More jobs, lower pay

A Facebook post from economist Robert Reich

Post by Robert Reich.

Today’s unemployment report shows more than 200,000 new jobs have been added to the economy for the last six months. That’s good news -- until you realize

(1) how badly they pay -- the typical family income in current dollars is $52,959. Factoring in inflation, that's $3,303 less than before the recession — a nearly 6 percent drop;

(2) how many are part-time -- 18.8 percent of all jobs in the U.S. are now part-time. Before the recession, 16.5 percent of all jobs were part time;

(3) how few working-age people have jobs – the labor-force participation rate is the lowest it’s been since 1978, when wives and mothers first began streaming into paid work to prop up family incomes;

(4) how many workers are overqualified for the jobs they do have – most young college graduates are in jobs that require no more than a high-school degree;

(5) how many mortgage holders still owe more on their homes than their homes are worth -- nearly 37 percent, according to the real estate firm Zillow;

(6) how many people are still in poverty – around 15 percent of the population, including 24 percent of the nation’s children; and

(7) how much of the income is concentrated at the top – the best estimate we have is 95 percent of the gains are going to the richest 1 percent.

This is not a strong or balanced economy. We can’t have one until the bottom 90 percent receive a larger slice of the pie.