The Dumbing of America

I hate to sound snobby, I really do. I hate to sound “entitled.” I hate to sound classist and “intellectual elite.” I hate to sound like I prefer more sophisticated spices to “salt of the earth.” I come from generations of blue-collar workers and entrepreneurs whose fondest dream was to college educate my generation. They got their dream.

Sadly, my generation is losing the same dream. The only things I hate worse than sounding snobby is to see people whose intellectual capabilities make them the bedrock of American excellence in every field, people who have sacrificed many hours of their youth and early adulthood to study, people who have used their educations to figure out complexities that make technological conveniences easy for the masses to enjoy – those people – reduced to beggary.

The continuing outsourcing of knowledge-work occupations to countries with far lower costs of living and therefore lower salaries for professional workers is lowering both the job security and perceived value of college-educated professionals. Welcome to the economy of 2007.

Today’s “Working” section headline in my local newspaper read “Top dollars for blue collars.” The article was crisply written and highly informative and sported a picture of a hard-hatted guy working high up in a steel structure. After appreciating those qualities, and wondering why the picture took up more space than the text, I turned it over to the cat to shred before his periodic claw-trimming. “Knock yourself out!” I encouraged him. And he did. I smiled. Then I vacuumed.

I got over the smiling, however, and turn now to serious consideration. The article cites the Bureau of Labor Statistics and CareerBuilder.com as the source for a list of the 10 most quickly growing blue-collar jobs, their median wages and expected growth through 2014. These jobs, states the article, are projected to grow at a rate of 9 percent to 26 percent. Most of the occupations are in construction-related industries or home- and industrial-equipment maintenance. Their highest annual income is $58,718, but most were in the low- to mid-$40,000’s. Okay. These are just the fastest-growing blue-collar jobs, and the article makes no mention of how they stack up against the 10 fastest-growing white-collar jobs. Facts are facts, but predictions are iffy (lies, damn lies, and statistics). My blood pressure returns to its usual range.

But the reporter’s analysis was chilling: Since “there are plenty of blue-collar jobs that technology and overseas labor just can’t mess with” if you’re a blue-collar worker you’ll be happy to “see another trend here, as well: You don’t have to earn a college degree to make a good living.” I figured the reporter earns what local newspaper reporters earn—those lucky ones who haven’t been laid off in Los Angeles and Philadelphia and elsewhere—so maybe to her mid-$40,000’s is a “good living.” Reporters have deadlines and space limitations that sometimes preclude giving the full context for the irresistibly pithy conclusion. But I found my irritation growing at the roughly 5-by-10 inch real estate occupied by the picture. Did this imply that the editor simply had too much space to fill – or that he thought blue-collar types liked pictures better than text they had to actually read? My snobby, classist self had to investigate that minimalist text further.

Even if the reporter’s conclusion is right—and I agree that blue-collar workers are absolutely deserving of a good living—the implication is that those are the only occupations not likely to be outsourced, and white-collar types had better go take a few courses in masonry and electronics repair. Let the fact-checking begin!

• -The Bureau of Labor Statistics “2000-2014 Employment Projections,” it turns out, was last modified in December, 2005, and provides more balance than the reporter’s simplistic conclusion. The information behind the not-exactly-breaking news-bite is this:

• -An associate or bachelor’s degree is the most significant source of postsecondary education or training for 6 of the 10 fastest growing occupations.
• -In the blue-collar realm of occupational employment, construction employment is projected to grow, but at a slower pace than during the previous decade (1994-2004). Manufacturing employment, is expected to decline by 5 percent, lower than the 16 percent decline of the previous decade. Employment in goods-producing industries is expected to decrease from 15 percent to 13 percent of total employment.
• -Professional and related occupations and service occupations—two groups on opposite ends of the educational and earnings ranges—are projected to add the most jobs, accounting for 6 out of 10 new jobs created over the 2004-14 period.
• -The 10 detailed industries with the largest wage and salary employment growth, led by employment services, local government education, and offices of physicians, are in the service-providing sector.

So let’s revise that news headline to reflect the broader facts and projections: “Near-future job security best in hands-on, people-to-people service industries.” Go study something medical, my white-collar friends. The Baby Boomers are aging, and we’ll need our meds to stay healthy enough keep working because we can’t afford to retire.

Informed by the full perspective, I apologize for the hype of my own headline. America is not really dumbing down to become a blue-collar nation – or not by any greater preponderance than we always have been. The broad swath of the bell curve of our labor force has always been in blue-collar industries, and they’ve had the sense to organize into bargaining units. And that isn’t dumb at all.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 2nd, 2007 at 2:09 pm and is filed under Directors Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.