I’m often amazed how easily big corporations can lure academic “experts” into make whatever findings they're willing to pay for. Latest example: The National Retail Federation has just released a study by University of Georgia economist Jeffery Dorfman purporting to show that retail jobs pay well relative to other industries, and “retail has a higher percentage of workers age 35-54 who make between $48,000 and $72,000 per year.” Hello? The study focuses on full-time jobs, ignoring the disproportionate number of part-time and temporary workers in retail (Walmart continues to hire more and more part-timers). And it compares workers with “similar levels of jobs skills and experience” relative to other industries. But, of course, one of the major problems is retail jobs don’t build job skills, and don’t keep people on long enough to gain much experience.

All this would be laughable were it not for the fact that retail jobs are the fastest-growing job category in America -- and Walmart, MacDonalds and others are using this sort of deceptive data to try to convince Americans this isn’t something to worry about.