Paul Krugman looks at the evolution of retail and, quite reasonably, asks why retail jobs aren’t treated with the same respect by the government and the public as a whole as mining and manufacturing jobs. Here are the reasons:
1. The effect of lost mining and manufacturing jobs is less diffuse, but more intense: When the mine closes, there frequently is no work to be had in the area. The same is less true of the local Walmart. When your community goes down the drain, people complain, and get noticed.
2. Mining and manufacturing jobs have traditionally paid better than retail jobs: No elaboration is necessary.
3. Mining and manufacturing jobs bring in money from outside the community, while retail jobs recycle local resources: In a sense, mining and manufacturing create “exports” that add wealth to the community.
4. Mining, and to a lesser extent, manufacturing jobs require specialized skills that do not necessarily translate to other employment: If you lose your job at a store, you can probably get another retail job requiring similar skills somewhere else in your town. If you’re a miner, and the mine closes, what do you do now?
5. Mining jobs have a mythology attached to them; retail jobs don’t: Being a miner is physically difficult and dangerous work, so miners have been viewed as a sort of heroic band of brothers fighting both capitalists and the elements. There is no retail equivalent of that. As a result, miners have “Matewan,” and retail workers have “Superstore.”
All that aside, retail is a far bigger component of our economy than mining, and you have to be concerned about where all these workers are going to go in the future. Are all of our retail employees going to end up working in ALFs? If not there, where?