Lawrence Mishel, Jared Bernstein, and Heather Boushey, The State of Working America 2002/2003.

Lawrence Mishel, Jared Bernstein, and Heather Boushey, The State of Working America 2002/2003 (Ithaca, NY: ILR Press 2003)

ON THE DEDICATION page of this latest biennial update of the Economic Policy Institute's analysis of income and wealth trends in the United States, Lawrence Mishel

and Heather Boushey each offer the heart-felt but conventional tributes to family members. Co-author Jared Bernstein, on the other hand, signals the methodological basis of the book by saluting "the men and women who make up the statistical infrastructure at the Bureaus of the Census, Labor Statistics, and Economic Analysis. Without their work, ours would be impossible." Indeed, this portrait of "working America" comes almost entirely from statistics about employment, earnings, wealth, debt, unionization rates, and similar data, with government-generated statistics supplemented by those from financial newspapers, magazines, and think-tanks. The overwhelming reliance on this source material constitutes both the greatest strength and weakness of this type of study.

The three authors also dedicate the book to the late US Senator Paul Wellstone, "a tireless fighter for economic justice," a clear indication that the 400-plus pages to come will marshall the statistics to argue for public policy recommendations that place a high priority on full employment, on economic equality, and on a strong government-supported "safety net" in the face of recession and other structural economic problems working people face. Mishel, Bernstein, and Boushey carefully evaluate long-term trends as well as the latest figures available at the time of compilation, in mid-2002, to warn that a "jobless recovery" from the recession of 2001 would not restore prosperity or fairness to US workers. Their warnings, and predictions, appear for the most part to be borne out at the time of writing this review (late 2003), even as mainstream commentators trumpet the revival of the stock market and some corporate profits.

The title, one must say at the outset, is somewhat of a misnomer. There is virtually no discussion in this book of what Americans actually do at work. While the authors argue that capital has benefitted disproportionately over labour from increases in productivity over the past decade, they do not explain how such changes have affected how Americans experience their working lives. They detail the decline in manufacturing jobs, but do not give a single specific portrait of how this decline affects real workers, communities, or unions. Reliance on government statisticians in this case came at the exclusion of such "qualitative" data as reports on strikes, unemployment, and jobs.

Even the charts and graphs at times portray only a partial picture. Mishel, Bernstein, and Boushey demonstrate the increased hours many Americans work, and comment briefly on how this affects family life, but readers will find nothing on commuting time or on relocation to find work. Moreover, some readers may be confused by the inclusion in a book on "working America" of a lengthy analysis of trends in the net worth among the very wealthiest Americans.

Those familiar with previous editions of this compendium will recognize that many sections are reprinted verbatim. The concluding paragraphs, for example, are almost identical to those in the 1998-1999 edition. Given that the basic thesis and format of the handbook has been set, this reviewer wishes that the updated edition had added the more human dimension, illuminating the impact of the statistics on individuals.

Geared as it is toward influencing public policy, The State of Working America is organized around an "executive summary," and whole series of sentences appear in more than one section. Most readers will browse through the detailed chapters, looking at graphs and charts, and consult the text as necessary to explain particularly intriguing statistics.

With these caveats, Mishel, Bernstein, and Boushey present an important and compelling case, much of it familiar, but with authoritative documentation and argumentation based on the government-produced data. Workers' real wages increased, and income inequality declined between 1947 and 1973, followed by wage stagnation throughout the 1970s and then a pronounced increase in income inequality during the 1980s. The economic recovery of the early Clinton years did not do much for workers, but the last half of the 1990s, with its low unemployment rate, finally allowed strong gains in wages for working families, especially among the lower-income groups. Here, too, income inequality remained high.

The recession of 2001, which is too often noted mainly for its impact on the stock market, is here discussed primarily with respect to the rise in unemployment, which threatened to reverse the long-delayed gains of low-income Americans. Mishel, Bernstein, and Boushey suggest that while this recent recession was not that harsh in light of some previous downturns, it hit low-wage and other workers hard because the Clinton-era prosperity masked long-term trends detrimental to workers. These trends include the loss of manufacturing jobs, the decline in long-term job security and in job-linked pension and health benefits, the retraction of union membership, and an increase in personal debt.

This analysis leads the authors to advocate public policy solutions, by the Federal Reserve Bank among others, that place an alleviation of unemployment as the top priority in order to restore workers' purchasing power and to reverse the growing trend toward income and wealth inequality. Expanded tax credits, subsidized child care, and a restored "safety net" are more essential than ever, they argue, to reduce the high rates of poverty in the US.

Among the strengths of The State of Working America is the authors' willingness to confront alternative perspectives head on. Thus, their final chapter on international comparisons between the US and other advanced industrial nations on wage rates, poverty, and inequality leads Mishel, Bernstein, and Boushey to conclude that the US record over the past twenty years does not make it a model for other nations, as some conservative Americans claim. A detailed discussion of the uses of computer technology, both in the workplace and as consumption goods, allows the authors to refute--successfully, in my view--the common argument that increased income inequality has been fueled by the growing gap in skills between workers in the "new technology" sectors of the economy and others. Their discussion of the impact of taxes on income and inequality is another careful analysis which takes a wide range of variables into account before making a judgement. At several points, the authors present different calculations of statistical data, in order to avoid reliance on a measurement that some might consider to be biased in favor of their perspective.

Some readers may be disconcerted by the authors' discussion of the increased participation of women in the work force. At times Mishel, Bernstein, and Boushey appear to imply that the growth in the number of hours that women work is important mainly as a contributor to the "time crunch" for married couples with children, and as an indicator of the difficulties that working people face in keeping up their economic status. The preference for the old family wage of a presumptively male breadwinner is never stated, but lingers just below the surface of the analysis.

This handbook should find wide use as a reference tool among the staffs of sympathetic politicians, unions, and public interest groups preparing speeches, testimony, articles, and lobbying campaigns. The heavy reliance on statistical analysis makes it unsuitable as a course text in all but the most specialized classes. Nevertheless, labour educators, economists, sociologists, and historians will find it an invaluable resource for graphs, charts, and discussions of economic trends, as they relate to working people, to use in classes or workshops.

Robert Shaffer

Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania