NY Times columnist Paul Krugman is an economist and a college prof, so he’s very qualified to talk about the intersection of education, economics and the job market. He gets it right in today’s column. His basic thesis: today’s weak job market and low wages aren’t the fault of a broken education system.
Just to be clear: I’m in favor of better education. Education is a friend of mine. And it should be available and affordable for all. But what I keep seeing is people insisting that educational failings are at the root of still-weak job creation, stagnating wages and rising inequality. This sounds serious and thoughtful. But it’s actually a view very much at odds with the evidence, not to mention a way to hide from the real, unavoidably partisan debate.
As an educator, I’m expected to proclaim, “Education is the answer.” Just give people excellent schools, I’m supposed to say—from quality kindergartens through a strong undergraduate degree and throw in the possibility of grad school—and people’s vocational problems will take care of themselves. Good paying jobs will always be there for the well schooled. But I won’t say it, because it ain’t so. A good education is necessary, almost essential, to land most good paying, personally rewarding jobs, but it’s not sufficient. Wages have stagnated for the highly educated as well as the under educated, and there simply aren’t enough jobs paying solid middle class salaries out there for everyone to have a nice, tasty piece of the economic pie. These problems are in the marketplace, not the schools.
Is there a skills gap, too few educated people to fill open jobs? No, says Krugman.
[T]here’s no evidence that a skills gap is holding back employment. After all, if businesses were desperate for workers with certain skills, they would presumably be offering premium wages to attract such workers. So where are these fortunate professions? You can find some examples here and there. Interestingly, some of the biggest recent wage gains are for skilled manual labor—sewing machine operators, boilermakers—as some manufacturing production moves back to America. But the notion that highly skilled workers are generally in demand is just false.
He’s right. Even with STEM-related jobs (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math), we’re cranking out more than enough grads to fill open positions. Sure, there will always be a shortage of truly brilliant people who are willing to give up any semblance of a life to work, say, at Google, just because that level of genius and commitment is always in short supply. But if businesses want competent STEM workers, what they have to do is pay them a wage commensurate with the potential employees’ skills and abilities. All too often, that isn’t happening. The labor supply is there. If the demand on the business side were really critical, employers would chase after workers—U.S. workers, not people from other countries—by offering better wages, training and opportunity for advancement. But that hasn’t happened since the 1970s.
I had an education prof who said when captains of industry put the blame on education for their economic shortcomings, it’s like legislators putting a problem into committee and study it to death for years rather than dealing with the issue. It’s a dodge, a stall, a way to shift the blame and do nothing. Putting the blame on schools allows business people to say, “The reason we have low wages and poor quality goods and services is because our schools are failing. We just have to improve the quality of education, then wait a decade for the new, improved students to come out the other end. Meanwhile, there’s nothing we can do about it.” When the ten years are up, rinse and repeat.
This article appears in Feb 19-25, 2015.
Sorry David but education has become diploma mills for the over debt ridden middle class trying to schmooze their way into upper middle class income. So many of them would be better off learning a strong work ethic, honing their entrepreneurial skills and watching for a real opportunity, and then taking it and making something out of it.
NY Times columnist? Most of them are headed to the unemployment line.
Thank you for the article. David S. You speak the truth(as well as Krugman) and I am sick at heart. I listened to Dr. Sanchez last night who I respect …. he and so many others have worked so hard in our public school system. I will continue to do my job well and also I will be going to the TUSD board meeting tonight. Hopefully Steve Farley will have his voice there. I am going to support him.
So I think Paul Krugman’s major point may have been missed. I thought Krugman, in his recent column, suggested that a narrowing of power into the hands of fewer and fewer people – people with massive amounts of wealth – and the fact that they our making policy for us all, is the reason for growing inequality. He suggested that if power was shared, tax policies would tax people with money rather than those without money, minimum wages would be raised and a crumbling infrastructure would be maintained.
I think Krugman made a good point: power is too concentrated, benefiting the few while the public and the common good, including public education, suffers. We’ve lost our democracy and have a corporatocracy. It would be good if Governor Ducey’s new civics test reminded us that the Founding Fathers feared corporations just as much as they feared kings. Thomas Jefferson supported public education and stated that democracy depended on an educated middle-class. It should be no surprise that a corporatocracy cares little for real education and wants a corporate delivered educational system.
Krugman ran the alarm bell regarding power, and correctly suggested that no matter how well educated or how good the the educational system, unless the issue of power is addressed, gross inequality will continue.
@David W
A college education alone will not move one from middle class to upper middle class, nor is that the point of a diploma.
When you suggest that instead of a college degree, one should learn “a strong work ethic,” the implication is that a strong work ethic is missing from college students. That would be an inaccurate assumption.
“Hone your entrepreneurial skills.” Eight out of 10 businesses fail. Not a safe bet.
“Look for an opportunity and make something out of it.” More magic thinking.
Bottom line. Get your degree, anyway. You’re better off with it than you are without it.
I expected no less from academia.
“The reason we have low wages and poor quality goods is education”? Thats victim blaming big time. The way we never NEVER look at how fat the fat cats are getting while the economy is lean for most people is horrifying. We assume that the gap between what CEO’s get and what workers get is “natural”, and pinch pennies elsewhere. Kind of like assuming that TUSDs 1010 directors have to have their $10,000 a year bonuses (over high salaries to begin with) to do good work, while teachers will do good work with $500 a year step increases that they may or may not actually see.
Consider the ongoing politics surrounding H1 B visas to understand what is going on and who is involved in keeping STEM wages lower and guarding their gates to deny high wages to US educated workers. Silicon Valley fights efforts to pay visa holding workers more than $40K a year or to guarantee these sub-wage workers are not displacing US workers. Or look into the ongoing lawsuits against Microsoft et. al. by workers who’ve been prevented from seeking better paying jobs with competitors, in essence being black listed. Or the gender discrimination lawsuit against the largest venture capital firm funding IT start ups.
The profits-at-any-cost mentality and behavior is alive and well in high tech, where our “best and brightest” are passed over in favor of foreign workers willing to work at low wages for corporations seeking to maximize the bottom line.
I might observe another occurrence in 1970. The United States reached a production of nearly 10 million barrels per day of oil (current production post ‘shale revolution’ is less than 8m bopd).
This correlates especially well with the stagnation of working class wages since the 70’s.
One could observe that the basic inputs to the economy are energy and labor. We’re certainly not short the latter.
Just sayin’…
While our political system certainly accelerates the downward trend, one can currently observe the vicious cycle of deflation in nearly every economy in the world with widely varying underlying politics. No energy = No money = No jobs. Better get used to it. One can read through all the smoke our govt. is blowing with unemployment & GDP just by looking at the collapse in the oil price this year. If there was a real recovery, demand would raise the price of oil, not the opposite. No one’s got the cash to buy it, and we wind up with an oil ‘glut’. We’re pumping about the same as last year, but demand is way down. Party on!