Response to the pandemic has pushed the federal budget higher than it’s been in decades, but Americans are slightly less concerned about the deficit than in recent years.
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.
Seven-in-ten U.S. teens say anxiety and depression are major problems among their peers. Yet anxiety and depression aren’t the only concerns for teens.
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.
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.
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.