Decline of Good Jobs Tied to Workers’ Decreased Bargaining Power
Many U.S. workers don’t have jobs—nearly 13 million. Less known, however, is that many more don’t have good jobs— fewer than one-quarter of America’s workforce, according to a new report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research ( CEPR ). The center defines a good job as one that pays at least $18.50 an hour, or $37,000 per year, equal to the inflation-adjusted earnings of the typical male worker in 1979. A good job also includes employer-provided health insurance and a retirement plan (click on chart at left to expand).
The lack of available good jobs is not new. As CEPR finds, compared with 1979, the U.S. economy has lost about one-third (28 percent to 38 percent) of its capacity to generate good jobs.
But why?
