(07-17-2017, 02:45 AM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: Two people working is a big part of what caused wages to stagnate because you essentially doubled your workforce without truly doubling your work demand. Go hire someone younger and cheaper, because there's so many of them now you can replace at will. Why give someone 20 years worth of raises when you can lay them off and hire a kid with a college degree, who is swimming in debt, and willing to work for much less? . . . .
The market will adapt to what people are capable and willing to pay. The whole demand angle of the market. Two people working being the common thing made it so people could afford to spend more money on things, so things in turn became more expensive because the folks selling things know you can afford it. Kayne West sold out instantly on $120 plain white t-shirts a couple years back. People will sell things for what they think they can get you to pay.
It becomes a bigger problem as two parent families become less and less of a common thing, because our market has now evolved around being primarily for two working parents... so a one parent family is now often in poverty. Not saying it's right, but I do believe it's traced back to it.
The cause and effect relation between working parents and the economy that you posit seems to me the reverse of what has actually occurred, Leonard.
When I was young, most families had one wage or salary earning parent. Wives began going into the workforce, especially in the '70s, to make ends meet, in part because of rising inflation, rent and real estate prices. Also, one parent was generally the primary earner; the second parent got a part-time or a lesser paying job. So parents were rarely adding jobs to the same sector of the economy. Husbands and wives were rarelty competing in the same market, so to speak. Then in places like Ohio and Michigan and PA, as steel and manufacturing jobs left the country, those primary earners then also had to scrounge for lesser paying jobs. Further, the loss of union jobs, and the scaling back of unions, has dropped pressure on wages across many non-union jobs as well. This is in part a result of policy, and policy is a result of whom people elect to run their states and country.
So I would reverse your cause/effect relation. I would say labor--especially wage labor--has adapted to a changing job-market and what people were willing to pay.
And that is what has drawn so many women into the job market, many of whom would prefer to remain home. Part of the change has been that manufacturing jobs have decreased in number. Part has been that white-collar jobs, requiring a college degree, have increased as the economy has turned to services and knowledge/information. Since my teen years back in the 60s, people with college degrees have generally had a better chance of adapting.
Finally, part of the change which has occurred over the last four decades is that the relation of employer to worker has been greatly altered by management policy in some sectors of the economy. More people are hired part-time to save employers the cost of paying insurance and benefits. People can be hired as needed and fired as needed.
The result is that people may be working harder and producing more value for less pay. The extra value created by the worker, however, is still captured by the employer. One reason for the rising wage gap.
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