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March 4, 2008
Forget, for a moment, the mortgage crisis, the credit crunch and worries that Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's text messaging skills are tarnishing Michigan's image.
The major challenge facing the state and the rest of the country is how to produce good-paying jobs in an era of unrelenting global competition.
An upcoming book edited by economists Timothy Bartik and Susan Houseman of the Kalamazoo-based W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, offers important ideas for boosting job growth and raising the wages of American workers.
"A Future of Good Jobs? America's Challenge in the Global Economy" is not likely to be displayed at the front of your local Borders with the latest John Grisham legal thriller. (It can be ordered at upjohninst.org)
The book is a compilation of chapters written by Bartik, Houseman and six university labor and public policy experts. It goes on sale April 1.
An introductory chapter, written by Bartik and Houseman, details how American workers are losing ground.
Inflation-adjusted wages for most workers are stagnant while health care and other benefits are declining. Global trade is producing increased job insecurity. And those with little education are having trouble finding any job, according to the authors.
Bartik said he agrees with studies that have found states with the high percentages of college-educated graduates tend also to have the most vibrant economies.
But the book's authors also argue vocational education must be improved in the public school system to better prepare students for good-paying jobs that do not require four-year degrees, such as auto mechanics, plumbers and other skilled trades.
"Many of these jobs pay quite well," Bartik said. "And you can't outsource the job of an auto mechanic, a plumber or an electrician to China."
The book's authors also argue the federal government needs to invest more in employment and training programs. Spending on those programs has dropped 40 percent in the past decade, they say.
A "low-wage challenge fund" in which the federal government would supplement state funds to raise the skills of the lowest-income workers and help them get better jobs, said book author Paul Osterman, a human resources expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
And instituting a lower-cost universal health care system, paid for by employers, government and individuals, would help employers boost wages and add jobs, according to book author Katherine Swartz, a Harvard University health policy economist.
Many of you are probably thinking a better approach would be to end free-trade agreements that shift jobs to Mexico and China.
But if you think that's going to happen, you probably also believe Mayor Kilpatrick's contention that God chose him to be mayor of Detroit.
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