Mark WeisbrotThe New York Times, 20 avril, 2017

Avril 2017, Mark Weisbrot, Lara Merling, Alexander Main et David Rosnick

Mark WeisbrotThe New York Times, April 20, 2017

Last month the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) announced that the (now defunct) American Health Care Act (AHCA) would have reduced off-budget spending by $5.9 billion in 2026. Off-budget spending, otherwise known as Social Security, isn’t mentioned in the bill once, so how could the AHCA affect its spending? The answer is that the bill, in CBO’s assessment, would have discouraged older workers from retiring or moving to part-time work and starting to collect Social Security benefits.

Under the Affordable Care Act, workers have the flexibility to obtain health insurance from the exchanges instead of relying on employer-provided plans. Without it, we can infer that CBO’s projected savings came as the result of 500,000^[1] older workers delaying their retirement, and therefore not collecting Social Security benefits in 2026.

April 2017, Mark Weisbrot, Lara Merling, Alexander Main, and David Rosnick

Dean Baker
Truthout, April 17, 2017

Paul Krugman used his column this morning to ask why we don't pay as much attention to the loss of jobs in retail as we do to jobs lost in mining and manufacturing. His answer is that in large part the latter jobs tend to be more white and male than the latter. While this is true, although African Americans have historically been over-represented in manufacturing, there is another simpler explanation: retail jobs tend to not be very good jobs.

The basic story is that jobs in mining and manufacturing tend to offer higher pay and are far more likely to come with health care and pension benefits than retail jobs. A worker who loses a job in these sectors is unlikely to find a comparable job elsewhere. In retail, the odds are that a person who loses a job will be able to find one with similar pay and benefits.

A quick look at average weekly wages can make this point. In mining the average weekly wage is $1,450, in manufacturing it is $1,070, by comparison in retail it is just $555. It is worth mentioning that much of this difference is in hours worked, not the hourly pay. There is nothing wrong with working shorter workweeks (in fact, I think it is a very good idea), but for those who need a 40 hour plus workweek to make ends meet, a 30-hour a week job will not fit the bill.

This difference in job quality is apparent in the difference in separation rates by industry. (This is the percentage of workers who lose or leave their job every month.) It was 2.4 percent for the most recent month in manufacturing. By comparison, it was 4.7 percent in retail, almost twice as high. (It was 5.2 percent in mining and logging. My guess is that this is driven by logging, but I will leave that one for folks who know the industry better.)