Freeman

Working Under Different Rules

Edited by Richard B. Freeman

The United States still leads the world in productivity and real income per person, but the American way of organizing work and rewarding workers no longer guarantees hardworking citizens a piece of the American dream. Child poverty rates, the homeless, the urban underclass, and the gap between high-paid and low-paid workers continue to increase. Low-paid U.S. workers have worse standards of living than comparable workers in Europe or Japan.

The seven essays in this book compare the American labor market over four years with those in Western Europe, Canada, Japan and Australia to see whether these U.S. problems are unique and how other advanced countries organize their working economy.

While the U.S. market did better than most of the other countries in job creation, much of that growth was in low-wage service industries. Many women may have been pushed into those poor jobs by their husbands' falling incomes.
The U.S. workforce is very mobile and relatively unregulated compared to that in other advanced countries, moving into and out of employment much more rapidly. This facilitates new employment, but it increases turnover, reduces on-the-job training and minimizes job security and worker representation.
In terms of purchasing power, U.S. production of goods and services per capita generates the world's highest living standard. But Americans work longer hours and take shorter vacations, so U.S. productivity per hour is generally similar to that of most other advanced countries - and productivity appears to be slowing down.
U.S. workers are a low-wage bargain in the developing world, although averages are misleading: American low-wage workers do much worse compared to the U.S. average than do low-wage European workers in relation to the averages there.

Low-paid Americans have lower real earnings than workers in all advanced countries for which there are comparable data. This may be a trade-off for creating more jobs. But other advanced economies may have useful solutions to offer in their different ways of determining wages, training workers and creating new kinds of representation and social safety nets.
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Richard B. Freeman (freeman@nber.org) is Ascherman Professor of Economics at Harvard University, Co-Director of the Labor and Worklife Program at the Harvard law School, and Director of the Labor Studies Program at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He is also Co-Director of the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics and Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics.

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Working Under Different Rules Edited by Richard B. Freeman The United States still leads the world in productivity and real income per person, but the American way of organizing work and rewarding workers no longer guarantees hardworking citizens a piece of the American dream. Child poverty rates, the homeless, the urban underclass, and the gap between high-paid and low-paid workers continue to increase. Low-paid U.S. workers have worse standards of living than comparable workers in Europe or Japan. The seven essays in this book compare the American labor market over four years with those in Western Europe, Canada, Japan and Australia to see whether these U.S. problems are unique and how other advanced countries organize their working economy. While the U.S. market did better than most of the other countries in job creation, much of that growth was in low-wage service industries. Many women may have been pushed into those poor jobs by their husbands' falling incomes. The U.S. workforce is very mobile and relatively unregulated compared to that in other advanced countries, moving into and out of employment much more rapidly. This facilitates new employment, but it increases turnover, reduces on-the-job training and minimizes job security and worker representation. In terms of purchasing power, U.S. production of goods and services per capita generates the world's highest living standard. But Americans work longer hours and take shorter vacations, so U.S. productivity per hour is generally similar to that of most other advanced countries - and productivity appears to be slowing down. U.S. workers are a low-wage bargain in the developing world, although averages are misleading: American low-wage workers do much worse compared to the U.S. average than do low-wage European workers in relation to the averages there. Low-paid Americans have lower real earnings than workers in all advanced countries for which there are comparable data. This may be a trade-off for creating more jobs. But other advanced economies may have useful solutions to offer in their different ways of determining wages, training workers and creating new kinds of representation and social safety nets. --- Richard B. Freeman (freeman@nber.org) is Ascherman Professor of Economics at Harvard University, Co-Director of the Labor and Worklife Program at the Harvard law School, and Director of the Labor Studies Program at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He is also Co-Director of the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics and Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics. Home