From 1983 to 1990, college grads working as street vendors or door-to-door salespeople rose from 57,000 to 75,000; the number working as truck and bus drivers went from 99,000 to 166,000.
Between March and September 1993–the middle of the economic recovery–the United States lost 256,000 manufacturing jobs.
Overall wages declined even during the recovery. Blue-collar workers suffered a 3 percent wage decline between 1991 and 1993, while white-collar wages increased only 0.4 percent.
Together, temporary and part-time work accounted for more than half of the new jobs created in the recovery. Most were filled by people who wanted full-time work.
In 1989, the top 4 percent of American workers earned $452 billion in salaries and wages–the same amount as the bottom 51 percent.
From 1989 to 1993, the percentage of workers who said that, if they lost their job, it would be very easy to find an equally good one fell steadily from 34 percent to 22 percent.
Since 1973, the time necessary for the average grown 43 percent; to buy an average home, 45 percent; to buy a new car, 57 percent.
