Wu Caros
.
S .
INFOSERFING: THE EDUCATED SLip TOWARD Poverty
Descriprion
Could we be moving toward a signiti-
cant drop in the incomes of most col-
lege graduates and professionals?
In the 1950s, a blue-collar job with
lange American manufacturing firm
‘was a ticket to the American middle-
class dream—owning a home fit fora
couple of kids and the family dog and
driving a car you could replace every
few years. In the past 30 years, how=
«ver, automationandcompettion from
less expensive foreign labor has eaten,
away at the earnings of unskilled
American labor, By the 1990s, this
group had fost easy access tothe com-
Fortable lite
‘Todate, the well-educatedhavebeen
insulated from this kind of erosion of
relative income. A number of trends
‘may coalesce in thenext decade, how-
ever, to likewise degrade the incomes
ofthis heretofore unassailable group
+ Education levels continue 10 rise
worldwide, and college-educated
workers hecome available elsewhere
at salaries far below their American
counterparts. India, for example, pro-
vides talented computer expertise for
a fraction of Silicon Valley salaries.
+ Information technology advances—
algorithms that mimic human thought
i 1098 Tas Yenn Fomicast
processes, computer performance that
‘continues to increase exponentially,
and powerful databases—lead to ex-
perssystemsthatautomate many white-
collar jobs and will likely put many
professionals out on the street.
+ Global communications technology
allows superstars to leverage ther tal~
ents across a wider market, to the det-
iment of smaller, local talent. This
trend can be seen emergingin the super
salaries eared by the big names in
entertainment and sports. Similarly
exorbitant compensation might becom-
ing for super teachers, doctors, com=
puter programmers, lawyers, and con
sultans of al stripes as they replace
their merely good or medioete peers
‘Though the information age puts
high valueon leading-edgeknowledge,
this value is likely to accrue largely to
the elite who hold intelectual property
rights or superstar abilities, not to the
educated workforce at large. Recall
that throughout much of the agricul-
tural age, landowners amassed great
sums while most others hovered near
abject poverty. Likewise, until the last
few decades of the industrial age, in=
dustry owners raked in huge wealth
‘while most industrial workers seraped
by,
Inoicators
Such a development is signaled by a
25% decline inthe median salaries for
‘managerial and professional oceupa-
tions relative to the grossnational prod
uct per capita
ImpucaTions
+ Income and class differences widen
significantly between the haves and
have-nots, with more and more ofthe
college-educated joining the ranks of
the have-nots.
+ Desperation increases dramatically
in the nouveau poor, leading to the
spread of social misbehavior untilnow
‘mostly concentrated in urban ghettos.
+ Unions and socialist-style political
‘movements reemerge, this time run by
‘members as educated a the power-
wielding elite
Prosasiury
By 2006, 10%.
—David Hansen
Instr ron Futut * Meio Pas, Cuca