Two solutions come to mind, but I hesitate to offer them as solutions because one is too horrible to be seriously considered, and the other too uncomfortable to consider... but the two most direct solutions are to either:
1. Reduce the number of people, and fairly rapidly. There are just far too many people in the system right now. Skilled, unskilled, in almost every field, in-country, international, too many college grads every year diluting the individual value of the degrees, too many job-seekers spamming up the hiring process, too many oldsters who can't afford to retire who are in turn blocking upward advancement of middle-agers, too many downwardly mobile middle-agers taking jobs that fresh college grads used to be able to reliably obtain, too many desperate college grads taking jobs that teenagers used to be able to reliably obtain, etc. As terrible as a repeat of the 1918 flu pandemic would be (fatalities adjusted to account for greater population in the present), the Black Death of the 14th century offers an example of the positive effect on the labor market that can come from a devastating plague. I don't know if anyone has done the calculation, but it would be... interesting to find out just how many people would need to die to make for a "healthy" 21st century economy according to the parameters our economy operates within.
2. Identify the technologies that weaken the labor market, and go to war with them. Ban them, put embargoes upon countries that haven't banned them, lengthy jail sentences for any and all who possess, use, or distribute such technologies (using the Drug War template, more or less), etc. Of course, this would mean the end of the internet, for starters. Historically, weakened labor has turned to a luddite POV (centuries ago in its namesake example, and more recently there have been minor stirrings in India along these lines), so I wouldn't be surprised to see this come up in the West sometime soon.
There is a sane path as well that offers a third option, exotic and unfamiliar as it may seem:
3. Not everywhere in the developed world is doing as badly as the US when it comes to wages and employment participation rates (IIRC Scandinavia is doing well), so some kind of reform program to adopt policies and standards from places that are doing better would be another way to go as well. (Now if only there was a Presidential candidate advocating doing exactly that...).
Of course, it is easier to destroy than to reform, built-upon, or create, so if/when a solution comes about (whether deliberately or more likely through inevitability, IMO a lot of #1 and a little of #2 will be how it goes. Hope it's #3 though.
Two solutions come to mind, but I hesitate to offer them as solutions because one is too horrible to be seriously considered, and the other too uncomfortable to consider... but the two most direct solutions are to either:
1. Reduce the number of people, and fairly rapidly. There are just far too many people in the system right now. Skilled, unskilled, in almost every field, in-country, international, too many college grads every year diluting the individual value of the degrees, too many job-seekers spamming up the hiring process, too many oldsters who can't afford to retire who are in turn blocking upward advancement of middle-agers, too many downwardly mobile middle-agers taking jobs that fresh college grads used to be able to reliably obtain, too many desperate college grads taking jobs that teenagers used to be able to reliably obtain, etc. As terrible as a repeat of the 1918 flu pandemic would be (fatalities adjusted to account for greater population in the present), the Black Death of the 14th century offers an example of the positive effect on the labor market that can come from a devastating plague. I don't know if anyone has done the calculation, but it would be... interesting to find out just how many people would need to die to make for a "healthy" 21st century economy according to the parameters our economy operates within.
2. Identify the technologies that weaken the labor market, and go to war with them. Ban them, put embargoes upon countries that haven't banned them, lengthy jail sentences for any and all who possess, use, or distribute such technologies (using the Drug War template, more or less), etc. Of course, this would mean the end of the internet, for starters. Historically, weakened labor has turned to a luddite POV (centuries ago in its namesake example, and more recently there have been minor stirrings in India along these lines), so I wouldn't be surprised to see this come up in the West sometime soon.
There is a sane path as well that offers a third option, exotic and unfamiliar as it may seem:
3. Not everywhere in the developed world is doing as badly as the US when it comes to wages and employment participation rates (IIRC Scandinavia is doing well), so some kind of reform program to adopt policies and standards from places that are doing better would be another way to go as well. (Now if only there was a Presidential candidate advocating doing exactly that...).
Of course, it is easier to destroy than to reform, built-upon, or create, so if/when a solution comes about (whether deliberately or more likely through inevitability, IMO a lot of #1 and a little of #2 will be how it goes. Hope it's #3 though.