Lewis Schiff

Question for Job Creators: What Is A Good Job?

As someone who works with entrepreneurs for a living, I'm always very proud of the role business owners play in supporting the economy.

 

As someone who works with entrepreneurs for a living, I'm always very proud of the role business owners play in supporting the economy. Among the many by-products of their efforts is job creation. But a friend recently asked me a question about those jobs and I didn't have a fingertip-ready answer. I thought you, the Inc. audience, could help me crowdsource the answer. 

The question was: What is a good job? 

To jumpstart the conversation, I've posted some links to thoughts on this topic that I think are relevant to the question. 

From today's Washington Post: Can college, career prep combine?

QUOTE: “The misconception is that anything that has ‘career’ attached to it is second-class” --Drew Deutsch, regional director for the IB program in North America.

From today's Wall Street Journal: Recipe for Middle-Class Jobs

QUOTE: "Praxis Strategy Group, an economic development consultancy, estimates Austin (TX) added 50,000 'middle-skill' positions in the past decade. These are jobs that require a two-year associate's degree or the equivalent work experience, and pay a median wage of $17.30 an hour or $38,000 a year."  

From Sunday's New York Times: The Fire Bell of Unemployment

QUOTE: "Edmund S. Phelps, the Nobel laureate economist from Columbia University, had an interesting idea for spurring hiring. As he has updated that proposal, the government should provide a subsidy of $4.50 an hour for the lowest-paid workers, with declining amounts until they earn more than $15 an hour. 

I post these article links because they all attempt to describe good employment (or as one article describes as "middle-skill" work) and acknowledge or suggest that minimum wage employment does not qualify as a good job. This was how I got tripped up while responding to my friend's question the other day. When she asked me about job creation, I responded that minimum wage assured a bottom and that was a good starting point. She responded that minimum wage was not a living wage. I agree with her and realized at that moment that I hadn't thought enough about what "good job" creation is.  Have you? I'd love to hear your thoughts on this matter...

 

 

Lewis Schiff is the chairman and executive director of Inc. Business Owners Council, and the author of the book, The Middle-Class Millionaire. He can be reached by email, on twitter or by phone: (800)536-0046. @lewisschiff