Date: Fri, 13 Mar 1998 15:47:42 -0500
From: Yoshie Furuhashi <Furuhashi.1-AT-osu.edu>
Subject: Re: M-I: A rosy view of America


Michael Hoover commented on the think tank optimism:
>>  survey for Fox News asked this question: "Do you
>>  think that if individuals work hard, they can still
>>  achieve the American dream of making a decent
>>  living, owning a home, and sending their children
>>  to college?" Yes, said 72%.
>
>post-WW2 expansion of higher ed in the US seemed to fulfill the
>promise of providing educational opportunity to 'all' citizens..
>.low tuition, open admission institutions were established and
>the previously excluded flocked to them lured by the belief that
>a college degree would enhance their life chances...and just as
>many USers were confident that economic prosperity would last
>forever, so people assumed there would be indefinite expansion
>of educational opportunities...
>
>the percentage of white male high school seniors who graduated and
>immediately enroll in a college/university peaked in the early 1970s.
>..increasing higher ed enrollments have been drive by women, minority
>and students over the age of 24 - all considered "non-traditional"
>in the language of educratese...suggesting the strength of the
>view that "if I can just get that degree, I'll have access to doors
>of opportunity I otherwise will not have" (obviously, the extent to
>which this lets social structure "off the hook" is significant)...
>
>if by no means the class bias of higher ed had been eradicated, the link
>between family income and post-secondary educational achievement had
>weakened prior to the Raygun Administration...

According to the following excerpts from BLS Daily Report, even the US
government confirms the reality of declining wages and not-so-rosy prospect
for the future. Many strands of current ideology seek to compel Americans
to adapt themselves to the requirements of "labor flexibility" (aka
irregular employment): postmodernism, "simple living," self-help, "civic
volunteerism," "life-time education," and the like....Yoshie Furuhashi

>Date:         Thu, 12 Mar 1998 19:02:55 -0800
>Sender: LABNEWS - News and Organizing about the Labor Movement
>              <LABNEWS-AT-cmsa.Berkeley.EDU>
>From: Michael Eisenscher <meisenscher-AT-igc.apc.org>
>Subject:      BLS Daily Report
>[Excerpts]
>BLS DAILY REPORT, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 11, 1998
>
>RELEASED TODAY:  More than 21 million persons did some work at home as
>part of their primary job in May 1997.  The overall number of persons
>doing job-related work at home did not grow dramatically between 1991
>and 1997, but the number of wage and salary workers doing paid work at
>home did ....
>...Despite their smaller numbers,  members of the "baby bust" generation
>have not enjoyed the labor market success that their baby boom
>counterparts did two decades ago, according to an article in the
>February issue of the Monthly Labor Review.  The article, "Comparing the
>Labor Market Success of Young Adults from Two Generations," by Kurt
>Schwammel, economist in the Office of Employment Projections, BLS,
>points out that, between 1979 and 1996, the largest gains in employment
>and earnings among adults aged 25 to 34 occurred when most members of
>the cohort were baby boomers.  Observers had predicted that the baby
>bust cohort would have an easier time finding good jobs than baby
>boomers, but Schwammel found baby bust workers were more likely to be
>employed in lower-paying jobs ....(Daily Labor Report, page A-5, text
>E-3).




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