Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, September 1, 1994 TAG: 9409010074
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
``Some workers are surging ahead. Others, unfortunately, are treading water. And still others, I'm sad to say, are sinking, and sinking quickly, in the same economy at the same time,'' Reich said in his yearly appraisal of the nation's work force. He spoke to the Center for National Policy.
Reich said the American middle class has been split into three new groups. ``An underclass,'' he said, is trapped in inner cities and ``increasingly isolated from the core economy'' and the accompanying jobs.
And there is an ``overclass of people who are positioned to profit and to profitably ride the waves of change in the new economy.'' That group, he said, is isolated ``in their own residential compounds, in gated communities and high-rise office towers.''
Between them, Reich said, is a large ``anxious class'' of people who ``hold jobs, but who are justifiably uneasy about their own standing and fearful about their children's futures.''
In a concession to the nation's unions, which have lost one battle after another in Congress in the last year, Reich said revitalization of the labor movement ``would help reverse the erosion of the middle class.''
Reich defended the administration's record on job creation against the criticism that many new jobs are in low-paying service industries.
He said the ``notion that we're creating a bounty of bad jobs is purely mythological. It's not true at all.''
Reich focused on training as a means of increasing prospects for lower-income workers, a message he has preached since President Clinton took office.
He said records show that in 1992, the average male college graduate earned 83 percent more than a male worker with just a high school diploma.
Similarly, workers with college degrees have seen less erosion of their employer-sponsored health benefits, from 79 percent with benefits provided by employers in 1979 to 76 percent in 1993. Rates for high school graduates declined from 68 percent to 60 percent in the same period and from 52 percent to 36 percent for high school dropouts, he said.
He said technical jobs that will be at the core of what he called the ``new economy'' will require education beyond high school, though not necessarily a college degree.
The workers most likely to receive training, he said, are well-educated white men in high-paying occupations. ``This imbalance only serves to harden the divisions within the work force,'' he said.
Reich said American businesses should do more to train all workers. ``For American business, this new social compact is imperative not only of corporate citizenship,'' he said, ``but also of their own long-term interests.''
``The Clinton administration's work force agenda is anchored by the proven facts that skills matter, that they can be learned,'' he said.
The unemployment rate has steadily declined since Clinton took office. It was 6.1 percent last month.
Still, Reich noted, 8 million Americans are looking for jobs, and the unemployment rate for blacks and Hispanics remains in the double digits.
Statistics show that black men hold just three of every 100 jobs classified as managerial, technical and professional and earned just 72 percent of the median income for comparable white males. Hispanic workers are far less likely than non-Hispanic white workers to receive employer-sponsored health benefits.
by CNB