Posted by
Young Republican on Monday, August 18, 2008 11:15:03 AM
Turning 21, a few months ago, told me something I didn't want to hear. I'm becoming an adult and with that comes the challenge that so many of my friends are failing at working and actually getting a self providing job in the middle class. Now I'm still in college and will be for a few more years going to get my degree in Library Science. During that time I work at a mid-western chain of stores called Meijers if you haven't been it's a lot like Wal-Mart but without all the absolute nutty customers. The people I work with, some are college students like me, others in their 30s, 40s getting the same wage as me or less. What is scary about this are a growing number of college gradutes are unable to find jobs and are joining the working poor. The solution is not in some liberal program to make everything all better or some conservative idea to just sit back and let the market figure things out. It's going to come from realizing the changing American economy and focusing education to secure the American middle class.
During America's founding in 1776 we were an agricultural society growing and harvesting our food primarily. Then during the Industrial Age we became a manufactoring society, making things in factories. Most of the people during these two peroids are what we call the working poor. Then came the Ford Revolution in which Henry Ford (who I hate personally beyond all words...nazi lover...ok not all words) came upon the brillant policy of making blue collar workers into the middle class. He paid them far more than they were worth in order to make for a huge customer base to buy his product. During all of these times the workplace was of course diverse with it should be mention millions of white collar Americans doing a variety of jobs.
Now to America today with the ecomony is trouble but the future very much in peril. The reason for this is simple we have lost our base of middle class jobs. It's important to not make this sound as if we have ten seconds to act before the world blows up but to stop ignoring economic trends and face them head on. Many would say that the new age we are in is the "Technology Age" keeping up this illusion will have dire consequences. Globalization most often takes the blame for the loss of American jobs and to be sure it's a problem (calm down free traders, it does more good than bad) but only a small one. The real problem with the "Technology Age" is technology! The whole point of technology is to erase the need for human work, it is to hand most of the chores over to machines and cut down on the need of productivity. All of which is great if handled well.
That is really the whole point of this post, the challenge to Obama or McCain whoever gets elected will be which one can help the American economy adjust to technological advancement. For what a 21 year old college student advice is worth, I believe the solution lies in the Medical and Health fields. The only markets where the customer base is constantly growing, demand constant and human involvement necessary. Of course our workforce will always be diverse but we most focus on making sure my generation will be able to provide as our parents did for us, it's not a political issue...it's an American one, regardless of party.