The U.S. economy is in the peculiar situation of relying on a shrinking workforce to serve a growing population.
The short-term trend on this Labor Day contains some good news: The U.S. unemployment rate is low — only 3.7 percent — and the economy is still adding jobs.
The longer-term trends are more worrisome. Real wages have been in decline in an economy ravaged by inflation — policy-driven inflation that the Biden administration and its congressional allies are entirely committed to making worse — and, even without that, the trajectory of real wages from the 1970s forward hasn’t been especially inspiring. Also sobering is the fact that the labor-force participation rate (the share of the working-age population that is employed) has been declining for most of the 21st century. This has left the American economy in the peculiar situation of relying on a shrinking workforce to serve a growing population.
The political debates about work issues have grown exceedingly stale, and we should work to liberate ourselves from some of the least edifying of these conversations. Presidents are not rain gods, and the economy does not rise or fall based on the moral disposition of the chief executive or his party; insisting that we raise the minimum wage beyond what the market will bear is simply an exercise in price-fixing, one that will in the long term produce all the predictable economic distortions associated with that practice; there remains a lively debate on the relationship between productivity and wages, but, in any case, productivity gains have not been especially strong in recent years; debates about the role of labor unions tend to oversimplify the issue, failing to distinguish between private-sector unions and the generally destructive cases of public-sector unions or to account for the great variation in the character of private-sector unions — not every union is the Teamsters or the UAW, and it is not impossible to imagine a world where labor organizations played a more constructive role; sending more Americans to college on the theory that this will improve wages or productivity is probably an error based on the assumption that, because college-educated workers have earned more in the past, this would continue to hold true if more workers had undergraduate degrees; it is increasingly obvious that our higher-education system urgently requires a more practical division between liberal education and job-training.
Beyond the policy questions, there are cultural deficiencies that need addressing, and these are arguably more urgent. Too often, we hold ordinary labor in low esteem if not in outright contempt, a fact that holds perversely true even in blue-collar occupations that pay a good deal more than is earned by college-educated spreadsheet jockeys. What often is lacking is neither the opportunity nor the willingness to work but an avenue by which to connect young people who are not bound for an engineering degree or law school with rewarding and remunerative careers in skilled industrial work, construction, and the like. Any 17-year-old high-school student who asks how to go about becoming a lawyer will be given a straightforward, step-by-step program for doing so, along with a financial-aid form; if that same 17-year-old asks how to go about earning $100,000 a year running a drywall crew, he’d better hope he has an uncle in the business. If he asked his guidance counselor how to become a gunsmith, he’d probably be expelled.
There is more to production than Say’s Law — supply creates its own demand — and workers produce not only to consume goods and services but also to sustain families and to build meaningful lives in their communities. It is important that we teach young people to be self-sufficient but, particularly in the case of young men, mere self-sufficiency is not sufficient: If we expect young men to be husbands and fathers, we should be realistic about the fact that a sufficient family income is among the most important factors in enabling that. That isn’t to say that we expect that most convenience-store clerks are going to earn enough money to support a wife and two children in comfort, but the old and vexing questions of upward mobility and socioeconomic dynamism must remain central to our thinking about work and family.
And in the spirit of what is supposed to be a national holiday, we will agree with President Biden in this much: Business leaders complaining about worker shortages in their industries can alleviate them by offering workers more money. We do not believe that there are, in fact, many “jobs Americans just won’t do.” But there are jobs Americans won’t do unless they are offered more than they currently are being paid. Policies that are designed to reduce wages, such as through increasing the supply of low-wage workers by means of additional immigration, should get a very, very skeptical hearing.
Good work is something to be proud of. It is useful to one’s self, to one’s family, and to one’s community. Work properly understood honors the abilities and capacities with which we are endowed by our Creator and shows Him gratitude.
Enjoy the holiday. And, then, back to work.