The Numbers Are Nice, What About The People?

7.5% unemployment sounds good.  If Nevada’s numbers follow the national trend then we’d expect another decrease in statewide unemployment, also a good thing.  However, we need to temper our enthusiasm with a nod to some other numbers which aren’t quite so reassuring.

Not all employment is created equal: “The workweek fell from 34.6 to 34.4 hours.  As a consequence the index of aggregate hours worked fell -0.4%, offsetting last months 0.4% increase.”  [AB] [BLS table B4] It’s fine to have more people working, but if they are working fewer hours then the amount of spending those families can afford doesn’t move the needle in terms of aggregate demand.

Not all wages are created equal:  There’s weakness in average hourly wages as well. Average hourly wages were $23.42 in April 2012 and a year later they’d ticked up to $23.87 — insufficient to keep up with inflation. [BLS Table B3] Leisure and hospitality wages, which are of interest to Nevadans, averaged $13.35 per hour in April 2012 and increased to an average of $13.42 as of April 2013. [TableB3] Rather an underwhelming increase.

Public Sector employment remains weakened:  For the “Drown Government in a Bath Tub” crowd this is taken as good news, but the problem is that public sector employees are also consumers and their contributions to aggregate demand are declining.  Overall employment at all levels was down 11% since March 2013.  This figure breaks down to a decline of 8% in federal employment, a 1% decline in state workers, and a 2% decrease in local government employment.  [BLS TableB1] At some point in the discussion we need to ask just how small the bathtub is supposed to be?

If we exclude radical libertarian ethereal musings about an entirely privatized system in which we all drive on toll roads the moment we leave the driveway, or all hire our own security and fire protection services, and all our schools, libraries, parks, and public health services are for-profit institutions in which you can get only what you can afford to pay for — then we need to specify which public services we expect, and what level of service is acceptable.  How long are we willing to wait for our IRS tax refund checks?  How long is an acceptable response time for police and fire calls?  How many days should the library be open?  How many children in a single classroom are acceptable?  How long should it be between health inspections in work places, medical service providers, restaurants?

Not all jobs are creating assets:  The Construction sector continues to be weak, with YOY nonfarm payroll numbers down 6%, with residential construction down 6.2% and non-residential construction off by 4.8%.  Heavy construction and civil engineering was down 3.8% since last March. [BLS TableB1]

Given the state of our nation’s infrastructure the decline in heavy construction and civil engineering projects is particularly disturbing.  The President’s Rebuild America Partnership proposal remains mired in Congressional inattention, and partisan bickering.  S. 387, a bill to establish an American infrastructure investment fund was introduced in the Senate last February, and now sits in the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.   The website for this committee doesn’t show any hearing scheduled for this bill to date.

One of the nicer features of infrastructure investment is that it is a Win-Win proposition; engineers, contractors, and their employees get paychecks and the contracting agency gets valuable assets enhancing the unit’s overall financial position.  Senate inaction, exemplified that the body only managed to pass 2% of the bills put before it so far, isn’t helping our economy by assisting in the creation of construction sector jobs or by aiding the financing of public agency assets.

Not all jobs are full time:  Full time employment is obviously distinct from long term temporary or contracted employment.

What’s changed in the last 20 years is that there’s been an unraveling of job security in the labor market, as well as a diminishment of benefit packages and a deterioration of stable, reliable wages and promotion pathways,” said Katherine Stone, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, and labor specialist. “There’s been a really fundamental shift in the nature of employment — it’s a sea change. Whether you’re talking about the expanded use of short-term employees, temporary workers, project workers, contractors or on-call workers, the use of workers who don’t have regular jobs has increased a lot.”  [CBS]

Regular, traditional long term employment, increases the inclination to secure more expensive long term assets — durable goods and housing. The employment numbers may mask a situation in which we have more people employed, but not in jobs that induce them to make personal investments in durable goods or in long term housing.  While independent contractors may, indeed, prefer project to project employment — there’s the other 50% of temporary workers who would prefer full time employment.

In April, the number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) increased by 278,000 to 7.9 million, largely offsetting a decrease in
March. These individuals were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job.  (See table A-8.) [BLS]

The good news from the unemployment report this month is offset by weakness in the wages and hours figures, nor is it enhanced by the acknowledgement of continued weakness in the construction sector and the inattention to our infrastructure investment needs.  Additionally, we need to carefully monitor the trends toward temporary job creation as compared to more permanent jobs created as a result of increased aggregate demand.

Congress could help.  It could, for example, take up the American Jobs Act instead of attending to a plethora of ceremonial votes to “repeal Obamacare,” and continue its “War on Women.”  The Senate could assist by scheduling hearings and giving consideration to S. 387.

If we’d like even more optimistic news on the economic front it will probably be up to American citizens to insist that our federal legislators focus on JOBS, JOBS, JOBS.

Ryan’s Time Wasting Titivation

The latest version of the House GOP budget proposal in Congress looks very much like previous renditions — lower the tax rates for the top 0.1% of American income earners, and replace the current Medicare program with a coupon/voucher plan. [TPM]   “Re-litigation” comes to mind.   The curious part comes as Representative Ryan, who vilified the $716 billion in savings in the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) during the last presidential election, now incorporates those same savings into his budget proposal — while calling for the repeal of the ACA which contains those savings…  This rhetorical contortion looks less like a 360° turn and more like a quadruple salchow.  [more at Business Insider]

Former House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi, called the scheme “fuzzy math and budget gimmicks.” [TPM] The point of this budget exercise, is not really to address the long term stabilization of U.S. indebtedness — it IS an exercise in sophomoric political economy; simplistic in form and regressive in nature. Ezra Klein nails it:

“Ryan’s budget is intended to do nothing less than fundamentally transform the relationship between Americans and their government. That, and not deficit reduction, is its real point, as it has been Ryan’s real point throughout his career.”

Or, more specifically:

“Here is Paul Ryan’s path to a balanced budget in three sentences: He cuts deep into spending on health care for the poor and some combination of education, infrastructure, research, public-safety, and low-income programs. The Affordable Care Act’s Medicare cuts remain, but the military is spared, as is Social Security. There’s a vague individual tax reform plan that leaves only two tax brackets — 10 percent and 25 percent — and will require either huge, deficit-busting tax cuts or increasing taxes on poor and middle-class households, as well as a vague corporate tax reform plan that lowers the rate from 35 percent to 25 percent.”  (emphasis added)

Now, why would those be “vague?”  First, it is much easier to dodge criticism of a proposal when the details aren’t available.  Offering a “vague” proposition allows for the “I didn’t really mean that” rationalization when push comes to the inevitable shove.  Secondly, when the arithmetic is fuzzy the extrapolations, of necessity, must also grow furry. What should give the audience room for some trepidation is that this offering from Representative Ryan isn’t the first time he’s run this flag up the pole.  Why could not more rational, detailed, and precise numbers be provided as the budget plan moves through its various incarnations?

The answer may very well be that he can’t be more precise without (a) offending major segments of the electorate, and/or (b) demonstrating that the numbers simply don’t add up to what he is claiming for his project.

In Representative Ryan’s blinkered vision of America, government is more to be feared than the level of indebtedness [Ezra Klein] but this ideological perspective obfuscates the very real role our government plays in this mixed economy.   Programs which provide automatic stabilizers in the economy to mitigate the impact of business cycle volatility, and those which provide citizens with opportunities to increase their standards of living have an impact across the economic spectrum.

CBPP concludes:

“As policymakers embark on the necessary work of further reducing long-term budget deficits, their approach could have important consequences for tens of millions of low- and moderate-income Americans.  If policymakers take an even-handed approach, one that combines spending cuts with an adequate mix of new revenues, they can reduce deficits without increasing poverty and the ranks of the uninsured or weakening efforts to ensure that children have more opportunity to succeed in the classroom and later in the labor market.  If, however, policymakers cut deeply into programs that assist low-income individuals and families, we will likely see more poverty and hardship as well as fewer paths to opportunity.”

The essential problem with perceiving government as a threat to “freedom” is that those programs which keep people from becoming dependent on government assistance in the long run, are those which the Meat Cleaver Republicans would assert in the first wave of cuts in the short term.

For example,  there are significant omissions in Ryan’s latest offering:

“It won’t create jobs this year, and will likely cost jobs in the years to come by putting the economy on a steep austerity ramp. There’s no housing policy for the millions of families in foreclosure and no way to read Ryan’s budget without assuming massive cuts to student-loans programs. That may mean fewer families watching student loans pile up, but only because they didn’t get any in the first place.” [Klein WaPo]

Jobs?  Jobs generate income, income generates both consumer spending and tax revenue.  The impetus may come from federal spending, but the results would be seen initially in local economies.  Paychecks get spent on housing, clothing, groceries, and transportation.  A family with an income sufficient to support the purchase of an automobile generates not only good numbers for the automobile manufacturers, but pays state sales taxes on the purchase, pays gasoline taxes to keep the beast running, and pays license fees to keep highways operating functionally.

Housing?  The “housing market” is a mid-stream economic activity.  Building a housing unit, whether detached or communal, requires raw materials, manufactured materials, and financing.  In short, housing is in the midst of the economic stream of activity, and as we discovered to our collective horror in 2007 when things start to go badly in this milieu the ripples can become tsunamic.  That there is not even a passing nod given to the issues associated with current housing market fragility and the continuing foreclosure issues in Representative Ryan’s budget ought to be demonstrative of his detachment from real economic forces at work.

Foreclosed properties wreak havoc on the homeowners, bring down housing values in neighborhoods, cause a loss in property tax revenue for local governments, and create law enforcement issues where abandoned properties are all too prevalent.  One might have thought that Representative Ryan would at least given cursory acknowledgement to the issues associated with the housing market in his budget priorities?

Education?  There is a link between income, unemployment, and education.

If we truly want to move people out of poverty, or up the economic ladder, the graph above from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows how the rungs of that ladder are constructed.  Note that when the graph was drafted the national unemployment rate was 14.1% for those with less than a high school diploma, but only 6.8% for those with an associates’ degree.  If we look to the more recent numbers the picture doesn’t change much.

The February 2013 unemployment rate for those with a high school diploma stood at 7.9%; for those with an associates’ degree or some college the unemployment rate was 6.7%.  Those holding a college degree experienced an unemployment rate of 3.8%.  [BLS]

Given this information it would seem logical to conclude that if we want to improve the overall health of the American economy it would be seemly to enhance the opportunities for education, especially post-secondary educational programs.  That’s not what Representative Ryan and his Republican colleagues have on offer:

“Ryan would stop increasing the size of Pell Grants to adjust for inflation. Instead, they would stay at the current level, $5,645, for 10 years. Ryan would also change the way the government calculates how much a student’s family is expected to pay to make it less generous.”  [Atlantic]  …

Ryan’s proposal doesn’t spend much time on a key reason Pell Grant awards have increased: rising education costs. Average costs for a four-year institution have risen 250% since 1980 and nearly doubled in the last 20 years. Pell Grant allocations have increased rapidly over the last decade — but that increase isn’t tied to the change for education costs.” [Atlantic]

Education is a labor intensive occupation.  The process can be assisted with technology, but since time out of mind the means by which human beings transmit knowledge — vocational, cultural, economic, etc. — is from human being to human being.  As states cut funding to educational institutions the colleges, tech schools, and universities raised tuition and fees to the “customers.”  The greater the increase in fees, the greater the problem for middle class parents who want to see their offspring move up the educational (and economic) ladder.   Young people are asked to take on a staggering amount of indebtedness to earn a degree, which in turn limits their capacity to participate more fully in the economic life of this nation.  Too much student loan debt means more difficulty purchasing a vehicle, or much of anything else.

The bottom line is that Representative Ryan has simply re-cycled his political document, with its ideological baggage and called it a budget.  While it’s an improvement over the Republican budget document which arrived without numbers in 2009, it’s still an homage to Ayn Rand and her Cult of Selfishness…and very little else, except time wasting titivation.

The Post Which Should Not Have To Be Written: Labor Participation Rate in the U.S.

Presidential candidate Willard Mitt Romney:

“So it looks like unemployment is getting better, but the truth is, if the same share of people were participating in the workforce today as on the day the president got elected, our unemployment rate would be around 11 percent,” said Romney. “That’s the real reality of what’s happening out there.” [ABC]

First the birthers, and now the jobbers.  After campaigning vigorously on the theme the President’s economic policies are failures because the unemployment rate was 8% or above, when the BLS reported a downtick to 7.8% the GOP found it incredible.

Candidate Romney may be referring to the labor participation rate, also calculated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics — which some of his surrogates are now disparaging.   The labor participation rate in November 2008 was 65.8%, admittedly higher than 63.6% in the latest report.  However, it was 66% during the month before the 2008 election.  In fact, as the chart indicates, the labor participation rate has been steadily declining since January 2007.

There is also the “Alternative Measures of Labor Underutilization” report, otherwise known as Table A-15.  U1 refers to those who have been unemployed for 15 weeks or longer as a percentage of the civilian labor force; in September 2011 the number was 5.3%, in September 2012 the number dropped to 4.3%.  How about the U2′s — those who have completed temporary jobs and are now looking for work?  In September 2011 the number was 5.2%, in September 2012 the number reported was 4.2%.

Well, maybe it’s in the U4 number, since they didn’t like the 7.8% in the U3 numbers?  In September 2011 the U4 percentage was 9.6%; in September 2012 the U4 the percentage dropped to 8.3%.  OK, if it’s not the U4, then how about the U5 numbers?  U5 reports the unemployed plus discouraged workers, and in September 2011 the U5 figure was 9.6%, by September 2012 the percentage dropped to 9.3.

OK, if it’s not the U1, the U2, the U4, or the U5, maybe it’s the U6? (That’s the number of people who aren’t working for any reason.)  Nope.  The U6 report for September 2011 was 14.8%, dropping to 14.7% by September 2012.

Click on the image to go to the original chart:

In short, no matter which numbers one reports the figures illustrate what we’ve known all along.  Employment is a lagging indicator.  And, those who live in a fact-free universe are often reduced to conspiracy theories to refute news they’d rather not hear.

Unsolicited Questions for the Press Corps

There was a post like this a while back, but after listening to the President’s remarks this morning and then sitting through some rather inane inquiries from the White House Press Gaggle — how about this:  We put a moratorium on questions that begin, “Mr. President… The _____ are saying that ____ and how would you respond?“

First, this makes the person asking the question sound lazy.  The easiest question in the world is something someone else writes for you.  A right wing bloviator of some infamy writes — “The president had control of both houses of Congress during his first two years, and the economy didn’t bounce back.” And, then the intrepid reporter asks, “How do you respond?”

Step two, now the reporter sounds uninformed.  The President’s party had control of the House, and titular control of the Senate.  A majority is sufficient to establish Committee appointments in the Senate, BUT it is insufficient to overcome 137 Republican filibusters.  [Senate]   The question also indicates that somehow we were supposed to rebound enthusiastically from the worse Crash since 1929, all while some $50 trillion of global wealth was erased by the Wall Street casino.  Not to mention the $7 trillion lost in U.S. equity wealth, and another $6 trillion lost in the housing debacle. [CBS]

Thus, in the interest of assisting a more energetic, more informed, Fourth Estate, here’s a humble offering of possible questions:

#1.  Background: In 2006 JPMorganChase hired a trading manager who rescinded the company’s guidance that traders exit any position in which there were $20 million in losses, and in February 2012 the firm adopted an index comprised of 125 credit default swaps on investment grade entities.   By April 5, 2012 the London Whale was involved in position so large that he was moving prices in the $10 trillion credit market.  As of May 18, 2012 JPMorgan’s losses were calculated at $3 billion and rising.

Question:  What actions have the SEC, CFTC and other regulators taken which might control the gambling in credit markets exemplified by JPMorgan? And, are U.S. capital requirements sufficient to protect American investors from fall out?

Question: What progress has been made by the CFTC and other regulators to assure the investing public that credit default swaps (and the indices based thereon) are transparent enough so that risk can be properly assessed and debacles like the one at JPMorgan avoided?

#2. Background:  From the Bureau of Economic Analysis, “the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States — increased at an annual rate of 1.9 percent in the first quarter of 2012 (that is, from the fourth quarter to the first quarter), according to the “second” estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the fourth quarter of 2011, real GDP increased 3.0 percent. ” (May 31, 2012)

Question: If public sector hiring has decreased of late, and the Department of Labor is predicting, “Slower population growth and a decreasing overall labor force participation rate are expected to lead to slower civilian labor force growth from 2010 to 2020: 0.7 percent annually, compared with 0.8 percent for 2000-10, and 1.3 percent for 1990-2000. The projected 0.7 percent growth rate will lead to a civilian labor force increase of 10.5 million by 2020. (See table 1.)” Then, what role does public sector hiring play in the full recovery of our consumer based economy?

Question: If private sector worker compensation costs (wages and benefits) increased by 2.1% YOY, and public sector worker compensation costs increased 1.5% YOY,  [DoL] and if this trend continues will this constitute a drag on consumer spending?

#3. Background:  As of January 2007, the GAO reported that our national transportation infrastructure were at risk in terms of financing and capacity, and that funding sources were eroding  just as investment was needed to expand capacity.

Question:  What inroads into this imbalance might have been made by ARRA projects?  What employment advances might be made if funding was available for contracts to improve air traffic and transportation facilities? For highway improvements?

Question: In terms of our national parks, the GAO reported in 2006:  “Each of the 12 park units reported their daily operations allocations were not sufficient to address increases in operating costs, such as salaries and new Park Service requirements. In response, officials reported that they either eliminated or reduced services, or relied on other authorized sources to pay operating expenses that have historically been paid with allocations for daily operations.”   What should Congress and the Administration do to prevent this trend from continuing, and what might the economic benefits be in the private sector if sufficient funding were available for the operation of our national parks?

#4. Background: “During the 2011 legislative sessions, states across the country passed measures to make it harder for Americans – particularly African-Americans, the elderly, students and people with disabilities – to exercise their fundamental right to cast a ballot. Over thirty states considered laws that would require voters to present government-issued photo ID in order to vote. Studies suggest that up to 11 percent of American citizens lack such ID, and would be required to navigate the administrative burdens to obtain it or forego the right to vote entirely.” [ACLU]

Question:  What actions are currently being taken by the Department of Justice to confirm every eligible American citizen’s right to vote?

Thank you.  You’re welcome.

Reid Suggests Compromise on Student Loan Rates

From the e-mail inbox, Senator Harry Reid (D-NV): “Washington, D.C. – In a letter to Speaker John Boehner and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid today offered two bipartisan proposals to pay for a one-year extension of student loan rates to prevent them from doubling on July 1st. The first proposal expands an offset that recently passed the Senate on a strong bipartisan vote of 74-22 as part of the transportation jobs bill. The combination offers a bipartisan path forward to break the impasse currently facing the student loan bill.”

OK, but I’m still not happy.  First, there is really no excuse for putting student loan interest rates up for revision on an annual basis.   Last time I looked it still took four years to get a college degree, and longer if the individual was interested in advanced degrees.  Advanced degrees being the kind that get a person into the 3.6% and below unemployment categories. [DoL]

Secondly, not so long ago it was declared unnecessary to put the cost of military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan  on the books, and thus the Bush Administration ran those activities via emergency supplemental appropriations without any mention of “pay fors.”  Neither was it deemed necessary to subject  the Medicare Part D program to “pay fors,” with some demonstrably budget busting results as of January 1, 2006.   However, when we’re speaking of educating our future work force — now, suddenly it’s absolutely essential we “pay for” every federal expenditure.

Granted, it is more fiscally responsible to know from whence the money is coming to pay for federal expenditures.  However, would it crush the Job Cremators so much to have a loophole for ultra-wealthy hedge fund and lobby shop operators closed? — as was suggested, and as caused Senator Dean Heller (R-NV) to issue his usual  cri de coeur for “small business.”

And thus we continue to tinker, Senator Reid offering the following:

(1)    Reforms to employer pension payment contributions. The proposal outlined by Senator Reid would create a “stabilization range” for employers to compute their pension liabilities. Instead of being forced to use the two-year corporate bond rates in computing their pension liabilities, the new proposal would allow them to compute liabilities using rates for a 25-year period within which the two-year rates must fall.  To the extent that the two-year rates fall outside this range, the company would be allowed to use a rate closest to the two-year rate that falls within the stabilization range to compute its pension funding requirements.  This more flexible approach would narrow fluctuations in computing pension contributions and result in businesses taking fewer tax deductions for contributions.

(2)  Change contributions to Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation premiums. In addition, Senator Reid proposed increasing premiums paid by employers for the insurance provided by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation.  Currently, employers pay a flat dollar premium of $35 per pension plan participant as well as a variable premium equal to $9 for each $1,000 that the plan is underfunded.  To help improve the PBGC’s finances, these premiums could be increased as part of this proposal.

“The combination of these two proposals will provide sufficient resources to fund both a one-year extension of the current student loan interest rate and re-authorization of the nation’s surface transportation programs.”

OK, if we adopt these proposals then we get a continuance of the 3.4% student loan rate AND the re-authorization of the surface transportation programs.  And, I can hear it now — OMG, a more flexible approach to calculating pension fund contributions will be “a plague upon Capitalism?”  Or, increasing the premiums for the PBGC will be a “onerous burden on job creators?”   The former argument is offset by the fact that BUSINESS groups are the ones asking for the recalculation of the pension funding formula. [WallStJournal]

There are reasons to be concerned about the recalculation of pension fund contributions, none of which have anything to do with plaguing Capitalism.  One major cause for careful consideration is that changing the formula could have detrimental effects on defined benefit plans.  [WallStJournal]

The Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation is already facing some serious issues, some of which were outlined in a 2010 report from the GAO:

“Plans in the worst condition may find that the options of increasing employer contributions or reducing benefits are insufficient to address their underfunding and demographic challenges. For these plans, the effects of the economic downturn, declines in collective bargaining, the withdrawal of contributing employers, and an aging workforce will likely increase their risk of insolvency. Without additional options to address plan underfunding or to attract new employers to contribute to plans, plans may be more likely to require financial assistance from PBGC.  Additional claims would further strain PBGC’s insurance program that, already in deficit, it can ill afford.”

Economic growth, as we’ve seen in the private sector over the past 27 months, will help these issues, but asking employers to pay increased premiums to backstop an already serious issue isn’t too much to ask.  If the corporations make additional contributions, then the PBGC isn’t further behind the eight-ball when companies fail.

On the optimistic side, both suggestions from Senator Reid have received bi-partisan support in the past.  On the pessimistic side, chucking their previously held positions over the side has become a Republican art form — witness the individual mandate for health care insurance coverage, and “cap and trade” schemes for pollution elimination.

Since it’s been “campaign season” since January 20, 2009 I am a bit leery of Republican cooperation in the U.S. Senate.  Meanwhile, the clock is ticking as students and their parents try to get body and soul together concerning educational expenses for the next school term.

Educating Those Whippersnappers: GOP’s Shop Til We Drop Policy

When Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney was asked last month about how students and parents might address issues about the cost of a college education these days, Mr. Romney responded:

“ROMNEY: The legislature in my state came together and said, ‘You know what, anyone that’s willing to serve in the National Guard, we’ll provide for tuition and fees for four years of college to make sure you get that start.’ So if you’re willing to serve, then we can be of more help. But my best advice is find a great institution of higher learning, find one that has the right price, and shop around. In America, this idea of competition, it works! [...] I want to make sure that every kid in this country that wants to go to college gets the chance to go to college. If you can’t afford it, scholarships are available, shop around for loans, make sure you go to a place that’s reasonably priced, and if you can, think about serving the country ’cause that’s a way to get all that education for free.” [ThinkProgress](emphasis added)

Go shopping?  Why does this sound vaguely reminiscent of President George W. Bush’s response to the disruption created by the attacks on September 11th 2001?  Could we have a pattern here, a pattern in which all major decisions are to be predicated on the monetary value of citizen participation?

There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with making some well grounded financial decisions about containing costs associated with higher education based on the prices — yes, a community college English 101 course is likely to be much cheaper than a university’s version of the same class.  However, it’s to be hoped that the “price” isn’t the only consideration.   Such cost driven thinking reminds me of those whom Oscar Wilde described as cynics, those who “know the price of everything and the value of nothing.”

Suppose a youngster seeks a career in journalism?  There are three acknowledged “great institutions of higher learning” in this category: Columbia, University of California-Berkeley, University of Missouri-Columbia.  We should also consider Northwestern, Syracuse, and Ohio University.  There are others, listed here, to which a serious journalism student might give consideration. What about a career in engineering?  Our hypothetical young person might consider these schools among the top ten in that field: California Institute of Technology, MIT, Purdue, and Stanford.  The point is that what parents and students should be considering is the best match of student interests to the institution’s capacity to deliver a curriculum which will prepare the young person for success in his or her chosen field.  All too often this isn’t the first question.

All too often the first question is: What can we afford?  Just as often parents are invited to take out loans, and students are told to collect scholarships, take out more loans, and graduate into an economy in which the repayment of loans becomes ever more difficult.

In the Financialist World of candidate Romney, the manic Mr. Market is supposed to take care of these issues via “competition.”  Everything is a Contest!  Price determines value.  Then a cheap education becomes the best education?  If the “value” of the education is predicated upon the economic success of the graduate, then we’re not placing very much “value” on several essential fields.

The Department of Labor estimates that we will need approximately 161,200 social workers between 2010 and 2020. The growth rate in this field is calculated at 25%, well above average.   However, the 2010 median pay for social workers is figured at $42,480 per year.  That would be median pay, not starting pay.   Starting pay comes in around $25,525 annually.  [Payscale] How, pray tell, do we train the number of social workers we’re going to need if they can’t start paying off the student loans accrued during their training?

The outlook for bio-medical engineers is even more optimistic, the growth rate in that sector is a hefty 62%, and it looks like we will need about 9,700 more of these engineers by 2010. [DoL] There are a couple of routes to the $85,000 median earnings.  One, a person can get an undergraduate degree in bio-medical engineering from an accredited program, or secondly get an undergraduate degree with graduate training in the field.  This isn’t going to be cheap.  That median salary makes it look as though paying off the student loans would be a snap, but as with our example of the social worker, the entry level jobs can be expected to yield far less — about $41,100. [Payscale]

How did we get into this bind, a bind in which we need college educated individuals to fill positions in fields as far ranging as bio-medical engineering and social work, but we find such training increasingly unaffordable?

William Moseley, Macalester College, St. Paul, Minnesota offers this explanation:

“But just when the US needs it most, public support for higher education in the US is being rolled back at unprecedented rates. In my own state of Minnesota (long known for its well-educated workforce), our college and university system now only receives 18 per cent of its revenue from the state, down from over 50 per cent in the 1970s. Other universities, such as the University of Michigan and Penn State, receive only 6 per cent and 4 per cent respectively of their budgets from state legislatures. On average, state funding for higher education has fallen by 40 per cent since 1980 (with declines accelerating in the past five years).”  (emphasis added)

The problem isn’t confined to Minnesota, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, because Iowa is facing the same issue:

“In 2001, state funding was about 64 percent of the education budgets at the UI, ISU and UNI, while tuition was 31 percent. Those numbers have basically swapped in the past decade, with tuition at 58.3 percent of the funding and state appropriations at 35.7 percent in the current fiscal year. Iowa also had the largest five-year decline on average when compared with neighboring Midwest states. Iowa’s public institutions received $4,481 per full-time student in fiscal 2011, a 25.3 percent decline since 2006, according to the report.”

Nor is this problem of shifting the costs of education from the states to the students and parents unique to the American middle west, it’s a national issue:

“According to research conducted by the State Higher Education Executive Officers (SHEEO), educational appropriations per full-time student reached a high of $7,961 in FY 2001, followed by four years of decline from FY 2002 to FY 2005 (after the 2001 recession). Per student funding then increased in fiscal years 2006, 2007 and 2008, recovering to $7,220. In FY 2009, appropriations per student fell by 4 percent due to the onset of the latest recession and declined to $6,928 per student as states struggled with massive revenue shortfalls. Appropriations per student remained lower in FY 2009 (in constant dollars) than in most years since FY 1980.”  [NCSL pdf]

Worse still, the Ryan Budget, endorsed by candidate Romney as “marvelous,” would make the shift from governmental to parental assumption of education expenses ever more stark.  The Ryan Budget assumes the reduction of Pell Grants by $170 billion over the next ten years, exacerbating an already dire situation:

“The plan proposed by Ryan (R-Wis.), who chairs the House Budget Committee, would chop away at Pell grant eligibility, thereby reducing total Pell grants by about $170 billion over the next decade; allow the interest rate for federally subsidized Stafford loans to double; end student loan interest subsidies for those still in school; and make Pell spending discretionary — instead of mandatory — allowing further cuts down the line. Pell grants, the largest source of federal financial aid, currently help more than 9 million students to afford college. Following last year’s budget standoffs, next year’s maximum Pell grant of $5,645 will cover just one-third of the average cost of college — the smallest share ever.” [HuffPo]

And Pell Grants aren’t the only problem with the Ryan/Romney Plan.  Note that the Ryan Budget assumes that student loan interest rates will double, and students loan interest subsidies for those still in school will end.

The de-funding of American higher education is what happens when (1) we have strapped state legislatures still trying to dig out from the $10.2 Trillion debacle created by the players in the Wall Street Casino during the Housing Bubble, (2) we adopt the Manic Mr. Market valuation of education as a commodity and not as a source of community improvement, and (3) we adopt the patently self-destructive argument that higher education is a luxury, and those who want luxuries should pay for them by themselves.

This de-funding is also a function of an economic vision in which it is considered more important to protect the subsidies paid to highly profitable energy corporations, to protect the earnings of those who speculated in the stock market more than the earnings of brick layers and construction contractors, and to protect the income of millionaires and billionaires, than it is to invest in our most precious recourse in the nation — our kids.

If we want to grow the U.S. economy, then we need to note that the unemployment rate for those with a high school diploma now stands at 8.0, while the unemployment rate for those holding a college diploma is at 4.2%. [DoL] In terms of annual earnings the differentiation is obvious, young people with a high school diploma can expect $25,000 annual wages, while their college educated cohorts can expect $40,100.  [NCES]

Policy which undermines the capacity of our citizens to secure a college education either for themselves or for their children is a clear path to economic stagnation or decline.  It’s a path that cannot be improved by  “going shopping.”