The Experts Why is the U.S. still sick? A recent article by Bob Cringely in the U.S. carried an excellent theme regarding the "jobless" recovery currently underway in the United States. You'll see many news stories based on a study from the National Employment Law Project detailing how many and what kinds of jobs were lost in the Great Recession and what kinds have come back in the current recovery. Cutting to the chase we lost eight million jobs, have recovered four million of those, but -- here's the problem -- the recovered jobs on average pay a lot less than did the jobs that were lost, which is why the U.S. middle class is still hurting. According to the study, mid-wage jobs such as construction trades, manufacturing, and office employees accounted for 60 percent of the employment drop during the recession but made up just 22 percent of the recovery through March 2012. So-called low-wage jobs like retail and food service workers made up 21 percent of the losses but 58 percent of the subsequent growth. ??So while we may have regained 50 percent of the lost positions, we've regained significantly less than 50 percent of the lost personal income. With less income we have less to spend and spending is what expands economies. Even more damning, if you look at the chart above that I've reproduced in a larger than usual size, is that fact that absolute numbers of both high wage and low wage job holders continued