Or regression to the mean, maybe.
Catherine Rampell of WaPo says the United States is falling behind:
Employers say they can’t find workers with the right skills. The average job vacancy now takes 30 business days to fill, according to a metric based on Labor Department data. That’s close to a record high. The National Federation of Independent Business survey likewise found that in October, more than half (52 percent) of companies reported few or no qualified applicants for positions they’re trying to fill. That’s also nearly an all-time high.
Worldwide comparisons also show that our workforce leaves something to be desired.
The United States is falling behind the rest of the developed world in education, and particularly postsecondary education. In 2000, we ranked among the top five countries in share of 25- to 34-year-olds who had completed postsecondary schooling, which covers anything from vocational programs to doctorates in advanced research.
Today, we’re 10th, according to data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. We also don’t seem to be building up skills in the right things. Less than a quarter of Americans age 25 to 64 with a bachelor’s degree or higher studied in a STEM field. That places us in 19th place among the 28 developed countries for which the OECD publishes data.
In a recent report on skills, the OECD noted that the United States now specializes in “technologically advanced industries, particularly more complex business services and high-tech manufacturing.” But it emphasized that maintaining this success will be challenging given growing global competition and the fact that the “skills mix” of our population doesn’t match the requirements of these industries.
He Used To Be #1.
And it makes sense, of course. When you’re #2, you try harder – right[1]? But when you’re #1, and your greatest threat has been vanquished, then why keep trying? It’s time to work on those more important things, like theological studies and ideologies idiosyncrasies.
After all, you’re #1. A big Navy, a big Air Force.
It’s the classic in-looking that many empires end with, the best example being Imperial China, about whom stories are told that they assembled a fleet to explore the world – and then abandoned it when the emperor decided it was inappropriate to the perfect China. When your rivals are far behind, there’s no longer the existential threat that will motivate the citizenry to greater, more effective efforts.
Today, we arguably are mismanaging our country into second-rate status.
- We don’t value education as we should. As Catherine points out, the latest tax bill will discourage post-secondary education even more than we do today, and today we ask those students to pay a greater percentage of their income towards that education than we have in the past. I got my Bachelor’s without taking on debt by using some of my parents’ money – not a lot – and working some summers. These days? Ludicrous amounts of debt, or you can fall into the clutches of the scholarship vultures.
- We’re taking less and less interest in the world outside of the United States. Not the average citizen, who never had much interest, but our leaders. Neither the Bush nor the Trump Administrations have had positive outlooks on how to lead the world when it came to global crises, and Obama’s efforts are being erased by our current President.
- We encourage narcissism when it comes to one’s role in society. Oh, sure, plenty of folks join the armed services – but how many of us go on to follow careers in STEM or Medicine, all areas in which we are deficient in terms of the supply of such people for the jobs available? I have my Bachelor’s in computer science – why didn’t I go back for my Master’s?
If we want to remain number 1, we need to consider how to enable a supply of well-educated citizens capable of doing those jobs. In years past, we could depend on a reasonable number of immigrants to cover the gap, but with the tarnishment of our reputation, immigration may no longer be sufficient.
What then?
The Decline And Fall of …
1For those readers of a certain age, I refer to the old tagline used by Avis Rent-A-Car, #2 to Hertz: “We Try Harder“.
