Today's job report got me thinking. I currently work roughly 20 hours a week at a job that pays slightly above minimum wage. That's all right though, I'm still attending college (3 units away from my degree). A good friend of mine graduated this Spring, but she still has the same job she had before she got a degree and, unfortunately, she doesn't have any new job prospects.
So in my thinking I remembered an article I read earlier this year that discusses the gap that existes between college grads, and open jobs that require the applicants to have college degrees. Today I also looked at the website We are the 99 Percent . Many of the personal stories on that website reflect what my friend is going through. Despite going to college and getting a degree, there doesn't seem to be an appropriate place in the labor force for them. The underlying assumption, or at least what me and many in my generation thought it to be, was that if you went to college, got a degree, and played by the rules, you'd be able to get a decent job.
That doesn't necessarily seem true anymore. Sure, for some it's still true. For grads with degrees in education and engineering, for example, the majority (roughly 70%) of them are able to find jobs that require their degree. For other majors, however, that isn't true. Nearly half of all college grads with degrees outside of Education, Computer Science / Math, and Engineering, can't find a job that requires a college degree, let alone their specific degree.
What is especially frustrating is the idleness of players that could do something to help turn this dire situation around. This crisis won't be solved by dismantling the EPA or the Federal Department of Education, it won't be done away with by taking away women's reproductive rights or making it more difficult for minorities to register to vote; but that's what seems to occupy a large portion of legislators times all across the country. The economy needs jobs, and it just so happens that a large jobs package was introduced by President Obama. The sad thing is that, despite the majority of economists and macroeconomic forecasting firms saying that this jobs bill would add millions of job, it has absolutely no chance of being enacted in any meaningful way.
Disillusionment has struck many Americans, especially younger generations. They no longer have faith in a system that has left them with tens of thousands of dollars of student loan debt with nothing real to show for it. As they went to school, hoping that one day all of their work, money, and time would pay off, they got to see the carrot dangled in front of them inch further and further away. Now, rather than continue to chase the carrot, it seems as though many have decided that it might be a better idea to go after the person holding the carrot, thus Occupy Wall Street. I hope that OWS continues to grow, that it continues to garner attention, and that it eventually leads to some sort of large shift in the American Dream.
The original American Dream is dead. We need a new one.
ReplyDeleteFor too long the people who've graduated college have accepted that those whose education was interrupted due to illness, injury, financial difficulties, or family issues should just suck it up and eat dirt. If we had wanted good jobs we should have been able to figure out a way to work 40 hours a week AND take 18 units, while raising kids, despite our illness.
ReplyDeleteWelcome to the 99%.
They don't care about you; they never cared. They were giving you candy with a hook in it in return for your apathy.