Outsourcing
CNN’s Lou Dobbs debated outsourcing and education with Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration, on the Larry King Show. It turned into a mutual admiration fellowship, with them agreeing that the middle class is getting shafted and that most of the benefits of economic growth are going to the very top.
The corporate share of national income has risen to a record level since World War II, but American workers are not benefitting from this rise in our national income. Wages in this country have been stagnant for 35 years, and if we don't start protecting our middle class, we're not going to have many left.
Outsourcing has led to the loss of four million manufacturing jobs over the past six years in this country. Those jobs are replaced with employment that on average provide salaries that are 20 to 30 percent less than the jobs, which were lost to overseas outsourcing. At risk are 15 million jobs in the next nine years that will go overseas. We are losing manufacturing jobs, to outsourcing, but we're also losing them because of technology.
U.S. multi-nationals corporations are off-shoring production, closing plants with good jobs, and moving them offshore to take advantage of cheaper labor, and then reintroducing the products and services created overseas back into our $12 trillion consumer economy.
Reich insists that making sure young people get the skills they need is presently much more important than the issue of outsourcing. The loss of good middle class jobs, is of great concern, but education is the key to holding onto many of of these jobs.
College graduate are doing fairly well, but those that are dropping out of high school or don't have any education beyond high school are being paid almost nothing. Reich said: “If we don't improve our educational system, particularly primary and secondary education, it will be a big problem.” The unemployment rate for recent high school dropouts was 15 percent for men and 21 percent for women in 2005.
“No Child Left Behind” with it’s unfunded mandates seems to have made the situation worse.
The corporate share of national income has risen to a record level since World War II, but American workers are not benefitting from this rise in our national income. Wages in this country have been stagnant for 35 years, and if we don't start protecting our middle class, we're not going to have many left.
Outsourcing has led to the loss of four million manufacturing jobs over the past six years in this country. Those jobs are replaced with employment that on average provide salaries that are 20 to 30 percent less than the jobs, which were lost to overseas outsourcing. At risk are 15 million jobs in the next nine years that will go overseas. We are losing manufacturing jobs, to outsourcing, but we're also losing them because of technology.
U.S. multi-nationals corporations are off-shoring production, closing plants with good jobs, and moving them offshore to take advantage of cheaper labor, and then reintroducing the products and services created overseas back into our $12 trillion consumer economy.
Reich insists that making sure young people get the skills they need is presently much more important than the issue of outsourcing. The loss of good middle class jobs, is of great concern, but education is the key to holding onto many of of these jobs.
College graduate are doing fairly well, but those that are dropping out of high school or don't have any education beyond high school are being paid almost nothing. Reich said: “If we don't improve our educational system, particularly primary and secondary education, it will be a big problem.” The unemployment rate for recent high school dropouts was 15 percent for men and 21 percent for women in 2005.
“No Child Left Behind” with it’s unfunded mandates seems to have made the situation worse.
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