The Great American Jobs Apocalypse, and What to Do About It

mauldineconomics.com / BY PATRICK WATSON / FEBRUARY 14, 2017

The Great American Jobs Apocalypse is still threatening to cause tears in America’s social fabric, and no one really knows what to do about it.

If you’re not unemployed or underemployed now, then you know someone who is… and you could always be next.

I keep coming back to this theme in Connecting the Dots, because a) it’s a monumental, paradigm-changing problem, and b) it affects all of us.

While I don’t have definitive answers, I managed to put together more of the puzzle pieces.

Lost Value

We the People, aka Mainstream America, are angry and frustrated—and we are vehemently making our feelings known. The open public discontent has left many economists and politicians flabbergasted: With a historically low unemployment rate of 4.9%, what seems to be the problem?

For most people, work is not just about money, but also about self-worth. You can be “employed” but still feel unappreciated due to low wages, missing job security, or inability to use your best skills.

The government’s unemployment numbers miss part of the story. They don’t, for example, show how many people aren’t getting enough hours to make ends meet and/or lack job satisfaction. But some recent surveys do.

• According to a 2016 survey from PayScale, 46% of workers (roughly 22 million Americans) think they’re “underemployed”—which is being defined as either working part time or having a job that doesn’t allow them to use their education or skills.

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