Working Scared (Or Not at All)

The Lost Decade, Great Recession, and Restoring the Shattered American Dream

By (author) Carl E. Van Horn

Not available to order

Publication date:

06 August 2014

Length of book:

226 pages

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

ISBN-13: 9781442238015

At the end of the twentieth century, with the economy booming and unemployment at historic lows, the American economy was a job-producing marvel. The first decade of the twenty-first century was entirely different as the worst economy in seventy years, the Great Recession, crushed the lives of tens of millions of workers and their families, forestalled careers, scrapped hopes for a college education, delayed retirements, and foreclosed family homes. American workers experienced the best and worst of times and have endured an entire “lost decade” of high unemployment, stagnant or declining incomes, and anxiety. Working Scared draws upon nearly 25,000 interviews with employed and unemployed Americans conducted from, 1998 to 2012. These “voices” of American workers tell a compelling story about wrenching structural changes and recessions during one of the most volatile periods in U.S. economic history. This book represents one of the most comprehensive social science research portraits of the views of American workers’ about their jobs, the workplace, and government’s role in the labor market. Working Scared will help citizens, policy makers, educators, business, union, and community leaders better understand what is happening to the United States workforce. It also describes the essential national priorities and policies that will assist frustrated, angry and scared American workers and the reforms that will help restore the American dream of secure employment and intergenerational progress.

More than two dozen surveys of the attitudes and expectations of (mostly unemployed) workers over the period 1998-2012 constitute the essence of this book by the founding director of the Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University. Significant attention is devoted to both older workers who often have lost their jobs and younger workers who have not found steady work. The underlying sources of their employment problems include increased global competition, advanced technology, and "deunionization." The great recession made everything worse. Van Horn recommends more resources devoted to education curricula that prepare people for the "new" work environment, and greater effort by employers to provide the necessary job training to enable workers to develop and keep their job skills current. He urges a much larger role for public universities as well as for the federal government, including revamping the existing unemployment insurance program so it pays people to return to work. In general the book is more descriptive of the feelings of the survey respondents than it is an analytical evaluation of how labor markets are changing, and little statistical information is provided about the surveys. Many footnotes. Summing Up: Recommended. General collections supporting labor studies and workforce development.