OBAMA 2.O / MIDDLE CLASS CHALLENGE
ity for Congress. Neither have the
loftier goals of his earlier manufacturing package, such as extending
tax breaks to companies that return jobs to U.S. shores. They appear unlikely to move forward in a
second term, even if the president
chooses to champion them.
“The administration has done
some things but could do a lot
more to help manufacturing,” said
Scott Paul, director of the nonprofit Alliance for American Manufacturing. What the White House
has done so far is “not well-publicized or well-known. They will
ultimately be helpful, but so much
of the debate has become politicized, it’s hard to make progress
on some of the meaningful issues.”
And in the end, the manufacturing plan still faces some cold
mathematics. The U.S. lost more
than 5 million manufacturing jobs
in the first decade of this century, falling from 17 million to 12
million. Fewer than 9 percent of
American workers have manufacturing jobs, compared with more
than 20 percent in 1979. Creating
a million new such jobs puts only
a dent in that sector’s — and the
middle class’s — long-term woes.
“It doesn’t come close to restoring manufacturing employ-
HUFFINGTON
01.27.13
ment to what it had been,” Paul
noted, adding that he still found
the goal admirable.
Even setting aside the immediate joblessness crisis, Obama still
faces the long-term problems of
deteriorating wages and growing
income inequality for the poor and
middle class. Since 1979, the top
1 percent of American households
captured more than 38 percent of
income growth, while the bottom
90 percent received just shy of 37
percent, according to EPI.
The Great Recession technically
ended halfway through 2009, but
“So much of the debate has become
politicized, it’s hard to make progress
on some of the meaningful issues.”
the economic recovery of the past
few years is replacing office workers, real estate brokers and insurance claims adjusters with retail
salespeople, restaurant workers
and warehouse hands.
Mid-wage jobs — ones with
median hourly wages ranging from
$13.84 to $21.13 — accounted for
60 percent of the jobs lost during the recession, according to
an analysis by the National Employment Law Project, a worker
advocacy group. During the recovery since then, mid-wage jobs