Attack on the Middle Class: an enlightening article by James Galbraith

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A very enlightening article:

http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/11/galbraith-social-security-middle-class

Excerpt:

With manufacturing and construction on the ropes, service jobs now practically comprise the whole economy. Our rich folks today make their money in finance and technology; the upper middle class lives on trade, law, and medicine; and the middle class teaches and works in the civil service. The working class cooks, cleans, trucks, soldiers, stocks, repairs cars, makes beds, changes bedpans, and rings up sales. Today there are more salespeople, more hotel and restaurant workers, far more lawyers, doctors and accountants, and almost twice as many education and health workers as there are people producing tangible goods.

This isn't all bad. Conditions in stores, restaurants, and hospitals are often better than in factories. Jobs are more stable because labor in these businesses is mainly a fixed cost—an assembly line can be idled at a moment's notice, but a store needs salesclerks even when business is down. Goods made abroad are cheap, which helps consumers. The health and education sectors now have almost 30 percent more workers than they did in 2000, and that means, in part, more and better services in these areas. The downside is that because many of these jobs aren't unionized, wages are lousy. The only thing that reliably bolsters service wages is the federal minimum wage: When it rises, as it did from $6.55 to $7.25 in 2009, service jobs above the minimum are forced up (PDF) as well (to maintain the spread). And when Congress doesn't raise the minimum, real wages decline with inflation.

Is it any surprise that today our leading reactionaries come from retail behemoths like Wal-Mart? Is it a shock that Target was among the first companies, in the wake of the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, to write a huge check to a political campaign? That fast-food chains are tenacious opponents of a higher minimum wage? That hotel owners from New Orleans (PDF) to Santa Monica (PDF) have fought against "living wage" laws? Having thwarted the unions, they now target the government—its taxes, its regulations, and above all, its wage standards.

So: Most of the nation's remaining jobs are in services, where pay depends largely on acts of Congress. Houses are no longer valuable commodities. Private pensions are largely kaput, and many 401(k)s were also wiped out in the crash. What's left to protect economic security for ordinary Americans?

Next Page: If Social Security and Medicare are cut, guess who benefits? http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/11/galbraith-social-security-middle-class?page=2

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