In my view, there are two issues that will define the 21st century: climate change and the loss of jobs due to globalization and automation. Climate change is a subject for another day, but let’s take a look at the job situation in U.S. over the next 10-12 years and what we are going to have to do as a country to deal with it.
According to a 2016 article in the “Financial Times” written by Michael Hicks, a professor at Ball State University, we lost about 5.6 million manufacturing jobs between 2000 and 2010, of which only 728 thousand were due to globalization or off-shoring of jobs. The rest were lost to automation. With the advancements being made in artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics, those figures will be miniscule compared to potential jobs losses in the future. The McKinsey Global Institute estimates that 1/3 to ½ of all current jobs could potentially be automated in the next 10-12 years. That would amount to 37 million to 73 million jobs by the year 2030. Fortunately new jobs are going to be created in this process, and they predict that perhaps 20 million displaced workers could easily be placed in other jobs. However, that leaves 16 million to 54 million workers that would need to be retrained into completely new jobs. That will be a monumental undertaking that is going to require a great deal of money and extensive cooperation and collaboration between the business community (both large and small); the primary, secondary and post-secondary educational system; and government at all levels.
It is currently estimated that there are over 3 million unfilled manufacturing jobs in the U.S. because employers cannot find the skilled workers needed to operate the high-tech equipment in modern manufacturing facilities. That problem is just going to be exacerbated in the coming years without a concerted national effort to educate and train workers for tomorrow’s jobs. In my view, we are going to have to make major changes in our social and educational systems to deal with this potential crisis and we need to start now.
Government, particularly at the state and federal level, is going to have to take the lead on this issue. It is beyond time that we shelved the anachronistic notion that education is best administered and funded at the local level. The federal government should be the primary driver of education policy in the country, and should be responsible for developing educational goals and standards that each state would have to meet. Each state should have its own Department of Education headed by an elected Superintendent of Schools. Local school districts should be eliminated along with the administrative costs of running them. Instead, states should be divided into regions with each region having a manager who reports to the State Superintendent of Schools. Regional offices should be primarily responsible for auditing the schools in the region and acting as a conduit for data and information flowing from individual schools to the State office and vice versa. Operational control and responsibility for individual schools should rest with the principal, who should be encouraged to work with parents and teachers to develop innovative approaches to improve education and adapt them to local needs, as long as any programs are approved through the chain of command.
We live in a global economy and that is not going to change. Our children are competing and will continue to compete for jobs with people from all over the world. It is time that we recognized that education–when it leads to the development of prosocial, productive citizens–is a social good that benefits everyone; and is something that everyone should be paying to support. The most equitable way to do that is through state and federal income taxes rather than property taxes. It is critical that every child has an equal opportunity to reach their full potential as a human being. That means having modern and functional educational facilities, access to the latest technology and high quality teachers, and the opportunity to develop their highest level of career potential. Money invested in a functional and effective educational system and a fully employable society will be recouped many times over in additional tax revenue generated, and in the reduced costs of public assistance programs, incarceration, and medical expenses.
We spend about $152.8 billion per year on federal, state and local public assistance programs in the U.S. We spend $80 billion per year on direct incarceration costs and have the highest incarceration rate in the world (665 per 100,000 population). If you add in the social costs of incarceration that figure jumps to about $1.2 trillion per year. We spend over $3.5 trillion per year on medical care in this country. Imagine if we had a social support and educational system that ensured that every child born in this country was given adequate and appropriate pre-natal and post-natal medical care; proper nutrition; appropriate nurturing and physical and mental stimulation during its formative years; early childhood education and then primary, secondary and post-secondary education designed to maximize each child’s natural potential and prepare them for a productive, prosocial adulthood as a fully employed and tax-paying citizen instead of a drain on society. How much would that be worth? Let’s take a look at how we can get there.
We know that the first five years of a child’s life are critical to their physical, mental, and emotional development. We also know that many children are born into highly deprived circumstances in terms of their physical and emotional needs being met, and this has dire implications for their future development. We need to ameliorate this situation as much as possible. To my mind, that starts with providing every expectant mother, regardless of their economic circumstances, high quality prenatal and postnatal medical care. It also requires that we examine the environment that a newborn child will be living in. For this reason, I would assign a social worker to every expectant mother with the task of developing an assessment of the home situation the newborn will be going into. The assessment should cover the economic situation of the mother/family; the appropriateness of the living environment, the preparedness of the parent(s) to care for a baby/child; and any circumstances that could affect the well-being of the child. If problems are found, a case worker would be assigned to help the prospective parents deal with any issues, whether it be housing, job training, employment, nutritional assistance, parenting skills, etc. Again, we, as a society, have a responsibility to give every child the maximum opportunity to develop into a high-functioning adult. That investment begins at conception.
The next step in preparing children for a productive future starts with early childhood education. We should have mandatory, Pre-K educational programs in this country for every child; and these programs should meet federal government standards in terms of qualifications of staff providing the programs, quality of facilities, and quality of the curriculum.