February 21, 2002

6:02 AM

90% of white males suffered downward income mobility over last 20 yearsWhy hasn't this detailed, well-done study by reputable entities gotten any play from the major media? The study linked above proves that things have gone downhill for the vast majority of people here in the USA. Now what I would like to see are the results of a similar study done for northwestern Europeans.
posted by username (45 comments total)

So, you're a racist?
posted by Outlawyr at 6:06 AM on February 21, 2002 [1 favorite]

Outlawyr -- you might want to read the article before going nuts...
Morris said their study had to be restricted to white males because of limitations in the data collected in the first survey. Women were less likely to work outside the home in the late 1960s and so were not consistently asked the same set of questions as the men. Minority men were included in the original survey, but over half of them dropped out over the 16 years. That made meaningful statistical comparisons impossible.

And, further down:
“We know from other studies that women and minorities made some gains during this period, but inequality also grew within these groups, much as it did with white men. This growth in inequality appears to be the signature theme of the new economy.

That last point might make the study somewhat invalid, but in any case, the primary point is not about race, but a general increase in the inequality, i.e. a larger rich/poor gap with a smaller middle in between.
posted by malphigian at 6:09 AM on February 21, 2002

what's up with all these racists posts on mefi today? First the "black thugs" story with quotes from daivd duke and now this?
posted by delmoi at 6:27 AM on February 21, 2002

malphigian:

Yeh, but the title of the actual article is about people in general, yet the post here specifically limits the talked about group to "white men", indicating that they are the "vast majority" and implying that the decline is as a result of affirmative action or something like that.

Basically, the blurb is a total misunderstanding of the article. And it isn't saying that people are doing worse then they were 20 years ago, but rather people today are not doing as well as their counterparts would have done 20 years ago, unless they are part of a group that has made great strides towards equality in that time (minorities and women)
posted by delmoi at 6:35 AM on February 21, 2002

This is a racist post. I'm not saying the study or article was racist. I'm saying the intent of the post was to feed into a racist ideology. Let's take it step by step:

"90% of white males suffered downward income mobility over last 20 years"
[emphasis added] As delmoi points out, the post focuses on the suffering of white males.

"Why hasn't this detailed, well-done study by reputable entities gotten any play from the major media?"
The post then posits a conspiracy theory. The implication is that the "liberal" media shies away from stories that show how the white man suffers, preferring stories of how minorities suffer. This is a common thread among racists.

"The study linked above proves that things have gone downhill for the vast majority of people here in the USA."
username has something to prove to us. I think I'm safe in saying that username is white and male, and considers himself part of a vast majority. Actually, white males are not in the majority numerically, but in terms of power, wealth and influence in the USA I would say they are.

"Now what I would like to see are the results of a similar study done for northwestern Europeans."
Why? Because username considers "northwestern Europeans" to be white like him? What scientific purpose would be served by comparing white US males to all northwestern Europeans?

If you don't see the racism inherent in this post, you need to look a little harder.
posted by Outlawyr at 7:01 AM on February 21, 2002

I think you, Outlawyr, need to read the article. The study was done using white males. Hence the title.

People like you are evidence that much of the 'racism' remaining in this country today is conjured up by people who want to see said racism.
posted by eas98 at 7:10 AM on February 21, 2002

My god, you people have major issues.

Go here for more.

As for the study, I found it interesting. Although I'd like to see the breakdown by industry, what percentages worked where, how those industries fared themselves in the economy and so forth.

The education thing (2 year college not being better than a high school education) didn't surprise me, since more people are going to college, thus raising the bar for basic qualifications.
posted by rich at 7:17 AM on February 21, 2002

Note to self: don't invite Outlawyr over for pleasant dinner party & conversation.
posted by Karl at 7:29 AM on February 21, 2002

Just to save others the bother of telling me to read the article, I browsed it before my first post and read it completely before my second post.

I read the article. The article is not racist. The study is not racist. The spin in the post on Mefi strikes me as racist for the reasons stated.
posted by Outlawyr at 7:30 AM on February 21, 2002

RACISM!(tm), the successor to "Wolf, Wolf!"
posted by dagny at 7:30 AM on February 21, 2002

Oh, and Karl, what time did you say dinner was?
posted by Outlawyr at 7:31 AM on February 21, 2002

Outlawyr - maybe you didn't get my reason for posting 'go here.' Take the bickering over the racism issue off this thread and into Metatalk.

Is there any way to save a useful discussion about the study?
posted by rich at 7:52 AM on February 21, 2002

Oh, and Karl, what time did you say dinner was?

7:00pm sharp. I was going to serve a good old fashioned Southern picnic-style dinner, including chicken, watermelon and hamhocks--but now I'll have to think of something else.
posted by Karl at 7:58 AM on February 21, 2002

there can be little doubt that things suck for most people compared to 30 years ago. i've said this before: my father worked, my mom stayed home with 5 kids, he built a brand new 2 story colonial in 1960 on an annual salary of $5600, and we kids lived the suburban middle class dream. these days it takes two fulltime incomes to get by. last time i said this on mefi i got blown off, folks insisted that there was so much more people HAD to have these days, second cars, consumer electronics, etc etc. i don't beleive this fully accounts for the difference though.
posted by quonsar at 8:05 AM on February 21, 2002

As the economy has shifted, though, did they take into account the different industries the people in the study went into and compare like industries?

I mean, I could see more manufacturing workers in the 1960's and 70's compared to the workforce of the 1990's.. and typically, manufacturing has union employment, better pay scale over the long run, more assurance of lifetime employment, etc..

Also, for non-manufacturing jobs, you would probably see more insistance on education.

Also, the periods they chose may be suspect since the starting time for the second group was right around a recessionary period while the second group started in relatively prosperous times.
posted by rich at 8:13 AM on February 21, 2002

Racist or not, an import question not asked: how many or what percentage of white male workers were union members 20 years ago? Is it a coincidence that as more and more people began to lose status fewer and fewer belonged to unions? "don't mourn for me boys, organize"--Joe Hill just before being executed.
posted by Postroad at 8:18 AM on February 21, 2002

I'm with quonsar on this one. My mum stayed home with two kids - and two cars. Granted Dad had Uni degree - but today so have I.. and today I'm two years older than my mum was at her second child, and I have yet to get my first car! (or child for that matter)

Strange. I can't stay home with my kids and afford to eat unless I marry a millionare.
posted by dabitch at 8:32 AM on February 21, 2002

To the extent that anecdotal evidence has any value, I'll toss in my 2 cents. It is friggin hard to come even close to the standard of living of my childhood.
posted by Outlawyr at 8:49 AM on February 21, 2002

fwiw, here's some "wealth gap" statistics (1947-1998) from the census bureau.
posted by kliuless at 9:01 AM on February 21, 2002

I'm with quonsar on this one as well.
posted by revbrian at 9:08 AM on February 21, 2002

Outlawyr-- If white males are not the majority of the American work force, who is? Numerically speaking, of course.
posted by G_Ask at 9:17 AM on February 21, 2002

I don't know. I know a lot of people who make $40,000-$60,000 a year, have 3 kids, a house in the suburbs and are managing fine. I personally have no idea *how* they can actually manage that, but they seem to do fine.

I think there are more barriers to entry than there were 30 years ago, though.. with ever-increasing standards and baselines, a population that in growth terms is probably outstripping demand for the (desired) available labor, and so forth.
posted by rich at 9:23 AM on February 21, 2002

rich: interestingly, the bottom end of that range is the median household income in the US... meaning there are many with less.

The census is actually a great place to look for this stuff. In fact, probably MUCH better trends would emerge by looking at cost-of-living vs. income in different groups than this study's methods as described.
posted by malphigian at 9:33 AM on February 21, 2002

Personally, I can't take this report all that seriously. I mean, geez, the latest group of data they studied is from 1994! There's been MASSIVE change in technology and industry since then that's not accounted for.

Speaking as one of the "10% of young white guys with great wage growth," I want to see more solid evidence. What about variables such as where these people live, what jobs they held, etc. Until then, I'm skeptical about the results being trumpeted.
posted by PeteyStock at 9:37 AM on February 21, 2002

Perhaps the reason this particular study hasn't received any hoopla in the media is that it is essentially old news. There is a lot of research out there that indicates that since 1970 real wages have either stagnated or declined for all but a few groups - the upper 20% have actually seen significant increases, and white college-educated women have also posted some gains. The decline in the manufacturing sector - dominated by white, unionized men - is likely one of the largest driving factors behind the decline, but there are several factors at work here and you can't totally lay the blame on any one thing.

Perhaps the wording of the original post was somewhat racially inflamatory, but the main point is valid: For the vast majority of people in the U.S., their real wages have either stagnated or declined. Most people - white, black, brown, male, and female - make less and work more than they did 30 years ago.

So the question is not, "Why hasn't this study been given more play?," it's, "Why hasn't the situation been given more play?"
posted by edlark at 9:38 AM on February 21, 2002

Oh, and the flip side to the decline in real wages is the explosive growth of productivity in the same 30 year period.
posted by edlark at 9:42 AM on February 21, 2002

I'd like if I may to toss in my two cents on the issue of "Dad used to work and Mom stayed home with the kids and we had house/2cars and everything was just jim dandy and nobody can afford to do that now." I consider myself to know something about this.

In many cases, the idea that a second income is an Unquestionable Good is just not sound. There are real costs involved with Mom going back to work. There's childcare. Don't forget Mom's work wardrobe, lunch money, the fact that she can no longer make do with an older car that doesn't have to go further than Albertsons, the higher insurance that goes with the newer car, and another dozen little things that add up. I did the math about 6 years ago and figured that to break even Mom has to make $1200/mo after taxes. Or perhaps I should say "the parent with the lowest wage".
posted by ilsa at 10:34 AM on February 21, 2002

Oh, and the flip side to the decline in real wages is the explosive growth of productivity in the same 30 year period.

well, duh. less people needed to do the same ammount of work means that there's less jobs to go around, and automation means that jobs which used to be skilled labor are now braindead.
posted by hob at 11:10 AM on February 21, 2002

Is there really a decline in jobs when you go higher tech and automated things? (moz, you wanna do the research for me on that one?)

Let's take automating a trading floor. Sure, you're getting rid of some trading assistants, paper handlers, people who make copies and runners and some phone people. But you also had to hire developers, analysts, and system architecture people to build the system and continue to maintain it.

Isn't there more a shifting of job types, and with that shifting, the unskilled or the skilled that can't change or keep up with changes suffer?
posted by rich at 11:46 AM on February 21, 2002

fwiw, when I first read the words "white male", I wondered if it was meant from a racist or sexist perspective, but upon reading further I didn't see anything in the post itself to support that conclusion.

my next thought was "interesting! if it can be shown that white males have suffered downward mobility in the last 20 years, maybe policy-makers will sit up and pay attention!"

because if even white males are doing worse, then maybe the point is that only a very few people are consistently doing better. the american people continue to look *up* and vote for policies that support where they dream they will someday be, rather than voting for policies that will support them today.

health care, or even equitable laws governing the administration of health insurance? tax distribution? labor laws?

the other problem, of course, is that those with money automatically have power (read: can buy politician's votes), so that in instances where politicians themselves are making decisions, the wealthy almost always win.
posted by rebeccablood at 12:13 PM on February 21, 2002

if there weren't a payoff in savings on human resources, nobody would automate. why bother installing a several-million-dollar computer system if you still need just as many people to do the same job?

"increase in productivity" means that the same number of people can do more work; which means that less people can do the same ammount of work. that's the whole point.

in the short term, what we're seeing is the same number of jobs, and a decline in real wages, as we automate *all the tasks we can* and replace the skilled workers who used to do those super-tasks with unskilled workers who do the smaller subset of those tasks which are much harder to automate.

so, on the trading floor you mentioned, you'll originally have a set of skilled workers (the traders) being supported by a staff of unskilled and unskilled workers. as we automate the trading process and increase productivity, what you start to see is a decrease in the number of skilled traders, an increase in the number unskilled support workers, and a change in the number and type of skilled support workers (secretaries and whatnot going away, programmers and systems designers coming in). as we start to see the automation technology mature, you'll see a decrease in both the unskilled support workers (as the skilled support workers figure out how to automate their jobs) and in the skilled support workers (as their jobs finish) until you're left with a core of skilled traders and a few skilled support workers.

this trend is already in the "mature" phase in the telecom and manufacturing areas, and is heading that direction rapidly in high tech companies. wonder why more and more people are being employed by the service industry? hmm.
posted by hob at 12:19 PM on February 21, 2002

rcb, i think the system is self-regulating that way in that the poorer people get the larger voting bloc they become until the cohort divisions are porous again such that "upward mobility" (or illusions thereof :) is restored.

it's just that self-regulating systems often aren't seen as such cuz they may take wild swings in degree until people "wake-up" and ostensibly realize (on both sides of the fence!) that they're playing chicken with terminal collapse. but i think tightening them up presents hazards of unintended consequence as well.

as for automation, jeremy rifkin addressed this in a book called the end of work. if somewhat alarmist, he does offer an interesting solution in a "social wage" which btw is hard to distinguish from welfare. but even milton friedman has advocated such things as a cheaper alternative to the prison-industrial state (that's supposed to arise from high unemployment i guess).
posted by kliuless at 12:43 PM on February 21, 2002

as for automation, jeremy rifkin addressed this in a book called the end of work. if somewhat alarmist, he does offer an interesting solution in a "social wage" which btw is hard to distinguish from welfare.

People have been predicting mass unemployment due to increases in automation since the start of the Industrial Revolution.

It hasn't happened.

To use our example, a bunch of traders do end up out of work. But the money that used to pay their salaries doesn't vanish - some of it goes to the software types who wrote the automated trading system, some of it goes to the managers of those software types, and some of it goes back to the people who used to spend $100 to trade a bunch of shares and are now only spending $50, giving them $50 to spend on something else.
posted by jaek at 1:10 PM on February 21, 2002

rifkin's thesis was that people could work in factories after agribusiness automated food production, and then with factory automation people have moved on to service sectors jobs, which is what, 70% of the US workforce now?

he just asks if workflow automation ever gains traction, what's left? his answer basically is cultural production, which i don't think, at least in its current incarnation, would be able to accommodate the inflow. like everyone can't be a celebrity.

i don't think it's at all clear we're facing an impending crisis, but i think it is an interesting, if nascent, development that's worth watching. and, like i said, democratic systems i think are self-regulating. (even if sometimes subverted!) if enough people are put out of work, it's natural to think they'll tax the hell out of owners of capital :)
posted by kliuless at 1:42 PM on February 21, 2002

I don't believe this is as dramatic as it purports to be. I'm with those who ask whether real household income has declined. The liberals who may be wringing their hands need to consider that feminism had a very straightforward effect of increasing the labor pool and thereby bringing wages down.

Issues of automation aren't as important, either. The proportion of manufacturing in the US economy isn't that much different than it was a generation ago; but the character of that manufacturing has changed dramatically. We're no longer relying on major resource-processing industries like US Steel with tens of thousands of unionized workers, but on many more smaller companies doing finished-goods manufacturing, many of them non-unionized. No, this isn't as good if you're a classic lefty looking at the union job as the route to the middle class for the working poor. But at the same time it means there's more opportunity and flexibility for workers, and that puts more responsibilty on them to seek out effective careers, educating themselves, and taking investment risks. The trend toward 401(k)s instead of pensions is just a back-end illustration of the same trend. More risk; higher potential reward; less certainty.

The idea that we would be in a certain kind of manufacturing-heavy, unionized, smokestack-industry economy forever is shortsighted. Two hundred years ago that sector of the economy barely existed, and farmers and shopkeepers -- essentially standalone family businesses -- were much more the norm.

If you read biographies of people in the 19th century, you often find that they tried their hand at this or that business until they were "ruined". Now, perhaps we can be smarter about how we structure an entrepreneurial-based economy in the 21st century, but I don't think we can go back to the 1950s.
posted by dhartung at 3:43 PM on February 21, 2002

hrm. this seems to indicate that in january 1970, manufacturing jobs accounted for 28% of the non-farm workforce; in 2000, the number is 9%. (if i've misinterpreted this data, lemme know -- the key will help here).

now, manufacturing may be just as high a proportion of our total economy as it always has been, but that does seem to say that there are less jobs producing the same ammount of stuff. where did those jobs go? well, i'm guessing the service industry, which is now 37% of our workforce, as opposed to 16% in the 70s. which pays more, service work or manufacturing? hmm. (admittedly, the "service" category in this table seems to include things like "computer and data processing services" and "hostpitals", so doctors and lawyers, but still...)
posted by hob at 5:04 PM on February 21, 2002

...er, that should have said "doctors and computer programmers." oops.
posted by hob at 5:05 PM on February 21, 2002

Lawyers are also in the service industry.

So maybe "doctors and computer programmers and lawyers and architects and advertising scum and research scientists and..."

Service jobs are generally going to be higher-paying in weathlier countries because there's less competitive pressure from poorer nations. It's easy to ship a widget made by somebody working for a dollar a day in Malaysia to the US, it's a lot harder for someone making a dollar a day in Malaysia to fix my car.
posted by jaek at 5:37 PM on February 21, 2002

wow, that's a hard table to read hob :) but if like manufacturing is 9% and service is 37%, what's the rest of 54%!? like i know unemployment's still pretty low and i'm not sure there's that many discouraged workers who have fallen out of the employment statistics. kids maybe? or old people i guess.

i found this world bank report that says "high income countries" enjoy economies with a 66% service, 32% industry and 2% agriculture mixture, but they don't give any sources for it. (i guess they can source themselves :) they also had this kind of wacky graph showing a labor force breakdown vs. "per capita income over time." makes it look easy!
posted by kliuless at 5:47 PM on February 21, 2002

dhartung: The liberals who may be wringing their hands need to consider that feminism had a very straightforward effect of increasing the labor pool and thereby bringing wages down.

sources?

it *sounds* like common sense, but I'd like to know if there are any hard figures anywhere on the subject. (even books.)

[when you think about it, though, the women's movement in this country happened roughly while a certain percentage of young men were in vietnam, (and the numbers of women who entered the work force at that time were, I think, pretty low.) so I wonder if this effect, if it exists, was ever observable, and if so, when it really happened.]

the problem is not household income. that's just a symptom (or rather a symptom in some ecologies). what is at issue--or what should be at issue--is basic quality of life.

in a society where health care, education, and housing were available to everyone, theoretically a family could live--live well--on very little income. in a society where each of those things needs to be purchased, the cost of a quality life goes up.
posted by rebeccablood at 5:54 PM on February 21, 2002

fwiw, eo wilson weighs in that empowering women is actually a prerequisite of development. else we'd be overrun by all those little rugrats who're bringing this country down :)

bring on the dispossessed!
posted by kliuless at 6:11 PM on February 21, 2002

there's also this btw:

Figure 2 depicts how earnings inequality has changed between 1967 and 1998 for both men and women who were full-time, year- round workers, as measured by the Gini coefficient. The earnings distribution for men remained stable, with a few exceptions, between 1967 and 1980.

oh and: Table P-54. Total Money Income of People, by Race, Hispanic Origin and Sex: 1967 to 2000
posted by kliuless at 6:38 PM on February 21, 2002

"Why hasn't this detailed, well-done study by reputable entities gotten any play from the major media?"

I don't know, maybe it's because it is one of several thousand studies released by academics on a yearly basis that claim their results require serious attention and suggest serious reflection on - and changes to - "our system" are required?

“We have choices to make here – and we can choose a system in which prosperity is shared, and the reward for hard work is at least a living wage. It is a question of distribution and equity. Economists will say that is a political question, and they are right. This is a political choice, and it determines where American society will be in the future." (From the article under discussion here).

We have aready chosen a "system" in which prosperity is "shared", in that 10% of the popultation pays over 50% of the taxes, and 40% of the population pays virtually no taxes at all. and look how bad it is claimed our country is doing. Do you think that making re-distribution even more severe - say make the top 5% pay all the taxes, and everyone else pay none ... suddenly things will be better?

From F.A. Hayek's "Planning Our Way to Serfdom":

"The belief in a society in which the renumeration of individuals is made to correspond with something called "social justice" is a chimera which is threatening to seduce modern democracy to accept a system that would involve a disasterous loss of personal freedom".

"what is at issue--or what should be at issue--is basic quality of life. in a society where health care, education, and housing were available to everyone, theoretically a family could live--live well--on very little income. in a society where each of those things needs to be purchased, the cost of a quality life goes up."

This is the core point. The problem is that such things cannot just be "provided", without someone "providing" them. If the market is not going to decide how to value resources - because it is alledged to be unjust or inefficient - what standard will be used? How will it be arrived at? And more importantly, why is it that in the number of different places where some other standard has been tried or does currently exist ... why does it seem that there is a much greater number of their citizens that want to move here than there are Americans clamoring to move there?
posted by MidasMulligan at 8:39 PM on February 21, 2002

"It's easy to ship a widget made by somebody working for a dollar a day in Malaysia to the US, it's a lot harder for someone making a dollar a day in Malaysia to fix my car."

maybe, maybe not. the point is that the manufacturing industry is where all the union jobs have been, and also where there's been the most mobility between skilled and unskilled classes of workers; traditionally, "blue collar" skills are passed on in the workplace via apprenticeships and work experience. in the service economy, you wind up placed when you enter the workplace, and you're going to stay in your place, unless you go back to school and learn to do something else.

i guess the point i'm trying to get across is this: you want to know what's changed between then and now? it's the difference between a late-stage manufacturing economy and an early-stage service economy.
posted by hob at 11:55 PM on February 21, 2002

MM asks: why does it seem that there is a much greater number of their citizens that want to move here than there are Americans clamoring to move there?

that kind of smacks of american triumphalism which i don't think is necessarily true in perpetuity, even that which concerns "the west." it assumes extrapoliating trends based on a sort of bottomless reservoir of american spirit, ingenuity or whathaveyou :)

what's interesting to me is that it seems like it's increasingly perpetuated by immigrants whether from mexico or india. i read someplace that andy grove (hungarian immigrant! or maybe it was gordon moore or craig barret?) that one of the chokes on the US was it's educational system. and if you look at phDs in science and engineering i think i saw somewhere that more than half are comprised of foreign students.

so to me it's really not so much about re-distribution or "handouts" but the transfer of knowledge and technology which i think MM would agree is the basis for entrepreurship. i just don't see re-distribution made possible by productivity growth at all bad, like it's a necessary responsibility even. we all take from the commons and we should all give back to it! i think even bill gates has figured that out :)

that's why i don't think MM's distinction between "providers" and "provided fors" makes much sense when you take into account that my "quality of life" improves when yours does too :) and i think that goes for societies as well as individuals! like i think that's what's meant by enlightened self-interest. there need not just be one standard and i think for one the gini coefficient hasn't really been looked at enough.

even alan greenspan (ex-randian :) has warned against predatory lending in "lower-income communities" and helping "minority- and women-owned businesses." even if just lip-service, i think it's a tacit acknowledgement that the institutional deck in many ways is still stacked against equal opportunity.
posted by kliuless at 6:48 AM on February 22, 2002