Workplace woes
The U.S. unemployment rate remains high. But the number of Americans without work is only part of our larger jobs crisis, says MIT economist Paul Osterman. The other part, he believes, is a deficit of worthwhile jobs: Tens of millions of Americans toil in low-quality, low-paying positions.“Even if they work full-time, it does not put them above the poverty line,” says Osterman, who details this problem in a new book he has co-authored, Good Jobs America, published this fall by the Russell Sage Foundation.As the book notes, 24 percent of working American adults draw wages that would leave a household of four beneath the poverty line. That figure has increased since the 1990s. “In this economy, a lot of people in middle-class jobs are at risk of falling down into this lousy-job sector,” says Osterman. Indeed, his book recounts stories such as the manager with an MBA who worked at...