Donald Trump was elected President because of strong blue-collar support. Many blue collar workers feel left out of the American dream because of stagnant incomes and/or job loss.
At the same time there is a huge national focus on the high cost of college and the associated huge student loan debt. But student loan debt is a fixable problem and is not what is holding our economy back.
Take a look at the two charts below from recent issues of the Wall Street Journal, here and here.
The first chart shows the last four growth cycles and how wages eventually tick up as unemployment continues to fall. Missing this time is hardly any growth in wages towards the end of the cycle (Of course, the current cycle won’t be over until we have the next recession).
The second chart shows that there are now more job openings (6 million) than job hires for the first time since 2001. Furthermore there were only a low of 138,000 jobs added in May with an average of 121,000 per month for the past three months. This suggests that employers are having a hard time finding qualified workers.
Obviously, what is badly needed is a renewed emphasis on workforce training. Interestingly enough, the Business Roundtable has just issued an extensive report detailing what many major corporations are doing to close America’s skills gap.
Conclusion. Lots of people, certainly including President Trump and the Republican Congress, would like to see faster economic growth. Clearly there are practical and useful ways to achieve this and many people are already trying to make it happen.
It Does Not Add Up 