South By North Strategies, Ltd.

A recent article in Bloomsberg Businessweek explores the extent to which the recovery is squeezing America’s middle class and what it means for the future.

Ninety-five percent of the net job losses during the recession were in middle-skill occupations such as office workers, bank tellers, and machine operators, according to research by economists Nir Jaimovich of Duke University and Henry Siu of the University of British Columbia. That’s what we all assume happens in recessions: The middle class is hit hardest, then eventually climbs back. Only, that comeback isn’t happening. Job growth since the end of the recession has been clustered in high-skill fields inaccessible to workers without advanced degrees or in low-paying industries, the economists found.
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In March the U.S. had 2 million more managers and professionals working than five years earlier. Lower-paying service-sector jobs were up 1.5 million. It’s the middle-income jobs that have been slow to return. Over the same period, there were 3.2 million fewer Americans working in sales and office jobs and 1.2 million fewer employed in transportation and production—a broad category that includes factory and assembly-line workers, printers, welders, tailors, and poultry and meat plant workers. Another worrisome measurement: Median annual household income in March was $2,900 lower after inflation than at the start of the recovery in June 2009, according to Sentier Research, an economic consulting firm.