This is a big problem I’ve seen coming for a long time. The common “everybody knows” idea is that as technology changes, outdated jobs are replaced with about the same number of jobs in a new field.

This is becoming less and less the case with each passing year.

For 20 years I’ve worked in graphic design (mostly pre-press and printing end, with some multimedia and web work). In that time, I’ve seen work that took dozens of people be reduced to a couple people with computers. What happens to the other workers that were replaced? A lot of them went to work at Home Depot. A $100k income being replaced with a $30k.

More and more jobs are being replaced by technology. We still need consumers, but there are fewer opportunities to make money. What will we do when a system of 10,000 consumers only requires only 1,000 jobs to produce what is needed? What will you do when YOU end up with the disrupted?

The former secretary of labor explains why new technologies have rendered the 20th century economic model obsolete

via Robert Reich: Economic redistribution is our only hope – Salon.com.