Coronavirus downturn likely to add to high government debt in some countries
For some governments, the debt incurred on COVID-19 relief will add to the considerable red ink already on their ledgers before the pandemic.
Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
For some governments, the debt incurred on COVID-19 relief will add to the considerable red ink already on their ledgers before the pandemic.
Veterans of prime working age generally fare at least as well as non-veterans in the U.S. job market, though there are differences in the work they do.
While women are still underrepresented in top corporate jobs, there has been a small increase in the share of women executives in such positions over the past decade.
Despite some ups and downs over the past several decades, today’s real average wage in the U.S. has about the same purchasing power it did 40 years ago. And most of what wage gains there have been have flowed to the highest-paid tier of workers.
Most Americans like labor unions, at least in the abstract. A majority (55%) holds a favorable view of unions, versus 33% who hold an unfavorable view, according to a Pew Research Center survey from earlier this year. Despite those fairly benign views, unionization rates in the United States have dwindled in recent decades. As of 2017, just 10.7% of all wage and salary workers were union members, matching the record low set in 2016, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
As we approach the 10th anniversary of the start of the Great Recession, five ways in which the U.S. workforce has changed over the past decade.
Although manufacturing jobs have fallen over the past three decades, improved productivity has kept manufacturing output rising – contrary to what many Americans believe. But over the past few years, productivity growth has been sluggish at best.
Although the unemployment rate gets most of the attention, the government’s monthly jobs report contains lots of other data that, properly interpreted, can provide a fuller picture of the U.S. economy.
Immigrants made up 17.2% of the total U.S. workforce in 2014, or about 27 million workers. Private households were the biggest immigrant-employing “industry,” followed by textile, apparel and leather manufacturers and the farm sector.
Much of U.S. job growth over the past 25 years has been in occupations that require higher levels of education, training and experience – a trend that seems likely to continue, based on our analysis of official government job-growth projections.
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