An Uneven Road, Then a Cliff

Following the boom period of 1995-2000, most American workers  either treaded water or lost ground on earnings from 2000 to 2007. (An exception: Women's wages grew by 10.3 percent on aveage, with larger gains for the highly educated.) Employers were able to meet the growing demand for goods and services without much growth in hiring, in part due to technological changes, globalization and offshoring. The Great Recession had very profound impacts on employment, particularly among the young, less-educated, minority and especially male workers who had already lost jobs during the 2000-07 cycle. Workers in the Midwest, which lost huge numbers of manufacturing jobs, and in the West, where the housing bubble burst the most, suffered annual unemployment rates near 10 percent. ...

This paper was originally published as part of the U.S. 2010 research project directed by Brown University sociologist John Logan and funded by the Russell Sage Foundation and Brown University.