MSNBC: The American working man slowly fades away

[OmahaBlueDog]

As President Barack Obama puts together a new jobs plan to be revealed shortly after Labor Day, he is up against a powerful force, long in the making, that has gone virtually unnoticed in the debate over how to put people back to work: Employers are increasingly giving up on the American man.

If that sounds bleak, it’s because it is. The portion of men who work and their median wages have been eroding since the early 1970s. For decades the impact of this fact was softened in many families by the increasing number of women who went to work and took up the slack. More recently, the housing bubble helped to mask it by boosting the male-dominated construction trades, which employed millions. When real estate ultimately crashed, so did the prospects for many men. The portion of men holding a job — any job, full- or part-time — fell to 63.5 percent in July — hovering stubbornly near the low point of 63.3 percent it reached in December 2009. These are the lowest numbers in statistics going back to 1948. Among the critical category of prime working-age men between 25 and 54, only 81.2 percent held jobs, a barely noticeable improvement from its low point last year — and still well below the depths of the 1982-83 recession, when employment among prime-age men never dropped below 85 percent. To put those numbers in perspective, consider that in 1969, 95 percent of men in their prime working years had a job.

Read more at: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44288256/ns/business-us_business/

[DonCoquixote]

1. The american in general

is Beijing replaced, with the Chinese and Indian "working class' that may act sophisticated, but knows when to obey their masters.

[OHdem10]

2. More like the middle working class is fading away.

[Kennah]

3. Not really. They are on the move--to Hooverville

[OKDem08]

4. Obamaville?

[Dragonfli]

5. Same thing, same austerity policies /nt

[Kennah]

8. No, no, no! Hoover was a Republican. Obama is, um, er, nevermind.

[cutlassmama]

6. I've seen more ads on CL asking to buy tents, RV's, and fifth wheels

than I ever had before. It's really sad and depressing.

[Kennah]

7. I almost can't even look on FreeCycle, it's just too sad to see the desperation

[w0nderer]

9. k&r n/t