Hidden Unemployment

nearly 40% -- or more than $60,000—from 10 years ago. Just one year of spending on
a child can cost up to $13,830 in 2010, compared to $9,860 a decade ago.
Using the US Census Bureau's definition of poverty, the working poverty rate seems to
have remained relatively stable since 1978. However, many scholars have argued that
the official poverty threshold is too low, and that real wages and working conditions
have actually declined for many workers over the past three or four decades. Social
scientists like Arne Kalleberg have found that the decline in US manufacturing and the
subsequent polarization of the labor market has led to an overall worsening of wages,
job stability, and working conditions for people with lower skill levels and less formal
education. From the mid-1940s to the mid-1970s, manufacturing jobs offered many lowskilled
and medium-skilled workers stable, well-paying jobs. Due to global competition,
technological advances, and other factors, US manufacturing jobs have been
disappearing for decades. (From 1970 to 2008, the percentage of the labor force
employed in the manufacturing sector shrank from 23.4% to 9.1%.) During this period of
decline, job growth became polarized on either end of the labor market. That is, the jobs
that replaced medium-pay, low- to medium-skill manufacturing jobs were high-paying,
high-skill jobs and low-paying, low-skill jobs. Therefore, many low- to medium-skilled
workers who would have been able to work in the manufacturing sector in 1970 must
now take low-paying, precarious jobs in the service sector.
US Compared to Europe
Other high-income countries have also experienced declining manufacturing sectors
over the past four decades, but most of them have not experienced as much labor
market polarization as the United States. Labor market polarization has been the most
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