-intuitive? Not really, not if one thinks it through.
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