Obama, Florida, Hanauer

In an extended interview with Bloomberg editors about America's economic future and role in the global economy, Obama hewed to a simple principle: embrace global trade, but adjust current rules to increase labor's bargaining power while investing in education and skill development. He struck a couple of  notes that recalled things I've read that have resonated with me, about why, where and how wages have to rise. 

First, with respect to manufacturing vs. service jobs:

I think that as we move toward an economy where, because of automation, you need fewer and fewer people to make more and more stuff, more and more of us are going to have to move into the service sector. The service sector historically has been a low-wage sector. And in order for us to make sure that we don’t see this growing divide between haves and have-nots, with a middle class that’s shrinking, we’re going to have to make sure the service sector pays better.

Yes, the U.S. can create some good new advanced manufacturing jobs, in ways that James Fallows has illustrated in his travels around the country for the American Futures project, but the share of those jobs in U.S. employment won't match the totals of yesteryear.  The notion that service jobs are not inherently inferior to manufacturing jobs is one that Richard Florida has been advancing for some time, e.g., in this 2010 essay:

It's the wages, stupid

"I'm no economist," to paraphrase Republican presidential hopefuls. But even a casual reader knows that for 35-odd years the lion's share of economic growth has gone to the wealthiest, and that the trend has accelerated in the last decade.

We're told, e.g. by David Leonhardt, that arresting the trend and creating wage growth is a gigantic mystery, and that Democrats, ostensibly the party of the less-than-wealthy, can only nibble around the edges, as with middle class tax cuts. That is, get GDP growth out of near-neutral and wage pressure will rise.

Now cometh billionaire Nick Hanauer, this generation's class traitor extraordinaire, to call bullshit and place the spotlight squarely on labor law and deliberate policy choices that have eroded workers' leverage vs. owners.  His focus is on wages -- specifically, in the piece below, on overtime pay. You can extrapolate and imagine a party that focuses relentlessly on the rules governing pay and workplace rules. I'm quoting an extended chunk here because I want to add my drops to the ocean, i.e. get a few more people to read this: