Economic Report: Will The American Dream End With Gen Y?

http://www.laborradio.org/node/8603

Generation Y” may soon be wondering "why us?" as a new study shows that their generation will likely be the first to not surpass the living standards of their parents. According to the Center for American Progress growing debt, costs of education, declining real wages, lack of health care and expensive home ownership are all leaving recent college grads with a feeling of uncertainty. The study found that the top fie areas for job growth are retail, customer service, food prep, office clerks, and registered nurses.

All they'll need to do is look at "us" who blew their future in one way or another.

...for parts of the country without Right To Work laws.

There are plenty of professional jobs in Colorado, Arizona and various parts of California if you can afford to live there.

Making this an argument for unionization won't work. One thousand people per day move to Florida. Five hundred people per day move to Arizona, and almost as many move to Georgia and the Carolinas. All of these places are among the most unfriendly environments imaginable for organized labor.

Union membership expressed as a percentage of the population continues its years long decline. The only place where that number is stable is California, and most of those people are state or Federal employees.

It's a little difficult to organize an office in Ohio or Pennsylvania or New York state when all the owners have to do is find a nice little plot of land near Charlotte or Austin, build a building there, put in the infrastructure, advertise in the local newspaper and that's it. Militant workforce? What militant workforce?

Things are turning around. The first quarter of this year was up too. But Connie's Labor Dept. doesn't post in quarters on union membership.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/25/AR2008012503076.html

Growth Was Biggest in Western States; Midwest Rolls Shrank With Job Losses

By Sholnn Freeman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 26, 2008; Page D02

Union membership in the United States rose last year by 311,000, rare growth for the beleaguered labor movement.

Although unions have strengthened their organizing efforts in the past few years, with large-scale campaigns targeting workers in the growing service sector, the Labor Department reported yesterday that unions represent only 12.1 percent of the nation's workforce of 129 million, up slightly from 12 percent in 2006. In 1983, 20 percent of U.S. workers were union members.

Much of last year's growth came in the West. California's rate of union membership rose one percentage point, to 16.7 percent, an increase of more than 200,000 members. Nevada showed an increase of 15,000 union members, reflecting the organization of casino and construction workers.

In the Midwest, manufacturing job losses reduced union membership. Michigan lost 23,000 union members. The largest decrease came in Illinois, where union rolls dropped 89,000. Ben Zipperer, research associate at the Center for Economic Policy Research, said the manufacturing sector -- long the stronghold of U.S. unions -- is being supplanted by the construction and private health-care fields, where union membership is growing.

FULL story at link.

As long as the lion's share of the income gains in this country accrue to the top 1/10 of
a percent of the population the middle class will continue to be squeezed.
But hey reagan/bush cut my taxes