News that WI is adding low-wage jobs is old news
It's common knowledge that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker failed to fulfill his pledge to create 250,000 new private-sector jobs in one term.
And while I appreciate the recent reporting that jobs being added in Wisconsin are predominately low-wage:
No doubt this Walker Mission Accomplished trend will continue because Walker has refused to consider raising the $7.25 minimum wage - - his definition of a living wage - - and also signed 'right-to-work' legislation and a so-called prevailing wage law (currently blocked by a judge) that together will depress wages in the public and private sectors.
Or as he calls it, 'moving in the right direction,' or "the comeback."'
And while I appreciate the recent reporting that jobs being added in Wisconsin are predominately low-wage:
Marquette University Economist Weighs In On Walker's Economic Optimism
Chowdhury Says Walker Administration Is Creating Jobs But They're Low-Skill, Low-Wage Ones
I remember reading basically the same thing in a 2014 paper by UWM economics professor Marc Levine:
During the 2007-2010 recession employment in Wisconsin declined across all wage levels, although the losses were heavily concentrated in occupations paying “middle wages” (90 percent of the 2007-2010 job losses in Wisconsin were in middle-wage occupations). Finally, between 2010-2013, employment continued to decline in both middle and high wage occupations in Wisconsin; all of the net job growth between 2010-2013 occurred in low wage occupations. More troubling still: over 60 percent of the 2010-2013 growth of employment in low-wage occupations in Wisconsin occurred in very low-wage occupations – those with median hourly wages below $10.00 (in inflation-adjusted 2013 dollars).So the experts in Madison and Milwaukee agree.
No doubt this Walker Mission Accomplished trend will continue because Walker has refused to consider raising the $7.25 minimum wage - - his definition of a living wage - - and also signed 'right-to-work' legislation and a so-called prevailing wage law (currently blocked by a judge) that together will depress wages in the public and private sectors.
Or as he calls it, 'moving in the right direction,' or "the comeback."'
2 comments:
Labor issues are systematically excluded from corporate media noooooze. Fact is Scott Walker will not meet his 250,000 job promise after TWO terms!
But Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, which might as well be renamed "Scott Walker is Our Guy!" flushed the job promise, which Walker specifically said should be the metric of his administration in 2010, down the memory hole lying that this was an example of their "great man" setting high standards for himself and others (BARF! -- you can't make this stuff up!)
It is not just Wisconsin -- today's manufacturing jobs are McJobs that pay McWages, yet we still have politicians and the media lying that creating manufacturing jobs will restore the middle class.
This is a bold-faced like and those telling it know better. In and of itself, manufacturing jobs do nothing to raise anyone's standard of living -- it was only when the U.S. has a strong and growing labor movement that these wages rose and created a broader middle class.
Today, the percent of full-time workers in manufacturing jobs that still need food stamps and other public support to make ends meet is essentially the same as WalMart and fast food!
What a person does to earn a living, by itself, means little or nothing. What prevailing wages are means everything. Fight for $15 matters as if employers paid a living wage, not only would our economy "take off like a rocket", but we would see growth in every segment of labor.
Hillary Clinton lied during a nationally televised debate that 12=15! She loudly proclaimed how she was for Fight for $15 and then dishonestly tried to explain that this means she supports $12 and then immediately pivoted to another lie -- that compromising with republicans irrational and dangerous demands to hijack this nation with obstruction is somehow a good thing.
There will be no friend of labor running if we can choose Trump or Clinton, so we will not see any changes on the national front. We will not see any changes in Wisconsion either.
And Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has yet to report this story!
Walker failed on the national stage because he can't stand up to even minimal media scrutiny. Most fail to recognize that Walker's presidential run imploded not because he was unready for a national campaign.
It failed because, for the first time in his political careeer, he could not rely on WTMJ and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel to prop him up with lies, disinformation, and propaganda. Without Wisconsin's right-wing echo chamber, lead by MJS and WTMJ, it is even clear to tea baggers what Scott Walker is -- A ZERO!
Mr. corporate tax friendly can't even lure companies from Chicago even though our borders are "Open for business".
Low wage low skill jobs are exactly what Walker contributors want in a workforce.
The economic problem he's now created is that nobody is paying enough taxes to support government operation.
The new tax base needs to come from an income tax on upper middle-class and above. They created this mess.
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