Not a college grad? No job recovery for you
Workers with degrees benefit far more from economic improvement than those without them.
Hey you, the know-it-all who laughed at college grads throughout the recession and called their degrees worthless: Let us know what the verdicts were on "Judge Joe Brown" today.
Despite the lusty anti-intellectual choruses that served as the soundtrack to the recent economic downturn, an increasing amount of evidence shows that a college degree or advanced version thereof actually comes in pretty handy.
Yes, there were more master's degree and doctorate holders on food stamps during the downturn than ever before, but they still made up just 1% of aid recipients and are now benefiting most from the ensuing economic recovery.
About 1.1 million more workers with master's, doctoral and professional degrees said they had jobs in 2012 than when the job market bottomed out in 2010. That's a 6.7% increase that, according to the Labor Department, is the fastest employment gain of any level of education during that span. Workers with bachelor's degrees didn't fare too badly, either, as their employment rate increased 5% from 2010 to 2012.
That's helping boost recent jobless numbers, as first-time claims for unemployment benefits fell by 5,000 last week to 330,000. That's the lowest level since January 2008. That doesn't mean everybody's getting back into the game, though. The 36% of American workers over 25 with a high school education or less started losing jobs in 2007 and just haven't stopped. About 767,000 fewer workers reported having a job in 2012 than they did in 2010, and 2 million workers in that demographic left the job market altogether during that span.
"Relative demand for highly educated workers is increasing," Jonathan Rothwell, senior research associate at the Brookings Institution, told CNNMoney. "There's a long-run shift in the economy toward more professional occupations, and it's mostly at the expense of blue-collar occupations."
Though many overqualified college graduates took low-wage jobs during the recession, Rothwell noted that over-educated workers earn 37% more than under-educated workers in the same field, and nearly always have lower unemployment rates. As of December, the Labor Department's unemployment rate for workers with a bachelor's degree or higher was 3.9%. Among high school graduates with no college experience, that rate jumped to 8%, while 11.7% of workers without a college degree went jobless.
Again, college degrees don't guarantee employment. They just make it a whole lot likelier.
More on moneyNOW
There is a huge defect in our thinking on how to solve problems facing us. Whether Gun control or jobs or poverty we throw all range and all characteristic in one basket and try to solve it. Scientifically this is stupid way to approach. Boeing on dream liner try to pin point the problem while on Gun control we spend lots of time on assault weapons whose contribution on killing is about 5 %. Gangs, Drugs, family disputes and sex are greatest contributors but are ignored.
Job problem is in lower half of employees. These whose group, half the total employed makes less than 25000 dollars a year and lots of problem are here. They do not have cushion like they portray in used and worry about 100,000 and 250,000 a year income.
Solution is simple and cheap. Government should finance these unemployed employment and target it at certain level, let us say 6 %. They should be offered jobs at private companies where employer pays only statutory taxes and Government pays 15000-25000 a year pay. We hope that our educated talent can come out with a system that is not exploitable. 100 Billion dollars a year will employ 5 million workers. That will create a positive atmosphere and these workers. when they get a better job can move out of system. Program can be ticked to employment level and stable unemployment level can be targeted.
Here what I am asking to spend is chicken feed than tax cut and other spending. However this is beyond the thinking of our brightest economist ad law makers. This is consider hand out to big businesses by Democrats and socialism by Republicans. So we are stuck in ideological morass and future of the country rots.
DATA PROVIDERS
Copyright © 2013 Microsoft. All rights reserved.
Quotes are real-time for NASDAQ, NYSE and AMEX. See delay times for other exchanges.
Fundamental company data and historical chart data provided by Thomson Reuters (click for restrictions). Real-time quotes provided by BATS Exchange. Real-time index quotes and delayed quotes supplied by Interactive Data Real-Time Services. Fund summary, fund performance and dividend data provided by Morningstar Inc. Analyst recommendations provided by Zacks Investment Research. StockScouter data provided by Verus Analytics. IPO data provided by Hoover's Inc. Index membership data provided by SIX Financial Information.
Japanese stock price data provided by Nomura Research Institute Ltd.; quotes delayed 20 minutes. Canadian fund data provided by CANNEX Financial Exchanges Ltd.
RECENT POSTS
Despite growing sales across gender lines, the maker of the flavored malt liquor is beefing up its ad budget to attract beer drinking dudes.
- Big job gains expected next year, economists say
- Oklahoma senators change tune on disaster relief
- New Jersey bar sting turns up 'swill'
- Charles Ramsey gets burgers for life, but no Big Macs
- Shotgun wedding for Saks and Neiman Marcus?
- Yum aims to fatten up by doubling Taco Bell sales
- Mike Bloomberg's next career: Taxi magnate?
- At software giant SAP, autism is an asset
- Target blames weather for soggy results
MARKET UPDATE
[BRIEFING.COM] The major averages ended modestly lower with the S&P 500 shedding 0.3%.
The benchmark average saw an opening loss of 1.2% after Japan's Nikkei tumbled 7.3%. Japanese stocks sold off amid continued volatility in Japanese Government Bond futures as the 10-yr yield spiked almost 16 basis points to 1.002 before the Bank of Japan's JPY2 trillion liquidity injection caused yields to retrace their gains.
Adding insult to injury was news out of China where the HSBC ... More
More Market News
TOP STOCKS
The Dow is off slightly on the day, after falling nearly 130 points at the open. Decent reports on jobless claims and new-home sales helped.
MSN MONEY'S
- Shared
- Commented
- Viewed
