It's also a sign that more people have had to work to support a family. Forecasters had correctly called for America's shift from a maker of goods to a provider of services, but few had appreciated the toll that would take on the American worker. Those got really zapped in the early '80s to the point where you've had not only no reduction in average weekly hours, but you've had an expansion in the number of people working in a family. In the late '60s, manufacturing was the chief employer nationwide. Now, it ranks behind services, trade and government.
More manual labor is accomplished through automation and foreign subcontractors.
And many American laborers are still trying to catch up. A forecast as recent as 1989 called for women's earnings to be within a dime of men's. Instead, they make about 23 cents less per dollar. That gap has been narrowing lately because of a drop in men's pay. Technology is a powerful driver of the work force.