Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

The dark side of the “employment miracle” in the USA

  • Report
  • Published:
Intereconomics

Abstract

Whereas in Europe the creation of jobs in the United States has been hailed as an “employment miracle”, in the USA itself there is concern mainly about the negative implications of the considerable increase in employment. A trend towards deindustrialisation, poor productivity and growing wage inequality are issues that are being discussed in this connection.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. See for example B. Bluestone, B. Harrinson: The Deindustrialization of America, New York 1982; R. E. Kutscher, V. A. Personick: Deindustrialization and the Shift to Services, in: Monthly Labor Review, June 1986, pp. 3–13; R. E. Kutscher: Changes in Population, Labor Force, Employment and Unemployment in the United States, BLS paper, September 1986, pp. 1–84; M. Mc Usic: U.S. Manufacturing: Any Cause for Alarm? in: New England Economic Review, January/February 1986, pp. 3–17; P. R. Krugmann, G. N. Hatsopoulos: The Problem of U.S. Competitiveness in Manufacturing, in: ibid., pp. 18–29; N. S. Perna: The Shift from Manufacturing to Services: A Concerned View, in: ibid., pp. 30–38; Anon.: The Hollow Corporation, in: Business Week, 3rd March 1986, pp. 57–59; A. M. Rivlin (ed.): Economic Choices 1984, The Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C.

  2. See for example R. E. Kutscher, V.A. Personick, op. cit.; R.E. Kutscher, op. cit., pp. 40ff.

  3. See U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis: The Detailed Input-Output Structure of the U.S. Economy, 1977, Vol. 1, 1984, and the article with the came title in: Survey of Current Business, May 1984. More recent data are not yet available.

  4. S. S. Cohen, J. Zysman: Can America Compete?, in: Challenge, May/June 1986, p. 59.

  5. Ibid., p. 59.

  6. Cf. B. Kuttner: The Declining Middle, in: The Atlantic Monthly, July 1983, pp. 60–72.

  7. L. Thurow: A Surge in Inequality, in: Scientific American, Vol. 256, No. 5, May 1987.

  8. Cf. B. Bluestone, B. Harrison: The Great American Job Machine: The Proliferation of Low Wage Employment in the U.S. Economy, December 1986, pp. 1–50.

  9. W. T. Brookes: Low-Pay Jobs: The Big Lie, in:The Wall Street Journal, 25th March 1987; and “Welcome to Economics Propaganda 101” (cf. R. J. Samuelson: The American Job Machine, in: Newsweek, 23rd February 1987).

  10. Cf. J. Norwood: The Job Machine Has Not Broken Down, in: The New YorkTimes, 22nd February 1987.

  11. Cf. N. H. Rosenthal: The shrinking middle class: myth or reality? in: Monthly Labor Review, No. 3, 1985, pp. 3–10.

  12. Ibid., pp. 4–5.

  13. Cf. P.J. McMahon, J.H. Tschetter: The declining middle class: a further analysis, in: Monthly Labor Review, No. 9, 1986, pp. 22–27. The authors have tried to reconcile the contradictory results of Rosenthal’s work and a study by the Brookings Institution. R. Z. Lawrence (Sectoral Shifts and the Size of the Middle Class, in: The Brookings Review, Autumn 1984, Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 3–11) had divided fulltime workers, not occupations, into earnings classes and found a clear bipolarisation trend for the period from 1969 to 1983, which he attributed to demographic factors, a change in the age distribution as a result of the baby boom. At the beginning of the same year, on the other hand, L. Thurow wrote in the New YorkTimes (5th February 1984, Section 3, p. 3) “It’s Not Just Demographics. The Disappearance of the Middle Class.”

  14. Ibid., p. 53.

  15. Cf. E. F. Mellor: Workers atthe minimum wage or less: who they are and the jobs they hold, in: Monthly Labor Review, No. 7, 1987, pp. 34–38.

  16. Cf. S. Danzinger, P. Gottschalk: Families with Children Have Fared Worst, in: Challenge, Nos. 3–4, 1966, pp. 40-47.

  17. Cf. L. Thurow: Economic Paradigms and Slow American Productivity Growth, discussion paper, March 1987.

  18. Cf. J. To bin: High Time to Restore the Employment Act of 1946, in: Challenge, Nos. 5–6, 1986, p. 7.

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Breman, Bremen

    Wolfgang Cornetz

Authors
  1. Wolfgang Cornetz
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Cornetz, W. The dark side of the “employment miracle” in the USA. Intereconomics 23, 39–48 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02929967

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02929967

Keywords

Search

Navigation