Low Pay, Great Recession (2001–2018)
Low Pay, Great Recession (2001–2018)
Jobs recovered slowly under George W. Bush after the 2001 recession. Growth was boosted by easy credit and a housing boom, but the seeds of the Great Recession were being sown as working-class incomes stayed down. The system crashed in 2008 and unemployment soared. Barack Obama organized deficit spending and job creation, while the Federal Reserve injected trillions of dollars into the economy. Republican resistance and Democratic timidity meant that the federal stimulus was too little by half. The top 10 percent of households recovered faster than the bottom 50 percent. This chapter includes stories of individuals struggling with the loss of jobs and housing. It describes long-term changes that intensify employee insecurity. More jobs are non-union and more employees receive no benefits, face arbitrary schedules, and are classified as independent contractors.
Keywords: Great Recession, George W Bush, Barack Obama, housing boom, Federal Reserve, federal stimulus, arbitrary schedules, independent contractors
Illinois Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs, and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.
