"One Market Under God, and Heaven Help Us All"

[Doug Henwood]

Stephen E Philion wrote:

>doug, how much of those gains are offset by the decrease in value of a
>college degree in the past few decades?

What decrease? Our friends at the EPI report the following college 
hourly wage premium over HS grads 
<http://epinet.org/datazone/data/collpremium.xls>. Men with 
bachelor's (or more) earned 33% more than those with only a HS 
diploma in 1973, and 44% more in 1997; for women, the premium went 
from 43% to 51%. And the unemployment rate for those with college or 
more is much lower than those with only HS diplomas - 1.4% vs. 3.5% 
last month.

COLLEGE/HIGH SCHOOL HOURLY WAGE PREMIUM

              men       women
       1973   32.5      43.0
       1974   32.4      38.6
       1975   34.0      40.2
       1976   33.4      36.6
       1977   30.6      34.1
       1978   28.3      33.0
       1979   27.3      30.8
       1980   28.8      31.9
       1981   30.1      32.3
       1982   32.8      33.8
       1983   34.6      36.2
       1984   37.4      38.8
       1985   39.1      40.5
       1986   38.7      42.2
       1987   39.2      43.6
       1988   39.2      44.0
       1989   41.8      46.0
       1990   42.4      47.7
       1991   42.3      46.5
       1992   44.4      49.4
       1993   45.1      49.9
       1994   44.8      51.9
       1995   44.1      52.2
       1996   43.3      50.7
       1997   44.1      51.1