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The Real Reason For America's Collapsing Labor Force
Back in July we wrote "Slamming The Door Shut On The "Plunging Labor Force Participation Rate" Debate Once And For All", in which we showed, definitively we thought, that contrary to the pervasive and erroneous propaganda, the collapse in the labor force has little to do with the alleged millions of retiring baby boomers (quite the contrary: as a result of ZIRP crushing their lifetime savings, baby boomers have been forced to remain in the workforce in ever greater numbers) and everything to do with the lack of employment opportunities, or perhaps an unwillingness to work, for young Americans.
As the Census Bureau said then:
"In 2010, 16.2 percent of the population aged 65 and over were employed, up from 14.5 percent in 2005. In contrast, 60.3 percent of the 20 to 24 age group were employed in 2010, down from 68.0 percent in 2005. Employment shares declined from 2005 to 2010 for all age groups younger than age 55. There was no statistical change in the employment share for workers aged 55 to 64 nor those aged 70 to 74. Engemann and Wall (2010) found that more people aged 55 and over were employed during the recession than would have been if there was no recession. Using the Bureau of Labor Statistics employment data, Engemann and Wall found that during the 2007–2009 period, employment grew by 7.4 percent for the population aged 55 and over. Based on trends prior to the recession, employment for this age group was expected to grow by only 6.1 percent. All younger age groups experienced a decline in employment during the same 2007 to 2009 period."
Our punchline was simple: "dear US "retirees" - if you want to mitigate the impact of the US depression and the loss of savings income courtesy of the Fed's ZIRP policy, all you have to do is, well, work until you die."
And yet, the very serious narrative that the labor participation rate is at a 36 year low is primarily due to such benign factors as demographics and retiring workers continues, with few if any mainstream outlets daring the challenge the econo-dogma.
So here, to help clear the confusion once again, is the Pew Research Center which also has cracked the numbers and done the math. Its punchline:
You might think legions of retiring Baby Boomers are to blame, or perhaps the swelling ranks of laid-off workers who’ve grown discouraged about their re-employment prospects. While both of those groups doubtless are important (though just how important is debated by labor economists), our analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data suggests another key factor: Teens and young adults aren’t as interested in entering the work force as they used to be, a trend that predates the Great Recession.
And just what is enabling the young adults to be "not as interested in entering the work force as they used to be" and to lead to a misleadingly low unemployment number? This.
* * *
So just in case there is still confusion, here is the full note from Pew:
More and more Americans are outside the labor force entirely. Who are they?
According to the October jobs report, more than 92 million Americans — 37% of the civilian population aged 16 and over — are neither employed nor unemployed, but fall in the category of “not in the labor force.” That means they aren’t working now but haven’t looked for work recently enough to be counted as unemployed. While that’s not quite a record — figures have been a bit higher earlier this year — the share of folks not in the labor force remains near all-time highs.
Why? You might think legions of retiring Baby Boomers are to blame, or perhaps the swelling ranks of laid-off workers who’ve grown discouraged about their re-employment prospects. While both of those groups doubtless are important (though just how important is debated by labor economists), our analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data suggests another key factor: Teens and young adults aren’t as interested in entering the work force as they used to be, a trend that predates the Great Recession.
By far the biggest chunk of people not in the labor force are people who simply don’t want to be, according to data from the monthly Current Population Survey (which the BLS uses to, among other things, calculate the unemployment rate). Last month, according to BLS, 85.9 million adults didn’t want a job now, or 93.3% of all adults not in the labor force. (All of the figures we’re using in this post are unadjusted for seasonal variations.)
But let’s look in particular at the youngest part of the eligible workforce. The share of 16- to 24-year-olds saying they didn’t want a job rose from an average 29.5% in 2000 to an average 39.4% over the first 10 months of this year. There was a much smaller increase among prime working-age adults (ages 25 to 54) over that period. And among people aged 55 and up, the share saying they didn’t want a job actually fell, to an average 58.2% this year.
People 55 and over do, as you might expect, account for more than half of the 85.9 million adults (as of October) who say they don’t want a job — about the same percentage as in 2000. But the 16-to-24 share has edged higher, while the 25-to-54 share has slipped. That could reflect more young adults staying in or returning to school rather than chancing a tough job market.
Women are more likely than men to say they don’t want a job, although the gap has been narrowing — especially since the Great Recession. Last month, 28.5% of men said they didn’t want a job, up from 23.9% in October 2000 and 25.2% in October 2008. For women, the share saying they didn’t want a job hovered around 38% throughout the 2000s but began creeping up in 2010, reaching 40.2% last month.
Researchers disagree about why people leave the labor force and how likely they are ever to return. In a report issued in February, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that about half the decline in labor-force participation was due to long-term demographic trends, a third was due to cyclical weaknesses in the labor market, and the rest a consequence of “unusually protracted weakness in the demand for labor [which] appears to have led some workers to become discouraged and permanently drop out of the labor force,” such as by taking early retirement or signing up for Social Security disability benefits. But two Federal Reserve economists have argued that cyclical factors, rather than demographic shifts, account for the bulk of the drop in labor-force participation since 2007.
Economists are especially interested in the subset of non-participants who are considered “marginally attached” to the labor force. Those people aren’t counted as unemployed, because they haven’t looked for work in the past four weeks, but they have job-hunted sometime in the past year and say both that they want a job and are available to take one right away. Many labor economists believe marginally attached people are most likely to be drawn back into the labor force.
The number of discouraged workers — those who’ve not searched for work recently because they don’t think they’ll find any — spiked during and after the Great Recession, peaking at 1.3 million in December 2010. Though that number has come down since, October’s estimate of 770,000 discouraged workers was still well above pre-recession levels, which typically hovered around 400,000 to 500,000.
But discouraged workers make up only about 35% of all marginally attached workers, and account for just over half the increase in their ranks since the 2008 financial panic. The rest of the marginally attached cite a range of reasons for not having looked for work recently, including family responsibilities, being in school, ill health, and problems with child care or transportation.
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yep, nailed it
Very well stated, outstandingly articulated in a most lucid and cogent fashion, InTheMix96!
Pseudo-economists should do a least a year of day labor (Nikola Tesla had to do four years of day labor before he connected with George Westinghouse).
They need to learn real economics, and then hopefully they will begain to learn real finance!
Reminds me of that fat-butted economics prof at University of Illinois, gushing on and on about China's economic miracle, without ever mentioning, assuming that lard brain even knew, that such a miracle would never have occurred without the US (and Japan and Europe) offshoring their jobs, technology and investment to China!
Thanks for that Inthemix96; alway enjoy your pithy truthful bashings of the parasites.
They'd better make some butter with all that cream and spread it around or it is off to the glue facotry with them.
Inthemix spot on +100 if I could. Alot of people do want to work but cannot afford to work in the current envionment. Our buying power continues to be reduced by the inflation of prices. Stated here on this site so many times and I happen to agree with it. There is not alot a person can do about it as we working stiffs take it in the ass to be honest.
The only reason these fools think a living wage is going to help them fail to realize it is a big scam to lower the bennies the government hands out to them. At one time in most countries working in fast food and other entry level jobs was to get a person on the road to a well paying job. Now people think it is a career flipping burgers at Mcdonalds.
The future is not one most of the young people with any sense I speak with look forward too.
The purchasing power of a dollar earned in Us or Canada is much less in Us or Canada than it is in the south, like Guatemala, etc., where it can be multiplied enormously. Kids would certainly work (when there is work..) in Us or Canada for something like around a hundred dollars an hour or so to pick strawberries in the field : that's about what a worker from the south have earned in reality (in Canada, or Québec, at least) when he takes his earnings back to Guatemala ...
On the other hand, with a growing population all over the planet combined with automation and robotisation of production, including more and more robotised services, what can we expect about "jobs" for human beings? A growth or a diminishing ?
Just musing ..
I live in Mexico. I had an interesting conversation yesterday with a 33 year old, with 4 kids. He is a good electrician. We talked about how handsome the Mexican president and his wife looked at the China summit earlier in the week. Then we talked about the Obama amnesty plan. I let him talk. He felt that the US is welcoming the Mexican/Latin immigrants just so they can tax their wages. He said - "I think I am better off in Mexico". I think so too.
No doubt 10 million illegals becoming welcomed will do wonder for the workforce and wages.
People deserve what they demand with their votes.
And now we are hearing all manner of wailing and gnashing of teeth about the obamacare scam.
They voted for this filthy prez.
They can reap the rewards.
"If you separate a person from the consequences of their actions, you have a world full of fools."
Remember, pols, crats, funcs and banksters do, or don't do, only that that benefits them.
The first thing to note on "Illegals" is: If they didn't want and need them for their benefit, they would have stopped them. The corollary being, they want and need them here.
So then, what is the benefit of "illegals" to the elites?
1) NOT for votes. Come on, they throw and rig elections all the time, so this "'illegals' for votes" thing is ludicrous.
2) Slaves. Big business uses their purchased puppets to allow them to employ people outside of the same puppets' "laws and regulations." Government benefits because the "illegals" pay taxes, but do not get returns or benefits. I know, you are trained to think otherwise, but "illegals" do not receive many benefits compared to white America's rural subsidies and black America's welfare.
3) A scapegoat for the decline of the economy--"They stole your jobs!" The reality is that the economy was looted by the banksters and Wall St. with the protection of their governmnet puppets. The pols, crats and funcs protected the banksters' schemes with violence. "Illegals" as scapegoats also forms the basis for #4.
4) "Divide and conquer." While Americans are distracted by 17 million "illegals," the looters will be able to run, "return," and abscond with the loot.
Regardless of your opinion on "illegals," and I have no desire to change that opinion, the main point is guillotine the thieves and treasonous first, then worry about the "illegals."
Putting it another way, and bluntly: Who is more dangerous, the "illegal" working at Chipotle, or the guy bending you over a couch and taking you from behind while he rummages through your pockets for cash?!
An American, not US subject.
BINGO! 9fuckin11 was used as an excuse to do A LOT of shit... and they could have used it as the excuse to build the biggest, baddest fence this world has ever seen... but they didn't. Why? Because 'they' want them here.
Both are bad.
Go to these "sanctuary cities" and see what they look like today and what they looked like yesterday.
Denial ain't a river bud....
Repubs want cheap labor.
Dems want lifelong votes.
The top wins regardless.
But like it or not....the current prez, the one for the little peeples....is calling for more more little peeples.
Why would a fellow little peeple support that?
"They voted for this filthy prez."
You see, the sheeple thought they were voting for a democrat, and they just voted in another neocon.
When he began prattling on about healthcare, they didn't realize it would be a plan which originated from the far rightwing Heritage Foundation, for god's sakes!
But a few have actuall awakened!
Don't worry, the ReadyReserve thug force will be hiring soon.
An American, not US subject.
For those in the know, CIA-Obama is shrinking the military while he has in his back pocket the civilian military force ReadyReserve provisioned for in Obamacare. The SS was a PRIVATE, and CIVILIAN force, and business, of the Nazi party. The SS was NOT a branch of the governmnet or military. The SS owned and ran the labor and concentration camps for the profit of the Nazi party. "Money and Power." And no the ReadyReserve is NOT of or for the Left, but for CIA-Obama's handlers, the neo-cons.
FEMA is also not a branch of the governmnet, as it was created by Unconstitutional Executive Order (#12148),
http://www.nowtheendbegins.com/pages/obama/fema-camps-obama-private-army...
The head of the snake is the Federal Reserve.
Get rid of it or die painfully.
Guillotine the Fed!
An American, not US subject.
there is some wierd stuff going on with taday's youts. i know several who do not have a driver's license now in their twenties and they are guys. my son has a job and is loved by his employers for his hard work ethic so much that they thank me for him......and i think he is a bit hafass.lol
my son will work because he is too dumb not to. he comes from a long line of oxes. what he sees around him is almost total uselessness.
My son is in a quandry too. He wants to work, but this society has made it pretty much illegal for someone his age (15) to do anything productive at all. He's good at, and enjoys computer-based media manipulation...video editing, creating animated logos, audio post, etc. Because I'm in a position to do it, I act as his bitcoin bank. He'll do some odd media related job for the guys he hangs with online, charging them a few hundredths of a bitcoin. That gets sent to my wallet, and I bounce it from there to an account tied to a credit card that he uses to buy the occasional pair of headphones, mics, a/v cables, or whatever upgrades he needs to have the tools to keep improving the quality of his output.
Smart kid, but it's not the way the world used to work. When I was his age, I had ditch-digging, dish washing, stock boy kinds of jobs in the real world. Now all of those things are legally off limits to a 15 year old.
Idle youth will be "employed" by the civilian military ReadyReserve force.
They will be instrumental in future gun grabs, and running of the FEMA camps.
Protect your youth, otherwise they will be used for great evil, and to keep you fenced.
An American, not US subject.
Unless it's a fucking video game you can forget these fat fucks for kids to serve the military. Maybe a server at McD's, but forgot anything else.
Well, the Chase and Goldman Sachs-financed TED talks explained the solution just the other day:
Pass tort reform so the corporations cannot be sued, then all will be peace and prosperity!
yes, I know a few like that, no license, no drive
not only don't want to work but i also avoid people as much as possible. have you been out there lately? nothing but retards. egad decent folk are becoming rare. welcome to costco, i love you. [/greeter]
When the banksters turn off the money taps again, there will be long lines of haggard, unemployed and demoralized men at soup kitchens as in the 30's - waiting for hand-outs- or riding the rails across the country. The politicians will then provide uniforms _ _ _ .
I wish I had a young buck helping me today.
I am rebuilding my well pump house.
I am going to put a crescent moon over the door.
So that it looks like an old shit house.
OK, breaks over.
If you think you are beaten, you are
If you think you dare not, you don't,
If you like to win, but you think you can't
It is almost certain you won't.
If you think you'll lose, you've lost
For out of the world we find,
Success begins with a fellow's will
It's all in the state of mind.
If you think you are outclassed, you are
You've got to think high to rise,
You've got to be sure of yourself before
You can ever win a prize.
Life's battles don't always go
To the stronger or faster man,
But soon or late the man who wins
Is the man WHO THINKS HE CAN!
Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/china-now-has-250-boot-camps-cu...
Many of their graduates go into rewarding careers in the IT industry.
I have a niece with 4 kids diffrent fathers collecting welfare and proud of it. That is what they now teach in school.
It's not as if there a lot of Americans with decent skills going without jobs.
I'm currently in the market to hire a Chemical Engineer with a master's or PhD. Recent grad is OK. We expect to pay about $80K plus for the position. And so far we have not seen one single qualified applicant that was born in the USA.
Roger that. My friend's son got his Chem Engineering masters from I think it was Rice U in Houston. He had almost a dozen offers before he even applied.
"Solid Degree = Solid Job"
~ Old Chinee Proverb
Why would you need a Masters or a PhD? Why not hire someone with a BS? After all, a Masters/PhD just means that a person has worked with a prof for a while and done research. All of the relevant skills to doing Chemical Engineering otherwise are taught in undergrad, or are proprietary on-the-job skills. You really don't do anything in a Masters or PhD program other than research, and usually on a fairly narrow topic.
Try being a bit more realistic with your search requirements and you'll find plenty of Americans.
What field ie:medical, energy and where? Got a kid with a chem Phd from Indiana U wasting his time at the FDA. OTH he was able to work his way through school so has no debt, 80K in the right places is not enough to live on and pay for the indoctrination, er I mean educaton.
I have a degree in music theory and composition. I used to make a hell of a lot more than that.
the white kids who are smart enough to get degrees in these fields are smart enough to avoid these fields like the plague when it comes time to get a jobby
said american kid with an engineering degree can go make double that at a good consulting company and never even have to do any real technical work.
STEM jobs are for losers.
Excellent point. Maybe the few American born engineers get recruited to build killer robots. Chinese not so much.
And you wonder why americans aren't going to sink 6-9 years in non self actualizing studies. A math or CS UG can get 6 figures out of undergrad from goog, msft, fb, aapl, adobe, amzn, almost every large tech firm on the west coast.
A competitive grad from a top 15 school can get that as a starting salary in consulting or finance.
...And if it wasn't for thosky pesky kids... 'The Labor Force' would be able to force out a little moar "growth"
SIX ( TEEN ) YEAR WAR ON MOAR JOBS
Now, a person has no security in knowing weather their company, or job, would be around for 5, 10 ,15 years, or longer, and the odds are, it won't be.
Add up all these hidden TAXES, on everything.
" nothing changes but the debt. "
Must be Global Warming; can't be be the "robust economy."
Must be the polar vortex!
Global vortex AND polar warming.
Why the hell do I have to "look for (non-existent) work" to be counted as "unemployed"?
Central planning number-crunching run amok.
Or maybe hyper-automation:
http://failedevolution.blogspot.gr/2014/05/already-happens-capitalism-de...
It's the Free Traders' "Race to the Bottom" War on Wages that's causing problems. Since the USA's 1st and 2nd Quintiles are on the Top Echelon of Wage Earners across its Industrial Sectors, they been taken advantage of as "The Richest Consumers to sell to"; and its productive people and assets are being replaced by cheaper labor abroad.
Wages have stagnated since the 70s, when we went off the Gold Standard. Tax rates started to favor the Rentiers and Financial Engineers over Industrialists and Professionals, Oil became a controlled substance (ROTFL!!) managed by KSA, and Tariff reductions were complemented by Factories being set overseas. Since Auto Plant Workers' wages no longer kept up with the Price of new (mainstream/baseline) Cars, Auto Companies started to "Captive Finance" their workers and eventually the majority of Consumers in the 2nd-5th Quintiles.(Not sure 5thQuin would really qual for new cars, but for the sake of argument, lumped together for the 80%IncomeBase) - again favoring the Financialization(a filler of sorts, it seems to be) of the "Wage/Productivity Gap".
Once NAFTA and similar Trade Deals, MFN status of CHN, and H-1B Visa Scams(decimating the IT Industry) kicked in, the floodgates opened to allow the non-industrialized Nation-States to be exploited(I presumed they had reasonable wages in their own PPP basis; but found out that's not the case in quite a few places) in the "Race to the Bottom" Wage Scheme as well, with Mfg eviscerated in in the USA save for Conglomerate HQs/Sales Offices and a few select industries that garner massive Govt Subsidies due to its tie-ins with the FedResv(Banks), NIH(Pharma), FDA(Food-Monsanto), and/or MIC.
Service Sector will follow suit (what can be farmed out overseas can - e.g., Call Centers in IND, and PHI - does anyone remember the Call Center Specialist in SV who killed himself after training his Indian Replacement?), leaving behind"Direct Contact / On Location" Positions for the long term if trends continue.
At least that's reflected in Los Angeles' Labor Forecasters several years out. Lots of Medical, Service, Hospitality, Entertainment, Legal (Laywers being one of the few White Collar Positions Paying 70K+ due to increase in number), and Construction related gigs.
I'm for International Trade, it's just that the System has been (just like our Financial System) rigged in a Sociopathic Manner to favor a few Financier-Rentier-Banker-Profiteers (which tend to almost, always, end up affiliating with Drug/Money Laundering somewhere in their Social Connections - HSBC?). IMHO, FTAs tend to work btwn Parties with similar Wage Bases. Outside of that, it's just becomes window-dressing for a Hegemon/Vassal-Colony Channel.
Yes, the Oligarchs managed to gag and bind the "Invisible Hand" for awhile; and TPTA are asking for "Reform, Reset, Revolution, or War" down the road. ZH, Individual News/Blogs, and (honest contributors to) Social Sites are doing their share of "Shaking Awake the Sheeple".
Good Luck, 'Merica. All it takes is to raise Tariffs, impose Term Limits, and get private(includes Foreign and Drug) money out of the Elections Process to get back on track to "Self Determination".
Why don't I want to work anymore?
I used to develop software. I started my career using Fortran and moved to C++ in the '90s. I did a little Java starting in 2004 until I 'retired' in 2011.
It was fun until I worked for a 'defense' contractor. The 'defense' contractor was into 'SEI' - the Software Engineering Institutue at Carnegie-Mellon in the former steel town known as Pittsburgh, PA. I guess when people stopped needing steel (and Pittsburgh), Carnegie-Mellon had nothing going for it. So Pittsburgh went from making steel to telling people how to write software.
The result? Software - at least at DoD (or any government agency) - isn't fun anymore. Nor is it for smart people as the 'process' has become a bureaucratic nightmare. Really smart people don't like being told, by others, how to do things, but with SEI, creativity is out - that is, you must follow the 'process'. And Software must be completely designed up front so that it never needs to be changed - like designing skyscrapers.
I've got news for SEI. Software is made to be changed. Anything can be done in hardware that is done in software but you can't change hardware so easily. That's why software came into being - flexibility, ease of change. And I've got some more news for SEI. There is no process for being 'creative' - which writing innovative software requires.
So if you're smart and creative and want to write software, don't work for the government. They'll bore you to mental stagnation (but compensate you well). Let (overpaid) idiots write government software. It will serve them right when they start a (stupid, bloody) war and the software doesn't work - but too bad for the poor saps on the front line.
That's one reason why I don't want to work anymore.
David babe I hear you, I feel pretty close to the same way, BUT a lot of that is just us being old farts. A ton of lies they told us in school aren't even true. Now, the kidz today seem bound and determined to repeat every mistake known to the software industry in the 1950s and 1960s, that we thought we knew better than in the 1970s and 1980s. That's life I guess. I've mostly avoided DoD work so I can't even blame them or the SEI. It's just the great circle of nerd life. Wait twenty years and they'll rediscover all the stuff we know now.
After seeing their parents work their lives away and get fucked royal, and with even less opportunity now, why the fuck should they be interested in joining the slave market? If big money wants to bust everyone's nuts then surprise there really is a price to pay.
Why work, when you can't afford a home anyway. And we are not talking about retirement yet.
It isn't that this age group doesn't want to participate -- it is because there isn't a group or orginization that they are able to join that can compete with existing organizitions of peoples who are already aligned with governments and corporations.
"Libertarians" would have you believe that individualism is the way to go, and ideologically, I would agree, but it is clear that those that are capable of aligning themselves with larger groups such as governments and corporations are the ones who have a greater chance of success.
It's because the upper middle class baby boomer parents have a terrible outlook on education and "getting a job". They've forced their children to take on massive student loans, to pursue majors in liberal arts rather than anything practical, and then to encourage their kids to take soul crushing miserable jobs essential to paying off their student loans. As an added bonus, none of those jobs involve doing anything useful for society and are mostly centered on office management bureaucracy, sales, and marketing.
These young people should go out and build things, repair things, work with their hands, and forget about their Masters degree in Psychology.
DipshitmiddleClassWhitekids guide to employment as a millenial
1) go to a ivy league school
2)be born to rich wasp or super jew zionists
3) if none of the above, go to a top state school and get an accounting or engineering degree and get good grades.
4)skip all of the above if you're poor and get a trade
5) be a good computer programmer
6) be willing to work 80 hours a week for pitiful wages
~DipshitmiddleClassWhiteKid
btw, i work at a F500 company. i can count on one hand the number of 'millenials' here and they are all of the priveledged class.
6)---"surprisingly", decent weekly paychecks are plentiful for those that are willing and able to work 80-100 hours a week.
I make good money (well above the national average), have no debt and am single...but making 80K a year and working 90 hours a week comes out to liek 40k a year if you're a white collar salaried dood. (i dont make 80k a year, just throwing that out there)
if i had to to do it again id get a trade or just work a shitty job for a year or two, live at home and move out of the country and go try striking out somewhere else.
I'm in my mid 20s and sometimes I look at the massive office building my company is located in and am in AWE that it is so big and it can pay so many people good wages. i know its too good to be true and it won't last forever.
~DipshitMiddleClassWhiteKid
deflator: Yeah, you're gonna need those wages so in 10 - 20 years time you can pay for the divorce lawyer, alimony and another lawyer to get access to your own kids. Why so upset? You're never home to see them anyway!
I clawed my way from modest means.
I figured out early in life that everything going on in my wacko leftist female family was opposite reality and natural law
and I set out to learn reality myself, the hard way.
All my life the ceiling was no talent hacks blocking my skills and talent. I broke out of it. Actually the model is to change
companies alot.
Coming down to the slow burn grinding up slaves, I have to mind my p's and q's, dont take too many chances or ruffle
any feathers, buy a few years.
I am pretty much same as federalis now, kicking the can, buying a day at a time, counting on ignorant slaves passing
through the snake, that is the fodder the federalis are milking and to some extent all of us.
For example I am now convinced they want to print the deficits, its how they put credit into the system in place
of work/production. They dont want work and production, Ted Turner announced humans are the whole problem,
they use too much stuff.
They are just grinding the slaves down, slow burn model.
Why grow up when there's a Depression going on? Easier to freeze yourself as a Rip-Van-Emo and wake up when the nightmare is over.
During the Carter depression era school was a safe place to be through grad school and you didn't feel much as a poor student taking on loans. When you finished in the mid-80s the economy was great and there was optimism, growth and opportunities for the next 20 years. Today these poor suckers have got nothing on the horizon except a jackboot on their necks until they're middle aged.
I wish people would tell college kids this is what you have to look forward to after you graduate:
"A boot stomping on your face- forever."
It's a lot worse than I thought, pig demon math. Go ahead tax my ass, it will take them 5 federali de-education child engineers to replace me at say 2x net salary for 10 years until they can catch up on talent, That is 100 net salary years for them to replace me, 5 x 2 x 10. Go ahead tax me aholes. I will work a longer time and they will still be playing video games in moms basement. I already figured during the clinton mass genocide years that it was going to be a game of longevity. they got enough rope to hang themselves now, keep chanting some madison ave superstitions, I need a lot of ignorant slave fodder passing through the snake, kicking the can, buying a day at a time, same as the federalis. I see exactly how the federalis got to be the way they are, slaves do get exactly what they ask for. It's all in here how it is set up, their legalese to run the tax genocide right out of hitlers book. https://keystoliberty2.wordpress.com/tag/general-order-no-100/ The last min wage increase worked real good for the youth unemployment, for the older longevity, and for the deficit blowout. For the older longevity, you dont want any youth working, gaining experience, skill or talent. Price them out of work helps. The difference is I know the scam and have a plan when the slaves are buried. I came across this, I dont know enough to practice it but it re calibrates the slave conditioning. It is Winston Shrout on the admiralty law, all this figures in to the slave ponzie, trading with the enemy act and permanent war powers state of emergency. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wx4IzjEuqYAWe shipped all the productive jobs to China and destroyed the trades with illegal immigrants so the only stuff left for newbies is at half the wages it would have paid twenty years ago and there aren't even enough of those to go around. And nobody in DC or in the MSM has a clue.
But here's a contrary observation, here in Los Angeles the freeways and upper-middle class malls are already stuffed to the gills, if the economy improved and there was even 10% more traffic moving, I don't think we could handle it. OTOH I was driving through parts of North Hollywood today and huge stretches of old commercial districts are boarded up and empty, not ten minutes from overstuffed new malls.
Yes your describing the focus and concentration of dwindling surviving class, their concentration may appear dense.
It may be the last of corporation employees that still have medical care.
You simply can't work a job where there is non.
Government statistics are manipulated down to the bone and don't tell me anyting.
For most of human history, what people did for a living made sense to humans. You grew food, cooked it, dug ore out of the ground, built and repaired things, raised kids, cured people. Most jobs these days are purposeless crap. Someone mentioned that his kid was good at "video editing, creating animated logos, audio post." I'm sorry, but that means the human race is about finished.
Where I volunteer we sometimes get teens in; they have never worked doing anything directly productive. I don't give them make-work; we really do need heavy boxes hauled around. Most of the regular volunteers are little old ladies with bad backs, and they are frantic for sturdy help. When I point out to the kids that what they are doing is actually needed and purposeful, NOT make-work, it is like a light goes on in their heads. They've been extremely busy all their lives, but none of it what they were doing was actually needed. The same thing at the community garden where I used to volunteer; I had well-off kids doing grunt work that truly needed to be done, and it was a revelation to them.
So I don't think young people are lazy. They just look at the jobs there are, and the competition, and the terrible pay and then top it off with the utter purposelessness of the activity, and they bow out.
could not agree more, I look around at the work I do and others and wonderr how it all keeps going since most of the population does jobs that have no productive benefit.
this is pretty much ALL corporate white collar jobs with the exception of maybe engineers and call center employees.
management is worthless
The BLS only counts as long term discouraged workers those who have not looked for work in the past year. Since 1994 or so they no longer collect statistics on the category "haven't looked for work in over a year."
Thus this category of marginally attached workers will decline, with a lag time of a year, as more workers give up and drop out
I came out on top. But we are all in this together. I see what the millenials are going through. It sucks. I see them work hard and get nothing for it. I see the futility of effort. Why do I see this? Because I know a lot of millenials. There are actually people in this thread who complain about "the dollar being devalued". Vs. what? The cost of living here, or the cost of living in India? The era of "it takes work to make money" is coming to an end. Only a fool can't see that. It is now exclusively the era of "it takes money to make money". All you smug programmers? (Mea culpa, that's me too.) You've just still got a gig because you are replacing people. So, you can sneer at your fellow man until the coffee hits, or you can start doing something now. We programmers have been replacing the wrong people. We need to start replacing upper management with our software. We need to start replacing the investor class.
Good luck replacing upper management and the investor class.
A very interesting article.
But you failed to describe who these people are?
What do they do all day?
What do they live on?
Food, rent, cars, phone etc.