How It Has Changed and What to Do about It. We live in an age of economic paradox. Yet Americans feel deeply uneasy about their economic future. The reason, Paul Osterman explains, is that our recent prosperity is built on the ruins of the once reassuring postwar labor market.
Workers can no longer expect stable, full-time jobs and steadily rising incomes.
Instead, they face stagnant wages, layoffs, rising inequality, and the increased likelihood of merely temporary work. In Securing Prosperity , Osterman explains in clear, accessible terms why these changes have occurred and lays out an innovative plan for new economic institutions that promises a more secure future. Osterman begins by sketching the rise and fall of the postwar labor market, showing that firms have been the driving force behind recent change. We can't turn the clock back, Osterman writes, since that would strip firms of the ability to compete. But he also argues that we should not simply give ourselves up to the mercies of the market.