This link has been bookmarked by 2 people . It was first bookmarked on 24 Mar 2008, by Adam Bohannon.
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24 Mar 09
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Not long ago, Americans who were unable to attend college could count on finding local factory jobs after high school. The lucky ones landed in muscular industries such as aviation, steel and automobiles, while others found work on assembly lines building durable goods.
<!-- story_feature_box.comp --> <!-- /story_feature_box.comp --> <!-- story_factbox.comp --> <!-- /story_factbox.comp -->These and other "good jobs" were the signature byproducts of a robust economy that once was the envy of the world. The jobs provided stability and decent wages that allowed families to buy homes, provide for their children and retire in modest comfort.
The Center for Economic and Policy Research defines a "good job" as one with health insurance, a pension plan and earnings of at least $17 per hour. That works out to about $34,000 a year, the inflation-adjusted median income for men in 1979, when U.S. manufacturing jobs numbered 19.6 million, an all-time high.
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Since then, however, the economy has lost nearly 6 million manufacturing jobs — 52,000 in February alone. Among them were many of the 3.5 million "good jobs" lost from 2000 to 2006, according to John Schmitt, a senior economist at CEPR.
As those jobs disappeared, many blue-collar workers were forced to take jobs with far less pay and benefit security.
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As president of the local steelworkers union, Rogers took a one-year job with a group that helps find jobs for displaced mill workers. Most are taking pay cuts as they try to find new careers without the higher education and specialized training that the new job market demands.
"The jobs are low-paying or they don't have benefits or you have to travel" long distances, which eats up money for gasoline, Rogers said.
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24 Mar 08
Adam BohannonThe steady loss of "good jobs" by less-educated workers has left them more vulnerable to recession than at any time in nearly 30 years, and signs are mounting that a recession is either already here or coming soon.
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