Term Papers on How Technology Effects Modern America

Term Paper Title	How Technology Effects Modern America
# of Words	1270
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	5.08

How Technology Effects Modern America

U.S. Wage Trends

The microeconomic picture of the U.S. has changed immensely since 1973, and the trends
are proving to be consistently downward for the nation’s high school graduates and high
school drop-outs.  “Of all the reasons given for the wage squeeze – international
competition, technology, deregulation, the decline of unions and defense cuts – technology
is probably the most critical.  It has favored the educated and the skilled,” says M. B.
Zuckerman, editor-in-chief of U.S. News & World Report (7/31/95).  Since 1973, wages
adjusted for inflation have declined by about a quarter for high school dropouts, by a sixth
for high school graduates, and by about 7% for those with some college education.  Only
the wages of college graduates are up.

Of the fastest growing technical jobs, software engineering tops the list. Carnegie Mellon
University reports, “recruitment of it’s software engineering students is up this year by over
20%.”  All engineering jobs are paying well, proving that highly skilled labor is what
employers want!  “There is clear evidence that the supply of workers in the [unskilled labor]
categories already exceeds the demand for their services,” says L. Mishel, Research Director
of Welfare Reform Network.

In view of these facts, I wonder if these trends are good or bad for society.  “The danger of
the information age is that while in the short run it may be cheaper to replace workers with
technology, in the long run it is potentially self-destructive because there will not be enough
purchasing power to grow the economy,” M. B. Zuckerman.  My feeling is that the trend
from unskilled labor to highly technical, skilled labor is a good one!  But, political action
must be taken to ensure that this societal evolution is beneficial to all of us.  “Back in 1970,
a high school diploma could still be a ticket to the middle income bracket, a nice car in the
driveway and a house in the suburbs.  Today all it gets is a clunker parked on the street, and
a dingy apartment in a low rent building,” says Time Magazine (Jan 30, 1995 issue).

However, in 1970, our government provided our children with a free education, allowing
the vast majority of our population to earn a high school diploma.  This means that anyone,
regardless of family income, could be educated to a level that would allow them a
comfortable place in the middle class.  Even restrictions upon child labor hours kept
children in school, since they are not allowed to work full time while under the age of 18.
This government policy was conducive to our economic markets, and allowed our country
to prosper from 1950 through 1970.  Now, our own prosperity has moved us into a highly
technical world, that requires highly skilled labor.  The natural answer to this problem, is
that the U.S. Government’s education policy must keep pace with the demands of the
highly technical job market.  If a middle class income of 1970 required a high school
diploma, and the middle class income of 1990 requires a college diploma, then it should be
as easy for the children of the 90’s to get a college diploma, as it was for the children of the
70’s to get a high school diploma.  This brings me to the issue of our country’s political
process, in a technologically advanced world.

Voting & Poisoned Political Process in The U.S.

The advance of mass communication is natural in a technologically advanced society.  In
our country’s short history, we have seen the development of the printing press, the radio,
the television, and now the Internet; all of these, able to reach millions of people.  Equally
natural, is the poisoning and corruption of these medias, to benefit a f...

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