(Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian)
Ask a room of labor economics students or politicians which two U.S. presidents were union members and subject to occupational licensing, and most will hesitate.
The answers — Harry Truman and Donald Trump — bookend a profound shift in how entry into the workforce is controlled in America. That shift is among the reasons Trump now grapples with the fallout of everyday services becoming costlier and harder to access.
Truman was a dues-paying member of the railroad workers’ union and worked in jobs that today require a license: as a pharmacy assistant and as a municipal judge. Trump joined the Screen Actors Guild through his television work and earlier held a real estate broker’s license in New York.
During Truman’s era, as most people know, unions were the dominant force in the labor market. Manufacturing accounted for more than one-third of U.S. employment in the mid‑1950s, and the National Labor Relations Act had recently strengthened collective bargaining. Wages, access to jobs, and workplace rules were negotiated between labor and management, with federal law attempting to balance power on both sides.
Before and during Trump’s time in unions, things changed. As manufacturing famously declined and the economy shifted toward services, the regulatory center of gravity shifted with it. Today, 70 percent of Americans work in service-sector jobs — from accountants to estheticians — while private-industry unionization has fallen to 6 percent and overall unionization stands at 10 percent.
Continue reading at DC Journal.
Morris M. Kleiner, PhD, is a labor policy fellow at the Archbridge Institute and one of the world’s leading labor economists. He is a professor at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. His work covers the role of institutions in labor markets and employment issues in enhancing productivity, with a specific focus on the role of occupational licensing for workers and consumers in the United States and other nations. Dr. Kleiner earned his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Economics of Flourishing
(Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian)
Ask a room of labor economics students or politicians which two U.S. presidents were union members and subject to occupational licensing, and most will hesitate.
The answers — Harry Truman and Donald Trump — bookend a profound shift in how entry into the workforce is controlled in America. That shift is among the reasons Trump now grapples with the fallout of everyday services becoming costlier and harder to access.
Truman was a dues-paying member of the railroad workers’ union and worked in jobs that today require a license: as a pharmacy assistant and as a municipal judge. Trump joined the Screen Actors Guild through his television work and earlier held a real estate broker’s license in New York.
During Truman’s era, as most people know, unions were the dominant force in the labor market. Manufacturing accounted for more than one-third of U.S. employment in the mid‑1950s, and the National Labor Relations Act had recently strengthened collective bargaining. Wages, access to jobs, and workplace rules were negotiated between labor and management, with federal law attempting to balance power on both sides.
Before and during Trump’s time in unions, things changed. As manufacturing famously declined and the economy shifted toward services, the regulatory center of gravity shifted with it. Today, 70 percent of Americans work in service-sector jobs — from accountants to estheticians — while private-industry unionization has fallen to 6 percent and overall unionization stands at 10 percent.
Continue reading at DC Journal.
Morris Kleiner
Morris M. Kleiner, PhD, is a labor policy fellow at the Archbridge Institute and one of the world’s leading labor economists. He is a professor at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. His work covers the role of institutions in labor markets and employment issues in enhancing productivity, with a specific focus on the role of occupational licensing for workers and consumers in the United States and other nations. Dr. Kleiner earned his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
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