Full Text:

COMMENTARY: ECONOMY BOOMS, JOBS BUST

Charlie's debts,

Do now upclimb;

Since his job,

Was made part time.

Economist Ron Van Winkle says, "The unemployment is at a rate where it appears

to be that if you want a job you should be able to find one in the state of

Connecticut."

That's true. It's just that you may not be able to live on the job that you

find. Mr Van Winkle, an economics consultant for business, usually isn't asked

about the worker side of the issue. Neither is anybody else. The Connecticut

press rarely seeks out comments from labor economists. There is a strong bias

in our state to view economic news from the side of the investor, and to keep

that news cheery.

That's not hard to do at this point in the business cycle. Raw unemployment

rates are at historic lows, except perhaps in Hartford. New job creation is

booming, and retailers lament the shortage of available clerks. As the rich

used to complain after World War II, "You just can't find good help anymore."

But the view is different from the "help" side. They grumble that, "You just

can't find a good job anymore." It turns out that those miffed merchants at

the mall are only paying $6.50/hour, with no benefits or future. Full-time

non-union nursing home workers do little better. They make only $8-9/hour, and

have to contribute to their own health insurance. And Pratt & Whitney just

shifted its janitors from full-time to part-time. That led to cutting their

wages from $6.50 to $6/hour, and taking away their health benefits.

But in Labor Department statistics, that mean action will look beneficial.

According to their way of counting, 75 jobs were lost, but 140 were created.

It sounds a lot like Bill Clinton toting up the results of NAFTA.

The salary loss won't show up at all. It seems that the state only follows the

wages of manufacturing workers, not service workers. Thus, as the Connecticut

economy has slowly shifted from manufacturing toward service, the gradual loss

of income for blue-collar workers has gone unreported in Labor Department

documents. Worse, what they do report is the misleading per-capita income of

everybody, all in one lump. That average always goes up. It's severely skewed

that way by the big bucks of our high-flying investors, bond traders, and

CEOs.

This trend toward job downgrading was clearly demonstrated by a survey of

Connecticut's five biggest employers in 1996. Pratt & Whitney, Aetna, and

Electric Boat all cut jobs, big time. The gainers were Stop & Shop and

Foxwoods.

The fallout from this trend is devastating to many Nutmeg families, but widely

ignored by the Labor Department and the press. They earnestly strive to put a

good face on our state's economy. And as always, the problem is worst at the

bottom of the ladder. For unskilled workers, there is no surplus of jobs. Nor

do the existing jobs pay a decent wage. Further, the pool of workers has just

been expanded by dumping in desperate former welfare recipients. That drives

wages down even more.

All this gives confidence to employers like Pratt & Whitney to squeeze their

janitors, and to nursing homes to muscle their nurse's aides. They may only

save small money by eroding salaries, but they save big money by cutting

health benefits. Consequently the percentage of Connecticut workers without

medical coverage continues to rise, mostly among the working poor.

One partial solution to this dichotomy between haves and have-nots is unions.

They're laboring hard to organize nursing homes, janitors, hotels, and stores.

Unfortunately, state and federal laws are not on their side.

(Bill Collins, a former mayor of Norwalk, is a syndicated columnist.)