YORK SUNDAY NEWS c SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2010 3A

American dream gone? GOP lawmakers

The middle class
downsizes as jobs vanish
with no sign of return.
By KEVIN G. HALL
McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — The good paying,
predominantly white-collar jobs that
once sustained many American com-
munities are disappearing at an alarm-
ing pace, keeping the unemployment
rate stubbornly high despite the end of
the Great Recession.
More troubling, these jobs in ac-
counting, financial analysis, commer-
cial printing and a broad array of other
mostly white-collar occupations are un-
likely to come back, experts predict.
There isn’t a single cause to the
trend. Some of it is explained by chan-
ging technology, some of it is the result
of automation. Sending well-paying
jobs to low-cost centers abroad is an-
other big part of the story. So is global
competition from emerging economies
such as China and India.
The result is the same in all cases,
however. Jobs that paid well, required
skills and produced vital communities
are going away and aren’t being re-
placed by anything comparable.
“Unfortunately, the evidence is that
you see a form of downward mobility
of workers who are displaced from
middle-skilled, stable career occupa-
tions,” said David Autor, an economist
at the Massachusetts Institute of Tech-
nology, in an interview.
Autor published a much-discussed
paper in April, suggesting the U.S.
labor market has become polarized,
with employment growth in the high-
skill, high-wage end, and the low-skill,
low-wage end. The vast middle, he con-
cluded, is shrinking.
“The Great Recession has quantita-
tively but not qualitatively changed the
direction of the U.S. labor market,”
Autor concluded, pointing to an accele-
rating trend that he said has been un-
derway for more than a decade.
In cities such as Rochester, where
One woman loses faith in corporate world
Lois Williams-Norman is on the upper end
of what could be called a middle-skill job,
working her entire career in corporations as an
internal financial and budget expert. Like mil-
lions of Americans, she’s had to swallow her
pride and step down the income ladder.
“I’ve gone from a six-figure income to seri-
ously looking at positions that are going to be
paying probably half as much. So over the
past 10 years, my income has continued to
decline year after year,” Williams-Norman said
during an interview.
Her problems began in 2001 when she
The Xerox building in Rochester, N.Y., feels as worn as the once-proud company’s
name. As it downsized its workforce, Xerox has left Rochester in hard times, with
thousands of skilled white-collar workers unable to find similar work. This
downsizing has affected everything from the health of its suppliers to giving to
charities such as the United Way.
By the numbers
As it stands, 14.8 million Americans
were unemployed in September, 6.1 mil-
lion of them for six months or longer. The
unemployment rate has hovered around
9.6 percent for half a year, and few econ-
omists expect it to dip below 8 percent
for years to come.
multinational corporations such as
Xerox, Kodak and Bausch & Lomb
once lorded, the disappearance of mid-
dle-skill jobs tears at the very social
fabric of community.
These corporations used to encour-
age their executives to join the Rotary
Club or the Lions Club and to entrench
themselves in community affairs.
Through those efforts, these big compa-
nies were leading contributors to the
United Way and other charities.
This whole support system that we
had doesn’t exist anymore,” said Wil-
was downsized out of a job at Xerox Corp.
after 20 years with the iconic company. Wil-
liams-Norman, who has an MBA degree, was
forced to take a 20 percent salary cut when
she landed her next job at a pharmaceutical
firm. She stayed there four years until her
company was bought during the frenzy of
mergers and acquisitions in the middle part of
the last decade.
Finding work at corporate headquarters
with eye care company Bausch & Lomb in Ro-
chester, Williams-Norman was put on the
street just 18 months later after private equity
take tough stand
on Bush tax cuts
By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Fresh
off big victories on Election
Day, Republicans in Congress
feel empowered in their fight
to extend tax cuts that expire
in January, including those
for the wealthy.
President Barack Obama
has said he wants to compro-
mise with Republicans to
ensure tax cuts for middle-
income families continue,
suggesting he’s open to ex-
tending all the tax breaks for
a year or two. Republican
MCT — KEVIN G. HALL leaders say it’s a nice gesture
by the president, but some
key GOP lawmakers want
more.
“It should be permanent,”
said Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H.
“We’ve got to
liam Johnson, a former mayor of Ro-
get this econ-
chester for 12 years and now a
professor at the Rochester Institute of omy to pick
Technology. “There is an untold story up, and if
you raise
that we need to understand, which con-
taxes, you’re
tributes to this malaise, this sense of
anxiety that people have.” going to stifle
When corporations shrink their the economy
work force and send jobs abroad, job significantly.
losses cascade down the supply chain. I’m sure that Gregg
Tom Bertolone, 50, spent most of his somebody’s R-N.H.
adult life in commercial printing, work- explained that to the presi-
dent.”
ing his way up to a management post,
raising a family on a $68,000 annual
Rep. John Boehner of
salary. When Kodak, Xerox and other
big global employers got smaller at Ohio, who’s in line to be the
next House speaker in Janu-
home, their printing demands in Ro-
chester narrowed or moved abroad. ary, also played down talk of
Bertolone has been without a a compromise.
steady job for more than two years, and “I think that extending all
in April ran out of unemployment ben- of the current tax rates and
efits. He has only eight years left on a
making them
mortgage but has fallen behind on pay- permanent
ments, unable to land even a retail job
will reduce
because he’s considered overqualified.
the uncer-
tainty in
America and
help small
businesses to
firm Warburg Pincus bought the company in create jobs
2007. She eventually landed with a small local
manufacturer that tapped her strategic plan-
again,” Boehner
House leader
ning skills, but the economic downturn ended Boehner
that job last year. said. “You can’t invest when
After going through four corporate employ- you don’t know what the rules
ers in 10 years, Williams-Norman, who’s in her are.”
50s, has been out of work for more than a
year. She’s sober about her job search. Democrats will have majo-
rities in both the House and
“I know a lot of them aren’t going to come Senate when Congress re-
back, and the new jobs aren’t going to pay as
much,” she said. turns this week for a lame-
duck session that is expected
to stretch into December.
Adding
to the debt
The tax cuts enacted
under the Bush administration
in 2001 and 2003 reduced
marginal income tax rates at
every level. They also pro-
vided a wide range of income
tax breaks for education, fam-
ilies with children and married
couples.
Taxes on capital gains
and dividends were reduced,
while the federal estate tax
was gradually repealed,
though only for 2010.
Obama’s plan to make the
lower- and middle-income tax
cuts permanent would add a
little more than $3 trillion to
the national debt over the
next decade, according to
congressional estimates. Ex-
tending tax cuts for the
wealthy would add $700 bil-
lion more.
The sticker shock of
adding nearly $4 trillion to the
national debt has some Dem-
ocrats wary of making any of
the tax cuts permanent, espe-
cially after Obama’s deficit
commission issued a report
last week outlining painful
spending and tax proposals to
rein in the government’s fi-
nances.
Republicans are less con-
cerned about adding to the
debt through tax cuts, despite
criticizing deficit spending.
They will need Republican
support to get the 60 votes
necessary to pass a tax bill in
the Senate.
Obama and Democratic
leaders in Congress want to
make the tax cuts permanent
for lower- and middle-income
families, while letting them
expire for individuals making
more than $200,000 a year and
married couples making more
than $250,000. Republicans
want to make the tax cuts per-
manent for everyone.
Many congressional aides,
both Republican and Demo-
crat, think lawmakers will
settle on a temporary exten-
sion of all the tax rates, per-
haps for a year or two. While
some Democrats have sup-
ported the idea, interviews
with lawmakers and aides
from both parties suggest that
compromise won’t be easy.

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