And these are not sucky jobs.
It's one the great tricks america has done, almost everyone thinks they're middle class. In the UK i'm not even sure i'm middle class.
The problem with these jobs, apart from perceived low social status, is that they tend to be few and far between, mostly because of automation, high startup costs and low margins in the industrial sector.
http://www.nationalreview.com/agenda/288306/guest-post-scott...
Wages have been stagnant since the 70s, while healthcare costs and cost of living have skyrocketed: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/higher-prices...
And, if Federal Reserve created inflation hadn't destroyed their purchasing power, they'd be 20% ahead on wages at the bottom than they are today even if those wages had stayed at the same literal dollar amount they were at over forty years ago.
The middle class is getting hammered and because they have less disposable income they save less and spend less, hence the economy grows slower.
Wages as a percent of the economy are basically the lowest ever: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/26/business/for-companies-the...
This sentence is a jumble of confusion. Wages have not been "stagnant", wages adjusted for a flawed [1] measure of the cost of living have been. Nominal wages are way up. You are correct that health care costs increased, but those costs are mostly not paid for with wages [2].
In fact, total compensation for labor is up considerably. Workers simply receive more of their benefits in the form of untaxed health benefits rather than taxable wages:
http://www.minneapolisfed.org/publications_papers/pub_displa...
Further, the stagnation of wages themselves is due mainly to Simpson's Paradox. Immigrants enter the US and occupy low levels of the wage ladder, lowering the averages. But the immigrants are better off, as are non-immigrants (who's wages did not stagnate):
http://crazybear.posterous.com/did-immigrants-and-simpsons-p...
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boskin_Commission
[2] Those health care costs are, however, used to adjust wages downwards via CPI.
Over 40 years, you'd hope for a little more than "considerably". Especially since a lot of growth is in worker productivity - people doing real work (i.e. those on minimum wage) work harder than ever.
As for growth in worker productivity, I seriously doubt it occurred due to actions of minimum wage workers. Are you asserting that a burger flipper flips more burgers now than in 1975?
If we follow Paul Krugman's logic [1], this is not the case. Workers tend to be paid their marginal product. This suggests that if wage gains were distributed more to the top than the bottom, this is because the productivity of high earners increased more than the productivity of low earners.
[1] http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/22/taxing-job-creat...
No, actually, that's about the best you can hope for. It goes both directions, unfortunately.
Its excessive regulations and crazy labor laws that stop people from building factories in much of the US. I am mostly leftist on much of my view and I'm sure people here will downvote me, but unions have screwed workers.
People in the US can continue saying these are sucky jobs etc, but every Chinese person I've met who's worked at these factories has claimed they've enjoyed the experience. Although the ones I met said they did it while putting themselves through school etc.
When the Chinese people have had enough of their working conditions, they'll change things themselves.
There are no property rights in China as we understand them. Farmers grow stuff on "their" land, but get to keep their produce. They're actually pretty productive.
If you read the article none of the executives quoted directly mention how cheap Chinese labor is. They talk about how quickly they can "scale up or down." There are only 2 countries where you can scale up your semi-skilled work force rapidly, and the other country hasn't started ramping up for manufacturing just yet.
Regarding your comment about suicide, China for various reasons has a rather high suicide rate. Its not clear to me if the suicide rate amongst FoxConn workers is just a symptom of their society or something really bad about FoxConn itself.
Keep pressure on them to improve. Not just Foxconn, which is getting singled out (and will, most likely, end up being one of the better ones due to scrutiny after this blows over), but on all of the factories until they reform.
Specifically, they appear to pay no attention at all to worker safety. You'd think that after things like that horrible carcinogenic Sanlu milk, they would be more interested in things like chemical safety, but I guess they're not quite there yet.
While America is by no means perfect, they should copy us and have people monitoring workplace injuries, require worker education on safety, require appropriate protective gear for anyone doing dangerous things, and hold companies responsible for the health & safety of their workforce. It's not impossible to improve. I don't expect them to be perfect, but there are plenty of things they could be doing which, according to the reports, they are not.
In 2003 our President invaded a country that had nothing to do with the war on terror. We didn't listen to anyone including our closest allies. Why would China or anyone else give a shit about what we have to say now?
You mean like the group that threatened suicide? Or the outrage over that Sanlu milk powder?
> In 2003 our President invaded a country that had nothing to do with the war on terror.
I don't know why you're comparing bad PR to starting a war. You appear to have a very different idea of "pressure" than I do.
> You mean like the group that threatened suicide? Or the outrage over that Sanlu milk powder?
Like I said, when it gets too much, they'll demand and get change. Its not our problem.
>> In 2003 our President invaded a country that had nothing to do with the war on terror.
> I don't know why you're comparing bad PR to starting a war. You appear to have a very different idea of "pressure" than I do.
My point is we don't have a lot of moral authority anymore. Everyone remembers that we started a war under false pretenses. And that we killed 100s of thousands of Iraqis in the process of bringing them "democracy". Our own jihad for democracy.
It isn't just bad PR. You said we should "pressure" China to force their factories to provide better working conditions. Why should they?
Or were you implying that we should invade China as well? Is that your idea of "pressure"?
I most certainly do not advocate starting any wars. I'm not even talking about government pressure. Frankly, the economic pressure from Apple, which doesn't want to take crap for factory conditions in China, may do more good than anything the US government is likely to try.
Part of the reason their products can demand a premium price and healthy profit margins is because they have high standards for quality, profit margins and quality both rely on a strong and well managed supply chain. This well managed supply chain gives Apple greater ability than most to extract compliance with their required labor standards. The demand for quality means, in part, that Apple's suppliers make a greater investment in training their workers, which makes retaining those workers more important.
If Apple's suppliers attract and retain workers with better pay and better working conditions, then that creates pressure on other manufacturers, who must improve the package they offer workers in order to keep them from going to work for Apple's suppliers.
I'm sure there are other good targets for this sort of pressure, but Apple has to be among the best.
The rest of the world (and those of us who deal with it) begs you not to start any more wars.
I didn't really have any planned, you know. I mean, I don't even have a lair in a volcano on a skull-shaped island yet! You can't seriously expect me to go around and start wars without one. It simply isn't done.
But seriously, I think that bad PR for image-conscious companies with factories that have substandard working conditions is a good way to leverage economic pressure. Because their brands have value to them, they'll try to restore them by putting pressure on their suppliers to clean up their acts and hopefully that will lead to reforms by driving competition. None of which involves wars or even government intervention, though it might take a bit of investigative journalism.
You know I meant "United States" when I said "please don't start another war".
We have a big difference in the way we think. I think if someone CHOOSES to work in a factory under semi-inhumane conditions so their children can have better lives, they are fucking heroes.
You think they are victims. Your Western brothers (including the clown who got his post deleted) think they are somehow less than them.
Whatever. Lets check back in 20 years,
Try to build a factory in the US. By the time all the environmental reviews and other regulations are observed, and law suits from Sierra Club and others are cleared, there is simply no way to build the factory! Hence no one builds them, hence ...a current Apple executive said. βThe U.S. has stopped producing people with the skills we need.β