The Truth About Jobs

Every time President Reagan talks about the wonders that his free-market Administration has wrought for the American economy, a staple of his talk is how many new jobs have been created. “Our market-oriented policies have paid off,” the President boasted in his 1987 economic report to Congress. The economy has created 12 million new jobs since the last recession, he said. Furthermore, the percentage of working-age people with jobs was the highest on record for the past two years, the President said.

As far as the statistics go, they are accurate. But they do not go very far. A vastly different reality was demonstrated during the past week’s AFL-CIO meeting in Florida with the presentation of a report prepared for Congress on the basis of Labor Department and other statistics. While there may be 12 million new jobs in recent years, 11 million workers lost their jobs between 1979 and 1984--half of them in relatively high-paying manufacturing industries.

The lucky ones found new jobs, presumably among the 12 million, but in doing so they suffered a loss in real earnings of 10% to 15%. And of all the jobs added to the economy between 1979 and 1984, six out of 10 paid less than $7,000 a year--roughly the minimum wage and far below the poverty line. That is hardly a record to boast about.

But if you do not trust the AFL-CIO figures, try the statistical charts at the back of the President’s own economic report.

Yes, as the President said, more people are working, primarily because so many women have entered the work force and because there are so many two-earner families these days. But only 71% of the adult males in the civilian work force had jobs in 1986--the lowest percentage of men working at least since 1948, when the figure was 83.5%. The proportion of women in the work force increased during the same period from 31.3% to 51.4%.

Even with so many two-income couples, American families were not necessarily better off. The median family income for 1985 was $27,735--a decline from the high of $29,087, in constant dollars, recorded in 1978. The percentage of families living below the poverty line during the Reagan years is the highest since the mid-1960s.

One reason for the decline in median income is apparent when you examine figures for men’s salaries and wages and women’s in the White House report. Men holding year-round full-time jobs in 1985 earned $24,999 compared with $16,252 for women, but fewer men and more women were working.

The report did not list the number of part-time or temporary employees, but the average work week has declined steadily over the years to 34.8 hours. Unions have negotiated a shorter work week for many Americans, but the figure also reflects the large number of persons who now can get only part-time jobs or temporary ones that often do not 1667330674pensions. The average work week in manufacturing still was 40.7 hours.

As the President’s report said, his market-oriented polices have paid off. But only for a small segment of America, and largely for those in upper-income brackets. Put another way: The rich are getting richer, many of the poor are poorer, and much of the American middle class is struggling to hold its ground.