Obamanomics Hurts the American Working Man-- Bad

As President Barack Obama puts together yet another “new” jobs plan, he is up against a powerful and dangerous trend:  A smaller share of men have jobs today than at any time since World War II.**

If that sounds bleak, it is. The portion of men who work and their median wages have been eroding since the early 1970s. For decades the impact of this fact was softened in many families by the number of women going back to work. The housing bubble helped mask it by artificially stoking the male-dominated construction trades. But when real estate crashed, the portion of men holding a job—any job, full- or part-time—fell to 63.5 percent in July 2011— just a hair above the December 2009 low point of 63.3 percent.

These are the worst numbers since 1948. Among the critical category of prime working-age men between 25 and 54, only 81.2 percent held jobs. In the current recession, 80 percent of all jobs lost were held by men. In perspective, in 1969 95 percent of men in their prime working years had a job.

Men who do have jobs are getting paid less. Adjusted for inflation, median wages for men aged 30 to 50 dropped 27 percent—to $33K a year— from 1969 to 2009, according to an analysis by MIT economics professor Michael Greenstone, who was chief economist for Obama's Council of Economic Advisers. "That takes men and puts them back at their earnings capacity of the 1950s. That has staggering implications."

Moderately skilled men without a college education have taken direct hits to their employment prospects.  But even those with bachelor's degrees from less selective schools are seeing their economic worth erode. The middle is crumbling, with elites doing better while more male citizens are being pushed down the compensation scale.

What is wrong?