We Can Create Better Jobs—by Fixing the Bad Ones

When politicians and pundits talk about creating better jobs, they typically cite two strategies. The first, emphasized by economic nationalists and populists like President Trump, is to use trade and other policies to bring high-paying manufacturing jobs back to American soil. The second, emphasized by progressives, is to use education to prepare less advantaged workers for higher-paying jobs.

But even if we did both, we would not put a significant dent in the jobs problem. The reality is that high-paying knowledge jobs employ just a third of the workforce, and only 5 or 6 percent of Americans do manufacturing work. Even with the unemployment rate at less than 4 percent, more than 65 million Americans—almost half of the entire workforce—toil in low-paying jobs in fields such as food service, retail, and personal and health services.