Failing Education: The True Cause Of Income Inequality

This year -- an election year -- Obama and the Democrats think they have a winning issue in proposing spending measures and legislation that would fight income inequality.  For any Democrat, the rallying cry to getting those measures passed and, subsequently, getting themselves elected (or reelected), will be that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer; and, that they are the ones watching out for the poor while the Republicans only want to protect the rich.  Thus, we will be going back to the 2008 campaign when Obama told "Joe the Plumber" that we need to "spread the wealth around."

However, the real reason that we have income inequality in this country has to do with something that the Democrats are completely complicit in: Sustaining a failing and highly unionized educational system for the sole purpose of garnering union votes.  It is actually the level of someone's education that determines whether or not a person will be able to share in the wealth of this country and not a bunch of Democrat-sponsored "band aids" such as raising the minimum wage, or extending unemployment benefits, or whatever.  There is no better proof of that than this chart:

Statistics are for workers 25 or older (click to zoom)

Now, it doesn't take a PhD to see the direct correlation between education and income levels and education and unemployment rates.  So, the real solution to income inequality is a better educated population. 

In a world where Americans must compete for the best jobs and, where those jobs are heavily dependent on math and science, we continue to fall behind.  In recent tests conducted by the  Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), our high school teens ranked 27th in math against the 34 other most economically developed counties in the world.  We also dropped to 21st place in science after having been in 17th place in 2009; and, slipped from 14th place to 17th place in reading.  All, under Obama's watch.

Also, as a country, we are experiencing horrible college graduation rates.  Once again, according to studies done by the OECD, only 34% of Americans enrolled in college actually graduate after 4 years.  While some might fail to graduate for economic reasons, the vast majority fail to complete college because they came unprepared.  Proof of this comes from the results of the 2012 ACT college readiness tests.  Only 67% of those tested had enough English comprehension skills to compete in college.  Other scores were even more frightening with reading proficiency at 52%; math at 46%; and, science at a mere 31%. But, the most disturbing fact of all was that only 25% were proficient in all 4 categories.  Realize, too, that the students taking the ACT are those with aspirations of moving onto college.  God only knows how poorly those who didn't take the test would have done.

In December, there were 4 million job openings in this country. Yet, only 74,000 -- of 10.8 million looking for work -- actually found a job.  This is an awful statistic but it proves my point; and, the problem is only intensified when you add in the nearly 9 million workers who have completely given up looking for work.

It is becoming increasingly more difficult to match worker education levels to the kind of high paying jobs that are being created; or, could be created.  As a consequence, those jobs are either eventually filled with imported labor -- people here on work visas -- or just wind up being shipped overseas where they can be filled with a better educated workforce. Thus, every year, America's workforce is increasingly made up of "dumbed-down" workers.  That's also why -- since the employment recovery began in 2010 -- half of all the jobs that were so-called created were low income positions.

The recession clearly exposed the education problem when so many poorly educated Americans lost their higher paying jobs.  Jobs that paid well because those workers had achieved some level of seniority.  Today, those same workers are being forced to literally start over at the bottom rungs of the uneducated workforce ladder.  This is why we have record numbers -- 46.5 million -- in poverty. Numbers that haven't declined in over three years of a supposed employment recovery.

Over the last few decades, there have been dozens of proposals on how to improve education in America.  But, all have been rejected, completely out of hand, by Democrat politicians on behalf of "their" teachers' unions.  That's because those proposals would either jeopardize the size of existing union membership; or, would have changed how teachers are paid; or, would have disciplined or fired poor performing teachers; and, would have eliminated the stupid concept of tenure.  Never once was the best interest of the student taken into any consideration.

References:

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development: US teens lag in global education rankings as Asian countries rise to the top: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/12/03/21733705-us-teens-lag-in-global-education-rankings-as-asian-countries-rise-to-the-top?lite

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development: College Graduation Rates: http://rankingamerica.wordpress.com/2008/12/19/the-us-ranks-14th-in-college-graduation/

U.S. News And World Report: High School Student Not Prepared for College, Careers: http://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/high-school-notes/2012/08/22/high-school-students-not-prepared-for-college-career

2012 ACT results (see chart on page 7): http://media.act.org/documents/CCCR12-NationalReadinessRpt.pdf

BLS: Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.nr0.htm

BLS: December 2013 Employment Situation Report: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

Half Of All Jobs Created In The Past 3 Years Were Low-Paying: Study: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/13/low-paying-jobs_n_3266737.html

Poverty level under Obama breaks 50-year record: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jan/7/obamas-rhetoric-on-fighting-poverty-doesnt-match-h/