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Americans Behind The Curve in Education

Written by BradleyFishJr on January 20, 2014

By any indicator you’d care to use, the job market still stinks.

Sure, the obvious cause is less-than-impressive economic growth since the financial crisis compared to other recoveries. Digging a little deeper, another problem is the lack of investment by the corporate sector, which is stalling out labor productivity amid, according to the surveys, uncertainty about new government regulations, the future of healthcare, and taxes.

But new research suggests some of the blame goes to the American worker, where a lack of skills has us badly trailing global peers. Decades of abundance and affluence has made us soft. And now, according to the data, the available workforce just isn’t smart enough to turn this thing around.

Here’s why.

To understand this issue, you’ve got to understand that despite millions of unemployed Americans, recent data on the labor market from the government’s JOLTS report shows businesses are having a harder time finding qualified workers, are hoarding the ones they have, and are beginning to be forced to pay top dollar for the best workers.

This is happening despite the fact the so-called reserve army of labor now totals nearly 20 million Americans. Of that, 10.3 million are unemployed, and 7.7 million are working part-time for economic reasons. And since the financial crisis, another 12 million have left the labor force altogether.

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5 thoughts on “Americans Behind The Curve in Education

  1. Phillip the Bruce says:

    So now they are going to blame the unemployed for their own predicament, because:
    A: they went to government mandated schools that failed to educate them in the basics,
    B: they then went into massive debt to go to college, so they could sound educated when they ask, "Want fries with that?"

  2. """This is happening despite the fact the so-called reserve army of labor now totals nearly 20 million Americans"""
    Read more at http://teapartyeconomist.com/2014/01/20/americans

    Actually that figure is grossly wrong, there are close to 90 million Americans of working age that are without a job………..so surely there must be some qualified workers skiving off on benefits, that could be working

  3. REDWHITEBLU says:

    SO NOW…….after mandated education and the everybody must win policy….and NO ONE IS ENTITLED TO BE THE BEST…we have a problem because …..IF EVERYONE IS GOING TO PASS ANYWAY……THEN WHY MAKE THE EFORT BY GOING HOME AFTER SCHOOL AND DOING HOMEWORK AND PREPARING TO PASS TESTS…..big government CREATED THIS PROBLEM

  4. When I went to school a long time ago, the achievers were in one class, the average kids were in another group, and the under achievers were in a third group. Everyone could learn at their own pace and focus on the subjects that meant something to them. It may not have been a perfect system, but it worked pretty well. Now we must have a politically correct equality of the educational experience. In other words, every class must put up with the disrupters. In some schools that means no one learns because the classes are chaos. The unions and the politicians will not allow change. So who's fault is it? See my blog at http://cranky-conservative.blogspot.com

  5. the dumber the people the easier it is to enslave them.