America's Job Market

For the past 50 years, the industrialized nations have run full employment economies with a social safety net that virtually assures an income close to the working wage in times of layoffs. For the first time since 1990, a growing number of people in the U.S. are finding pink slips in their pay envelopes, even as executive salaries rise to 500 times that of the lowest paid worker.

But some sources say that in this last period of economic growth, even the incomes of doctors and lawyers have fallen behind. If the medical and legal professions are feeling pinched, what about the rest of us? And what is the future of work in an increasingly technological and global age?

On this week's show, Boston University professors Susan Samuelson and Thomas Cottle and business consultant Harvey Wigder discussed the current and future state of employment for the American workforce.