"We’re becoming satisfied with low-paying jobs" no matter how hard we work.

The wealthy have won and are taking everything for themselves. Remember, they can easily buy what most of us typically get in our public services.

Things didn't trickle down to us. We were warned about that the giant sucking sound of manufacturing jobs leaving the US, and how it would turn us into a service economy. 

And here we are, lower wages, lower expectations about our jobs. We have settle for less and gotten used to it. We now think this is normal:

WPR: Steven Deller, interim director of the Center for Community & Economic Development at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said Wisconsin jobs (are) shifting away from manufacturing. "It was possible to barely make it out of high school and land a job at a manufacturing firm making decent wages ... the jobs that we’re generating now are in the service sector and they simply don't pay those kind of wages."

"Part of the problem is we’re becoming satisfied with low-paying jobs. You go into some communities and the idea is $15-per-hour is a good paying job. $15-per-hour is barely above the poverty wage," Deller said. "We’ve kind of lowered our expectations in terms of what a good job is and that’s kind of reinforcing and feeding into this problem of the growing working poor."

"Routine Jobs" Disappearing along with Middle Class, raising Non-Participation Rates!

Here's another examination of that all important "non-participation rate" Republicans like to bring up trying to discredit Obama's low unemployment numbers.

As it turns out, Republicans have been unknowingly pointing out a major shift in the U.S. economy and jobs market. It's a trend that accelerated after the Great Recession, another Republican gift to a more deregulated world.  It wasn't just the loss of thousands of major manufacturing businesses nationwide, but a dramatic shift to that service economy we've all been warned about for decades (Perot vs Gore "sucking sound" debates):

CareerTrends | Graphiq

The Wall Street Journal- ‘Routine’ Jobs Are Disappearing: One of the most worrying economic trends over the past few decades has been the decline of middle-class jobs in the U.S.

As “routine” jobs—often middle-class work based on a relatively narrow set of repeated tasks, such as welding-machine operators or bank tellers—disappear, many workers who would typically have held them have taken on lower-paying low-skill manual work or simply dropped out of the labor force, according to new research from a trio of economists.

The paper, called “Disappearing Routine Jobs,” provides more evidence that the transformation of work in the U.S.—from an industrial economy to a digital one where routine work is automated or outsourced and the remaining jobs are concentrated in low-paid service work or high-skilled knowledge work—is contributing to the shrinking labor-force participation rate. “Routine jobs are disappearing and more and more prime-age Americans aren’t working,” said co-author Henry Siu, a professor at the University of British Columbia. “These groups who have been caught in the transition are not better off,” said Mr. Siu. 

The share of Americans working in routine jobs has fallen from 40.5% in 1979 to 31.2% in 2014. The federal government’s official measure of Americans age 16 and over who are working or seeking work has fallen from a recent high of 67.3% in 2000 to 62.7% in November 2016.

The authors also found that the impact of the loss of routine jobs fell mostly on male high-school dropouts of all ages as well as men under age 50 with high-school diplomas. These groups have failed to move into high-paying, nonroutine jobs that require skills in areas like critical thinking and problem-solving. Instead, they have to a great extent stopped working at all, as many studies have documented.

To counter these trends, the U.S. must invest in raising the skills of the workers most likely to be affected by the disappearance of routine jobs, labor-market experts say.

Which may mean for Wisconsin legislators a need to specifically target non-college students who need technical training, than going after college students or turning universities into trade schools like Scott Walker is suggesting.

People over age 16 who are no longer working or even looking for work, for whatever reason (retirement, school, personal preference, or gave up), are counted as not participating in the labor force.

Walker cut Tech School Funding during Recession and Peak Enrollment. Restored Funding is up now and enrollment is down.

While a few areas of our state are blessed with low unemployment numbers, others aren't so lucky, and fading tech school enrollment is a sign many are just giving up. Wisconsin’s thriving manufacturing climate is now part of a bygone age, replaced by supposed “free market” global trade agreements, offshoring and an expansion of the new low wage service economy.

Who can take Republicans like Scott Walker and Paul Ryan seriously when they talk about lazy low wage people in poverty not trying, while strongly supporting businesses that wouldn't have it any other way; low wage labor dependent on taxpayer funded social safety nets equals high profits. That’s what makes the next wave of safety net cuts so cruel. Ryan’s “everybody can be rich, everybody should be a business owner” delusion is nurtured by an unquestioning media willing to treat bad ideas like real alternatives.

Declining tech school enrollment might be expected after it peaked during the Great Recession (our brainy governor cut tech school funding at the worst time), but it also might be a sign a skeptical public isn't willing to invest in retraining when jobs have become so disposable. The WPR news headline tells that story:

Wisconsin Technical Schools See 2-Year Decline In Enrollment: Drop Comes As Schools Try To Increase Number Of Students In Technical, Vocational Training - Census data shows that enrollment at technical schools around the country declined for the second year in a row.

Conor Smyth, the director of strategic partnerships for the Wisconsin Technical College System, said … over a two-year period starting in 2008 the number of full time students jumped 16 percent. As the economy improved, however, enrollment dropped by 5 percent in 2011 and a little less in 2012.

Admit it, we’re in a Service Economy Now: While Scott Walker echoes his party’s resistance to minimum wage hikes, even floating ideas to get rid of the floor completely, the low wage service sector is now a dominant part of our economy. And demand is down because people don’t have any discretionary cash.

Guess who isn't rushing into low wage service industry jobs? The surprising news out of all of this is that hard working Americans have decided to steer clear of service industry jobs. Serves these bottom feeders right:

Recently, Smyth said he met with businesses in the hospitality and tourism sector and heard similar concerns. “We have employer partners coming to us saying, ‘We need twice the number of graduates.’ In some cases, the colleges simply can't find students who are interested in getting into that program area,” said Smyth.

Here's a Journal Sentinel graph that proves my point. You'll also notice in the map to the right how two GOP targets for cuts, health care and social assistance, are the biggest growth areas. That can't be good:

Dumb Ron Johnson sabotages new Service Economy by blocking Minimum Wage Increase.

Now that the U.S. has gone from manufacturing to being a low wage service economy, it would be irresponsible to pretend service industry wages should stay at its current level.

But that's what Dumb Ron Johnson thinks. The cost of doing nothing, thanks to Johnson, would not only cost taxpayers money when it comes to food stamps and Medicaid, but it would also dramatically suffocate consumer demand.

It's cruel to not raise the hourly wage for tipped workers. Roll Call:

Johnson's inadvertent truth...

FEDERAL MINIMUM-WAGE INCREASE: The Senate failed to reach 60 votes needed to end Republican blockage of a Democratic-sponsored bill (S 2223) to raise the federal minimum wage from its present $7.25 per hour to $10.10 over two years. The bill also would raise the “tipped minimum wage” from its present $2.13 per hour to a level that is 70 percent of the regular minimum wage. The tipped minimum wage, which is received by restaurant workers, hotel valets and others who depend mainly on tips for their income, has not been raised since 1991.

Voting no because restaurant workers just don’t work hard enough; Dumb Ron Johnson. Would you serve this guy at your table?

MacIver Institute, the right wing fringe group, lobby's for Low Wages in new Service Economy. Bad idea?

Old arguments...never die in Republican world. Despite the shift from manufacturing to a service based economy, conservatives just can't make the transition. Those low wage entry level service industry jobs are now family supporting U.S. jobs. We were warned this would happen, and it has.

But instead of adjusting the wage scale to accommodate the new reality, conservatives are stuck in the 50's, 60's and 70's. While manufacturing has moved on, leaving the U.S. for slave labor countries with dirt cheap wages, Republicans are now confused over what to do next. Or are they?

As mind boggling as it is to imagine their outrageous new campaign, I have a feeling they're only just getting started. If anything, it should start scaring the daylights out of most Americans who never thought it would come to this. Are parents really going to happy seeing their kids living in abject poverty?

It would make the MacIver Institute happy! I'm almost speechless over this campaign, sponsored by the Market Wage Action Alliance (can you believe that name?)...