President's Message
As with the question of who first brought pizza to America, and who was first in flight, there is some dispute over who can lay claim to first proposing the Labor Day holiday.
Some records show that in 1882, Peter J. McGuire, general secretary of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and a co-founder of the American Federation of Labor, suggested setting aside a day for a "general holiday for the laboring classes" to honor those "who from rude nature have delved and carved all the grandeur we behold."
How could this quote have come from one of Labor Day’s early champions? This, from someone who purported to advance the interests of the American worker? This, from a man who collected a paycheck derived from Union dues. But does “this” refer to the workers or the raw materials he (yes, “he”) manipulated? A closer read suggests the latter but, at first blush, it’s easy to conclude that McGuire was insulting the worker and the working class.
But in 2021 this quote now begs us to consider how well we know the so-called American worker. Who is he? Who is she? What do they do? Does the 20th Century American worker still delve and carve and create grandeur? In 2019, the Pew Research Center published some research on the modern American worker. and the results show some significant changes over the last 140 years or so.
Labor union membership is declining — by about 50% over the past roughly 40 years.
Transportation and material moving saw the largest decline while legal occupations, for example, saw a slight increase.
Union membership peaked in 1954.
Despite the membership declines, Americans generally like unions and broadly support the right of workers to unionize.
Far from the average worker of Peter McGuire’s day, most modern American workers are employed in the service sector.
Self-employed Americans and the people working for them together accounted for 30% of the nation’s workforce in 2014. This number was likely far higher in the late 19th century, as the American Industrial Revolution began to drive workers into factories.
Millennials are now the largest generation in the U.S. labor force. In 2016, Millennials surpassed Generation Xers (ages 41 to 56 in 2021) to become the single largest generational group in the U.S. labor force.
Interestingly, when compared with Baby Boomers, Gen Xers’ place as the dominant generation within the labor force was very short-lived – just three years.
Wage gaps exist across the American workforce.
As of 2019, Women are paid 15% less than men, but that gap is narrower (11%) among younger workers.
White men, for example, had higher median hourly earnings than every other racial or ethnic and gender subgroup except one: Asian men.
The wage gap between young workers with college degrees and their less-educated counterparts is the widest in decades.
The higher someone’s educational attainment is, the more likely they are to have a job.
Fewer U.S. teens have paying jobs today compared with earlier decades.
Look at the NEET (Neither Employed nor in Education or Training) data for some eye-opening insights into your membership.
For a more visceral example, Peter McGuire himself apprenticed to a piano maker at age 11 in 1863.
Not to be outdone by the teens, more and more older Americans are working than in previous decades.
In 2018, 29% of Boomers (65 to 72) were working or looking for work – outpacing the labor market engagement of the Silent Generation (21%) and the Greatest Generation (19%) when they were the same age.
What about the minimum wage? Raising the federal minimum wage is generally popular in polls, but support cuts across party lines. Only time will tell the effectiveness of the increased minimum wage.
Now that Labor Day 2021 has come and gone, the hot dogs have been eaten, and the grills cooled down, we can take a moment to consider the modern American worker’s role in our communities and in our credit unions. How closely do you track the changing demographics of your membership? Are you prepared to meet the needs of your NEETs? How will you plan to change with the changing circumstances of your members?
Please consider partnering with the League for your strategic planning services this year.
As always,
Bruce
