Laid Off, Laid Low

Laid Off, Laid Lowprovides a sobering portrait of the ailing American labor system and the social and political consequences of increasing job insecurity. It proves that the health of the labor market is not a transitory issue brought low by the factors of recession, but a serious concern reflecting deep structural problems in American society. In this book, economists, sociologists, and public policy and political scientists reveal how the American labor market has grown particularly problematic for new job-seekers, trends that are not obvious when averaging the entire population. The contributors to this volume focus instead on changing job patterns between generations, which show that the job prospects for young Americans are more short-term than their predecessors, and that white-collar managers, once members of the most privileged sector, are now experiencing a faster negative rate of change. As this book makes clear, Americans will soon face epic job losses, irreversible trends in downward mobility, and long-lasting economic insecurity-politically polarizing outcomes that will cause even more anxiety among families. Encompassing a number of different disciplines, the prominent scholars of Laid Off, Laid Lowprovide a full analysis of today's most pressing economic issues.

Ann Huff Stevens is associate professor of economics at the University of California, Davis, and a faculty research fellow with the National Bureau of Economic Research.