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shortage or surplus. In the labor market, as in
any other competitive market, the best indicators
of shortages and surpluses are changes
in prices – in this case, wages. When workers
with particular attributes are in
surplus, their real wages (net of
infl ation) fall. Real wages rise for
workers in shortage.
For the period we are examining,
the best wage data comes
from the decennial U.S. Census
and its companion survey, the
monthly Current Population Survey.
The charts on page 71 and
72 show trends over the period
1973 - 2001 in the average
wages of male and female workers
with different educational
attainments.
In 1996, the average real wage
of male college graduates was
almost identical to its value in
1973, an indication that demand kept up
with the supply of college-educated workers.
Then, in the strong economy of the late
1990s, the real wage of male college graduates
grew markedly. By contrast, the average real
wage of male high school graduates fell by
almost $3 per hour between 1973 and 1996,
and the average wage of male dropouts fell by
almost $4 per hour during this period. While
the strong economy of the late 1990s allowed
these groups to recover some part of the earnings
decline, wages in 2001 were still markedly
below 1973 levels for these groups.
The pattern of wage stability and recent
wage growth among college graduates, along
with long-run wage decline among high
school graduates, could have come from
changes in the demand for workers with
different educational attainments or from
changes in their supply. The data points to
changes in demand.
During this period, the number of male
college graduates was growing faster than the
number of male high school graduates and
dropouts. Had demand been stable, the faster
growing group would have experienced
declining wages.
That, of course, is not what happened –
real wages of male college graduates rose in
the two decades after 1980. The changing
occupational structure was creating demand
for college graduates that outstripped their
fast-growing supply. Applying the same logic,
the real wages of male high school graduates
and male dropouts were falling because
demand for these workers was growing even
4-year college graduate high school graduate high school dropout
30
25
20
15
10
5
1973 1978 1983 1988 1993 1998 2001
2001 DOLLARS
REAL HOURLY WAGE TRENDS FOR MALES 1973 – 2001,
BY EDUCATION
source: Data from Current Population Surveys as reported on the Economic Policy Institute Web site.
72 The Milken Institute Review
more slowly than their slow-growing supply.
Women’s wages tell a broadly similar
story. The number of employed female college
graduates grew faster than the number
of employed female high school graduates
and dropouts. Yet as shown below,
the average wage of female college graduates
increased quite sharply while the average
wage of female high school graduates and
dropouts did not grow at all.
We are beginning to fi ll in the blanks
about how computers are changing work.
On the demand side of the labor market, the
share of menial jobs has increased modestly,
but the largest job growth has been in occupations
requiring signifi cant education. On
the supply side, the number of college graduates
has been growing faster than the number
of high school graduates and dropouts. Yet
the rising wages of college graduates indicate
demand is outstripping their supply. Conversely,
the fact that the wages of male high
school graduates and dropouts are declining
despite the slow growth of these groups,
indicates that demand factors are consigning
them to jobs that no longer pay enough to
support families.
Worker Skills and the
New Nature of Work
Today, virtually all public schools operate
under mandates to prepare all students to
master valued skills. By the same token, corporations
spend an average of $800 per employee
on training each year. Much of this effort is
devoted to preparing people to work productively
in the computerized workplace. If the
effort is to make sense, the nation
needs to understand what tasks
humans will perform at work and
the skills they will need to carry
out these tasks effectively.
We already have some answers.
Computers have a comparative
advantage in carrying out
tasks requiring the execution of
rules, but people have the advantage
　
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