What STEM Shortage?

" 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=) the unemployment rate for philosophy majors is the same as neuroscience majors at a whopping %7.2. So much for STEM.

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

Center for Immigration Studies: 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

"Inside The Center For Immigration Studies, The Immigration False-Fact Think Tank": http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/05/15/inside-the-...