Weekend Economists Host a Lion July 5-7, 2013

[Demeter]

13. No, manufacturing jobs won’t revive the economy By Livia Gershon

FRANKLY, AT THIS POINT, ANY KIND OF JOBS THAT PAID A LIVING WAGE WOULD HELP, EVEN IF IT WERE ONLY "DIGGING HOLES AND FILLING THEM IN" AS KEYNES PROPOSED, Book 3, Chapter 10, Section 6 pg.129 "The General Theory.." IT'S THE "LIVING WAGE" CONDITION THAT'S KILLING THIS ECONOMY AND COUNTRY.

http://www.salon.com/2013/06/29/no_manufacturing_jobs_wont_revive_the_economy/?source=newsletter

Stop claiming a factory boom will save the country and lift people up. Here's what these jobs really look like...In the American imagination, the phrases “the decline of the middle class” and “the loss of factory jobs” are almost inextricably linked. But the promise of a U.S. manufacturing revival has gained strength and currency in policy circles, with many arguing it’s a way to turn the economy around. President Obama has trumpeted the growth of factory jobs in speech after speech. “Think about the America within our reach,” he told his audience at last year’s State of the Union address. “An America that attracts a new generation of high-tech manufacturing and high-paying jobs!”

But, for all the optimism and nostalgia for an America that once was, it’s worth asking whether factory jobs are more likely to help workers rise to the middle class today — or leave them stranded among the working poor.

Elena Suarez was on her lunch break, taking a walk on the side of the road in the industrial park where she works, and eating a sandwich as she walked, when I stopped her to ask about her job. She’s a machine operator at Resonetics, a manufacturing company in Nashua, New Hampshire that specializes in precision laser micromachining for the medical device industry.

I asked Suarez how her job pays.

“Poor,” she said. “I pay for working.”

Suarez commutes from Manchester, about half an hour away, and gas and car maintenance eat up quite a bit of her pay. She said she got the job through a staffing agency three years ago at a pay rate of $11 an hour. After two years, she was hired as a direct employee of the company, which meant she got a handful of paid sick days and access to medical and dental plans that cost a significant chunk of workers’ paychecks. Her hourly pay also dropped to $10.50.

Her husband also works at a factory, but even with two incomes, the family has to budget carefully to get by. Suarez said she sees other families with more kids, or with only one working parent, and wonders how they manage...

YES, NASHUA, NH, MY HOME FOR 20+ YEARS...SO GLAD I GOT OUT OF THERE....AND THAT JOB SHE HAS IS EXACTLY WHY I LEFT "LIVE FREE AND DIE" NEW HAMPSHIRE!