PHILADELPHIA — Francis McCloskey lost his job at the Philadelphia city government’s information hotline in August 2009. Twenty months and more than 1,000 job applications later he is still out of work. He has attended scores of jobs fairs, sought help from job-search coaches and cold-called dozens of companies. This year he has been asked to only three interviews. Soon Mr McCloskey will join the growing ranks of ’99ers
Friday, May 6th, 2011
Decline of the Working Man
Stephan: Here is what the decline of the middle class looks like from a responsible journal looking in from the outside. Not a pretty or promising picture. While our public conversation, and our corporate media, are dominated by Birtherism and the various other lunacies of the right, the truth of our reality draws scant attention.
Pay particular attention to the linkage between education and employment, and think about what is happening to our schools: 'Those aged between 25 and 34 are less likely to have a degree than 45- to 54-year-olds. As David Autor of MIT points out, they are also less likely to have completed college than their contemporaries in Britain, Denmark, France, Ireland, the Netherlands and Spain. In recent years America's university graduation rates have slipped from near the top of the world league to the middle.'
