Angry cries of America's 'outsourced' middle class

The Arizona Republic ^ | 03.09.04 | E.J. Montini

[Beck_isright]

Among those who apparently didn't listen to the 43-year-old unemployed woman whose recorded message was posted online last week by The Republic were Arizona's Jon Kyl and John McCain, along with 24 of their Senate colleagues, all of them collecting fat government paychecks.

[agrarianlady]

Nursing jobs and other medically-related jobs are going begging. Also there is a shortage of auto mechanics. Just some ideas for jobs that can't be outsourced easily.

A number of stay-at-home mothers I know are going back to school and becoming nurses. Their kids are in school and the hours are somewhat flexible. One woman I know home-schools her brilliant teenage daughters during the day and works as a nurse in the evenings.

[oceanview]

nursing is an admirable profession, but we cannot build a national economy on nurses and auto mechanics and real estate brokers and public school teachers, without an underlying productive private sector.

[CWOJackson]

If they can, the nurse anesthesiologist program is booming. Down south some of them are making better money then many GP doctors.

[Jorge]

the unemployment rate doesn't count a person who is offshored from a 60K tech jobs and is working at Lowes now for half that.

Stats show that average wages are UP, not down.

"For the 12 months ending in December, workers' wages and benefits grew by 3.8 percent, compared with a 3.4 percent increase in 2002. Wages and salaries in 2003 rose 2.9 percent - the same-size increase as the year before. Benefits rose by 6.3 percent in 2003, up from a 5 percent rise in 2002."

[Monty22]

People here belittling this stuff are just whistling past the graveyard. This is a threat to everyone now. Any profressional, service, or manufacturing job can go OUT now.

And they are, quickly.

[oceanview]

remove government workers, and private sector workers making over $200K from the stats and then talk to me. why? because government workers have built in wage increases in their contracts, and in the private sector, when IBM offshores a few thousand people making $60-70K, the executives all get nice bonuses for doing so.

unless you remove those two groups from the figures, the wage numbers don't mean anything with regards to what is happening to the private sector middle class.

[maxwellp]

Please, could you name one human being starving in the U.S.A.

[Monty22]

"It's shaping up like 1996 again where the idiots in charge of the pubbies all said "what happened" and "who was driving that truck that hit us"..."

1992 too.

[lelio]

Stats show that average wages are UP, not down.

Are those the same sort of stats that show that the average high tech job in WA state has a $97k average compensation? And that those involved in "software" make over $212k a year on average?

Or put it this way: what's the average compensation for an HP employee considering that Carly gets a $10M bonus and lays off thousands?

[GraniteStateConservative]

Become a sports team owner. That seems like a great job. We'll all be sports team owners.

: )

[Monty22]

"and RFID technology is going to put all those retail checkers on the street too."

This is a good example of technology at work. *IF* the RFID makers are US related, producing better jobs here overall, it's a good thing.

The offshoring we're seeing however is me at Exxonmobil's IT making a crummy wage already going off to Canada.

This is what's *killing* the country, and it'll end Bush's career unless he beats it with everything he has. Ignoring it, or actually ENCOURAGING it, is going to do more hard to Bush by far than even him signing an assault weapon ban. We might see a Mondale style rout here.

[SCalGal]

Any profressional, service, or manufacturing job can go OUT now.

I quit accounting at just the right time.

[Jorge]

The reason - 8.2 million workers have been out of work for an avg of 20.3 months. Most aren't counted in the unemployment statistics. 5.63% doesn't tell the whole story.

Really? So where are these 8.2 million? Living on the streets in cardboard boxes and eating at the Salvation Army?

These claims aren't very believable. The country would look like the great depression with millions in soup lines.

The truth is when it comes to recovering economies America is leading the industrial world.

I was tired of hearing the complainers during the Carter years when we had double digit unemployment, double digit inflation, gas lines and a misery index.

I'm twice as sick hearing so many ingrates constantly complaining NOW when things are infinitely better. We should be thanking God that we are so blessed in this country.

[oceanview]

IBM is offshoring their accounting/financial people to Brazil.

[Monty22]

"Kerry's speech today about not changing social security and expanding Medicare is a recipe for ecnomic disaster, and it's clear, also from today, that W doesn't really have an answer either."

Absolutely perfect analysis.

[CWOJackson]

"I'm twice as sick hearing so many ingrates constantly complaining NOW when things are infinitely better."

Odd how NOW happens to coincide with a crucial election isn't it?

[oceanview]

alot of the IT people, especially the younger ones, have moved back in with their parents.

[Ches]

"Someone who is self-employed doesn't have to worry about losing his job -- at least insofar as he can react to changes in his line of business.

Huh? What business might that be? Oh, that's right. All self-employed people are rich and their clients couldn't possibly include the middle class that's being gutted. Do you have any idea what's happening out in the ma & pa business community? Try and get a business loan if you have a product or service that the bank deems "should be outsourced." Would averaging 20-25 hours a week productive time as opposed to the normal 40-50 hours per week be technically laid off? Do your fixed expenses go down? Oh wait, utility and insurance costs are going up. The trades are being undercut by three layers of subcontractors with illegal alien labor and then there's the property taxes which always go up. Waking up every morning begins the fight for survival.

[Monty22]

I was wanting to get INTO accounting, going for straight business degree now. I can't tell if being more corporate or more technical matters worth a damn anymore though.

[oceanview]

but they are never unemployed you see, they are just "without work", and never appear in the statistics.

most small businesses fail.