

What STEM Shortage? - Clanan
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/378334/what-stem-shortage-steven-camarota

======
cryoshon
" We found that real hourly wages (adjusted for inflation) grew on average
just 0.7 percent a year from 2000 to 2012 for STEM workers, and annual wages
grew even less — 0.4 percent a year. Wage growth is very modest for almost
every category of STEM worker as well."

The demand for STEM work is dwarfed by the supply, so wages are stagnant and
thus losing ground relative to the rapidly rising cost of living. STEM work
has this in common with most other sectors of the economy.

The real kick in the head is that getting a STEM degree and STEM experience is
significantly more demanding than other degrees.

The other kick in the head is all the Wall Street types claiming there's a
STEM shortage. There's no shortage, they just want to be able to pay each
worker even less, and need to maintain the illusion of a shortage in order to
procure cheap foreign labor legally. If there were a real shortage, domestic
STEM wages would be rising meteorically in order to incentivize people to re-
train. There's been no such rise.

This entire phenomenon kind of destroys the argument of the "you're
unemployed, why didn't you STEM" folks. I'd also like to point to another one
of my favorite facts against this line of thinking: according to the WSJ
([http://graphicsweb.wsj.com/documents/NILF1111/#term=](http://graphicsweb.wsj.com/documents/NILF1111/#term=))
the unemployment rate for philosophy majors is the same as neuroscience majors
at a whopping %7.2. So much for STEM.

------
estebank
The article's author: "Steven Camarota is director of research at the Center
for Immigration Studies."

Center for Immigration Studies: [http://www.cis.org/](http://www.cis.org/)

This research group wrote “Hello, I Love You, Won’t You Tell Me Your Name:
Inside the Green Card Marriage Phenomenon":
[http://cis.org/marriagefraud](http://cis.org/marriagefraud)

"Inside The Center For Immigration Studies, The Immigration False-Fact Think
Tank": [http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/05/15/inside-
the-...](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/05/15/inside-the-center-
for-immigration-studies-the-immigration-false-fact-think-tank.html)

~~~
adventured
What specifically was wrong in the article this thread is about?

