Over the last few years I’ve written quite a bit about employment projections. In the Nevada Independent, I use recent projections as a lens to look at the tax cut bill.

Make no mistake, there will be a lot of jobs created in the U.S. in coming years.

But the occupations that will see the most openings over the next decade, like the jobs that are most commonly held today, have little if any connection to tax-cut inspired economic vitality.

The services – and they are overwhelmingly services – provided by those jobs are not only important to the economy but, in some instances, indispensable to society.

Society doesn’t seem to think so. The occupations most commonly held by Americans today, as well as the jobs that are expected to grow most tomorrow, tend to pay poorly, offer few if any benefits, are rife with instability and leave tens of millions of working people in poverty.

The new tax bill isn’t going to change that.

The latest Bureau of Labor Statistics ten-year employment projections, which were issued in October 2017, are at the center of the analysis. But the essay is, well, of some length, referencing points like the home health industry’s revenue model and mergers, Walmart’s aggressive stock buyback program, the decades-long incongruity between corporate profits and workers’ wages, and the paltry $4.12 a week windfall the tax bill will give to the typical holder of the single job projected to grow most in the U.S. over the next several years, home personal care aide.